Tony Abbott has moved to distance himself from controversial comments by British politician Lord Christopher Monckton, but says he is still happy to appear at an upcoming mining industry conference which will also host the prominent climate change sceptic.

Footage has been posted on the internet of a speech Lord Monckton gave to a conference in Los Angeles, where he displayed a Nazi swastika beside a quote from the Government's climate change adviser, Professor Ross Garnaut.

Lord Monckton compared statements made by Adolf Hitler to Professor Garnaut's suggestion that people should accept the mainstream science of climate change.

"That again is a fascist point of view, that you merely accept authority without question. Heil Hitler, on we go," he said.

Mr Abbott and Lord Monckton are both speaking at the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC) conference in Perth next week, although they are appearing on different days.

Today, Mr Abbott said Lord Monckton's comments were "offensive and over the top, and I repudiate them".

He said he still planned to address the conference but had no plans to meet Lord Monckton while he was in Perth.

"I'm pretty eclectic on whom I meet and talk to," he said.

"People can come and talk to me very easily... I am not in a cocoon of cotton wool... I'm out and about amongst the Australian people all the time and that's not going to change. But I have no plans to met the gentleman in question."

Professor Garnaut says the comments will be seen as an affront to Australian democracy.

"I think that nazism and the symbols of nazism are deadly serious," he said.

"And I think that most Australians would think that anyone who uses those terms and symbols inappropriately is putting themselves outside the boundaries of civilised discourse in Australian democracy."

Lord Monckton, a one-time adviser to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, is known around the world for his argument that humans are not damaging the climate.

Last year he told a Canberra audience that proponents of climate change wanted to establish a "world government ... that would have shut down democracy worldwide".

Today Prime Minister Julia Gillard led Labor's attack on the outspoken peer, calling his actions "very offensive and grossly unacceptable."

Federal Labor backbencher Michelle Rowland said she was disgusted that Mr Abbott had associated himself with Lord Monckton.

"The fact that Tony Abbot is going to be prepared to share the scene with him at an upcoming conference and the fact that he aligns himself so closely to Lord Monckton is absolutely repugnant," she said.

Opposition communications spokesman and former environment spokesman Malcolm Turnbull dismissed Lord Monckton as a "vaudeville artist".

'He has no credibility - politically or scientifically - particularly in the United Kingdom, and he is a professional sensationalist so he says these outrageous things in order to get into the press," Mr Turnbull said.

Earlier, Australia's chief scientist, Ian Chubb, criticised Lord Monckton's attack on Professor Garnaut.

"He can argue his case and he can put his own arguments and the conclusions that he's drawn from the evidence that he has on the table and have them properly debated," he told ABC TV's Lateline program.

"But calling people names ought not be acceptable in a flourishing democracy like Australia."