Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This is why we need to suspend standing orders: did the Prime Minister mislead the parliament? Surely that is a most serious offence by the highest office holder in this land and an urgent matter that requires debate. Has there been a genuine misunderstanding, or was it an intentional misleading of the parliament? This is exactly why we're seeking to suspend standing orders.

I might add that one of the elements of the suspension that we're seeking today is for the Minister representing the Prime Minister to attend the Senate at two o'clock today to make a statement to advise the Senate on whether Australia is or is not speaking at the Climate Ambition Summit and to table any correspondence. As I said, we have information that the correspondence has been sent, specifically disavowing what the Prime Minister said and saying that Australia is not invited because we're climate laggards. This is a matter that is appropriate for this chamber to be debating. We cannot have a Prime Minister misleading either house of parliament, and it's imperative that this Senate be told what the case is. That's, of course, the reason why we're seeking to suspend standing orders today, and we look forward to the minister coming along at two o'clock and explaining the Prime Minister's potential misleading of the House.

This is a matter of grave importance. This government has pathetic targets that are paling in comparison to other nations. We know the Bureau of Meteorology has warned us we are on track for 4.4 degrees of warming in Australia. That's the death of the reef, that's the death of agriculture, that's an awful lot of human misery and that's probably the tanking of our economy irrevocably. We know that the UK has just lifted its ambition. We know that the EU is finalising its commission to lift its ambition.