John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

If it assists the House, I withdraw, but I will not withdraw, Deputy Speaker, from the misrepresentation and distortion that has been undertaken by the shadow minister for climate change, environment and heritage, the member for Flinders, the Leader of the Opposition and other members on the other side of the House.

Nowhere is the subterfuge more evident than some statements by opposition members claiming that 85 per cent of the increased price of electricity supplied by Integral Energy is due to the so-called carbon tax. According to the report of the New South Wales Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal, which I referred to earlier, electricity prices in New South Wales will rise by approximately 18 per cent. The report states that regulated retail electricity prices for typical households will rise from 1 July 2012 by $7 per week for Energy Australia residential customers, $4 per week for Integral Energy residential customers and $8 per week for Country Energy residential customers. These figures show that Integral Energy's increases in prices are the lowest of all the major providers; yet some members of the opposition seek to alarm the public by pronouncing the increase to 85 per cent.

The other big hoax being peddled by the opposition is that Australia's carbon price is the biggest in the world. Well, it simply is not. It lies roughly in the middle of the field—which stretches from $130 per tonne in Sweden to less than $10 per tonne for a few other countries—and the member for Flinders knows that.

Unless measures such as the carbon price are adopted, there is little doubt that the effects of rising carbon dioxide levels will certainly lead to more frequent real national disasters on the scale of the Black Sunday bushfires in Victoria or the Queensland floods. According to the Bureau of Meteorology, current weather patterns were proceeding as predicted in the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1990, which stated, amongst other things:

We calculate with confidence that:

- carbon dioxide has been responsible for over half the enhanced greenhouse effect caused ...

The long-lived gases would require immediate reductions in emissions from human activities of over 60% to stabilize the concentrations at today's levels, methane would require 15 to 20% reduction.

Further, Karl Braganza, a Bureau of Meteorology climatologist, has said:

Since about 1990, all the climate models have been producing the same or similar results, and that's what we are seeing now.

There is more heavy rain in the tropics, as well as more drought in southern Australia.

Of course, deceptive claims by the opposition about that effects of carbon dioxide emissions and the carbon price are nothing new to us—a prime example being the statement by the Leader of the Opposition that the Australian steel industry would be destroyed by the carbon price, notwithstanding the fact that the global steel industry is moving to reduce carbon dioxide emissions even without the encouragement of a price on carbon.

Those who believe that Australia's coal exporters, such as the major sponsor of the opposition, Mr Clive Palmer, will continue to ride on an unending conveyor belt of money should realise that, according to the International Energy Agency, energy consumption in the global steel industry could be readily cut by one-third by the adoption of proven technology that would save and recycle heat within the steel-making process, even without significant changes to existing steel mills. Quite possibly the demand for coal will decline as overseas steelmakers become even more efficient and reduce emissions. Yet none of that matters to the opposition or their supporters, keen to dig up as much of Australia's natural resources as quickly and as cheaply as possible.

Although the opposition may claim that nothing can be done to reduce emissions because of the nature of the process, for some reason overseas steelmakers do not seem to be bound by the same natural laws that apparently apply only in our country and are actually moving to halve emissions, despite the denials of the opposition. There are those that may think that such a goal is unattainable, yet according to the United States Department of Energy, the US steel industry has already reduced its energy and carbon intensity by almost half over the past 30 years. Thanks to process improvements, carbon dioxide emissions declined from 2.2 metric tonnes per tonne of steel produced in the early 1970s to one metric tonne per tonne of steel produced in 2011. And the member for Flinders and the shadow minister knows that. (Time expired)

See this speech in context