Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

It had to be passed before Copenhagen. And then, when you realised that you could not get your bill through the Senate, you decided to sit down and have some chats. But all the time there was this determination to have it through before Copenhagen. I am proud that we voted against it. I am proud that we did not arm the Prime Minister—with this penalty on Australia heading off into the international marketplace, saying, ‘Look what I’m going to do to my nation’—when his proposals and other proposals like that were resoundingly rejected in Copenhagen. So wisdom has finally come through.

Now that people are starting to understand that ETS is a tax and nothing more than a tax, they have decided to start to reject it. As politicians, when the polls are going our way or not going our way, we say, ‘Oh, we don’t look at the polls,’ but let me tell you, I have been listening to the people. Since the vote on the ETS went through the House, it has been very clear through the contact to my office that people have finally woken up that this is a tax on everything and a tax on everybody.

I say to the Prime Minister: suffer a little humility. Listen to the people. Look at the opportunities. Look at those 17,000 jobs that will disappear in the Hunter. Look at the fact that under your proposal electricity prices will increase. Look at the bureaucracy you will have to create as you process these permits, as you collect the taxes, as you then have to provide the compensation packages. With compensation packages and taxes being collected, who is going to end up paying for all of this expenditure? As I said, just over the next four years and the cost will be $40.6 billion. Who will pay? Let me tell you: it will not just be paid in money; it will be paid in lost opportunities, it will be paid in fewer jobs.

So I say to the Prime Minister during this debate: listen to the people. Look at other opportunities. You have had two years in office now. You could have started a campaign of action over two years ago. You do not have to rely on a tax to provide that action. (Time expired)

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