Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move amendments (1) to (11), as circulated in my name, together:

(1)    Clause 1, page 1 (line 8), omit ‘Australian’, substitute ‘Independent’.

(2)    Clause 3, page 2 (line 15), omit ‘Australian’, substitute ‘Independent’.

(3)    Clause 4, page 3 (line 6), omit ‘Australian’, substitute ‘Independent’.

(4)    Part 2, page 8 (line 1), (heading), omit:

‘Australian’

substitute:

‘Independent’.

(5)    Clause 10, page 8 (line 5), omit:

‘Australian’

substitute:

‘Independent’.

(6)    Clause 10, page 8 (line 6), omit ‘Australian’, substitute ‘Independent’.

(7)    Clause 10, page 8 (line 8), omit:

‘Australian’

substitute:

‘Independent’.

(8)    Page 8, after clause 11, insert:

11A Authority not subject to direction

                 The Authority is not subject to direction by the Minister in relation to the:

performance of the functions conferred on the Authority by  the Parliament; and

             (b)    publication of information under Part 12 of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Act 2009.

(9)    Clause 19, page 11 (lines 11 to 13), omit the clause, substitute:

19 Period of appointment for members of the Authority

The Minister must appoint a Member of the Authority for a period of 5 years.

A person who has been appointed as a member of the Authority may be appointed for second period of 5 years.

        (2)    A person who has been appointed as a member of the Authority for two five years periods is not eligible for appointment for a further period.

(10)  Clause 41, page 22 (lines 2 to 9), omit the clause, substitute:

41 Minister may advise Authority

        (1)    The Minister may, by legislative instrument, advise the Authority of the Minister’s views as to the priorities that should be given by the Authority to the performance of its functions.

        (2)    Advice given under subsection (1) must have regard to the provisions of section 11A.

        (3)    The Authority must give the Minister, in writing, a response to any advice it receives from the Minister under subsection (1).

(11)  Title, page 1 (line 1), omit:

‘Australian’

substitute:

‘Independent’.

I will not take up too much time of the House and, without pre-empting any decisions by those leaders of both houses, I will not be calling a division, because I do appreciate the number of bills before the House today and these amendments do relate to the previous division, where the three Independent MPs enjoyed voting yes. Both political parties have been enjoying the last 48 hours claiming that their opponents are either job destroyers or climate change sceptics, and the three Independents certainly enjoyed watching these uncommon bedfellows sitting side by side and voting down what is—certainly from my position—an eminently sensible amendment agreed upon by both sides.

I will reiterate the point of the exercise, however, and that is to put the many market decisions that are to be made on the issues before us into the hands of an independent statutory authority. I think that the member for Goldstein correctly made reference to a Reserve Bank type model. We put monetary policy, interest rate rises or falls in the hands of an arms-length body. It is done because by the nature of our trade we are populist, as much as we might not all like to admit it, and there are unpopular decisions that need to be made if we are going to be true in the delivery of an emissions trading scheme and a market based response. Therefore, it is in everyone’s interests, not only politicians’ interests but also in the interests of an efficient market, that it is at arm’s length and that it is given some independence and some eminence with regard to the true science and economic impacts and, as a consequence, that it is given both authority and security. It is one of the great concerns causing political division. Security of tenure is a real issue for investors and those who want to see this scheme work in the long term. So independence, permanence, eminence and, therefore, authority are things that this House could and should endorse if we are to value-add to this scheme before us today.

In what is probably the philosophical point of difference with the government, the role of this chamber is not to hold on to the detail. It is to build the framework and then, ironically, to let the market rip. It is ironic because of some of the concerns expressed in some January musings by the Prime Minister. But if this is a market based response we need to believe in the efficiency of the market. We build the framework of the market, but then we have to let it go. We cannot have the soft or hard hand of politicians, the executive and ministers controlling a lot of the discretionary issues about how that market operates. I reiterate this point, because there are an enormous number of market based decisions that have a political element to them at the moment that need over time, if not now, to be given distance from the political process.

Let us run through some of the market considerations that we are currently putting in the hands of government: the environmental objectives; the national emissions trajectory and targets, which are largely government decisions; reporting and compliance; the nature of Australian emissions units, Kyoto units and non-Kyoto units; auctioning; scheme caps; assistance; tax and accounting issues; household assistance and complementary measures; the Climate Change Action Fund; pricing, including fixed prices for a year; leakage; trade exposure; impacts of global influences and jurisdictions; new scientific findings, which are now to be determined through the political prism; scope and coverage of the scheme; fuel credits—who is going to make the unpopular decision in the future when fuel credits are dropped and fuel prices rise?—management of charges; ratification reviews; greenhouse gas definitions; greenhouse gas thresholds; emissions covered; obligatory transfer numbers; and liability transfer certificates. The list goes on and on. These cannot be left in the hands of politicians if this is going to be a truly efficient market response to a global problem. (Time expired)

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to back up what the honourable member for New England and the Leader of the Opposition said earlier on. I was a minister for a long time in a state house, as I think you were, Mr Deputy Speaker Adams. If someone came up with a good idea—and I am on record on many occasions as saying, ‘That’s an idea that sounds good; we’ll have a look at it and get back to you on it’—as often as not, we would do it. The member of the opposition would get kudos out of it, but it was my duty to see that the best possible job could be done for the country. In this place, as the honourable member for Lyne has said on a number of occasions, it is all about playing party games. It is not what is good for the country at all. It is what is good for political interest. That is a very true thing to say. I am not saying that everyone did that in the Queensland parliament. They most certainly did not, but I am on record many times as saying that I could never see how it was to my detriment to take a good sensible proposal and say, ‘Yes, we will do that.’ I thought it made me look good and made the others look good too. It would have made me look bad if I had not done it.

Having made that political point, I want to come back to the point that the Leader of the Opposition made about us being a big country. Yes, we are. In area we are almost as big as the United States, not all that much smaller than Brazil or China and bigger in available land than Russia or Canada. So we have this huge area of land. We have in that land only one-fifth as much carbon as other countries; so the name of the game for us should simply be putting the carbon back into the soil. We cannot control, and will never be able to control, the huge fires that occur in World Heritage and national parks. It is somebody else’s choice to make them into national parks and you will still have the problem there. But over the rest of Australia not only do we have an ability to stop the fires, which I think result in the lack of carbon in the Australian soils, but also we must have the ability to inject bacteria fertiliser which locks in the carbon. One per cent of the soil should be bacteria—dead or alive—and that bacteria is principally carbon, as all plants and animal life, including human beings, are hydrocarbons. Simply using bacteria fertiliser, which we are using very extensively now along the wet coastal plain in the sugar and banana industries, is very kind to the environment. There is no doubt about that. There is virtually no chemical run-off if you use that first. The farmers are doing it because it works out infinitely better financially. So here is an option for the government.

As far as the science goes, I do not impugn in any way what the Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change said but I do have to put on the record that the official government report, which is still out there, from the Australian Greenhouse Office—as I understand it, the office has now been abolished; it should have been abolished long ago—said that ethanol would marginally increase the CO2. Throughout the world there have been hundreds of studies done—and you can get all of the studies that are available via the United States Congressional Library, so this is the flow of information to the congressmen and senators in the United States—and every single one of those reports centres around a 27 per cent to 29 per cent benefit for the environment, as the honourable member for New England pointed out earlier on. We can take the position that every single one of those hundred-odd studies is wrong and that the United States Congressional Library is wrong and that the Greenhouse Office in Australia is right, but I do not think many people would come to that conclusion. I am simply saying that the flow of information coming from the so-called scientific flow of information is very substandard. I hope that the government takes that into account and does its own scientific work. It is not difficult to ring up some of the institutes of marine science in Australia and find out, as I did, about the oceans—(Time expired)

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Once again, I thank the member for Lyne, supported by the member for Kennedy, for putting forward these amendments. As was discussed on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 a short while ago, these amendments proposed by the member for Lyne would give power to set scheme caps under the CPRS to the Climate Change Regulatory Authority. For the same reasons I articulated on a previous occasion, the government decided in the white paper that scheme caps and gateways should be set in regulations and be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. The government took that decision on the basis that the scheme caps and gateways are enormously important—I think we have a position in common with the member for Lyne on that point—and they have potentially significant implications for the national economy. In the interests of accountability and the interests of elected representatives, we as a government believe it is important that the executive and the parliament, rather than an independent regulator, make decisions about scheme caps and gateways. For those reasons, the government is opposed to the amendments. But we are very respectful of the purposes for which they have been put forward by the member for Lyne. I move:

That the question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Original question negatived.

Bill agreed to.