Mr CONROY (Shortland) (19:04): Ladies and gentlemen, we just saw the future of the Liberal Party: the member for Hughes, the model of a modern Liberal; the man that the moderates in New South Wales saved; a man who his own branches clearly don't want and haven't wanted for the last two elections—otherwise they wouldn't have needed intervention. I like the man personally; he's always been very civil to me and my family, and I appreciate that. Unfortunately, I repudiate everything he stands for, because he stands for climate change denialism and he stands for reactionary politics of the worst sort. That would be fine if he were just an eccentric member of the crossbench, maybe in the Senate with the hodgepodge over there, but he's driving climate change and energy policy in this country. The member for Hughes, the member for Warringah and the rest of their allies in the Liberal Party have dictated so much policy in this country around energy and climate change, and that is a great tragedy, because that is a betrayal of future generations.
Ms Swanson: It's not a force for good.
r CONROY: It is not a force for good, as the member for Paterson so eloquently put it. This is a litmus test, as the member for Hughes put it. The energy and climate change debate is a litmus test in this country, and it's a litmus test that the coalition have failed for 10 years. I can't work out who's worse in the Liberal Party party room, the 50 per cent who deny the science of climate change or those of the 50 per cent who accept it but just give in to the climate change deniers, who aid and abet those people who have set the course of Australia back so much over the last 10 years, who have betrayed our nation's future. I don't use that word lightly.