Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I see. They are saying it is a sort of cap-and-trade scheme—maybe—except that no-one else actually embraces that. I also quote the member for North Sydney, who said in July 2009:

The Liberals in Parliament today are ready to sit down with the Prime Minister and negotiate a cap and trade scheme that delivers the best outcomes for Australian jobs …

So you have the Liberal Party prior to the election and subsequent to the election saying that they are going to have a cap-and-trade scheme. You have the rest of the world as far as the developed economies are concerned adopting cap-and-trade schemes, but now in an attempt to paper over the massive divisions which exist on their part we have instead those opposite pretending that they have an alternative model of sorts which, if you subject it to any analysis, is nothing more than a massive magic pudding.

Can I say to the member for Goldstein, who now it seems has some responsibility in this area, given that we have not seen a lot of him at the dispatch box on debates on climate change so far, that there are two days to go before the Senate votes on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. It would be wonderful for the nation if two days before that vote we actually saw the final detail of Liberal-National Party policy on an emissions trading scheme. Instead, we have a continued excuse for inaction. The country deserves better.

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