Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the 19 pieces of carbon tax legislation before the House. It is a disgrace that members are allotted less than 50 seconds per piece of legislation in which to debate the substantial arguments in relation to carbon tax. Let me state clearly and unequivocally that the issue here is not about whether or not to take actions to reduce Australia's CO2 emissions by five per cent of the 2000 level—that is, to 530 million tonnes of CO2. We all agree that we should give the planet the benefit of any doubt. As both the government and the coalition have the same targeted outcome, there is no dispute. The issue here is solely the method of delivering the achievement of that target.

The Gillard-Brown Labor-Green government's way is to introduce a new carbon tax—a tax based on directly charging $23 per tonne of emissions on the country's top 500 polluters. I also point out that the tax was to be based on the top 1,000 polluters only a month or so ago but, with the stroke of a pen, it is now just 500 major polluters. Taxing these 500 companies, which will include the electrical generators of this nation, will start an avalanche of inflation, a massive price hike and a cumulative tax that puts a price on everyone and everything, without an ounce of education or leadership on how individuals can make a difference. By way of comparison and direct contrast, the coalition's way of achieving a five per cent reduction in emissions is through a well-developed, fully funded direct action plan and an investment sourced from consolidated revenue without increasing taxes but funded through savings in the budget and, most importantly, invested in Australia for Australia.

This government's tax propLabor's way is to outsource its direct action overseas by spending $3.7 billion per annum in carbon credits instead of investing in Australia.osal will not even reduce the emissions created in Australia. I discovered from page 18 of the government's 'carbon Sunday' document, Strong growth, low pollution—modelling a carbon price, that our current emissions are 578 million tonnes. Our obligation is to reduce our nation's emissions by five per cent on 2000 figures by 2020—that is, to get Australia's emissions down to 530 million tonnes. The document is misleading. By the government's own figures, it does not say that we are reducing Australia's emissions by five per cent. The government's own figures say that in fact we are increasing our own domestic emissions from 578 million tonnes to 621 million tonnes, an increase from the 2000 figure of 91 million tonnes. So, at the 2020 figure of $29 a tonne for the carbon tax, our emissions will actually go up from 578 million tonnes now to 621 million tonnes in 2020. At $131 a tonne for the carbon tax in 2050, we do not get an 80 per cent reduction in emissions; we actually get only a six per cent reduction in Australians' emissions. Australia's CO2 emissions in 2050, on the government's own figures, will have gone from 578 million tonnes now to 545 million tonnes.

In 2050 this Labor government will be spending $57 billion per annum offshore. That is right: offshore, buying 400 million tonnes of foreign carbon credits. In fact, it will have spent an estimated $650 billion by 2050 buying offshore carbon credits from foreign carbon traders. This government is just engaging in a massive transfer of wealth from this country to carbon traders overseas, and I have to ask: where is the sense of duty to the environment and the government's fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers of Australia, to Australian industries and to Australian jobs?

This government is so desperate to avoid any scrutiny of the fact that its carbon tax plan will send billions of Australian taxpayers' dollars—money from hardworking Australian families—straight to foreign carbon traders. Australia will be sending $57 billion a year overseas by 2050 according to its own Treasury modelling. And all of this will be at the expense of investment in Australia, at the expense of Australian industry and at the expense of Australian jobs.

This was highlighted in an article by Gemma Jones in the Daily Telegraph yesterday headlined '950,000 workers in danger, Carbon tax hit on business'. It states:

The Australian Trade and Industry Alliance claimed manufacturers would be worse off than their European counterparts under an emissions trading scheme.

… 950,000 workers were employed by companies which would be exposed to the tax without compensation or government assistance.

… 14.6 million European manufacturing workers were protected through free carbon permits—

… the new data highlights the risk to manufacturing jobs posed by the carbon tax at a time when firms are already under severe strain as a result of the strength of the Australian dollar.

Direct action works, as it has in the past. Australia, under the Howard government, through its direct actions met its Kyoto target to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the 2008-2012 period to 108 per cent of the 1990 emissions. And this nation did it without having to ratify the agreement. It did it through direct action, not by abrogating our responsibility by spending Australian taxpayer dollars offshore buying carbon credits from foreign carbon traders.

It is abundantly clear to any reasonable person that actions and leadership, not rhetoric and taxing, are what have worked to date and what will work in the future. Education and empowering people to make a difference worked with the Clean Up Australia campaign—and I congratulate Ian Kiernan for the outstanding effort in driving that campaign. It is a campaign which has delivered real and measurable outcomes without a tax.

There should be no false illusions as to the likely impact of a carbon tax on our Australian economy. It is time for the rubber to hit the road. For the last four years Labor has talked of taking action on climate change, 'the greatest moral challenge this nation faces', as one former Prime Minister said, but it has done very little. As usual, the Labor way is to talk the talk without walking the walk. That is reinforced when it comes to the record of leading Australians to doing their bit individually and by the fact that this government will be abrogating its responsibility by buying its CO2 reductions overseas.

We should not be in this precarious situation. After all, it was this Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, the one who, hand on heart, promised the Australian people just days before the election on 16 August:

There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.

And the same Prime Minister promised on 8 July, again just weeks before the election, on the issue of offshore processing:

I would rule out anywhere that is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention.

Labor's credibility is in tatters. Promises of no carbon tax, promises of people assemblies, promises of deep and lasting consensus, promises of no refugees to countries that are not signatories to the UN convention and, sadly, the list goes on. The hallmark of this Gillard government is of one broken promise after another—and poor economic management.

I could forgive the Prime Minister if this was a matter of pure conviction, but it was this Prime Minister who told the Labor cabinet that Abbott's direct action plan would work. And it was this Prime Minister who was the author of that secret memo to the Rudd cabinet wherein she declared that the direct action plan would in fact work, that a direct action plan was capable of bringing down emissions by five per cent, and that a direct action plan was capable of doing it without a carbon tax.

What is in play here is a Prime Minister so desperate to stay at the Lodge that she has sold out on her promises. She has sold out her conviction, sold out the Australian people, who resoundingly, according to any and every poll, rejected this proposal of a carbon tax. So I have to ask the Prime Minister: what is it you actually believe in? Is this carbon tax just some Australian Fabian Society agenda, with its high taxing of Australians and shifting our dollars offshore? Is this a chapter from the book of socialism that you are a member of? I have to ask this because your membership of the Communist Party of Australia linked organisation, the Socialist Forum, that has now merged with the Fabian Society—

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