Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wish we did not have to have this MPI, I really do. I wish that the two acolytes of Peter Costello we have just heard from honoured the memory of their departed boss by having to defend an Intergenerational report that had credibility, that acknowledged the challenges of this nation and that was not the biggest stitch up since the Fine Cotton affair, a stitch up written not by Treasury but by the Treasurer. A stitch up that shows it is just a political document, a great act of fiction. An act of fiction that is more concerned about previous policy than the future. An act of fiction that claims somehow that the 2013-14 MYEFO launched by the current Treasurer—at least for a few more days—Joe Hockey, was the policy of the previous Labor government. It is a MYEFO that loaded down government spending with a further $14 billion, including a $9 billion payment to the RBA, a payment that they did not ask for, a payment that they said they did not especially need, a payment that they have already returned $1.3 billion of back to the government this year, demonstrating that it was a political fix to load down Labor's legacy.

That is what this document is. It is a document designed to attack the legacy of this side of politics, rather than a future plan for this nation—a future assessment of where we are heading. That is a great tragedy, because in this place we all profess to care about the future. We have a number of great members of parliament who are pregnant, and they have been talking about how that focuses them even more on the future. I have been lucky enough that recently my wife delivered a second child, and it does focus you on the future. It does focus you on wanting to leave this country a better place.

But how can we leave this country a better placed than those on the other side, the government, still pursue this myth that somehow either climate change is not happening or, even more ridiculous and offensive, that climate change will be beneficial for this nation. That is what this document says. The climate change section of this report is an obscenity. It is an obscenity that undermines the credibility of this entire report. It is a section that endorses the direct action propaganda. It is a pay-the-polluters scheme that has been repudiated by every respectable, independent economist in this country. It is a policy costed by the Treasury at $48 billion. No economist, who is not paid by the government, goes anywhere near this document, this policy, yet they have the temerity to talk about it in this report as, somehow, a great solution for climate change.

Then we have the box 1.6—I have actually read the report—on international approaches to climate change. Whoever wrote this is either blind, has a very selective reading of what is happening internationally, or is in fact the Treasurer. It does mention Fiji somewhere, so maybe he found out about it on his holiday over there. It lists nine countries and their international action. What it omits to say about these nine countries is that five of the nine have emissions trading schemes in place, which every reputable economist says is the right way to tackle climate change. The truth is that by next year three billion people in this world will live in countries or provinces governed by emissions trading schemes. The government are rejecting that and their document is full of propaganda that betrays the lightweight nature of this document.

To suggest that somehow climate change will be beneficial repudiates all the scientific analysis that is done in this country and around the world. Let me quote from an Australian government report of the impact if climate change is left unchecked: 'A 92 per cent reduction in agricultural production in the Murray Darling Irrigation Area. The destruction of the $9 billion Great Barrier Reef tourism. Wine making becoming more and more difficult,' and that is already impacting in my region in the Hunter, and 'more than a doubling of temperature related deaths.' That is the cost of not taking climate change seriously. Let me repeat that: if climate change is left unchecked, as is the policy of those opposite, if we do nothing about it or have a fig leaf of a policy, which is their policy, as the member for Wentworth attested to, we will see a more than doubling of climate change related deaths in this country.

That is really what this report should be concentrating on. That is really what intergenerational equity should be about. It is about leaving this country in a better place for our children and our grandchildren, and that is not what this report is about. This report is about this government surviving to next week and next month, and it should be condemned for the political fix that it is.

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