The Environment Minister, Senator Campbell, continues to be deceptive about climate change. Now he has gone so far as to deliberately misquote me.

The truth is I’ve been consistent in my support for the Asia-Pacific Climate Pact, as Hansard accurately records.

“We [in the Labor Party] say that the Asia-Pacific Climate Pact is good—it is consistent—but limited. It is not enough. The statement of the Climate Pact says that it is consistent with our obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. It also says that it will build on existing bilateral and multilateral initiatives.

In 1992, we signed up to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. A year later, Australia, Japan and the US launched the International Energy Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Technology Information Exchange program, GREENTIE. This was followed a few years later by the climate technology initiative, which was followed by the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum. All these measures are good, but you need a driver and the driver is emissions trading through the market…

So we have an agreement with no targets, no funding, no documents of any substance and no meeting—because four of the six nations that were parties to the climate pact were very annoyed at Australia and the United States purporting that this was a replacement to Kyoto rather than something that complements it. As the Canadian foreign minister said, when you complement something you know that the real game is somewhere else. The real game is in serious action.” (House of Representatives, November 29, 2005)

The Environment Minister says he’s concerned about climate change, but we need a little less conversation and a lot more action. We need to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, establish a national emissions trading scheme and significantly increase the mandatory renewable energy target.

Yesterday, I urged the Prime Minister to support the NSW Premier’s call for a National Summit on Climate Change.

I will be attending the Climate Change meetings which have begun in Montreal.