Mr CHAMPION (3:10 PM) —Mr Speaker, my question—

Mr Turnbull —Mr Speaker—

Mr CHAMPION —is to the Minister for Agriculture—

The SPEAKER —Order! The member for Wakefield will resume his seat. Let’s get this clear: the Leader of the Opposition has precedence over people on his side; he does not have precedence over everybody else.

Government members interjecting—

The SPEAKER —I understand that that is a matter of opinion but, in the rotation of the call, the member for Wakefield has the call.

Mr CHAMPION —Thanks, Mr Speaker. My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Will the minister update the House on ways in which, instead of our farmers having to adapt to climate change, we ourselves can change the weather? How successful are the methods, and what probity issues have surrounded the proposals?

Mr Abbott —Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question is in order under standing order 100 but the answer certainly won’t be. I respectfully ask that it be closely monitored.

The SPEAKER —Order! The member for Warringah will resume his seat. Again, I thank the member for Warringah for his reassurance of my assessment that the question was in order. I will now invite the minister to respond to the question and we will listen to the answer.

Mr BURKE (Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) —I want to thank the member for Wakefield for the question, which goes to the point of whether anyone has prescience over the weather. Yesterday I referred to attempts that have been made with respect to government policy that would aim to manipulate the weather through cloud seeding. I referred to one of the problems being that the technological papers that were provided were all in Russian and the briefing to Australian officials was also given in Russian. So I went out and had a look and finally managed to find a Reuters article describing what the Russian cloud-seeding technology has been doing. Unfortunately, the article is a year old—

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr BURKE —I really think you want to hear it! I quote from Reuters:

An opposition member—So what?

Mr BURKE —So what? This is the technology we are talking about—

Mr Turnbull —Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. This is a joke that the minister is talking about. The technology that he is attacking does not involve cloud seeding.

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr Turnbull —You are a moron!

The SPEAKER —Order! The Leader of the Opposition will withdraw.

Mr Turnbull —I withdraw, Mr Speaker.

The SPEAKER —There is no point of order. The minister will respond to the question.

Government members interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Order! The House will settle down, especially those on my right.

Mr BURKE —I do understand why the Leader of the House made a reference to Mark Latham! The article goes on to say that the police in Naro-Fominsk said:

The article continues:

fortunately—

The SPEAKER —Order! The minister will resume his seat. The member for Warringah?