CLIMATE DENIAL STILL THRIVING IN COALITION

Media Release

Mark Butler MP.

Shadow Minister for Environment

 Climate Change and Water

Date:  19 April 2016

George Brandis, Attorney-General and leader of the government in the Senate, has this afternoon made the breathtaking revelation that he does not believe climate change science is settled.

In the Senate this afternoon, while desperately trying to defend government funding cuts to CSIRO, Senator Brandis said:

“Senator Carr you’re the one who says the science is settled. I don’t. I’m aware that there are a number of views about the two questions of the nature and the causes of climate change. It doesn’t seem to me that the science is settled at all. But I’m not a scientist, and I’m agnostic really on that question.”

This is how deeply climate scepticism runs in the coalition. It is not just the backbench or the fringe of the Liberal Party. It runs all the way to Prime Minister Turnbull’s frontbench, and his right-hand man in the Senate.

This is under the Prime Ministership of a man who said, in 2009:

"I will not lead a party that is not as committed to effective action on climate change as I am."

And yet this is what the frontbench of his party believes, that despite reams of scientific evidence that human-induced climate change is happening, the science is not settled. This is despite 97% of published scientists in the area agreeing that the science is settled.

The commitment of Senator Brandis to addressing the impacts of climate change is so shallow, he hasn’t made up his mind whether it actually exists yet.

Such reactionary views should not be surprising from the man who declared Australians should have the right to be bigots.

The old Malcolm Turnbull, who stood up for his values instead of kowtowing to the right-wing of the Liberal party, would have repudiated such views.

Mr Turnbull says one thing, and does another. This is not the Mr Turnbull of old.

Australians should not be fooled by the mealy-mouthed rhetoric of the government and the “world’s best minister” Greg Hunt on their commitment to climate change. Senator Brandis has today demonstrated what the coalition really thinks.