Page 1322 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 3 April 2019
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is why we are delivering real results. It is unfortunate that those opposite, and particularly their environment spokesperson, do not understand the urgent need to do more to protect our local environment against climate change.
In Ms Lee’s speech during the MPI yesterday, she went down the path of suggesting that the onus of acting on climate change needs to be placed on us as individuals. She spoke about wearing warmer clothes in winter, using less air conditioning in summer and focusing on being sensible about what we can and apparently might do. Ms Lee should know that Canberrans expect more from us as their representatives than just talking about rugging up for winter and talking in hypotheticals.
In yesterday’s discussion the only time she used the term climate change was in the same sentence as making reference to deniers and alarmists. Not once did she acknowledge the causes of climate change. Not once did she call out the fossil fuel industry. Instead she claimed that calls to stop coalmining were alarmist. Not once did Ms Lee express her support for further action on climate change that provides real results. While listening to her speech yesterday, I thought she was even going to reach the point of denying the reality of climate change altogether.
Yesterday’s remarks from Ms Lee were unfortunately not out of character. Time and again she has said things that you would expect to hear from a spokesperson who is against the environment. It was only a few weeks ago that Ms Lee suggested young Canberrans who raised their voices in the School Strike 4 Climate were “being driven by their teachers or parents”. She responded with similar arrogance to Ms Cheyne’s motion on the maladministration of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, saying:
Once again it seems the government backbenchers have clearly run out of local issues to talk about, so we have an aspirational motion clearly within the federal political arena.
This is even though Canberra is the largest settlement within the basin and we know it is under pressure from climate change. Ms Lee’s incessant need to express her disdain at having to be involved in debates on motions regarding the environment and climate change makes me wonder whether she should even be the shadow spokesperson for the environment. Would Ms Lee rather pass her portfolio on to one of her colleagues?
This government knows that Canberrans support real action on climate change. We were elected because Canberrans trust us to take the issue of climate change seriously, and to do more than just think about so-called sensible options. The same cannot be said for those opposite. It is time for the Canberra Liberals to wake up and start taking climate change seriously. If Ms Lee takes her role as environment spokesperson seriously, Ms Lee needs to formally place on the record her position on climate change and what policy action she is willing to take. Canberrans, and her electors of Kurrajong, deserve to know where she stands.
I wish my comrade Ms Cody a very happy birthday. She brings a lot of life and energy to this place, and I hope that today she has been receiving the same positive energy back. Happy birthday, Bec.
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