Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Hansard source

It is apt I think to finish on some comedy at the end of a two-week sitting period. We have had the Leader of the Opposition get up and declare that he has been travelling around the country and hearing the voices. He is carrying on like the workers' champion. He is the man who initiated the royal commission into the building industry 10 years ago that led to the reduction in working people's rights in the building industry, and the Leader of the Opposition is the man who did not stand up for anyone's working rights when Work Choices came along. He was out there as the big advocate. He is now trying to present himself as the worker's friend in one of the most bizarre experiences we would ever see.

What is the true motivation for this motion to suspend standing and sessional orders? What is the true motivation, after two weeks when we have seen divisions on the other side of the House; when we know from the Fin Review report that there has been a reconciliation between the member for North Sydney and the member for Wentworth—they had dinner together the other night in a Canberra restaurant; and when the divisions on the other side of the House are consolidating in a way that is dangerous to the leadership of the member for Warringah, who hears the voices as he travels around the country in an increasingly crazed, shrill scare campaign? The purpose of this motion to suspend was to prevent the member for Wentworth having the opportunity to have an MPI debate about the issue of broadband. The member for Wentworth had proposed the MPI to discuss a proper issue of public policy as he was wont to do, but the Leader of the Opposition in a late move of course had to subvert that.

The government is working to develop a carbon price to cut pollution and drive investment in clean energy in our economy and to put our economy in a position to be competitive in a low-carbon future internationally. It is a critical economic reform that demands attendance to the proper foundations of public policy making and the proper public policy design of an important economic reform. The foundation for policy making in this field is the climate science. Over the last two weeks there has been more material added to the public debate, which has consolidated and built upon our understanding of the evidence that exists, that dangerous climate change is occurring, that temperatures are increasing and that we need to cut pollution and innovate and drive investment in clean energy to tackle that important challenge.

On the other side of the House, as we have seen over the last two weeks of sitting, the opposition deny the scientific evidence. Under the leadership of the member for Warringah, the scientific evidence is denied and therefore they cannot come to grips with simple reality, simple facts. They have to misrepresent every possible position in this important debate about the future of our economy, of our society and of our environment. My colleague the member for Kingsford Smith adverted to this important issue about the scientific evidence in question time today. One of the member for Warringah's colleagues in the New South Wales Liberal Party has made more extraordinary contributions on this front—in fact one of the most astonishing contributions to the debate. Dr Peter Phelps, a former federal Liberal Party staffer, now the New South Wales Government Whip in the upper house, has not only likened the science of climate change to the existence of dragons—that was his former contribution to the scientific debate—but also yesterday of course likened the scientists to totalitarian Nazis, saying this:

One can see them now, beavering away, alone, unknown, in their laboratories. And now, through the great global warming swindle they can influence policy, they can set agendas, they can reach into everyone's lives.

This is the level that the New South Wales Liberal Party goes to in dialogue on climate science. This is evidenced in the opposition in the federal parliament. We know Senator Minchin's view; we know Senator Abetz's views; we know the views of many others, including the member for Tangney. It is bizarre that the scientific evidence is denied in this way in national politics. Further to all of this, the Leader of the Opposition is charging around the country running the most ridiculous and bizarre and increasingly shrill scare campaign—facts will not get in the way of fear as far as the Leader of the Opposition is concerned on this important issue. There have been dark forebodings, as we see in this motion to suspend standing orders, of economic doom and economic destruction.

In the past the Leader of the Opposition has claimed that a carbon price will mean that Australia will no longer be 'a First World economy'. In yesterday's matter of public importance he foreshadowed the end of manufacturing as we know it, saying that regions would be laid to waste. Addressing the Minerals Council of Australia, he forecast yesterday that a carbon price would destroy all exporters and end the coal industry—it would be the complete destruction of the coal industry. The Leader of the Opposition forecast this in front of the whole minerals industry community, saying that the coal industry would end. He vowed before the minerals industry that he would tour the country and warn blue-collar workers, urging them to rise up—the member for Warringah, the workers' champion, getting the workers to rise up against carbon pricing. Then, in the most astonishing display, he implored the captains of the mining industry to rise up alongside the workers, to become political activists, to join hands with the proletariat and take control, under his leadership. It is the most bizarre and ridiculous contribution to public policy debate one could imagine. This is what the Leader of the Opposition had to say to the minerals industry yesterday:

But I say to you that at this time you need to become political activists at least for a few months, at least for a couple of years, if you are going to be able to continue to be the miners that you want to be and that Australia needs.

Have you heard anything more ridiculous? There was the coverage on the television of him standing slightly away from the lectern, shaping up a little bit, trying to get the captains of the mining industry to warm up, trying to get the workers to rise up against carbon pricing—carrying on like that was so ridiculous it was an embarrassment to political leadership.

Mr Abbott interjecting—

I'm not frightened of you, mate. You have got to be kidding. You'll have no clothes. Watching yesterday's MPI and the Leader of the Opposition's address to the Minerals Council reminded me of a phenomenon that used to emerge occasionally in my time as a union leader. You would see someone emerge from the ranks, a populist, an opportunist, prepared to say absolutely anything and implore people to get behind them to support them so they could rise up for the benefit of their own political position. It was an irresponsible experience that I had with people then—they were irresponsible by telling people what they wanted to hear and not what they needed to know about important issues. That is the characterisation of this Leader of the Opposition in one of the most important public policy debates that we have ahead of us as a nation.

We need to tackle climate change, and in doing so we are designing a market mechanism to drive cuts in pollution, to drive investment in clean energy. The government will attend to important priorities in the policy design. We will ensure that households have the assistance that they need. We have committed that every dollar raised by the carbon price will be used for three principal purposes. Firstly, it will be to assist households to meet any price impacts. We have committed that at least half the revenue from the carbon price mechanism will go towards assisting low- and middle-income households. Those opposite might not want to hear it, but it is an important commitment.

The second important objective will be to ensure that we support jobs and competitiveness in important trade-exposed parts of the economy. The entire argument—if we can call it that—being made by the Leader of the Opposition is a total charade. The government will ensure that there is important support for the most affected industries in the trade-exposed emissions-intensive parts of the economy that are important in regional Australia.

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