The Capitol was an occasion where you arrive at a sign in the road that says you have arrived at a place you may not have expected to be, but you know how you got here: Next!

The challenge that climate change presents to us, both in Australia and around the world, won't be solved by ramping up the nuclear industry.

The core strands of my involvement in public life are a belief in the need to strive wherever possible for equality of treatment and opportunity, to ensure all people have the means to a decent livelihood.

Well I'm not convinced that expanding uranium mining is in the best interests of the country and the best interests of its environment.

But no matter how big the effort to push a propaganda line might be, climate change is bigger. This, undoubtedly and regrettably, is the biggest immediate long-term environmental challenge we face. A failure to concretely come to some policy outcome on climate change has not only a negative environmental impact but also social and economic consequences for us.

Climate change is also clearly a matter of huge interest and concern for the scientific community.

Climate change is so big that people who study it.. and many do.. need to speak to it. They must present scientific papers, they must appear in public, they must speak to the media and we must hear their voices. In order to get policy right, policymakers.. governments.. need to make decisions based on sound science.