Senator ABETZ (Tasmania) (19:29): Tonight I call on the publication which calls itself The Conversation to live up to its name. Yesterday, its daily newsletter arrogantly determined to stop conversation. The lack of self-awareness is as cringe-worthy as it is acute. The Conversation stopping conversation on the topic of—you've guessed it!—climate change is to deny its banner and its very reason for existence. Why, you may ask, would The Conversation deny its own name? The answer, colleagues, is in the heading of the newsletter, 'Climate change deniers are dangerous—they don't deserve a place on our site'. Allow me to give you a few quotes: Once upon a time, we might have viewed climate sceptics as merely frustrating. … it's 2019, and … we know better. That's why … a zero-tolerance approach to moderating climate change deniers, and sceptics. Not only will we be removing their comments, we'll be locking their accounts. … … … As a reader, author or commenter, we need your help. If you see something that is misinformation, please don't engage, simply report it … Dob them in and help us create a space where they don't derail the conversation. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong couldn't have put it better themselves. They'd be so proud! As an agnostic in the climate change debate, I accept that there are scientists of good faith on all sides. I'm willing to listen, to try to discern and determine where the facts actually lie. To so superciliously and arrogantly deny a voice to an alternative point of view is reminiscent of totalitarian regimes. The orthodoxy, it seems, shall prevail not through rational debate, scientific endeavour and reasoning, but by crushing, shunning and banning any opposing views. But it is through challenging, questioning, probing, asking and debating that we learn, discover and innovate. Inquiring minds look beyond orthodoxies, independently assessing issues. It's what has got us to where we are today. We can learn more, will learn more and, indeed, need to learn more, but only if we don't stifle the inquiring mind. For well over half a century we've been subjected to environmental prophets of doom who've proven to be false. Prophecies have told us the USA would be on food rations and water rations by 1980. We've been told the Brisbane River wouldn't flood again. Since that prophecy, it's happened not once, but twice. We've been told the Murray River wouldn't flow out to sea again. Since that prophecy, it has. And the list goes on, including the death, Senator Dean Smith, of the city of Perth. Well, last time I looked I think it still existed! So please forgive our fellow Australians who are willing to ask the questions. When the United Nations have, for more than 30 years, predicted we only have 10 years left to fix climate change, we're entitled to ask why their predictions have been wrong. Given the undisputed legacy of unfulfilled predictions, people are entitled to question and to put an alternative viewpoint. This ugly, unscientific, totalitarian, arrogant approach taken by The Conversation is the exact opposite to the principles of scientific endeavour. The lesson of history is the truth will out and the inquiring mind will ultimately prevail. The Conversation can stop the conversation, but it cannot stop the march of inquiring minds that will ultimately determine this issue. The taxpayers, who indirectly fund this publication, deserve so much better. The Conversation needs to live up to its name.