Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate acknowledges that climate change is:

(a)

real;

(b)

human induced; and

(c)

that urgent action to reduce greenhouse emissions is required to achieve the goal, to which Australia committed under the Copenhagen Accord, namely, constraining global warming to 2^oC above pre-industrial levels.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a brief statement.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for two minutes.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition do not intend to divide nor do we seek to amend the motion, because we see it as largely a meaningless stunt. Senators have expressed strongly-held views on this issue many times in the past, and today is not the time to re-traverse that well-worn path. The reality of changes in climate is broadly recognised and accepted by everybody. That there are differing opinions as to the extent of human contribution to such changes is a matter of fact. Those differences of opinion exist in the scientific community, in the general population and in this parliament. Unlike those in the Labor-Greens alliance, we in the coalition are not intolerant of differences of opinion. Such differences do not alter the reality that the coalition have a clear policy to reduce emissions and Labor does not. We took to the recent election a direct action policy to reduce emissions without the imposition of higher electricity prices and costs imposed by either the carbon tax that the Prime Minister ruled out on 20 August, the day before the last election, or the emissions trading scheme, which the Prime Minister had her predecessor drop in late April of this year.

If the Greens were genuine in their intentions, they would acknowledge that only one side of Australian politics has a cogent policy to reduce emissions. Instead they seek to play politics through motions such as this. We will not be playing into their hands.

Question agreed to.