Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition thinks that climate change is crap and he confirmed that again yesterday. I suggest today the Leader of the Opposition’s climate change policy is nothing more than a climate con job. I acknowledge every debate has its pros and cons, but the Leader of the Opposition’s scheme, I am sad to say, is just one big con. It costs more, it does less and it will mean higher taxes. There are three problems with the opposition leader’s climate con job: it does not work because it does not require anything of polluters, there is no cap on pollution, it slugs taxpayers instead of the big polluters and, unfunded, it will mean higher taxes. I think the challenge for today, which has not been established in the matter of public importance, is for the Leader of the Opposition and Senator Joyce to explain how they are actually going to fund their scheme.

On this issue, I would suggest to you that the Leader of the Opposition is not a man with a plan but he is a ham with a scam. Opposition policy is half baked, solving a problem he does not believe is a problem. It is all motivated, by his own admission, by politics. Australians expect their leaders to say what they mean and to mean what they say. Yet this alternative Prime Minister will not do this. This alternative Prime Minister will not come clean with the truth of his policies. I draw the House’s attention to what the Leader of the Opposition said on ABC radio today. Lyndal Curtis asked the question:

It is an old question, but a good one, where’s the money coming from … for your scheme?

The Leader of the Opposition:

It’ll come from the budget and people will know in good time before the election exactly how we are going to fund all our promises.

Wrong answer. There is no government program yet invented that does not cost taxpayers money, either directly or through a mandate. ‘It’ll come from the budget’ is the kind of answer you would expect to hear from someone who has been in Canberra too long. ‘It’ll come from the budget’ is the answer you would expect to hear from someone who has spent just one year too many listening to bureaucrats and other spenders of taxpayers’ money. The Leader of the Opposition continued: ‘Look, I’m just not going to speculate on where we’re going to find the money.’ What a low-rent answer. Every taxpayer knows the real answer that the opposition leader is avoiding: we will all pay.

The Leader of the Opposition arrived here as a staffer in 1990 and was in parliament a few years later. When you think money for government programs comes from an anonymous budget and not from the hardworking men and women who keep this country prospering, then you have been here 20 years too long. I would suggest that the Leader of the Opposition has been taken hostage by conservative Canberranomics—too frequently shirtless and completely hostage, I would suggest. He has been taken hostage and takes us all as naive. He must have been a dream when he was a minister. ‘Where’s the money coming from?’ he would ask. ‘Oh, Minister, it’s coming from the budget.’ ‘That’s all right then. Give me another cup of tea.’ Give us a break!

Taxpayers will pay for the opposition’s uncosted, dubious policies in the event the opposition is elected. The nation will pay if we have an opposition unwilling to do the hard work required to provide a credible alternative. The environment will pay if we do not address humanity’s impact on the natural world in every way we can. There are alternative beliefs about climate change, and let’s have an honest debate about that. But, if you are not true to your own views, how can you honestly add anything of value to public debate and political life in this country? The opposition’s stance on climate change is as fake as a Godwin Grech email. For those with attention to history, it is painfully reminiscent of the stumbling on issues that we saw from the coalition when they were in opposition in the 1980s. They were too busy fighting amongst themselves to get their act together. I would suggest that the Abbott coalition is like the 1980s coalition: they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Talking about masters of missed opportunities, one cannot travel past the contribution of the shadow Treasurer, the real nowhere man of Australian politics. He has no idea if he wants the leadership or indeed a quiet life. He hasn’t a clue where his next idea is coming from, his next policy or indeed his next belief system. He is both Tweedledum and Tweedledee in the same jacket, auditioning for Hamlet in that crumbling vaudeville theatre called the Liberal Party, howling, ‘To be or not to be, to lead or not to lead, to tax carbon pollution or not to tax carbon pollution, to leave it to the market or not to leave it to the market, to leave it to a conscience vote of my colleagues or not to leave it to a conscience vote of my colleagues?’ No wonder people doubt his ticker. Unfortunately, the shadow Treasurer in his contribution today was a real nowhere man, sitting in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody, doesn’t have a point of view, doesn’t know where he’s going to. This is familiar stuff. Nowhere man, don’t worry. Take your time. Don’t hurry. Leave it till someone else lends you a hand.

Despite the scare campaigns of the opposition about the $100 legs of lamb or sky-rocketing milk prices, Treasury estimates that the price rises arising from the CPRS will be 1.1 per cent in 2013. From day one the CPRS has contained measures to compensate people. At the heart of the Rudd government’s actions is the principle that the money raised from selling permits to pollute goes straight into the pockets of families. Treasury’s figures estimate that for 2.9 million low-income households there will be an average price impact of $420 but average annual assistance of $610. For middle-income earners, numbering 3.7 million households, there will be an annual average price impact of $650 and average annual assistance of $700, with a net outcome of $50. The figures estimate that 8.1 million households out of 8.8 million households in Australia will receive assistance. This is one difference between us and the opposition. We start our policies by thinking about the effect on ordinary families.

What I find most surprising about the opposition’s mock concern for families under cost-of-living pressures is that this is the same opposition that continually blocked and denigrated our efforts to support those families through the global financial crisis. Is this the same opposition that condemned the stimulus package which preserved hundreds of thousands of jobs? Please remember that by 2008 virtually every advanced economy was either in or about to enter recession. In the week leading up to the decisions that we took, we had seen the Australian share market in its biggest weekly fall since the 1987 stock market crash. We acted promptly to guarantee the banks and stabilise our financial system.

Firstly, there was direct support to households, supporting consumption and housing investment. Secondly, we had investment in shovel-ready infrastructure, providing critical and timely support to construction sensitive industries. Thirdly, we had investment in critical long-term economic infrastructure. We set clear criteria that the stimulus be timely, temporary and targeted, and we met them. Treasury estimates that 200,000 people are working today due to the package that we put in place. Unemployment in Australia has stabilised at six per cent, whilst that in America has risen to above 10 per cent. I believe that the actions of the Rudd government were one of the key factors in making sure that the Australian economy came through the worst set of economic circumstances we have seen since the Great Depression.

But, after all, the opposition, when they were in rational mode last year, said they actually believed in the market. We negotiated with them in good faith. We came up with an approach that protected agriculture, that offered permits for those industries that were exposed to overseas competition so that we did not simply export our emissions overseas. However, I am sad to report that since then the once great Liberal Party has been captured by the extremists, who will not listen to the science on climate change. They are now opposing for the sake of it. The Leader of the Opposition, torn between the factions of his own party, has come up with a policy that promises a five per cent cut in emissions by 2020 but with no penalties for polluters. There are no targets. There is just a vague hope that somehow the five per cent reduction will be achieved. There are no incentives for the new coal fired power stations to invest in alternative technologies. It is just business as usual.

The only proposal to cut carbon pollution is a vague $2.5 billion slush fund to reward businesses who the opposition deem to be doing their bit to cut emissions—a slush fund which will no doubt be similar to the notorious Howard government’s regional rorts program and which will have to be paid for by ordinary families. In the Leader of the Opposition’s own candid words, he is a ‘weather vane’ on this issue. He takes the easiest course and hopes that the problem will go away. In fact after his athletic contortions on climate change it is clear to me that the honourable Leader of the Opposition’s role model is King Kong. I can imagine him now, hairy and roaring at the top of the Empire State Building, holding perhaps the member for Curtin in one claw—or is it the member for Mackellar in that claw?—and fighting off and swatting away the tiger moths of Liberal Party progressivism. But, like his role model, he will find that he cannot fend off the future for very long. And what a fall it will be—the growling dissent of the extremist political primate views and the smash of the muscular policies on the sidewalk of Australian politics.

The problem with the current opposition junta is that they do not look at the problem, just the politics of the problem. How can they keep the Nationals on the reservation—indeed a problem—even if its costs the planet? How can they keep Senator Joyce smiling and nodding and not throwing toys out of the cot? The opposition leader does not know the science and he is not interested in learning it. Last year he could live with it. This year he cannot. Bizarrely the opposition have lost their faith in the free market and their faith in the ability of Australian business to make changes to cut greenhouse emissions and reduce their own costs. They have lost faith in the ingenuity of Australian business. We have a policy that rewards innovation and that rewards businesses that save energy, that pollute less and that work out cleaner ways to operate. It rewards businesses for doing the right thing for the future of Australia. We do not mandate how the cuts will be made and we do not try and pick the winners; we leave it up to the mighty engine room of Australian business.

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