Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Faruqi for that question. Let me confirm for Senator Faruqi that the government, and every single Liberal and National senator, are firmly of the view that children should attend school during school time—firmly of that view. That has been our view, it remains our view and it will be our view in the future. Let me also say that our government is absolutely committed to effective action on climate change. What we are not proposing to do is to harm Australian families, to harm young people in Australia and their future prospects, by forcing them to accept sacrifices which will make the global environment worse off. Shifting their jobs and economic activity from Australia to other parts of the world by imposing burdens that will actually lead to higher pollution levels in other parts of the world is not in the best interests of the Australian people and it's not in the best interests of schoolchildren around Australia, who rely on us to have opportunities in the future. So we will continue to do the right thing by pursuing a policy agenda that is environmentally effective and economically responsible.

We know that that is not your view. We know that you have a more extreme view and that you are quite happy to harm the future opportunities of Australian families in order to make yourself feel better domestically, even though emissions globally would be higher as a result of your actions. That is not something that we will ever do.