Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Resources and Energy. I refer the minister to the clause in the emissions trading scheme bill which will require Australian coal producers who sell coal directly to Japan to pay for the emissions for the burning of that coal in Japan. Why has the minister allowed thousands of jobs in the coal industry in Queensland and New South Wales to be put at risk by this flawed piece of legislation?

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the Minister for Resources and Energy.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The minister will resume his seat. I am not sure whether the member for Groom’s colleagues on my left who are interjecting wish to hear a response to the question or not.

Honourable Member:

Honourable member—Probably not.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If they are ‘probably nots’, they might voluntarily leave the chamber. The minister has the call. He will respond to the question.

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for the question. The government has been involved in detailed discussions over the last 20 months about ensuring that, as a result of the introduction of the CPRS and the renewable energy target, we ensure the competitiveness of our trade-exposed industries. Our coal industry is well placed for expansion and to seize major export opportunities not only in Japan and China but also in a range of other markets. In terms of the coal industry, there has been an engagement and there will continue to be engagement with respect to the final framework of both the CPRS and the renewable energy legislation. In the context of those discussions, we are about guaranteeing the continued competitiveness of Australian industry.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At least industry understands that, with respect to the government, there is something concrete to discuss and focus on. I compare that to the opposition, who had 12 years to get a low-emissions economy in place and failed to produce any practical proposal for consideration by industry.

Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table the legislation that highlights that the direct sale of—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Groom will resume his seat. Leave is not granted. I call the member for Brisbane.

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science and Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change. What is the impact of the Senate’s failure to support action on climate change earlier today?

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Brisbane for his question. The government has an unequivocal mandate to take action on climate change. It is critical for our environment, it is critical for our society, it is critical for our economy and it is critical for future generations. Underpinning the government’s commitment is respect for the overwhelming scientific evidence. The government, along with the other 191 countries that have ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, respects the science. Yesterday I updated the House on the available scientific evidence. Importantly, in that evidence it is overwhelming that human induced emissions are responsible for the observed warming. Without action, temperatures could rise by up to five or six degrees by the end of the century, which would obviously have extremely serious consequences. For that reason it is vital to pass the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation so that we can begin to reduce emissions.

But today in the Senate the opposition failed the Australian people, failed Australian business and failed the environment. They failed to stand up in the national interest and they failed to support the most significant economic and environmental reform ever undertaken in this country. They failed to support action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in our economy. As a result, investment opportunities in renewable and clean energy will be lost. It is absolutely clear why those opposite do not support action on climate change. It is because they cannot agree on a policy. There is a foundational issue at the heart of the coalition’s disunity, and that is the climate science. Many amongst the opposition do not respect the science. The coalition contributions to the Senate debate have been extremely instructive on this issue. Senators from the opposition, including the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Minchin, and Senators Bernardi, Bushby, Joyce and others have proudly touted their refusal to respect the climate science. Senator Minchin had this to say:

… this whole extraordinary scheme … is based on the as yet unproven assertion that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 are the main driver of global warming.

He has denied the climate science. What an extraordinary contribution! While the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader the Liberal Party in this chamber, is on the record accepting the climate science, the leader of the Liberals in the Senate refuses to respect it. And it is not only Senator Minchin who has made some extraordinary contributions in the last couple of days. None other than the shadow Treasurer, the member for North Sydney, yesterday on breakfast television said this:

… climate change is real … whether it’s made by human beings or not, that’s open to dispute …

Yet another one!

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for North Sydney may be looking at the numbers, but I fancy he has been hanging out with Uncle Wilson! That is what has been going on. The opposition are the voice of the past; they cannot come to grips with the future. This government will take this country into the future. This is a reform that is vital for our environment, vital for our economy and vital for our communities. The determination of this government to make this reform should not be underestimated—and make it we will!

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the answer of his Minister for Resources and Energy just a moment ago, where he confirmed, as has Senator Wong, that the government is in the midst of negotiating major changes to the design of its emissions trading scheme. How can the Prime Minister justify demanding the parliament immediately approve an emissions trading scheme which is plainly and admittedly incomplete and under construction?

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

It is a sad thing to watch a leader’s credibility disappearing through the carpet. A leader’s credibility disappearing through the carpet on something as important to the nation as climate change, and with profound consequences for the Senate, is a tragedy for us all, because it goes to whether or not we are going to have certainty for business and certainty for the economy for the future.

What I say to the Leader of the Opposition, as he lifts the volume in order to camouflage the absence of substance in his contribution to this debate, because his leadership authority has collapsed on climate change and across the board, is as follows: if those opposite were serious about having a policy position to advance in the Senate debate on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, why did they not move an amendment? Where is the policy? If those opposite are serious about change to the legislation, where is the policy; where are the amendments? Neither of them exist, because this is one huge political fig leaf to cover up one core political fact—it is to paper over the terminal divisions within the Liberal Party. That is what it is all about. The fact that they cannot summon up a common position to take decisive action on climate change—20 months into this government’s life and through multiple reports in the public domain about our course of action for the future—demonstrates one thing and one thing alone: a collapsed leadership.

What we have seen today, as I said in my earlier remarks, is the return of the Liberal Party old guard on climate change. We see a victory for Wilson Tuckey and all the voices of the past on climate change and we see the Liberal Party abandoning what this nation needs for the future on climate change. We will get on with the business of reforming for the future, as the Liberals languish in the debates of the past.

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Will the minister update the House on the extent to which the science and international accounting rules currently allow agriculture to participate in emissions trading? What policy responses have been proposed?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Throsby for the question and acknowledge her interest in the issue. There was a rally today, I know, from a group called the Climate Sceptics, a group calling itself the world’s first political party to be upfront about its doubts on anthropogenic global warming. I presume the member for O’Connor attended. He seems to have gone strangely quiet.

The concept that a price on carbon is something brand new in one sense is wrong. There has always been a price on carbon. The problem has been that people have been willing to forward that bill to the next generation. What we had today was an attempt from the government to change the way we deal with that in the future, while we have an opposition, with people like the member for O’Connor, willing to remain in the neglect of the past. The member for Higgins, on radio, has referred to the report that has been thrown about but not adopted by the opposition and said:

Technically speaking, if you build in particular assumptions you can get any outcome you want.

In the same way that he used to question modelling that he was provided with, he said:

I would take the same caution in relation to Frontier Economics.

One of the assumptions that is in that report is that you can easily include agricultural offsets at the moment. There are real challenges in the science of doing that at the moment, and Australia is in quite a different position to the United States on this, for a number of reasons. First of all, the fact that the United States have not ratified Kyoto means that they are not bothered by the concept that their agricultural offsets will not be internationally tradeable. We want to have a system where offsets are internationally tradeable.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The US are trading them.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I presume the Leader of the Nationals is referring to the Chicago Climate Exchange. Come in, spinner. We will get to that at the end.

The nature of our landscape is that it has very different types of soils to what we find in the United States. Concepts that have been put out during this debate as being incredibly simple, as wonderful solutions that you can just immediately apply—such as biochar across the continent, such as looking at the size of our landscape and saying, ‘That’s an immediate sequestration opportunity’—are far more complex in a nation which has the amount of desert that we have. It is far more complex with the limitations on the science matching carbon sequestration in many of those soils. That is why the government are investing the way we are in the Climate Change Research Program, in making sure that we can improve the quality of that science.

That is also why we are working to improve the international accounting mechanisms, which currently mean that, if we were to include our agricultural offsets in international trading, we would be including natural causes with man-made causes, which would mean we would be paying penalties following the Victorian bushfires for the loss of carbon from the soil. That is what it means under the current rules, and yet that is what the other side are saying you can do so simply already.

While we do not agree on everything, that is why David Crombie, the head of the NFF, in his op-ed in the Land today, said, ‘It’s hard to trade what can’t be measured.’ There are massive limitations at the moment. The government are pursuing them and putting money on the table to improve research. It is now happening around the nation, in the electorates of many of the people around here, where we are now working at improving the number of options for farmers and improving the measurement processes that are there.

But there are those who want to say it is simple and those who want to say, ‘Just look at the model of the Chicago Climate Exchange; that shows how easily you can do it’. That is what the Leader of the Nationals just interjected. That is what the Leader of the Opposition himself said on 26 May. He said:

… the Coalition proposes the establishment of a Government-authorised voluntary carbon market from 1 January, 2010 based on the Chicago Climate Exchange.

We hear fear campaigns around some of the modelling thrown around in this debate. When they want to raise fear levels, the modelling of the price per tonne of carbon goes all the way up. It goes well beyond $10, $20 or $25. I have heard figures of $45 and $50 per tonne thrown around. On the Chicago Climate Exchange today, the value of soil carbon—which is what they say will provide this great line of income for farmers—is trading at 40c a tonne. The voluntary market—which they are proposing should be put in and saying would provide a simple solution and an automatic line of credit for farmers—is, on the current science and with the limitations on international trading, delivering something in the order of 40c a tonne. There is a reason why their proposals sound too good to be true, and it is simply that they are.

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and COAG and Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on Emissions Trading Design) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change. Given that the Minister for Resources and Energy has now conceded that the legislation is flawed in expecting Australian coal producers to pay for emissions not only in Australia but also in Japan, will the minister now disclose to the parliament the government’s own planned changes to its emissions trading scheme?

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow minister for the question, and I think I can immediately refute his interpretation of the earlier answer by my colleague the Minister for Resources and Energy. The government has had a very clear position in relation to the coal industry from the outset in the development of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. There is a wide variation across the industry in methane emissions, fugitive emissions, on a mine-by-mine basis for geological reasons. To take the sort of proposition that is suggested in the Frontier Economics report that somehow you can have some best practice baseline—

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and COAG and Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on Emissions Trading Design) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. The minister is answering yesterday’s question. It is a totally different question.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Goldstein will resume his seat. The minister is responding to the question.

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To take, as is suggested in the Frontier Economics report—which, of course, is not coalition policy, we understand, but which has been vigorously advocated by the shadow minister and the Leader of the Opposition—the approach that there is some best practice baseline in the coal industry by which assistance can be allocated to coalmines in relation to their fugitive emissions is thoroughly erroneous. The government for that reason has taken the approach of targeting the assistance specifically at those mines which will incur under the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme the most substantive carbon liability.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. The minister is valiantly making an answer that bears no relation to the question he was asked.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. The minister prefaced the start of the answer to the comments about the referred answer by the Minister for Resources and Energy.

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For this reason the government have been targeting the assistance that we have on the table, which is of a quantum of $750 million, to those mines that have the most significant fugitive emissions liability. If the coalition had some view, had a policy position, that was capable of adoption in their own party room, the opportunity has been available to them to articulate it and put it forward for months and months and months. And not one single amendment, not one single policy position, came from those opposite.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The question was about Australians paying for Japanese emissions.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Flinders will resume his seat. The minister will resume his seat. It is not for me to make commentary about the questions and answers, but I think that the member for Flinders may like to review the question, because that was not the question.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. You asked, on the basis of referring to the answer from the minister for energy, whether there were any proposed changes.

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and COAG and Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on Emissions Trading Design) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Goldstein will resume his seat. You have had three points of order in two minutes.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, if I was wrong, I am still saying that in the preliminary parts—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Again I stress, as my predecessors have stressed, that when there are preamble comments it has been permissible, on relevance, that the answer can go to those points. And, in fact, there was a lot of preamble to the question.

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and COAG and Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on Emissions Trading Design) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Robb interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. I think if the honourable member for Goldstein would reflect—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If he refers to the question to the minister for energy and then asks about whether there are plans for government changes, that broadens the question beyond the specificity in the final point.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It might just assist the House and the chair if I read the preamble to the question which was not a preamble of rhetoric but actually a specific reference: It reads: ‘The energy minister ‘has now conceded that the legislation is flawed in expecting Australian coal producers to pay for emissions not only in Australia but also in Japan.’ The point is that we are seeking an answer about the emissions to be paid for in Japan, not an answer about $750 million of assistance to the coal industry.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not think that really assisted. When there are expressions used such as ‘flawed’ perhaps we should have a discussion about whether the argument that is in these questions could be ruled out because it is the argument that then opens the possibility of answers—for example, when you talk about the energy minister’s admission of flawed legislation.

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The simple fact remains that if there is a concern on the opposition’s part about the treatment of the coal industry under the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, a policy position could have been discussed and adopted in the coalition party room. It could have been put forward in the form of an amendment. The amendment could have been discussed in the context of the Senate considerations or at an earlier stage. But the fact is that they are disunited. They cannot agree on a single policy issue and today they have stood up in the Senate and voted against a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, which is the only mechanism by which we are going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in this country, and they will be held to account for it.