Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Warringah from moving forthwith:

That this House censures the Prime Minister for misleading the parliament about her discredited carbon tax when she said in an answer earlier today that 'It is wrong to suggest that the Treasury modelling of the government’s clean energy future program depends on the United States putting a price on carbon' when her own same Treasury modelling says, on page 111 and elsewhere:

The modelling assumes comparable carbon pricing in other major economies from 2015-16, …

What we have seen over the last four weeks is the Prime Minister stalking world leaders for photo opportunities. That is what she has been doing—she has been stalking world leaders looking for photo opportunities, but she has to come back and answer to the Australian people and she has to come back to answer to the Australian parliament. That is what she signally has not done today.

No recent Prime Minister faced with a potential censure motion would scurry out of this parliament as this Prime Minister does day in, day out. But let there be absolutely no doubt: this Prime Minister today has misled the parliament. She has claimed that her carbon tax modelling is based on one thing when plainly it is based on something absolutely altogether different. In fact, what has happened is that last week President Obama blew up the Prime Minister's carbon tax by revealing to the Australian public and to the wider world that the international action on which the government's carbon tax is based simply is not going to take place.

Mr Albanese interjecting—

That is exactly right. President Obama said, and he might as well have stood up in this parliament and declared that 'There will be no carbon tax under any government I lead.' And you can believe President Obama in a way that you could not believe this Prime Minister before the election.

Not only did this Prime Minister, before the election, say one thing to win votes and then do the opposite after the election to hold her job she has compounded the pre-election falsehood with a series of flagrant falsehoods in this parliament today.

I asked a question earlier today about the fact that President Obama is not going to introduce a carbon tax, that the Canadians are not going to introduce a carbon tax and that the Russians and the Japanese are not going to introduce a carbon tax. In other words, no major economies are going to have a comparable carbon price to that in Australia. None! Not a single one. And what did the Prime Minister say in response? She said:

The assertions he—

the opposition leader—

has just made about the Treasury modelling are wholly wrong.

She went on to say:

It is simply wrong to suggest that the Treasury modelling of the government's Clean Energy Future program depends on the United States putting a price on carbon by 2016—

wholly wrong. Let me just read again what the modelling does say. In chapter 5, it says:

The modelling assumes comparable carbon pricing in other major economies from 2015-16.

Can this Prime Minister not read? She was the Minister for Education, but she seems incapable of understanding plain English words written on the paper of her own document.

Chapter 3 of the government's own Treasury modelling document—Strong Growth, Low Pollution: Modelling a Carbon Pricesays:

Global coordinated action emerges from 2016. …

An equilibrium global permit price emerges to clear the global permit market.

That is the condition on which the government's modelling rests. Chapter 3 also says:

By 2016, a more coordinated international policy regime allows countries to trade either bilaterally or through a common central market. As a result, a harmonised world carbon price emerges in 2016.

So, again and again, in the government's own modelling document, it is crystal clear that it does not work unless comparable major economies adopt a system like that which Australia is now proposing to adopt. And all the bluster, all the obfuscation and all the straight-out falsehood that we got from the Prime Minister today does not alter that fact.

The carbon tax modelling is a fraud. The carbon tax modelling is a con. The government's compensation package, based on the carbon tax modelling, is simply wrong, is simply a rip-off, and the Prime Minister should come into this House, own up to that fact and start telling the truth for the first time since before the last election. It really is a disgrace that this Prime Minister is not prepared to own up to the truth about her own modelling. It is a disgrace that this Prime Minister is perhaps the most brazen purveyor of falsehoods this parliament has ever seen. Let's face it: this is the Prime Minister who still insists that the member for Dobell has her full confidence; that is the quality of truthfulness we get from this Prime Minister. It is a disgrace that this Prime Minister is not prepared to admit in this parliament that her carbon tax modelling absolutely depends on action by other countries which is not going to occur.

What does that mean? That means that the whole foundation of her compensation package—the whole foundation of her claims that Australians will not be hurt by this carbon tax—is absolutely and categorically wrong. The Prime Minister is claiming, based on the assumption that other countries will have a carbon price, that the carbon price will be just $29 by 2020. And this absolutely critical, because they have to buy 100 million tonnes overseas to get their reductions.

Mr Combet interjecting—

We hear the minister at the table saying, 'We think it's funny'. This is the minister who could not answer simple questions about the falsehoods he told on 7.30 just a few weeks ago. This is the minister who claims that Australia's domestic emissions will fall by five per cent and yet it will only happen because we are buying, under his policy, 100 million tonnes of abatement overseas. That purchase will be vastly more expensive if there is no international carbon price, and that is why this fundamental mistake that the government has made is so critical for the future of the struggling families of this country and why this government has to come clean and own up to the fact that its carbon price compensation is simply a fraud.

If we redo the modelling with an accurate assumption, we get very different results. I am pleased to say that the Centre for International Economics have redone the modelling on the basis of correct assumptions. They have correctly assumed that international action would be patchy at best, and what they found is that the carbon tax will not be $29 a tonne by 2020; it will be $43 a tonne. They found that the hit to Australia's GDP by 2020 will not be $32 billion; it will be $180 billion. They found that the hit on household incomes will not be $5,000; it will be $11,000. They say that wages will not be more or less static; they say that wages will be two per cent down by 2020 as a result of a properly modelled carbon tax. The minister at the table is someone who once stood up for the workers of Australia. Now he is knowingly inflicting a two per cent pay cut on the workers of Australia and an $11,000 hit on household budgets. It is an absolute disgrace and what this shows is that the carbon tax is just a rip-off. (Time expired)

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