Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

When I was studying, there used to be people from one of the mad, Trotskyite, socialist-style groups—they were always very lonely people, about 40 years older than any other student—selling a newspaper called Direct Action around the university. I do not think anyone ever bought it, but Direct Action was being made available for sale. But, as we find today with Tony Abbott’s policy, no-one bought it. Today we have a debate initiated by the Leader of the Opposition in a brand new way. It is not uncommon for a Leader of the Opposition to demand a debate; it is very uncommon for a Leader of the Opposition to be given one and then look at the Speaker and say: ‘You mean I have to make a speech?’ That is exactly how it began today. The Leader of the Opposition was shocked that demanding a debate would lead to him beginning it with a speech. That is something you do not see.

We just had a strange allegation from the Leader of the National Party. He made a whole lot of claims against any emissions trading scheme—ignoring the fact that he was in a cabinet that endorsed one and ignoring the fact that he was in the cabinet that agreed that this was the correct method to use. Now, the concept that the Leader of the National Party was asleep during cabinet is probably not a difficult conclusion for people to get to, but his willingness to front this parliament and run arguments diametrically opposed to everything he was arguing three years ago and everything that that side of politics was arguing not that many months ago is crazy.

16:52:00 But there is a bigger problem with what has been announced today: it fails its own most basic test. The document that was released today by the Leader of the Opposition was meant to be his way of showing that you could still reach a five per cent reduction in emissions by 2020 under the international carbon accounting rules without the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. It is agreed across the board, and it is in the Leader of the Opposition’s document, that to get to five per cent you have to have a 140-million tonne reduction in CO2. Of the 140 million tonnes of CO2 reduction in this document, 85 million tonnes are in soils which are not counted under the international accounting rules. This document, by its own reckoning, only gets to a less than two per cent reduction. They have presented this as their argument, under international carbon accounting rules, to have a reduction of five per cent. Under the international carbon accounting rules, three-fifths of that relies on something which is not counted at all under those rules. In this document, 85 million tonnes of CO2 do not get counted towards the five per cent target they are taking on. Under their own benchmark that they have set today, where they said they would be able to provide a method of reduction in emissions that would give you a five per cent reduction under the international carbon accounting rules, what have they come up with? Less than two per cent is actually able to be counted under the carbon accounting rules.

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