Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister outline the need for action on climate change and why business certainty is important?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government is dealing with the challenge of climate change by a range of measures, one of which is the introduction of legislation in support of a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What are the others?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for the sceptics already jumping into the debate 12 seconds after commencing my reply to the question—but he represents a wider constituency than O’Connor, I sense. Acting on climate change is important not simply because Australia needs to act to protect the Great Barrier Reef, not just because we need to act—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I notice honourable members from Queensland seem to be interjecting that they do not want to see the Great Barrier Reef protected. Is that right? They do not want to see Kakadu protected. They do not want to see action to protect the Murray-Darling. The government take these challenges seriously, which is why we must act nationally and internationally on climate change. That is why our Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme proposes to reduce carbon pollution by five per cent by 2020, unconditionally; to reduce carbon pollution by 15 per cent by 2020, if there is an agreement where major developing economies commit to substantially restrained emissions and advanced economies take on commitments comparable to Australia’s; and to reduce Australia’s carbon pollution by 25 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020, if the world agrees to an ambitious global deal to stabilise levels of CO2 equivalent to 450 parts per million.

That is the government’s strategy, that is what we have embraced and that is what we intend to get on with doing. That lies at the heart of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. This is necessary also to provide business certainty. At a time when the global economy is under such stress and the national economy is also under stress our business community needs certainty, which is why, for example, Andrew Peterson from PWC said last week:

The certainty of the signals being provided over the last few months has now dropped away. The momentum is lost for business and that is a concern just as we are seeing international activity speed up.

And Katie Lahey from the Business Council of Australia said on 6 May:

To drag on the debate whilst we have got this global financial crisis is just one more complexity that business has got to factor into its planning cycle …

That is what business is saying across the country. They want certainty; they want certainty for the future. We need certainty in terms of action on climate change and we need certainty also for the business community. The attitude adopted by the Leader of the Opposition on this is of direct relevance because it goes to whether or not this proposal obtains passage through the parliament per medium of the Senate. It was on this matter that the Leader of the Opposition was asked the question point blank yesterday on Insiders: ‘Are you still in favour of an emissions trading scheme?’ to which the Leader of the Opposition said:

Yes Barrie, I am.

… yes, I’ve got no doubt we will have an emissions trading scheme in Australia. That’s my view.

The opposition leader’s express target is five per cent unconditional, and then you go up the range to 15 and 25. It begs the question: if you are supporting a five per cent unconditional target and the other targets of 15 and 25 are unconditional, why on earth don’t you support legislation now? Where is the logic that underpins the proposition that you have actually got to postpone this until after Copenhagen. If the five per cent target is unconditional and the government’s target is unconditional and the other targets beyond that—15 and 25—are conditional on the global outcome at Copenhagen, then why on earth does the Leader of the Opposition advance a logical proposition which says that he cannot support legislation now? It simply does not add up as a matter of policy logic. What it does add up to support is a matter of political expediency, because it goes to what is actually happening within the coalition at present.

Firstly, there is the attitude of the National Party. Remember that the Leader of the Opposition has said that his position is that he supports emissions trading. That is his policy. The Leader of the Nationals in the Senate was asked this question today and said that Malcolm Turnbull does not have a policy. He said, ‘Only Kevin Rudd has a policy,’ and added, ‘I haven’t seen Malcolm Turnbull’s policy’. That was his first proposition. He then went on to say that he hoped dearly that the Liberal Party does not support an emissions trading scheme. He then said—and this is not just your average ‘Nat’; this is the bloke who runs the Nats up in the Senate where the numbers are—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, if you listen to what Barnaby says privately about you, mate, it is somewhat less flattering than what you have just referred to about me. Barnaby obviously speaks to us more than he does to you, mate. Then, the Leader of the National Party in the Senate—your colleague, Mr Truss; oh, he has left the chamber—said:

An ETS in the middle of this recession would have to be the most ridiculous piece of policy that you could possibly go forward with.

That is what the National Party are saying in the Senate. The Leader of the Nationals in the Senate is saying: (a) the Leader of the Opposition does not have a policy on emissions trading and (b) if he does have a policy on emissions trading then the National Party could not possibly support it because you could not possibly proceed with it as this time.That is the split with the Nationals. Then of course you have got Boswell, who said that the National Party would not be supporting it ‘under any circumstances’.

Then we go to the Liberal Party. We go back to our good friend the member for O’Connor, who came out today and once again underlined what the position of the climate change sceptics, who obtain such a majority in the Liberal Party party room, is. This is what the member for O’Connor said—as he readies himself with the standing orders, the quote, Wilson, is as follows:

I, and the majority of the Coalition party room, say it will not work, it will not deliver carbon emission reduction.

That is the position of not only the member for O’Connor but, he says, the majority in the coalition party room. Why, therefore, is the government’s legislation—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This must be the first time the member for O’Connor has not taken a point of order. So the National Party says that the Liberals do not have a policy on climate change and the Nationals say that, if the Liberals did have a policy on climate change, they would vote against it. The Liberals, represented by the member for O’Connor, say that the majority of the joint party room oppose whatever it is that the Leader of the Opposition is on about. What does all this boil down to? It boils down to the fact that the Leader of the Opposition knows that he should be supporting this legislation—he said that it is five per cent, 15 per cent, 25 per cent, the same as the government’s. What it actually says is that the Leader of the Opposition does not have the courage to take on the climate change sceptics within his own party and within the coalition party room. In fact, as was revealed on radio last week in an interview on AM:

… a Liberal insider says a sizeable chunk of Coalition members of parliament—at least a third—would like to vote for the Government’s scheme now; that they opted for the delay strategy in order not to destabilise Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership, buying him some time to unite the Opposition …

Thank you, the member for Flinders, for that briefing to the AM program—I assume it was probably him given that he is just so on song with what is generally happening on their side.

This is a serious matter that goes to business certainty; it goes to whether or not this legislation passes the Senate; it goes to the question of whether or not the business community can make confident investment decisions in the future; and it goes to whether or not the renewable energy industry as well can now invest in its future around a secure proposition about a carbon price. What we have seen with the Leader of the Opposition is not leadership. We have seen nothing but rank opportunism. My challenge to him in the national interest is: be positive, take on the sceptics on your own side and get behind the government’s program. The national interest demands it.