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

We did not see any $100 legs of lamb, and we saw the stock market rise by 33 per cent. So jobs up, stock market up and pollution down in the first two years of the emissions trading scheme. It would have been even more efficient when it transitioned in the third year to a variable price emissions trading scheme, joining us with the three billion other people in the globe who, by 2016, will live in countries or provinces where an emissions trading scheme operates. That is the sad truth of this entire debate: the coalition, led by that quisling Prime Minister, the member for Wentworth—that quisling on climate change—are moving away from where the rest of the world is heading. The rest of the world is heading towards emissions trading schemes but the quislings on the other side are going in the opposite direction with their farce of a policy.

We heard before the ridiculous contribution from the member for Lyons talking about consistency in policy on climate change from the other side! We have a Prime Minister who has said about their current policy that it is 'a farce', a 'fig leaf to cover a determination to do nothing', a 'con', 'fiscal recklessness on a grand scale', and 'bulldust', to use a polite term. So this is the consistency on the other side. They have a Prime Minister who has poured nothing but scorn and derision on the policy that he is now proudly implementing. What has changed? Just one thing: a dirty deal with the conservative wing of his party to get into power—a quisling who has junked all his beliefs in order to attain power.

The truth is that the first round of their Direct Action dog was a joke. It failed utterly. They spent $660 million to buy abatement, and $200 million of that $660 million went to operations that were already capturing emissions—landfill operations and mines collecting methane. These were operations already going on—some for as long as 15 years. So they paid $200 million to operators that were already reducing their emissions. Another $300 million went to ensuring that farmers who had already promised not to clear the land were paid to not clear that land. So another $300 million was paid to farmers who had already promised not to clear the land to ensure that they did not clear the land. So $500 million of the $660 million in this dog of a scheme was spent on things that were occurring anyway.

Once you exclude that abatement, what you got was a carbon price not of $14 per tonne; you got a carbon price of $66 a tonne, confirming the member for Wentworth's early assertion that it was 'fiscal recklessness on a grand scale'. A carbon price of $66 per tonne of abatement versus $8 per tonne under an internationally linked emissions trading scheme are the choices here. It is no wonder that the Australian Industry Group—hardly a socialist mouthpiece for the Labor Party—have said that, if you want to achieve the 2030 abatement task by direct action, you are looking at a fiscal cost of between $100 billion and $250 billion. Let me repeat that for the members opposite. This is not some wide-eyed greeny group. This is not the Labor Party. This is not the trade unions. This is the Australian Industry Group saying direct action will cost the balance sheet, cost taxpayers $250 billion to achieve the abatement task. Yet they stand by it because, ultimately, they are driven by division. Half the party room do not accept the science of climate change. The other half, the quislings under the member for Wentworth and the joke of an environment minister, will do and say anything to stay in power and do not want to upset the conservative party room.

The truth is the people at the next election will have a clear choice. The Labor opposition stand by an emissions trading scheme that is the least cost way of tackling climate change, because cost absolutely matters in this. We stand with the three billion global citizens who will live under an emissions trading scheme. Those on the other side stand for a dirty dog of a deal that pays polluters to pollute and will cost taxpayers $250 billion. They will stand condemned by history for betraying future generations and for betraying the Treasury.

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