Labor has gone on the attack over a mistake Prime Minister John Howard made in parliament on Tuesday while answering a question about climate change.
Mr Howard was forced to correct himself on the crucial issue after Labor accused him of doing a backflip.
Mr Howard told parliament during question time that the "jury was out" when asked about the connection between emissions and climate change.
It was immediately seized on by Labor environment spokesman Peter Garrett and Mr Howard was later forced to return to the chamber to correct the record.
"Just for the record I do believe there is a connection between climate change and emissions, I don't really think the jury's out on that," he said.
Mr Howard said he had misheard the question, which he had thought was about the connection between climate change and drought.
It capped a bad day for Mr Howard as Labor appeared to triumph on the key issue of climate change.
Labor's immigration spokesman Tony Burke said Mr Howard would never have made such a mistake two years ago, but refused to speculate on why Mr Howard had made such a mistake on Tuesday.
"John Howard is a very clever politician, but two years ago you never saw him make mistakes like that," Mr Burke said.
"I don't know what it is, he's a very clever political but certainly he was making mistakes that a couple of years ago you would never have seen from John Howard."
Labor's shadow attorney-general Kelvin Thomson compared the prime minister to the character, The Fonz, from the television show Happy Days.
"If you remember Happy Days there was Arthur Fonzarelli who could never say the word "wrong", the prime minister is unwilling to admit that he got it wrong over climate change and that we have had 10 wasted years as a result.
Asked if Mr Howard was The Fonz of parliament, Mr Thomson said: "Well he is certainly unwilling to admit that he made a mistake, so in some respects, absolutely."
Labor's environment spokesman Peter Garrett said it was clear Mr Howard did not fully understand the implications of a warming world.
But Liberal backbencher Don Randall said the prime minister was upfront in admitting his errors.
"He said he got it wrong and he went and corrected it," Mr Randall told reporters.
"What's wrong with that?"
Liberal backbencher Warren Entsch said he had found it difficult to hear Labor's questions in the chamber on Tuesday because of noise from the Labor backbench.
"Sometimes it's difficult for me to hear, the prime minister as we know is focusing on a whole lot of things and they (Labor) need to be quite clear when they speak because sometimes he (Mr Howard) doesn't hear," Mr Entsch said.
"I didn't hear the question either from where I was sitting because there was too much noise in the chamber."
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