Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

In July 2007 there was also an announcement about action on climate change. It is headed, on the ABC website, 'Howard announces emissions trading system', and the report says:

Prime Minister John Howard says the Federal Government will introduce a new 'cap and trade' emissions trading system.

That was the mandate upon which both sides of parliament were elected in 2007. The report then says that the then federal environment minister, Malcolm Turnbull, 'says the carbon emissions trading scheme will be comprehensive', and it continues:

'It will cover 80 per cent of all emission outside agriculture and about 55 per cent of total emissions in Australia,' he said.

The scheme is set to be up and running by 2011.

That is the hypocrisy and cant from those opposite about respecting mandates. What they do not respect is science. What we on the side of the House respect is the information provided by the global experts and the need for us to not pass on that responsibility for future generations. When I was a young kid—it was a long time ago—from time to time you would see people toss rubbish out the window of their car. People had a view then that someone else would come and clean it up—someone else would fix it up down the track. That is not good enough today. There is no way that my own son or the kids of members of this parliament would even think about the concept of just throwing something out the window and leaving it for someone else to clean up. That is precisely what those opposite want to do.

There is a price on carbon pollution. What we are saying as a parliament is that if we get rid of the price on carbon without any climate change policy in place, we will leave the fixing up of the mess to future generations. That is simply not good enough. It has been a while since this parliament has sat in July, and there is a reason for that. An ordered parliament, when it has new senators, gives them, and the parliament, time to settle in. The arrogance of those opposite is writ large—they assumed that people would just go along with them and tick the box. Then we saw the chaos of last week when we had, perhaps for the first time ever, a gag and a filibuster as part of the same process on the same day. The Minister for the Environment has foreshadowed moving amendments that do not come from his cabinet and that do not come from his party room—they come from the Palmer United Party. That is where the amendments he is going to move come from. This is not a case of the tail wagging the dog—it is a case of the PUP tail wagging the dog.

Those opposite have been humiliated by their lack of performance last Thursday. In terms of the processes of this parliament, Labor managed a parliament last time around in which we did not have a majority in either House. We treated people with respect; we engaged in constructive discussion. We were prepared to have discussions with the coalition, as well. What we have here is a motion moved by the Leader of the House, where amendments are foreshadowed that people have not even seen. What a disgrace of a process this is! Those opposite were so addicted to moving suspension of standing orders every day in opposition that, when they got into government, they have forgotten that they are the government. They are supposed to govern. If you have a proper process, you do not need to suspend standing orders when you are the government. Those opposite remind us each and every day that they had a plan to get into government, but they certainly do not have a plan to govern.

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