Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in respect of the proceedings on the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013, the Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Import Levy) Amendment (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013, the Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Import Levy) (Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013, the Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Manufacture Levy) Amendment (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013, the True-up Shortfall Levy (General) (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013, the True-up Shortfall Levy (Excise) (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013, the Climate Change Authority (Abolition) Bill 2013, the Customs Tariff Amendment (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013, the Excise Tariff Amendment (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013, the Clean Energy (Income Tax Rates and Other Amendments) Bill 2013, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (Abolition) Bill 2013, so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring:

(1) the resumption of debate on the second readings of the bills being called on together;

(2) at the conclusion of the second reading debate or at 12 noon, Thursday, 21 November 2013, whichever is the earlier, a Minister being called to sum up the second reading debate, then without delay, (a) one question being put on any amendments moved to motions for the second readings by non-Government Members, and (b) one question being put on the second readings of the bills together;

(3) if the second readings of the bills have been agreed to, messages from the Governor-General recommending appropriations for any of the bills being announced together;

(4) the consideration in detail stages, if required, on all the bills being taken together for a period not exceeding 60 minutes at which time any Government amendments that have been circulated in respect of any of the bills shall be treated as if they have been moved together with (a) one question being put on all the Government amendments, (b) one question being put on any amendments which have been moved by non-Government Members, and (c) any further questions necessary to complete the detail stage being put;

(5) at the conclusion of the detail stage, one question being put on the remaining stages of all the bills together; and

(6) any variation to this arrangement to be made only by a motion moved by a Minister.

The reason I move this motion is obviously because the government wishes to deal with the carbon tax legislation this week. On Thursday at noon the first second reading vote will be called on for a ballot and then there will be consideration in detail, and all stages will be finished by the end of this week.

I assume that the opposition will in this debate continue to run the arguments about why the carbon tax should not be repealed, which will surprise many members of the public who voted for a change of government on September7 because the election was a referendum on the carbon tax.

The motion that I move today is a very straightforward debate management motion as we call them. This allows the House to have full knowledge of the process by which they will be able to debate this legislation but with the sure understanding that it will be completed at a particular time.

I would be very surprised if the Labor Party opposed this debate management motion. I say that because the list of speakers that the Labor Party have put forward for the carbon tax legislation is hardly exhaustive—in fact most members of the Labor caucus have not listed themselves for debate on the carbon tax repeal bills. You would have thought if Labor had planned to make this their cause celebre for the next three years that every member of the Labor caucus would loyally list themselves for debate on the carbon tax repeal bills.

It seems rather passing strange that not that many members of the Labor Party caucus have put their names to this speaking list. I guess of course the reason for that would be that very few of them want to be associated with a political party and a debate that denies the will of the people.

On September 7 it was a very clear election result: this side of the House won 90 seats. I do not really need to remind the parliament, because we won so many seats that we spill over onto the opposition side of the House. Some of my colleagues are very generously sitting on the other side of the House because there are so many more members of the coalition than Labor. That would suggest that Labor lost the election. Labor won 55 seats and there are five crossbenchers.

Labor achieved its worst election result since 1903—their worst primary result. They had their worst Senate result since the Senate was increased to 12 senators per state in 1984, so the message that I would be picking up is that probably they lost the election, and the referendum of the election was on the carbon tax. Nobody could deny—and you were part of those great debates—that the coalition made it abundantly clear to the Australian public over a four-year period that we would not support a carbon tax and that, once the collapse of the Copenhagen talks was apparent, that the whole atmosphere about emissions trading schemes, carbon taxes and dealing with climate change had occurred.

The coalition went to the election with a policy of direct action—a policy that was supported by the Australian public. Why do the Australian public support direct action? They support it, because they know that even if you believe or do not believe in climate change being induced by humans, the changes that we would make to the direct action plan are good for the environment anyway. Nobody would deny that we need to use better technology in producing the goods and services that run our economy. Nobody would deny that it is better to plant more trees and no-one would deny that it is more important to have better farming practices than less important.

As a result, the Australian public think to themselves at the election: 'We know with the coalition we going to get a direct action policy and that will improve the environment whether you believe in climate change being human induced or not. With the Labor Party, they have a carbon tax, which they fibbed about in the 2013 election.' And, quite rightly, the opposition has made it one of their signature tunes throughout the last parliament that we would abolish it.

So today, we turn up to the House. We have a debate management motion to debate the carbon tax this week and to end that debate on Thursday, which will have given many days of debate in this parliament on whether the carbon tax should be repealed. Honestly, does anyone in the Labor Party need to pore through the documentation to determine whether they are in favour or against a carbon tax? Surely, these debates have been around every parameter of the parliament and the Australian public for four years.

Everyone knows their position. The Liberal Party and the National Party are in favour of abolishing the carbon tax, because we want to reduce electricity prices and we do not want the cost of living to be needlessly more expensive than it already is. Therefore if we abandon the carbon tax and reduce electricity prices, this will flow through the entire economy and help reduce cost of living pressures. That is what the Australian public voted for on September 7 and that is what the coalition government will deliver by passing the carbon tax repeal bills this week.

It will not surprise me if the Leader of the Opposition jumps to his feet and opposes this debate management motion and reaffirms his commitment—

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