Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before the debate is resumed on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010, I remind the House that it has been agreed that a general debate be allowed covering that bill and orders of the day Nos 2 to 11.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This suite of bills should really be renamed. It should be renamed ‘Labor’s great big new tax on everything’. I think that many of my colleagues on the Labor side of the House are probably feeling quite some disquiet at the moment as to whether or not they have got it right. I think there is increasing evidence to indicate that they have not got it right, but there is certainly increasing evidence that the disquiet in the Australian community is certainly manifesting itself very significantly as people are beginning to understand and to realise that everything is going to go up in price, and they are beginning to be very wary about the fact that the government cannot explain what kinds of price rises there might be or where they might be across the community or across the economy, and I think that it is incumbent upon the government to accurately explain those prices or withdraw the bills, basically. So far, after several months of this bill being available for scrutiny, the government have not been able to give the assurances and comfort to the Australian people that they deserve.

That was not the case back in 1997-98 when the former Howard government undertook the implementation of a new tax system in Australia, and part of that, of course, was the GST. That was massively complicated, of course; at that stage, the Howard government was able to explain to the Australian community the whys and wherefores of the GST, the most intricate detail of how it would work and why it would be of benefit to our country. Unfortunately, the Rudd government has, basically, arrogantly decided that it has the numbers and the support, and it will just do what it wants to do; it will not prepare itself to explain this legislation to the Australian public and it will treat them with contempt.

Well, there is a new political landscape, and the new political landscape is that the Australian community is, in fact, very uneasy about a big new tax on everything and the way it is to be implemented. People do not understand the way it is going to be implemented. It is very complex. And, of course, Australia does not want to be ahead of the rest of the world in what it is going to do. The government faces the situation where, one day, perhaps in many years to come, there is likely to be an ETS-style system across the world—one day, in many years to come. But ‘one day’ is not ‘today’, and the Australian people should not see our country’s economy damaged by something where Australia is moving itself way ahead of the rest of the world.

The world generally takes its lead from places like the United States of America, and it is very clear now that the US in fact will not be proceeding in the direction of an ETS at this stage or any time soon. And the problem with Australia proceeding now is that, as much as some people in the community would say, ‘This is a fine and ideal thing to do,’ it damages our economy vis-a-vis the economies in the rest of the world. Why would we want to be putting Australians out of work because the rest of the world will not follow higher ideals? Why would that be? The answer is that we should not be. So we should be looking for alternatives to cut carbon pollution and implement those alternatives.

This debate is not about whether the world is warming or cooling; it is not about whether there are climate sceptics or climate deniers; it is not about that at all. What it is about is the conservation and sustainability of our world. Those who have been travelling overseas to Asia, Europe and some parts of the United States and who have seen what the air quality is like there are just horrified. Say you go to Beijing: the aircraft pulls out from the terminal and by the time you get to the runway you cannot see the terminal. That cannot be good for our world. It cannot be good for our health. And whether that pollution, the increase in particulates in the atmosphere and in parts per million of CO2, contributes to global warming or not, we do not need to have that debate. We know that pollution is bad. We know that we have got to conserve our planet’s resources. We know that we have got to have a sustainable future. We know that we cannot just go on burning up all of our resources.

That is why moving to green energy is very important. There is such a range of green energy technologies available these days, and the range is increasing day by day. There are the standard things like solar and wind that we all know about, but there are also geothermal and tidal power. High altitude wind is emerging as a technology. You have got the production of ethanol from non-food-producing plants and non-arable land. There is huge investment going into genetically modifying crops so that the particular stock that is grown produces the best ratio of ethanol per hectare of crop but so that the crops are not growing on arable land and so taking away from food production. It is wonderful technology that is emerging. And it is interesting that many of the large oil companies are investing in that technology because they know that we have got to have a sustainable future. And, of course, the energy input into that process is sunlight, which is energy free from the sun, as it is, effectively, for solar and wind. It is terrific that the world is investing in these technologies.

Recently I was in the United States talking to a number of major global companies at their national headquarters, and it surprised me that they are about two years ahead of the legislature in the United States. The companies themselves had decided that they had to take responsible decisions on conservation and sustaining our planet’s future. That is a great thing. Indeed, one of the company’s world headquarters that I visited was Google. You might ask, ‘How could Google be in the green space?’ But they are a very significant operation looking at how they use their resources to be in the green space and to save energy. It does not involve just the company itself; it is also the technologies they are developing for all of the people who use Google. That would indicate that the opposition’s policy—that is, to have an incentive program—in fact really can work, rather than a penalty program which the government is proposing, a big tax.

It stands in stark contrast with the government’s program under which electricity prices are likely to rise by a projected 62 per cent. Under the opposition’s program, which will achieve the same reduction in CO2, there will be no rise in electricity prices. Surely the government should investigate and agree with the opposition, ‘Hey, you probably have some good ideas there; we will implement those.’ But, no, that has not happened. Instead, we get left with questions about just how much Mr Rudd’s tax will really cost Australians and Australian businesses. By how much will a birthday cake increase in price? How much will it cost a farmer? By how much will a pensioner’s heating and cooling bills increase? How much will it cost a single mum or the little Aussie battler living in North Queensland? I will tell you what it will cost, Mr Deputy Speaker: it will cost the jobs of hardworking Australians; it will cost the jobs of thousands of miners, plant operators, port operators, rail workers and mine employees who live in my electorate.

Under the Rudd ETS, the Yabulu nickel refinery, the Korea Zinc refinery and the Xstrata copper refinery in my electorate would be under serious threat. Why would the government bring this uncertainty on hardworking Australians? Why would they say, ‘Well, it is just too bad, they are going to have to lose their jobs,’ because of this high and mighty principle? The parliament has to have a heart. We have to think about those families and we have to think about alternatives so that we do not lose those jobs. That is why the opposition has worked so very hard to put up a completely different set of values from that which the government has put up. Why the government just doggedly sticks to something that is a dog, I simply do not know. The government’s claim that households will be compensated misses the point. Families and businesses will still have to wear the costs no matter what. All this piece of legislation does is to create yet another layer of bureaucracy and bureaucratic red tape at a time when the government is making a poor attempt to reduce that bureaucracy and red tape.

On Lateline last year Julia Gillard refused seven times to put a figure on the real cost of Labor’s ETS for Australian families. Surely that makes us all suspicious. Why is that? Is it because it is going to cost Australian families $1,100 a year or because the government is too incompetent or arrogant to figure this out for itself? Kevin Rudd has claimed that action on climate change can only mean his tax plan. This is misleading, dishonest and political trickery of the worst kind, but we have come to expect this kind of behaviour. How many Australians really understand the government’s ETS? I do not know very many at all in my constituency. I think that Labor MPs may well be in the same boat. As Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating once famously said: ‘If you don’t understand it, don’t vote for it. If you do understand it, you’d definitely never vote for it’. I think he fairly succinctly summed up the particular suite of bill we have before the parliament today.

The other aspect of the ETS that worries me is the potential to scare off hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in the North Queensland region. After Labor’s ETS was defeated last year, Western Australian mining company Hancock Prospecting and the second-largest steelmaker in Japan, JFE Steel Corporation, both announced huge investments in the Queensland coal industry. The $100 million feasibility study is just the tip of the iceberg. The announcement by Hancock Prospecting could potentially be worth tens of billions of dollars to the northern economy over the next few decades. Very recently, Mineralogy announced a huge new project in Queensland, and that is just wonderful news, but this ETS has the potential to scare off those investors.

In stark contrast, the coalition has a viable alternative scheme to an ETS that will not cost jobs in my electorate, or any other electorate for that matter. It will still reduce pollution by the same amount as the Labor ETS. No solution is cost free, but there has to be a better way than to slug families and businesses with a $120 billion to $140 billion great big new tax on families and businesses as is proposed in these bills before us today. Direct action based on incentives and cooperation, which is what the opposition believes in—not punishing families—is the way to go. Over the forward estimates the coalition’s policy will cost $3.2 billion. Compare that with the government’s ETS over the same period costing $40 billion. Unlike the government’s emissions trading scheme, the coalition is not forcing a great big new tax on all Australians. In fact, the coalition’s policy will not be funded through any new taxes or increased taxes and it will protect Australian jobs through government and industry cooperation. The coalition’s plan to reduce carbon pollution will entail cleaning up the power stations that account for almost half the emissions in Australia by encouraging the use of other green energy apart from solar, wind and tidal—in particular, geothermal and natural gas—for the production of electricity. I am pleased to say that the $50 million fund with matching funding for the sector will allow testing to ensure algal energy, being pioneered at James Cook University in Townsville, is effective in reducing CO2 emissions and does not impact on food production.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I draw your attention to Minister Combet’s comments in this House in the past three days. On 2 February in this House Minister Combet, who is the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change, said:

We have already heard the suggestion from the Leader of the Opposition at his press conference: we are going to have algae fired power stations.

Then he went on to say on the same day:

Here we will have the Leader of the Opposition, if he ever gets his hand on the treasury bench, picking winners with algae fired power stations.

Then on Wednesday, 3 February Minister Combet said:

… as I indicated yesterday, algae fired power stations are on the agenda …

Yesterday in the parliament the minister said:

We are still not quite sure how an investor in new generation would make a decision about what technology and what fuel source to use, but I can tell you one thing—they will not be thinking about algae fired power stations like you are.

The point I make from this is that the minister hopelessly misunderstands algal synthesis. You do not have an algae fired power station. Power stations generally run on natural gas or coal. They do not run on algae. What this technology is about is using algae to capture the CO2 out of a power station. The process that is being developed and is running at James Cook University uses sunlight as the green energy and turns that CO2 into biodiesel and cattle feedstock. Think about that. Here we have world-leading technology operating now in a demonstration plant at James Cook University, Townsville—the leading tropical university in the world. We have this operating now, and because this particular process produces valuable products—biodiesel and cattle feedstock—it stands on its own because it is commercially viable. You do not have to put a tax on a power station to reduce CO2, because it is in their interests to reduce CO2. They can make money out of reducing their CO2.

This particular process is being scaled up right now as I speak in this House. In fact, later this year we will see some of it attached to the three dirtiest, most polluting power stations in Australia. They are scaling up the technology. Just imagine the potential for this not only in Australia but across the world. Just imagine a process that we have developed in Australia that takes the CO2 from a power station, pumps it through the algae solution and uses sunlight and algae to turn it into biodiesel. The sludge is a feedstock you can feed to cattle. At James Cook University veterinary labs they are trialling cattle on the feedstock and it is working really, really well.

When the community cabinet was held in Townsville recently, the Prime Minister was invited to go and have a look at this process. It was 200 yards down the road. Do you know what? He would not go. Why would that be? Why wouldn’t he go and look at world-leading technology that uses CO2 to produce valuable products and is commercially viable? Why wouldn’t he go and look at it? I will tell you why: because it would embarrass him. It would show that the ETS that is being proposed in these bills does not have to be foisted on the Australian people. The Prime Minister would lose face. He does not want to know about it. That is why the junior minister misquoted it and does not want to know about it. It is quite extraordinary. Here we have in Australia the opportunity to exploit this technology to the world and for people to make money out of it. You do not need a penalty tax to force people to make money. It is just extraordinary that the government refuses to have a look at this demonstration project and see it working for themselves. I am certainly going to oppose these bills. There are a whole raft of other reasons. Time does not allow me to go into those reasons, but I plead for the Prime Minister to have a look at this project in Townsville. (Time expired)

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the member for Herbert heads for the doors, I hope to have these words ringing in his ears: before he comes back into this place and continues the great big lie, he should read the paper with his Wheaties. This morning’s Age carried an analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance—

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Deregulation, Competition Policy and Sustainable Cities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It comes as no surprise, but I would invite you to ask the member for Longman to withdraw the remark about the member for Herbert.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member for Longman has used a word that is unparliamentary. I would ask the honourable member to facilitate the business of the House by withdrawing that term.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Absolutely, Mr Deputy Speaker. Rather than have you explain it at length, I will remove the word ‘lie’ and replace it with the word ‘untruth’. Bloomberg New Energy Finance said the Abbott policy would cost twice as much as the government’s policy. The article said of the Bloomberg analysis:

It said the Coalition’s claim that the government scheme would cost $40.6 billion was based on a “strange logic” that confused its market value with its cost to taxpayers. The opposition needed “to come up with something better and get the numbers right”, it said.

It said Mr Abbott’s proposal—allowing businesses and farmers to apply to have the government pay for their greenhouse gas emissions cuts from a fund eventually worth $1 billion a year—failed on three fronts: it was not the cheapest way to cut emissions, could not accurately limit national emissions and was a short-term option only.

As I said, the member who spoke previously should read the papers, because the holes in the policy that he is proposing today are becoming more and more apparent.

Obviously I rise to speak in support of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and cognate bills this morning. On Monday, 16 November I spoke in support of these bills, or their predecessors, also. First of all I want to reiterate two points that I made at that time. On that occasion I said:

I am one of those many Australians who are convinced by the weight of scientific evidence and by the opinion brought forward that this planet and its oceans are warming.

I have not changed my view, but today, as then, I acknowledge and respect that others hold an opposing view equally strongly. The other point I want to repeat is this. I also said:

What happens if we take action and discover in 50 years time that we did not need to take action? We have rejigged the economy of the world, and that has happened previously. But what happens if we do not act and we find out in 50 years time we should have? That is when the legacy of this parliament will be most felt by the people that we most care about: our children and our children’s children, and even their children.

Again, I have not changed my view on this. It is true that certain admissions have been made of late concerning some less than wholly proper recent practices by some elements of the IPCC. Those admissions do not in my view call into question the totality of 30 years of scientific work by thousands of scientists—work that leads inexorably to a conclusion that our planet is warming, that the warming is due in no small measure to human activity and that time to take effective action is rapidly running out.

Despite the strength of my conviction on this matter, I do not arrogantly dismiss those who hold an opposing view. To them I simply say: what if you are wrong? What if you are wrong but your view prevails? What if you are wrong, your view prevails and our planet passes the point of recovery? What do you say then to those you have confined to extinction? You cannot simply say ‘oops’ or ‘sorry’. To me it is infinitely preferable to have transitioned our economy to what is known as a low carbon economy and to discover later that it was not necessary. The stance being adopted by the opposition fills me with fear—fear for the future of my children and the families that they will ultimately raise.

Isn’t it ironic when we consider that both the ALP and the coalition went into the 2007 election campaign promising to introduce what were very similar cap-and-trade emissions trading schemes? Let us consider this. Had the Howard government been returned in 2007 Australia would already have in place a cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme. Had John Howard not lost his seat of Bennelong and stayed on as opposition leader, we would have in place a cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme. In either of those situations, honourable national leaders, Kevin Rudd and John Howard, would have brought into these parliamentary chambers actions backing their word to the Australian people.

Unfortunately, the current opposition leader, who professed just last Sunday to have ‘respected, admired and liked very much’ John Howard, appears to share none of the finer features of his idol’s character. Late last year we watched in amazement as this opposition leader took his party to the brink of destruction, to achieve what? Did he take that fantastic risk simply out of his own ambition to be leader or did he risk his party’s very existence because, contrary to his assertions of respect, admiration and liking, he truly believed John Howard—and, I might add, a cabinet of which he was a senior member—to have been wrong in this matter.

It has been illuminating to observe the victorious posturing of the opposition leader and his entourage since President Obama admitted that he may have to isolate his cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme from other climate change measures. The President of course is simply being pragmatic given the realities of the changed circumstances in the US Senate as a consequence of the election of Republican Scott Brown to fill the Massachusetts Senate vacancy left after the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. While those opposite crow over events in the US they should reflect that were the American congressional voting culture replicated in our Senate chamber down the hall this legislation would pass in a heartbeat. There are certainly more than two coalition senators who supported this legislation by crossing the floor last November and who ache to support this legislation. But, unlike the opposition leader and his cronies, it would appear that they baulk at taking their party to the brink.

What the opposition seem to not understand—and certainly do not talk about—is that President Obama has in this matter some backup that the Australian government does not have. Members may not have heard of the Western Climate Initiative. I suggest they make themselves familiar with it. The Western Climate Initiative is a joint program of seven US states and four Canadian provinces who are currently developing a cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme and complementary policies to combat climate change. A further six US states, two Canadian provinces and six Mexican states hold observer status with this group. If just those current observers join the group the resultant ETS will cover around 50 per cent of the landmass of North America. This group has a goal of 15 per cent reduction on 2005 levels by 2020.

In Australia of course we have no such state based scheme on which to rely. We have no margin for relaxation so far as our federal legislation is concerned. Members opposite need to acknowledge that, whilst there is to be a delay in the implementation of a national scheme in America, this is not an argument that says there will be no ETS in America. The reality is of course that President Obama has a backstop.

There has been plenty of opinion bandied about, both in the media and by those opposite, concerning the Copenhagen Conference of Parties, the COP15. The media and the opposition use the word ‘failure’. Only a fool would claim that Copenhagen was not a disappointment, but ‘failure’ is too strong a word. It is easier for those opposite to scoff and deride the attempts made by the 190 nations involved to tackle a complex and important issue than it is to act responsibly and in the national interest and in the interest of the planet.

Toward the end of last year it became obvious that achieving a comprehensive accord was unlikely, but there were three major outcomes from Copenhagen that should fill us with some joy. For the first time there is a global accord that temperature increases should be kept within  two degrees Centigrade. For the first time, developed and developing countries have agreed to share the abatement burden, and a global monitoring system is to be developed to ensure those who commit actually do what they say they are going to do. Copenhagen is not the end; the issue of climate change has not disappeared and all responsible people know that it must be addressed as a matter of urgency. Yes, the outcome of the Copenhagen conference was disappointing, but it was a first crucial step.

People ask why we should have a cap-and-trade system. A cap-and-trade system is a proven and successful mechanism and is the best means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the same time as providing incentives for industry to develop new technology and to embrace renewable sources. A cap-and-trade system sets out clear and enforceable emissions limits and it allows the market to find the best way to achieve those limits. Cap-and-trade programs turn pollution reductions into marketable assets.

There are three elements to a cap-and-trade program. The first of those is a mandatory emissions cap limiting the total tonnes of pollutants that can be emitted and reduced each year in order to meet targets. The permits issued equal the cap, which can be bought or sold according to the needs of the emitter, and there is accurate measuring and reporting supported by enforcement. These are the elements of the government’s CPRS.

At the end of last year the Parliamentary Library produced a document for the information of members. It was put online on 17 September and it appears under the heading ‘Emissions trading—has it worked?’ In that document they investigated two schemes. The first scheme was the cap-and-trade acid rain schemes in the United States of America. The second scheme was the cap-and-trade carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas scheme from Europe. The American example is the longer lasting. In the years 1995 to 2008 using a cap-and-trade system for sulphur dioxide, sulphur dioxide emissions in the US dropped by 64 per cent annually. That means that the level of emissions in 2008 was 64 per cent less than the emissions in 1995. For the nitrogen oxides the figure was 51 per cent. They did that despite the fact they were measuring emissions from nearly twice as many units that were emitting. With sulphur dioxide, it was a cap-and-trade system and with the nitrous oxides it was a cap system only, with no trading allowed. The second system looked at the European cap-and-trade system for emissions trading. The document made, I thought, a fairly interesting comment, which was to note that economic growth, as measured by the growth rate of European domestic product, did not cease during June 2008. The report went on to state:

The European economy did not go backwards. The point that European GHG—

that is, greenhouse gas—

emissions fell while the region’s economy grew (albeit modestly) is a strong indication that the link between economic growth and GHG emissions is being modified.

There is no hit to the economy from a carbon trading scheme. A further interesting point that has come out of this report is that to delay is dangerous. The report makes that point by indicating the introduction of both the trading scheme for acid rain in America and the trading scheme for carbon dioxide in Europe. In the first couple of years, emissions rose before they started to fall. We should take from that an understanding that the point at which we introduce a carbon trading scheme is not the point at which emissions will start to fall but a point a few years before that. The second point the report made was in relation to the price of carbon. It said:

Generally emissions rise, or stay at a comparatively high level, when prices are low. Emissions appear to reduce after the price of emissions permits rise to higher levels.

The interesting point there is that the coalition is seeking to reduce emissions with no price on it. That brings me to what I like to call Mr Abbott’s great big attack—

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The honourable member for Longman ought to refer to the Leader of the Opposition by his title and not by his actual name.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not actually referring to the Leader of the Opposition in this; I am referring to a policy which I would like to call Mr Abbott’s great big attack. But, if you would like me to do so, I will call this the Leader of the Opposition’s great big attack, which is supported by every member of his side, because they keep repeating it time after time. Cap and trade is not, as the Leader of the Opposition would assert, a tax of any magnitude, let alone a great big one. Let me quote from the Western Climate Initiative:

How is cap-and-trade different from a tax?

Cap-and-trade sets the limit for emissions and lets the market work out the costs of hitting that limit. A tax sets a price for emissions and lets the market work out how much of a reduction in emissions will happen. Both can work if designed and implemented properly, but the challenges are different. A tax provides price stability for those who will pay it, but the environmental benefit is not assured because emissions will not fall if people are willing to pay higher costs. Taxes at the rate needed to send the price signal needed to reduce carbon and spur reduction innovations are difficult to put in place and adjust over time. Cap-and-trade provides certainty of environmental performance but the costs are uncertain and will vary over time.

That is a reference, obviously, to the markets setting the price of permits, which will fluctuate. Finally, they say of cap and trade:

It may be easier to put in place but more challenging to implement.

The coalition’s con job on carbon pollution reduction must have set the lips of the Leader of the National Party and his national cohorts awash with the juice of their tongues. Can you imagine how much they must be looking forward to $2.5 billion of selective funding. The government, it seems, under the opposition’s policy will decide who gets it and who does not, just like the late unlamented Regional Partnerships program shown by the Auditor-General to have been used by the National Party as a slush fund. I imagine the member for Gippsland is particularly keen on this. The Managing Director of TRUenergy appeared on Business Sunday and had some interesting things to say. Firstly, he said that they would need the whole $2.5 billion on offer to replace the three units at Yallourn—that is, every cent the coalition plans to make available. It is a drop in the bucket of what is needed to modernise our generating plants. Secondly, he said that ultimately there will be a well-structured international emissions trading scheme, and he thinks Australia needs to be part of that scheme. So the managing director of Australia’s dirtiest generating plant believes there will be emissions trading but, ‘Let’s hold off so our industry can get some free money from the coalition first.’ When the Leader of the Opposition gets an idea, he certainly gets it wrong.

It has always been acknowledged that cap-and-trade schemes need to work side by side with what are known as complementary policies. These can include: removing market barriers to lower emissions; seeking reductions outside the cap, such as for households and farms; encouraging investment in low-carbon technologies; creating green jobs; lowering the cost of transitioning to a low-carbon economy and so on. These and more are part of the package of bills we are debating today. They are the entirety of the coalition’s so-called direct action plan. Environmentally this is virtually a ‘no action plan’, and mitigating against climate change is all about the environment. Departmental analysis of the coalition plan shows that there will be some modest savings, estimated to be about 40 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in the year 2020. But emissions will have continued to rise to a point of 13 per cent above 2000 levels. With a modest target of five per cent below 2000 levels, the ETS will have a more robust saving of 139 million tonnes of greenhouse gases. Importantly, emissions will be on a downward trajectory. The words ‘direct action’ may play well with the community but they are code in this case for ‘no action’ and households will pay dearly for that inaction.

There is of course serious concern amongst the business community about the coalition’s plan. I will take one quote from Nathan Fabian, chief executive of the Investor Group on Climate Change, which represents AMP Capital, Goldman Sachs, JBWere and others:

If you don’t send clear signals to business and investors, with a cap on emissions and a framework for pricing emissions, you do not get a lot of action.

People like to follow the money trail when trying to solve a problem. Let us follow the money trail on the government’s ETS. Firstly, in the government ETS, the polluters buy permits from the government. The government uses that money to compensate householders by passing that money on to them so that they can pay for the higher prices that may arise. The opposition’s direct action plan would take money from the budget, money that they would have received from taxpayers, and give it to polluters, with no money going back to householders. The difference between the two schemes is that emission reduction in the government scheme is paid for by industry; emission reduction in the coalition scheme is paid for by householders. (Time expired)

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This emissions trading scheme bill, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010, is not in the national interest. It remains a deeply flawed policy. It will destroy tens of thousands of jobs while delivering little or no environmental benefit. It is a great big new tax masquerading as an environmental policy. It would take us too far ahead of the world. It would see us export jobs and export emissions. It would destroy the ability of companies to invest in emissions reduction technology. This new tax creates a long-term pot of gold for government worth tens of billions of dollars every year once compensation ceases.

There are alternative scheme designs which would leave much of the money on company balance sheets to invest in emissions reduction technology, but a big new tax is irresistible to Labor. It will see regional centres shrink as resources and energy investment head to competing countries. It will rob Peter to compensate Paul with the transfer through the next decade of over $100 billion from one section of the community to another. In the process, a huge new administrative bureaucracy will emerge. It will provide an opportunity for Mr Rudd to make a big man of himself by mailing out millions of cheques each year, redistributing other people’s money.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! To be consistent, I should point out to the honourable member that he ought to refer to the Prime Minister by his title.

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, indeed. In the next 10 years it will see a $10 billion tax on small businesses, with no compensation and, for many, no capacity to avoid it.

It is a scheme that defies explanation. It is incomprehensible. It is an extraordinarily expensive act of faith. Not only do many government members privately disagree with the scheme; no government member, from the Prime Minister down, can explain it. This is not one ETS scheme but a thousand ETS schemes as bureaucrats impose individual arrangements, definitions and requirements on just about every one of the 1,000 ‘covered’ companies. Its complexity has been deliberately used by the Rudd government as a Trojan Horse to hide the introduction of a great big new tax. It is a con. It will be a huge tax on Australia’s 150-year success with resources and energy while our competitors face no tax. It makes no sense. It will see an increase in everyone’s power bills of around 20 per cent and indirectly see an increase in the price of most services and items purchased. It will be equivalent to increasing the GST from 10 per cent to 12½ per cent.

Yet, without our major competitors engaging in some form of ETS, Australia’s actions will have absolutely no impact on the Great Barrier Reef or on the environment generally. In fact, global emissions could actually increase as investments and jobs, especially from major regional centres, leave Australia and go to developing countries where less efficient factories pump out much more CO2 than Australia does. And without our major competitors engaging in some form of scheme the cost to Australians will be much greater. This cost will be measured in the premature closure of many coal mines, cement works, coal powered generators and fuel refineries and the loss of major investment in new smelters, metal refineries, LNG gas projects, cement works, exploration and much more.

There will be a significant direct and indirect tax on agricultural and manufacturing businesses competing against foreign products where no such tax applies. For example, the average dairy farmer will face a $9,000 tax, with no capacity to offset this cost. The scheme will see tens of thousands of jobs at risk, the permanent and serious shrinkage of major regional centres, and the loss of major investments; yet little or no impact on CO2 emissions. In fact, work commissioned by the state governments suggests that 126,000 jobs will be at risk and key regional centres will shrink by 20 per cent. One $4 billion investment to extend an aluminium smelter in the Hunter Valley will be shelved. This project alone will see the loss of 15,000 construction jobs and 3,000 permanent jobs. It is why Australia must not find itself, effectively, going alone.

These problems were obvious last year. Yet, to add salt to the wound, the government has ignored the implications of the fiasco in Copenhagen. None of the world’s top five emitters of greenhouse gases look like introducing an emissions trading scheme. For nearly two months now the Rudd government has ducked any debate about Copenhagen’s failure to make any progress on a global approach to carbon emissions, or to discuss the extraordinary problems confronting the IPCC. It is a case of ‘see no evil, hear no evil’. It only serves to reinforce community suspicions that the Prime Minister is more interested in the politics than in good policy for Australia.

The Prime Minister cannot keep demanding that it is ‘my way or the highway’ when so much is at stake and attempts to achieve a global approach to carbon abatement are in disarray. It is totally wrong and disingenuous to suggest that a climate change disaster is the inevitable consequence of not supporting this deeply flawed emissions trading scheme, or to suggest that Australians have no choice or no alternative but to lock themselves into this ETS ahead of our major competitors.

There is nothing God-given about the Prime Minister’s scheme. There are other designs for emissions trading schemes and there are other direct action plans. In fact, a large number of countries, including the United States and most of our major competitors, at this stage are looking at reducing emissions without an emissions trading scheme—using direct action such as incentives and regulations combined with energy efficiency measures, renewable energy, reafforestation, storing carbon in soil, cleaning up industrial practices and coal fired electricity generation, algae, fugitive emissions, transport, nuclear power and more. Many of these mirror the coalition’s direct action plans.

Yet the government suggest that their ETS is necessary for business certainty. This is a furphy. The only certainty facing Australian business if we go it alone with an ETS would be that they face a great big new tax which fluctuates somewhere between $25 and $40 per tonne of CO2 in the first few years, costing between $12 billion and $16 billion a year, while their competitors face zero tax. Surely major uncertainty would exist in the making of long-term investments in Australia if companies have no idea if, and even when, their major competitors would face a price on carbon. It could be 10, 15, 20 or 30 years away.

The government suggest that their ETS will cap emissions. This rings somewhat hollow when Treasury modelling estimates that Australia’s emissions will continue to increase under the Prime Minister’s ETS until the mid-2030s, over 20 years away. It also ignores the fact that nearly half the government’s emissions reduction will not occur in Australia. They will occur in other countries who sell offsets to Australian companies to meet their obligations. In fact, according to Treasury modelling, Australia’s actual annual CO2 emissions in 2020 under the ETS will be a mere two million tonnes less than they will be in 2012, with 585 million tonnes as against 587 million tonnes without the ETS. Whereas the five per cent reduction in CO2 emissions under the coalition plan will occur in Australia, with emissions in 2020 reduced to 525 million tonnes, as against the government’s 585 million tonnes.

Furthermore, the ETS in Europe has failed miserably to cut emissions in Europe or to achieve any sort of cap in Europe. Most European nations will not even meet their Kyoto targets. That is why the Minister for Climate Change and Water refuses to guarantee that the Rudd ETS will cut carbon emissions. The government claim that the Prime Minister’s ETS is necessary and preferable because the polluter pays, and not the taxpayer. This proposition is simply dishonest. To begin with, if the polluter pays and not the taxpayer then why is it proposed to have billions of dollars of compensation? The truth is that ultimately the $12 billion to $16 billion tax is passed on to households in the form of higher prices and/or lost jobs, and to small and medium businesses in the form of higher costs, lost business opportunities and less growth.

Our electricity generators do not compete against imports and do not export their electricity. Apart from the billions of dollars lost in their asset values, these generators will pass on the billions of dollars of CO2 tax they will pay each year in the form of higher electricity prices. That is why electricity prices will rise quickly by around 20 per cent. The electricity price increase hits households and the 750,000 small to medium size businesses. Many businesses will pass on some or all of the cost increase, where they can, in the form of higher prices for goods and services. However, hundreds of thousands of businesses that export or compete against imports that have no ETS tax will not be able to pass it on. It will go straight to their bottom line and they will be less competitive. Less growth and job losses will be the end result.

Other large companies competing on export markets, like aluminium or coal producers, or competing against imports, like cement manufacturers, will be less competitive. For example, in the first 10 years of the Prime Minister’s ETS, coal producers will face an estimated total CO2 tax of around $14 billion and get compensation of $1.5 billion. This represents a net tax of $12.5 billion on our coal industry at a time when world demand for energy is expected to increase by 30 per cent in the next 20 years to 2030, and when coal is expected to fill 27 per cent of that 30 per cent increase in energy demand because of the lack of alternative energy sources.

This $12.5 billion tax will see the closure of some coalmines and fewer new coalmines open. It makes absolutely no sense. Jobs and investment will be lost and all for no global environmental advantage, as the coal will simply be sourced from other countries, often from sources of dirtier coal. If Australia goes it alone with this great big new tax, investment in all these large energy intensive and resource based companies competing on world markets will be reduced. Many will invest in other countries where there is no ETS. In effect, Australia’s ETS will lead to the export of Australian jobs and the export of emissions. In the end, the big polluters will not pay; households and small businesses will pay in terms of higher prices or lost jobs or both. These are the reasons why the coalition has rejected the government’s scheme twice and will do so again.

With the release of the coalition’s direct action plan there is now an alternative. Now the Australian people have a choice before them on the question of dealing with emissions abatement and emissions reduction. Australians have a choice between a practical, direct action approach to reducing emissions or a great big new tax which carries huge risks for jobs, for the cost of living and for many industries. Not only that; the Australian people have a choice between a practical, direct action scheme which is understandable and an emissions trading scheme which is incomprehensible. People now have a choice between an incentive based scheme or a highly punitive tax based scheme. People have a choice now between an affordable $10 billion scheme or an economically crushing $114 billion tax based scheme. Our scheme is much, much cheaper while meeting the same targets in 2020.

The Labor member for Melbourne, Lindsay Tanner, describes the government’s ETS as an insurance policy. Well, the coalition’s direct action plan is also an insurance policy. Both insurance policies will deliver a five per cent cut in emissions by 2020, but the difference is that one carries a policy premium of $114 billion and the other a premium of $10 billion. Furthermore, the ETS insurance policy also carries an excess involving uncompetitive industries, lost jobs and the prices of everything we buy being driven up. The coalition’s plan provides incentives for Australian families and businesses to reduce their carbon emissions, while addressing some of Australia’s serious environmental problems. An emissions reduction fund will provide financial incentives to support practical carbon reduction activities by business and industry.

Businesses will put in a market tender for these incentives to help them finance the improvements of energy efficiency, the storing of carbon in the soil or trees, the harnessing of fugitive methane emissions at coalmines or landfills, the development of renewable energy, the phased closure of old and inefficient coal fired generators and so on. Those that can deliver the least cost abatement will be successful with their tender, as overseen by an independent board.

Carbon abatement can involve market mechanisms without the use of an ETS. As such, the centrepiece of the coalition’s direct action plan is totally consistent with Liberal market principles. Furthermore, rebates which the direct action plan provides will aim to see one million additional solar energy roofs on homes around Australia. Solar towns and solar schools will be created, along with encouragement of geothermal and tidal towns, green corridors and urban forests.

The coalition’s direct action plan mirrors similar direct action initiatives that dominate the response, for the foreseeable future, of our major competitors. In many ways the plan also captures the sort of excellent thinking that drove the development of the Howard government’s $10 billion direct action water plan for the long-term rehabilitation of the Murray-Darling system. There are very successful precedents for these sorts of direct action plans. They dominate the thinking and the approach being adopted in the United States, the biggest emitter, in China, the second biggest emitter, in India, the third biggest emitter, in Japan and in many other countries around the world. People are looking to see what progress they can make while there is further thinking being given to a global approach.

In conclusion, the coalition plan buys Australia time to see what the rest of the world is doing. It allows Australia to do constructive things, to meet the five per cent 2020 targets without breaking the bank or doing risky, job-destroying things by going it alone on this emissions trading scheme. It ensures we do not get too far ahead of the world. Yet it does not preclude Australia being part of any future global scheme if that should occur. It is plain common sense which protects jobs while making progress on emission reductions.

As Dick Warburton, chairman of the government’s Expert Advisory Committee on emissions-intensive trade-exposed activities, said after Copenhagen’s failure:

I think there should be a delay in whatever we do until we have a clear picture of the best course.

Mr Warburton said there was no rush—‘We need to get it right.’ Here is a man with enormous business experience, someone who involved himself deeply in helping the government with the design of the scheme, giving independent advice on the impact so that the major employing industries, the big resource and energy industries, the industries that we are so good at, the industries that we have led the world with for 150 years, are not disadvantaged. We are good at these industries. That is why we have to make sure they are not disadvantaged by the premature introduction of a scheme here when there is no equivalent scheme amongst our major competitors. We have to maintain our competitive position, as Dick Warburton signals with his comments, in any scheme that we bring in. We need to apply some plain common sense to protect jobs while still starting the process of encouraging important and effective investment in emission reduction technology and activities around this country.

The Prime Minister’s ETS is a dog of a scheme and must be opposed. People now have a choice: they can either incur the massive tax, the risk, the uncertainty, the increased cost of everyday living and the job insecurity that will come with the Prime Minister’s emissions trading scheme or they can choose a direct action scheme which is affordable and understandable and which will provide an incentive for industry in Australia to reduce CO2 emissions.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to support the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and the related bills. I begin by quoting a well-known scientist:

The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations.

Our ability to come together to stop or limit damage to the world’s environment will be perhaps the greatest test of how far we can act as a world community. No-one should under-estimate the imagination that will be required, nor the scientific effort, nor the unprecedented co-operation we shall have to show. We shall need statesmanship of a rare order.

          …            …            …

In recent years, we have been playing with the conditions of the life we know on the surface of our planet. We have cared too little for our seas, our forests and our land. We have treated the air and the oceans like a dustbin. We have come to realise that man’s activities and numbers threaten to upset the biological balance which we have taken for granted and on which human life depends.

We must remember our duty to Nature before it is too late.

That is a quote from a speech given at the second World Climate Conference in Geneva on 6 November 1990 by former Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who also held a degree in natural sciences and chemistry. It is clear that Margaret Thatcher took no notice of her low-level adviser Lord Christopher Monckton.

Climate change, its causes and its consequences, have now been globally debated for decades. In more recent years, global warming has been at the forefront of political debate and policy making across the world and here in Australia. Why? Because the quantum of reliable scientific advice, available over many years from across a range of scientific institutions in many countries and spanning generations of scientists, alerting us to global warming and warning us of the consequences, simply cannot be ignored.

The University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Centre in Sydney last November, through the contributions of 26 of the world’s leading climate experts, summarised the science on climate change in their publication The Copenhagen Diagnosis. I urge all members of this House to have a look at that document.

In the limited time available, I will endeavour to summarise the issues surrounding the climate change debate by briefly touching on its causes and its consequences and the international response. Scientists have been researching and analysing data relating to global warming for decades. International focus was drawn to global warming initially with the first World Climate Conference in Geneva in 1979. That conference led to the eventual creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That was followed by the second world conference, again in Geneva, in 1990 and then by the Rio summit in 1992, Kyoto in 1997, Bali in 2007 and lastly Copenhagen in December 2009.

Over the past two decades, scientific climate studies have been more intensive and more precise. Notably, no country that I am aware of refutes global warming. I understand that 192 countries attended the 2009 Copenhagen conference. Governments from all sides of politics—conservative, liberal, socialist and communist, including former Prime Minister John Howard—have accepted the science on global warming. As with all science, there will always be different opinions, inconclusive evidence and doubt. But you do not have to rely solely on scientists. The evidence is with us, around us and visible.

The decade 2000 to 2009 was the hottest decade on record, continuing a trend of the last three decades. Data from NASA shows that the 20 warmest years on record have occurred since 1981 and 10 of the warmest years have occurred in the past 12 years. The last four years of Murray inflows have been about one-quarter of the long-term average. These are undisputed facts, not scientific predictions. I have observed the weather changes in my own lifetime.

If we accept that global warming is occurring, the question then is: what is causing it? Clearly, the answer to that question determines what our response should be. Scientists tell us that taking into account solar factors and other natural phenomena, human-caused greenhouse gas emissions—mainly carbon dioxide—are contributing significantly to the climate changes that we are seeing. A diversity of scientific researchers—including weather scientists, atmospheric researchers, oceanographers and ice core samplers—all confirm that carbon levels are rising. That carbon levels are rising should be a matter of commonsense. You simply cannot have the extensive land clearing of the past century and increased burning of fossil fuels and population growth without causing rising levels of carbon dioxide—unless of course you simultaneously have a carbon emissions reduction strategy.

Carbon dioxide is undeniably a plant food source. A heavy concentration of it in the atmosphere, however, traps in heat. Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide mean that more carbon dioxide will be absorbed into ocean waters. That in turn leads to ocean acidification. Global warming inevitably and logically leads to rising sea levels, melting ice, hotter summers and extreme weather events. That is not complicated science. Those trends are already with us. I note that at Copenhagen, while there was no agreement about a universal carbon reduction target and about who should shoulder the burden of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there was no disagreement from among the 192 countries represented that carbon levels should be reduced. Both advanced and developing countries across the world agree on that.

That brings us to what can be done and what our options are. We can change the way we live and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, of which carbon dioxide is the major contributor. We can look for cost-effective ways of capturing and storing carbon emissions. We can look at long-term population reduction strategies. I believe we should consider all options. Taking all factors into account—including the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, provide long-term business certainty, encourage alternative energy investments, assist households with additional costs, have the ability to trade carbon internationally, have a scheme with a built-in flexibility on lifting carbon dioxide emission reduction targets and not to jeopardise Australia’s international exports—the CPRS scheme ticks all the boxes.

Whatever response we adopt must be part of a global strategy, because we are dealing with a global problem in which atmospheric greenhouse gases are not contained within the borders of individual countries. The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme provides the most efficient and most cost-effective option under consideration. That is why Dr Peter Shergold recommended an ETS to the Howard government, that is why Professor Ross Garnaut recommended an ETS to the Rudd government, and that is why some 36 countries around the world, and many US states, have adopted an ETS or are in the process of doing so.

Put simply, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme places a limit on the carbon emissions of Australia’s 1,000 or so largest polluters—that is, those who emit over 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. It puts a price on carbon, and it compensates households who are anticipating cost-of-living increases, expected to be around 1.1 per cent. After the first year the carbon price will be determined by the market. By putting a price on carbon, we encourage investment in alternative energy sources and technologies. We discourage wasteful use, and we can participate in a global carbon trading scheme. By capping or limiting carbon output, we can manage the process and make our contribution to global emission reductions.

I now turn to the coalition’s alternative policy—a disingenuous policy which has no substance, no credibility and no commitment. Firstly, the policy does not cap emissions—fundamental to the success of any scheme. In fact, independent analysis of the scheme estimates that CO2 emissions will rise by 30 per cent or more. Secondly, the largest polluters get off scot-free. Those who are causing the problem pay no penalty whatsoever. For them it will be business as usual if they choose to do nothing. Thirdly, the coalition’s scheme imposes a $3.2 billion direct tax on the Australian people. Furthermore, the full cost to the community of the coalition proposal has yet to be established and may well be much greater than $3.2 billion. Fourthly, it continues business uncertainty with respect to future capital investments in this country—a point well made by the member for Wentworth when he addressed the House on this very matter. While business investment is held back, Australia slowly falls back in its competitiveness with overseas countries in a range of areas.

I want to comment on two other key features of the coalition’s policy, and they are the issues of planting trees and soil carbon sequestration. There is nothing new in those proposals. Governments around the world and certainly within Australia have been planting trees for decades in order to try to restore our environment. Carbon sequestration in soils is also a matter that has been under consideration for a long time. Both rely on the environmental absorption of carbon dioxide. The problem is that you cannot rely on environmental issues because they are uncontrollable. How many of the proposed 20 million trees will die because of floods, winds, droughts and fires? How many hectares of farmland will be lost the same way in a bad year? These are risks which, with all the best intentions in the world, simply cannot be controlled. In other words, we cannot ever guarantee how much carbon dioxide will be absorbed by trees and soil, because we are dependent on climatic factors. Conversely, we can manage how much carbon dioxide will be emitted by large polluters—you simply control the amount that they are permitted to emit.

I also want to comment on the soil sequestration of carbon dioxide from another perspective. I said earlier that the concept is acknowledged as having merit. The reality, however, is that we are a long way off managing and measuring the effectiveness of terrestrial sequestration of carbon. Again, claims made by the opposition about soil sequestration of carbon are being grossly exaggerated. I quote a recent paper on this topic by Professor Spike Boydell, Adjunct Professor John Sheehan and Senior Research Consultant Jason Prior:

The science about sequestered carbon in soil and other forms of biota is still dubious, requiring considerable further research, particularly in respect of the time dynamics of soil carbon responses to land use changes and soil-plant interactions.

Clearly we still have a great deal of work to do in respect of the agricultural sequestration of carbon. How can the coalition be committed to an emissions reduction policy when the coalition’s key leadership group—their leader, the member for Warringah, Tony Abbott, Senator Nick Minchin and Senator Barnaby Joyce—do not believe that global warming is real? The member for Warringah, the Leader of the Opposition, has said he thinks climate change is ‘absolute crap.’ Senator Minchin thinks it is a left-wing conspiracy. Senator Joyce is not convinced by the science. If you do not believe in global warming or that carbon emissions are a problem, then how can you seriously commit to a carbon reduction policy?

What the coalition have committed to is a political strategy, not a climate change strategy. It is a strategy based on a deeply flawed scheme, a fear campaign and personal attacks on the Prime Minister. It is a climate policy that does less, costs more and is unfunded. The saying ‘If something sounds too good to be true it usually is’ certainly applies to the coalition’s climate change policy. We are aware of the difference of opinion on the detail of the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme bill. In good faith we attempted to negotiate with the opposition on the differences over recent times. In that regard I commend the member for Groom for the considerable work he put in on behalf of the coalition in the lead-up to Copenhagen. I also congratulate the member for Wentworth for his honesty and courage in taking the position he has and for the way he articulated the case for an ETS in a speech on this bill.

It would be politically convenient to ignore the science and do nothing. That would be the easy option, but it would be politically irresponsible and politically weak. Australia is the world’s largest per capita emitter of carbon emissions. Recent data from the US Department of Energy shows that Australians emit an average of 20.6 tonnes of carbon per person per annum compared to 19.8 tonnes for Americans, the second highest polluters. We have a responsibility and the ability to act. We went to an election with a commitment to act on climate change, as did the coalition, by introducing an emissions trading scheme. We are delivering on that commitment; the coalition is reneging on their 2007 election promise. I notice that a number of speakers in this debate were not only members of the coalition that went into the 2007 election with that commitment but they were ministers of the government of the day. What has changed since then? The science certainly has not changed. What has changed is their political opportunism that they see in opposing the government’s scheme today and putting up their Clayton’s scheme as an alternative.

Each year we delay action in respect of climate change the problems mount and the response becomes more costly and more difficult. The opposition have been opposed to an ETS right throughout the term of this government. If we look at their track record even in this place since the government first put the CPRS on the table, they have used one excuse after another in order to justify deferring making a decision. They first wanted to wait for the Garnaut report. Then they wanted to wait for the Treasury modelling. Then they wanted to wait for the white paper on the CPRS. Then they wanted to wait for the Pearce report, one of their own reports. Then they wanted to wait for the Senate inquiry. Then they wanted to wait for the Productivity Commission report. And then they wanted to wait for Copenhagen. But the reality is that they never wanted the scheme to be approved even before Copenhagen, and that has been made abundantly clear as we look back on their track record over the last couple of months. The whole purpose of the leadership change was related to blocking the CPRS from getting up in this parliament. Now they say we need to defer and delay again because things have changed as a result of Copenhagen. The science has not changed as a result of Copenhagen. Yes, the politics have, but our obligation to act on behalf of the people of this country and on behalf of the people of this world has not changed one iota. And the science continues to tell us that climate change is real and we have a responsibility to act.

Finally, I say this to members opposite, many of whom I know agree with the government and with their former leader, the member for Wentworth, that the government’s CPRS should be supported. If you accept the science of climate change, and I know that many of you do, this issue should be above politics. If we are overreacting, the result will be a cleaner global environment. It may also be a restructured economy. But it will be a better world for having done so, and that can only be a good thing. If the climate change science is right, however, and we fail to act then we will rightfully be condemned by future generations. I commend this bill to the House.

Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Finally we have some common sense and plain speaking in regard to climate change and carbon emissions. Let me say upfront that I am not a climate change sceptic, nor do I believe most Australians are. What I am saying is that we must address this issue from a front where we can all participate, not be told that we have to pay a hefty tax, as is the case in this Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and related bills, for something that makes absolutely no difference to carbon emissions. The residents of Gilmore know that the coalition fought to have agriculture excluded from Mr Rudd’s ETS. We had meetings of farmers in Nowra and Ulladulla and we had Senator Barnaby Joyce speak to about 200 farmers at a property in Pyree, one of our largest dairy farms. Without exception all that attended wanted to do their part, but not at the expense of losing their farms by having to pay a tax on all their cows. I also need to mention here that, whilst we had a few emails supporting Mr Rudd’s ETS, they were outnumbered by about 20 to one with the overwhelming majority against it.

The coalition’s policy will allow for incentives, not penalties, for direct action on the environment and climate change. It is a win for common sense and creativity. It does not ask every man, woman and child, and cow, to pay a hefty tax. It invites those who take part to join us and create five per cent emission reduction by 2020. This plan is not about selling people a piece of paper that allows them to pollute; it is about taking real action to make a long-lasting difference. There will be no permits to pollute and buy your way out. Our incentive based plan instead invites people with effective project ideas to put their hands up and make real changes that do not push up prices for businesses and consumers.

The plan involves direct action, is easy to understand and costs $3.2 billion over the next four years compared to Mr Rudd’s ETS, which will cost $40 billion in the same time frame. Key components include an emission reduction target to provide direct incentives to industry and farmers to reduce CO2 emissions; a once in a century replenishment of our soils through investment in soil carbon; a green corridors initiative that will see 20 million trees planted by 2020 to re-establish urban forests and green corridors; development of clean energy employment hubs; a commission to study replacing high-voltage overhead cables in our cities with underground cables, and how good that would be; support for large-scale renewable energy generation and emerging technologies, and a new solar sunrise for Australia—a $1,000 rebate for either solar panels or solar hot water systems for Australian homes; $100 million for our solar towns and solar schools initiatives and $50 million for a geothermal and tidal towns initiative.

This component of the policy, in particular, is a real opportunity for Gilmore to showcase what we already have and to receive assistance to do more. We have a truly unique eco-village proposal for Kangaroo Valley: a ‘future park’ that needs about $1 million to transform a former sewerage site into a marine science facility developing aquaculture, seaweed for medicine and food. We already have a freshwater marine science laboratory at the Shoalhaven campus of the Wollongong university, and this will allow us to expand on the work being done there.

The future park is a creative environmental project that is ready to go, with initial work already being carried out by key stakeholders, including the Shoalhaven City Council. I would like to pay tribute here to Pia Winberg for the extraordinary amount of work she has done on this project. The future park is a great example of innovative thinking coming out of the South Coast. Had the government not changed at the last election I know that we would have funded this project, because it met all of the conditions of the now defunct area consultative committee. However, despite twice submitting an application for funding to this government, under the Jobs Fund, the project has been rejected, which makes me wonder just how serious this government is about significant environmental projects which also create jobs, such as the future park.

The Shoalhaven is also in a great position to be part of any solar town initiative due to its natural assets. Being on the coast we are ideally placed for wind farm technology, a proposal already being investigated by the southern region councils. Our REM scheme is also worth noting. It will turn recycled effluent material into water for irrigation purposes on local farms to assist these vital producers in our region, who are so susceptible to droughts and rising costs. The whole Shoalhaven community is to be thanked for this, with around 85 per cent of those initially surveyed being willing to pay an extra $189 in their rates each year for four years to see the project go ahead. This has directly saved 16 farms in and around Nowra from folding because of the drought. Again, this highlights the vision and the willingness of the Shoalhaven people to make a real difference where the environment and agriculture are concerned.

As I mentioned before, this makes us ideal candidates for large-scale renewable energy initiatives that involve the entire community. Furthermore, the largest ethanol producer in the country is also in my electorate of Gilmore. This is an industry we are very pleased to support, and especially their environmental farms, where literally everything is used and reused. Nothing is wasted and the cattle are thriving. Our coastal location gives us a distinct advantage when it comes to utilising the country’s greatest renewable energy assets: sun, soil, wind and surf. We have also had great success as a community with Green Corps projects and with Work for the Dole, an initiative that actually started through a pilot program in the Shoalhaven.

Hundreds of projects were successfully completed in conjunction with local Landcare groups and farmers for the benefit of not only the local environment but also the young and unemployed people involved. In fact, there is much excitement in the region about the possibility of capitalising on these fundamental tools once again, under the coalition climate action policy’s ‘green army’ component. The people of Gilmore and the rest of Australia want to put ideas forward and support our environment with some government assistance. They do not want stockbrokers in Sydney getting richer while they pay more for the cost of living.

The coalition, in its plan, is recognising the good work that is already being done and helping it to continue. It capitalises on what we have most of in this country—sun and soil—without putting a great big tax on everything. As earlier noted, the coalition’s direct action plan includes a $2.5 billion emissions reduction fund to support carbon reduction activities by business and industry. For the record, I would like to point out the ways in which this approach is different from the government’s emissions trading scheme. Firstly, it is cheaper. Our policy will cost in total $3.2 billion over four years, as opposed to $40 billion. It harnesses the creativity and willingness of people to participate without simply slapping them with a tax for polluting as though that is enough to make a difference. It focuses on practical, tangible benefits. It will not cost jobs. It is not a great big new tax. It will achieve the agreed five per cent emissions reduction target and, importantly, it will not hurt businesses.

The government has failed to explain its ETS to the Australian people and has admitted that the cost of essential products and services will go up, putting pressure on jobs and household budgets. Electricity prices will shoot up by an extra 19 per cent for households in the first two years, and that is just for starters. Small businesses, which will not be compensated under the government’s plan, are already expressing fears about how input cost increases will affect their business. Australia’s 750,000 small businesses contribute over one-third of our total GDP and employ five million people. In fact, Gilmore alone has some 12,500 businesses, with many jobs dependent upon them.

All of this is put at risk by advocating a dramatic increase in costs. In contrast, the coalition will not penalise ‘business as usual’. This provides certainty for businesses and puts their balance sheets in a better position to allow them to actually make positive and effective changes. If businesses go above their usual level of emissions output, they can expect a penalty based on the size of their businesses and how much they have exceeded their level by. On the other hand, businesses that reduce their emissions below their historic average will be able to offer those CO2 abatements for sale to the government, which provides them with a direct financial incentive. Farmers will be able to take part in this in many ways: through carbon sequestration in their soil and through solar and even wind or geothermal technology, and through the planting of trees on their property—a low cost action that would involve a financial reward for them. Electricity generators may decide to invest in gas-fired plants and reap the rewards. Families will face no extra costs and will be offered $1,000 to help install solar panels or solar hot water systems, an initiative I know many families in Gilmore will welcome.

All of these opportunities will mean that families and businesses can participate if they choose. We are inviting them to work with us to create a cleaner, more sustainable environment. The coalition’s plan will not contribute to rising electricity prices or goods and services cost increases. As a result, families will not need any form of compensation. We are confident we will find the money needed in the budget to cover the cost of this policy. I am looking forward to seeing a fully costed set of budget measures being released before the upcoming election.

Finally, I would like to add that community consultation will be an important part of the coalition’s direct action plan. We believe in the importance of engaging the community rather than telling them what is best by insisting that they support a proposal they do not even understand, as is the case with Mr Rudd’s ETS. To do this we will be conducting a series of public forums around the country. That process will begin over the next couple of weeks. It will not be the talkfest that amounted to nothing, like Mr Rudd’s 2020 summit. If he was after policy direction he should have looked at his own backbench and asked them what the people in their electorates were telling them. For example, the members for Throsby and Cunningham might have been able to tell him that people in the Illawarra are nervous about how an ETS might affect vital employment industries in their region. Instead, these forums will be an opportunity for members of parliament to sit down with local residents and genuinely engage in discussions. I know that people in the soon to be new parts of the Gilmore electorate—that is, the Shellharbour area—will be pleased to have the chance to make comments, ask questions and learn exactly what the coalition are putting on the table. They want to be involved and exercise their democratic right to have a say, and I fully intend to give them this opportunity, to fully brief them on the policy and to listen to what they have to say.

It is also worth nothing that extensive information has been released publicly about the coalition’s direct action plan, with 30 pages of policy details, plus question and answer sheets, having been made available some weeks ago. That compares to the five lines that Labor took to the last election. It was not until we started to question Mr Rudd on his ETS, and the tax Australians would have to pay, that the community realised what Mr Rudd actually had in store for them.

In closing, Labor speaks about a global problem. It is. Yet we do not know which countries will do what and nor does the Labor Party. I would like to say how pleased I am that this side of the House has demonstrated good faith with the Australian people by putting forward a policy that encourages participation and fosters creativity rather than just forcing people to pay a dirty big tax and keep their mouths shut. It is a policy we can all understand and, what is more, as Australians we can all make it work.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my contribution on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and cognate bills I would like to start by reflecting a little bit on what the member for Gilmore had to say. If climate change was so simple and so cheap to fix, why didn’t you do anything in the 12 years that you were in government? If it was so simple and required such a quick, magic solution, which the coalition now seems to have come up with, why didn’t you do something in the 12 years that you were in government? Climate change is complicated, It is a really hard, tough problem and it is a hard, tough problem to fix. And, yes, the solution to fixing it is complicated, and it is hard to explain how an emissions trading scheme works. It is a difficult, complex issue. But if we do not do anything, if we bury our heads in the sand, if we as a government try to con the Australian people by saying: ‘Don’t worry too much about it. It is really not that difficult. We have got the solution, this magic solution over here. It is not going to cost you anything,’ we would be lying.

We understand the trouble people are having grappling with this complex policy. It is hard. The problem is hard. But what we are trying to do is to be absolutely honest with the Australian people and say, ‘This is the problem we are facing as a country and as a nation and, when you talk to all of the experts across the world, this is the cheapest and most effective solution we have before us to fix it.’ We know that it will cause some costs to rise. We have been honest about that. But we have then said that we will compensate people for those rises. So I want to say to the member for Gilmore that it is great to see people in here actively having a proper debate about climate change, and she is clearly someone who believes that climate change is happening, unlike some of her colleagues. But if it was so absolutely simple to fix surely someone would have done it by now.

I rise, obviously, in support of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and the associated bills, and I do so for the second time in this chamber. The debate surrounding these bills has obviously generated a lot of interest in the media and in the community. That has been for a very good reason: the debate is in fact probably one of the most important that this generation of politicians has had to grapple with in this parliament for some time. We live on the driest continent on this planet, a planet that has experienced an extended period of lower than average rainfall and higher than average temperatures. This decade is expected to be the hottest on record. We live on a continent that, while it is true that it is nowhere near the scale of China and India in its emissions, is in the direct line of fire for the most dangerous effects of climate change, and we are already seeing them in this country.

Climate change is real. It might be tough to deal with. It might require us to make hard decisions. But if we do not, if we, like the opposition, bury our heads in the sand, the consequences for this country will be very serious indeed. The situation in which we find ourselves in this place today is no different to when I debated the passage of this bill last year. The science has not changed. If anything, the information now available to us today is even more concerning. The advice and recommendations about the best way to turn economies from high-carbon-polluting ones into low-polluting economies has not changed. Emissions trading continues to be internationally regarded as the cheapest and most effective way of reducing emissions. Yet one thing has changed in this debate. That one thing is the political opportunism of the new Leader of the Opposition. In the past we have had people on the other side of this House who firmly believed in climate change saying that they supported an emissions trading scheme. They might have quibbled around the edges at what that scheme would look like—about the prices—but they were absolutely committed to the best and cheapest possible way of reducing emissions, which is through an emissions trading scheme.

Some of those people, including those who are pretty desperate to keep their positions on the frontbench under the new leadership, are now saying something completely different. The member for Paterson said:

I would like to make it clear: the coalition will support an emissions trading scheme ...

The member for Boothby said:

The opposition are in favour of an emissions trading scheme ...

The member for Herbert said:

I remind the parliament that, even under John Howard, our policy was to have an emissions trading scheme. We still have that policy and no amount of Labor spin can alter our resolve.

The member for Cook said:

Australia needs an ETS that suits our circumstances and addresses our needs, a scheme that will cut, not export, emissions and a scheme that will protect, not export, Australian jobs.

The member for Mayo said:

I believe that an emissions trading scheme is one of the policy levers that can be used to change the energy mix in Australia.

One of my favourite quotes is from the member for Groom—all of these are quotes from members of the opposition:

There is a need for an emissions trading scheme. Few of us doubt that. I am certain of it, and I have been certain of it longer than the member for Flynn.

The member for Groom went on to say:

I remember quite vividly John Howard ringing me and saying, ‘I think we’re going to have to have an emissions trading scheme.’ In 2007 I had already realised that. We worked to introduce an emissions trading scheme and in fact took an emissions trading scheme to the last election.

That is merely a snapshot of those members opposite who have previously spoken in support of an emissions trading scheme. What has happened to all of those voices supporting an emissions trading scheme? We still have one, and that is the member for Wentworth who sought to show leadership on the issue of climate change and he lost his job because of it. The members opposite have no credibility when it comes to climate change because fundamentally a large proportion of them just do not believe it is happening. They have changed policies and changed leaders or, in some cases, they have changed leaders in order to change policy. It has been pretty confusing to get a picture of where they sit on this issue. The end result has been a party who now stands for nothing and a leader who believes climate change ‘is absolute crap’ and who is delivering to the Australian people a climate change con job.

Members of the Rudd government do not doubt that climate change is real. The climate science is there and, because we know that the science exists, we know that we have to act. Scientists across the globe are telling us that carbon pollution is contributing to climate change—that we are contributing to climate change. We recognised this a long time ago. We understood that Australia would feel the impacts of climate change more severely than many other countries. The risk to this country is great. More importantly, we also understood that the longer we take to act the greater the potential harm.

That is why members of this government have a clear way forward. In contrast to the Liberal Party, we have a clear position on climate change and, more importantly, we have a united position on tackling its most dangerous effects. Our scheme is a simple one. We make polluters pay, we provide incentives for investment in cleaner technology and we compensate the majority of families for increased costs. Our scheme is the lowest cost way of reducing emissions. Our scheme will see 92 per cent of households compensated for the impact of the scheme. We have been upfront about it with the Australian people, with Treasury modelling showing that there will be about a one per cent increase in household costs overall. Our scheme is widely recognised as the best approach to reduce carbon pollution, an approach that John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull and Joe Hockey have all previously supported and that some of them continue to support. We have outlined an approach that is accepted by governments across the world, one that is supported by scientists and that recognises the reality of climate change. Many members opposite argue that with this bill we are acting all on our own, but they fail to recognise that an emissions trading scheme is widely recognised by all major economies as the best way to tackle and reduce carbon emissions. Our carbon emissions trading scheme is the strongest way to meet our carbon emissions reduction target and keeps our 2007 election commitment that we would tackle climate change, a commitment that was overwhelmingly supported by the Australian people in that election.

Let me briefly outline some of the details of this bill. The government is proposing to establish a carbon pollution reduction target. We are making a commitment to reduce our carbon emissions by five per cent by 2020, and that commitment is unconditional. We have also committed to reduce carbon emissions by up to 15 per cent or 25 per cent conditional on the actions of others. I have made no secret in this parliament that I am in favour of having a higher carbon emissions reduction target. Let me remind the House that these are targets the Liberal Party supported last year. Therefore, if we are to assume that these targets have bipartisan support then we should assume that both parties have a plan to achieve these targets, although with the announcement of the Abbott plan we see that the coalition are no longer serious about climate change as under their plan these targets will not be achieved. In fact, under the scheme proposed by the opposition, we have already heard reported in the media that emissions will rise by 13 per cent. They will not go down by the five per cent that they claim is their target, the same target as ours, but in fact will go up.

Our plan, the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, will enable the federal government to set a target to reduce our carbon print. Our scheme will provide a mechanism whereby companies that emit carbon pollution will need to buy a permit to produce that pollution. We put a price on carbon and we create an incentive for those producers to therefore reduce their costs. We also provide an incentive for polluters to invest in renewable energies. This is what the government is all about—we are setting our nation up for the longer term and to do this we must provide industry with the means to achieve it. Furthermore, the revenue received from the sale of these permits will be given back to businesses and households to assist them with the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. As I said earlier, under our scheme households will be compensated for the impact of the emissions trading scheme. Under the Liberal Party’s plan costs will go up. They have to pay for it somehow. The only way they can pay for it is by either increasing taxes or cutting services to hospitals, education, defence, infrastructure and roads. They have to pay for it from somewhere, but they have not made their plans transparent about that. People’s costs will go up, but there is no compensation in their scheme.

The Liberal Party have a long history of ducking the issue of climate change. We started with the Howard policy No. 1: ‘Climate change doesn’t exist or, if it does, I really don’t want to talk about it.’ Howard policy No. 2 was: ‘Climate change does exist—maybe I’d better cobble something together before the 2007 election because I could lose it.’ The Nelson policy on climate change was—well, frankly, what policy? We had the Turnbull policy, which was to support an ETS with the backing of half his colleagues. Unfortunately, he lost his job as a result. And now we have the Abbott policy—slap something together to try and score a few votes with no real thought about what they are actually going to be doing in relation to climate change itself.

There are some real problems with the opposition’s policy. Firstly, if you think climate change is ‘crap’—and again I quote, because it is not language I use myself—maybe you are not the best person to be developing your party’s climate change policy, frankly. I find this passing strange when eminent scientists across the globe are overwhelmingly telling us that climate change is real. They may have some disagreements about its impacts—it is a pretty imprecise science to project exactly what is going to happen—but they are all pretty adamant that climate change is real.

The new Leader of the Opposition, in a road to Damascus moment when he was out touting his book at a Liberal Party fundraiser with a less than representative sample of a very small community—a fantastic community in the town of Beaufort—suddenly declared as a result of this meeting with Liberal Party members in Beaufort, ‘Climate change is crap but the politics are against us, so I’m going to support it.’ A bit later on he thought: ‘I might be on a bit of a winner here. I actually think we might entirely change our whole position in relation to supporting the government, because I think the politics are shifting.’ This is great leadership—really impressive leadership. Instead of maybe talking to the community members at Beaufort about why climate change is real and why it is important to act, understanding that they have some concerns about it but convincing them of what the evidence says, let’s forget all about the evidence. Let’s take this small, unrepresentative sample of Liberal Party members sitting out there in the great town of Beaufort and let them convince the Leader of the Opposition that climate change is crap, the politics have changed and they should absolutely overturn not only the ETS policy but their leader as a result.

The coalition’s policy is fundamentally flawed because it does not tackle climate change, it costs taxpayers more and it is totally unfunded, which means that members opposite are going to either increase taxes or cut services. Members opposite should be clear with people in my electorate whether they plan to increase taxes or whether they instead plan to cut vital government funding in areas such as health, schools or even infrastructure. My concern is that members opposite are going to slug taxpayers in my own electorate or they are going to cut vital services. The Liberal con job is three times more expensive than the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and will do nothing to reduce emissions.

The Department of Climate Change has found that the Liberals’ policy will increase emissions, not reduce them. Bloomberg New Energy Finance yesterday said that the price of carbon under the opposition’s scheme will result in a massive impost on business. The opposition are trying to tell the Australian people: ‘You won’t have to pay anything under our scheme. There’ll be no cost.’ If the price for carbon under the opposition’s scheme is going to be a massive impost on business, you are going to pay for it, and there is no compensation under the opposition’s scheme. The Abbott climate con job fails to put a cap on pollution because it gives polluters an absolutely free ride. Our plan sets a price for the pollution that is produced by industry, therefore creating an incentive for business to, firstly, reduce emissions and, secondly, invest in renewable energies. The fact that the coalition have failed to address this fundamental element is mind-boggling and will subsequently result in the failure of their policy.

The next major concern that exists in the coalition’s proposal is in the maths. What you can see from the coalition’s plan is that it is not funded. They are trying to say: ‘Don’t worry about this plan. It’s not going to cost you anything at all. It’s going to reduce emissions. It’s this magical cure that we’ve got for climate change. It’s really simple. It’s not going to cost you anything.’ Again, you have to pay for it by either raising taxes or cutting services, and you should be honest with people about what you are planning to do. It is only fair for people across the community to be aware of what it is we are debating and what they will be paying for.

I want to finish on a few of the reasons that I personally am supporting these bills. As a federal member of parliament, I recognise the importance of decisions that I make in this place on behalf of the community that I represent. Not all of the community agrees with the decisions I make—I know that—but I have to make those decisions on the basis of the evidence I have before me. That is what leadership is about. I recognise the importance of this decision and the effect it will have on future generations—our children, our grandchildren and their children. That is fundamentally what this debate is about. My decision to support these bills is vital for our children, our grandchildren and their children. It goes to the heart of what we represent as political leaders. These bills seek to structurally change our economy to support jobs for our nation for the longer term. The legislation does not represent a bleak future, as members opposite would lead us to believe. Our plan will provide an opportunity for new jobs, new possibilities and a cleaner future. It will put Australia ahead of the race to tackle climate change. The legislation will ensure our nation steps up to tackle climate change, it will set our local economies up for the long term and it will give Australian families a competitive advantage compared to our international counterparts.

The answer to this debate is pretty simple: the Rudd government plan that addresses climate change at a minimal cost to households or a backwards coalition con job that slugs taxpayers and will in fact increase emissions? Our plan will reduce our nation’s carbon footprint. The Liberals’ plan will see taxpayers cough up $10 billion for a climate change policy that has been developed by a leader who thinks climate change is ‘absolute crap’. The Rudd government’s plan will make polluters pay for their emissions, and the Abbott con job plan will give polluters a free ride and slug households instead. Our plan delivers assistance to families with money raised from polluters, and assistance to pensioners and low- and middle-income households. I would like to finish by quoting the member for Wentworth. When he put the question, ‘Is the CPRS the best policy?’ he said the answer absolutely ‘must be yes’. I urge the members opposite to listen to their colleague, to show the leadership that their colleague has shown and to support these bills.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Certainly honourable members on this side of the House have listened to their constituents and have listened to the very many phone calls that we have received from people who are worried about Labor’s great big new tax. In my own electorate the sense of feeling as far as contact from the community is concerned is running at about 97 to 98 per cent opposed to Labor’s great big new tax. I listened carefully to the honourable member for Ballarat, a person for whom I have some personal regard. I listened to what she said as she pleaded with us to support Labor’s great big new tax because it was in the interests of our children, grandchildren, their children and so on. One sometimes wonders if some honourable members exist in a vacuum. It might be one thing to bring in Labor’s great big new tax if this great big new tax of $120 billion would somehow solve any problem in the world in relation to emissions. If this were the solution to a possible world environmental problem then one could understand that maybe Labor’s great big new tax of $120 billion could arguably be the way to go.

I am not convinced, even in that circumstance, that Labor’s great big new tax is a tax that it would be fair to ask the Australian public to pay. What Labor is doing is asking us to pay, collectively as a nation, a great big new tax of $120 billion—more than a thousand dollars for every household in Australia—when Australia’s share of world emissions is arguably as low as 1.2 per cent of emissions around the world. I have heard other figures of 1.3 or 1.4 per cent, but certainly no-one suggests that Australia is a major polluter. That is not to say that we ought not to do our part as part of a world solution to a possible world problem.

I would be the first to say that I am not an expert on the science of climate change. I have listened to arguments put forward by eminent scientists on both sides and I have to say I think the jury is out. But personally I am quite happy to give the environment the benefit of the doubt. That is why the policy put forward by the Liberal-National opposition, which does not involve a great big new tax, in my view is very much the way to go. We operate on the basis of incentives and not on the basis of penalties. We operate on the basis of encouraging Australians to do what we collectively can to improve the environmental outcome for our country and indeed for the world at large. But we do not propose a great big new tax of $120 billion such as that introduced by this government.

This tax of $120 billion will not make one jot of improvement for the world environment unless the rest of the world commits towards doing something to reduce their own emissions and their own pollution. It is interesting that the largest polluters in the world do not have an ETS, and what is particularly interesting in recent days is that President Obama is now less likely than he would otherwise have been to have an ETS. So it could be that this government is leading Australians down the garden path. They are leading us in the direction of a great big new tax which will cripple our economy, make our exports less competitive and make imports cheaper while at the same time not making any appreciable improvement in the world environment. It seems to me that really what the government should have done, particularly following the failure of Copenhagen, is to look at what was right for Australia as part of the world community and not simply ask us to commit some sort of national economic suicide so that the government can be seen to be a trendsetter in the fight against climate change.

What the opposition is proposing is a very practical plan involving direct action based on incentives, not punishing families. I am sorry to be repetitive but what Labor is proposing is a great big new tax of $120 billion. Australian families are finding it difficult enough to survive and exist as it currently is without bringing in an extra tax of $120 billion which Australians cannot afford. Other members on this side have pointed out some of the things involved in our policy of direct action. I will repeat those because I think those who are listening need to know that in this parliament we have two sides. We have a government which is out of touch. We have a government which is prepared to pursue a policy of economic insanity, a policy which will destroy the Australian economy, a policy which will punish Australian families, a policy which brings in a great big new tax and a policy which will not improve the environmental outcome of Australia, let alone the world.

Our policy on the other hand involves cleaning up the power stations that account for almost half of our emissions in Australia; solar, wind, tidal, geothermal and greater use of gas; improved energy efficiency in our buildings; and green carbon measures to improve our farms and our forests, which means providing incentives, not penalties, for farmers and landholders to retain the vegetation that absorbs carbon dioxide, which means providing incentives, not penalties, to encourage better land use on our farms that would retain more carbon in the land than improved soil management. That is about improving productivity, not winding it back, as the Prime Minister now pretends while he secretly negotiates for precisely the reforms we are recommending. What we do is tackle the problem in a practical way instead of having a great big complicated scheme which involves a great big new tax. Instead of saying that what we are suggesting, particularly post Copenhagen, is a very sensible opportunity for us to do something positive without crippling our economy, the government have simply bagged the Leader of the Opposition and the opposition for not going along with their policy of economic lunacy.

Let us look for a moment at Labor’s ETS and what it is going to cost. I mentioned the great big new tax of $120 billion. This will be a bureaucratic tax to the economy, with the government churning or recycling billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money through the system at their own discretion. Interestingly enough, in times past there has been discussion in the community in relation to the GST, and there was a concern that the government would bring in a GST of 10 per cent and that it would steadily creep up. Under the former government, when I was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration and Acting Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and assisted the Treasurer, I had carriage of much GST legislation. It was enshrined in the GST legislation that it was not possible to increase the rate of the GST unless there was an agreement involving every state and territory government and the Australian government.

12:23:11 Labor’s great big new tax effectively involves increasing the rate of the GST from 10 per cent to 12½ per cent. Frontier Economics has projected that the CPRS will impose a $121 billion cost, in NPV terms, to the Australian economy to 2020. I mentioned before that we are a low emitter of about 1.2 per cent; there have been estimations of up to 1.4 per cent. We are a highly trade exposed country, with 32 per cent of our emissions generated in the production of exports compared with eight per cent in the US and 22 per cent in the EU. That means that if we bring in an ETS then that ETS is going to strike at the international competitiveness of Australia’s exports. That will cost tens of thousands of jobs, it will kill major investment and it will do little or nothing to reduce world emissions. Research prepared by Access Economics for state and territory governments around Australia showed that 126,000 full-time jobs will be lost or forgone, mainly in parts of Australia that are not in metropolitan areas. Concept Economics concluded that there will be 23,510 fewer jobs in the mining industry by 2020. Frontier Economics identified that 45,000 jobs would be lost in high-energy intensive industries.

It really is quite amazing to believe that the government—so that it is able to put its hand on its heart and claim that it is doing something to improve the environment when in effect it is doing nothing other than bringing in a great big new tax—is prepared to throw so many Australian families and so many Australian breadwinners on the job scrap heap, because loss of jobs will be one element of the introduction of Labor’s ETS. The ETS will impose a harsher tax on a higher share of Australian industry and households, earlier than the competing scheme in the EU and the scheme that was previously proposed in the US, which is possibly going to be scrapped by President Obama because of difficulties he may experience in having it passed in the American Senate.

The CPRS places a burden on the Australian economy not matched anywhere in the world. I just find that this is absolutely incredible. The CPRS involves 75 per cent of Australia’s GHG emissions compared with 45 per cent in the EU. When one looks at the costs to Australians and Australian enterprises, one only has to look at the cost to families. I mentioned that $1,100 every year, and increasing with the carbon price, will be the cost to family budgets. There will also be a cost to small business. We all recognise that small business is the engine room of the Australian economy. Small business is responsible for the creation of a high proportion of jobs. The CPRS will slash jobs and profitability and, in fact, it will result in job losses in small business. The steep rise in electricity prices will hit the 750,000 small and medium enterprises with an indirect tax which they can do nothing about in the short to medium term.

The Rudd government expects that the businesses will simply pass the costs on to consumers. The ACCI has looked at this and has done some modelling. There will also be a cost to farmers. Our farmers are amongst the most efficient in the world, but they are highly trade exposed. The ETS will put them at a significant competitive disadvantage. It seems to me that it is economic lunacy to be doing this to Australian farmers, particularly when there will not be any benefit to the Australian or world environment. There will be a significant and added direct and indirect tax on agricultural and manufacturing businesses competing against foreign products where no such tax applies. In other words, we force Australian farmers and enterprises to fight the export battle with one hand tied behind their collective backs.

I am advised that a dairy farmer will face a $9,000 tax with no capacity to offset this cost. Where is the dairy farmer going to get the $9,000 that he will have to pay as a result of Labor’s great big new tax? The ETS has failed our farming sector. This tax will increase indirect costs in the meat industry to the tune of $250 million and yet the government has only provided $150 million in total over five years for the meat, malt and dairy sectors. They are all price takers in the international market.

The government seem to be so focused on receiving ticks in international fora that they have completely lost the plot. The Prime Minister was determined to bludgeon the parliament into passing this legislation prior to the Copenhagen summit. He wanted to be able to strut the international stage—I suppose it is part of his long-term aim to become the secretary-general of the United Nations—and walk into Copenhagen and say to other world leaders, ‘Well, look, we’ve done it,’ or more particularly, ‘I’ve done it, and now I want you to follow suit.’ When one looks at international assessments on carbon pollution and the reduction aims, there are some arbitrary inclusions and some arbitrary exclusions.

I would just like to draw the attention of the House to an article in the Australianon page 1, no less—on 8 February entitled ‘Feral camels clear in Wong’s carbon count.’ This was an article by Ean Higgins. It is a particularly interesting article and I would commend it to all honourable members and indeed to anyone listening because it does indicate that the government is focused on emissions that are counted under the Kyoto protocol and not on what in fact is actually happening. This article starts by saying:

There are many ways to skin a camel, but none, it seems, that count towards reducing Australia’s carbon footprint.

Scientists have found camels to be the third-highest carbon emitting animal per head on the planet, behind only cattle and buffalo. Culling the one million feral camels that currently roam the outback would be equivalent to taking 300,000 cars off the road in terms of the reduction to the country’s greenhouse gases.

So what this article is telling us is that if you get rid of these camels, which do cause other problems to our environment, it would be the equivalent of taking 300,000 cars off the road. One would have thought that maybe the government might have been prepared to say, ‘Let’s fund a camel eradication program. Let’s try to trap them, shoot them, export them or something, but let’s get them out of the outback and stop them from destroying pasture and emitting the level of carbon they currently do.’ I think the Minister for Climate Change and Water must have considered this matter when it was put to her, but then the article goes on to say:

But Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told The Australian there was little point doing anything about Australia’s feral camels as only the CO2 of the domesticated variety is counted under the Kyoto protocol. That equates to only a small number of the beasts, the sort found lugging tourists around Cable Beach in Broome and at Monarto Zoo, southeast of Adelaide.

What she is saying is that if we culled the camels it would be the same as taking 300,000 vehicles off the road but that there is no point in culling the camels because even though we would reduce our emissions we would not be given any credit for it.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is all about the credit.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is all about the credit, as the honourable member for Cook at the table says. We would not be given any credit for it.

The opposition climate change spokesman, the honourable member for Flinders, however, was much more savvy than the minister. The article said:

Opposition climate action spokesman Greg Hunt reckons the government has “lost its marbles”. “It’s now reached the absurd situation where a camel in captivity is a threat to the planet but a feral camel in the wild is absolutely fine,” Mr Hunt said.

This government is out of touch. This government has lost the focus which it originally proclaimed it had, and that was to reduce emissions so that we pass the planet on in a healthier state to future residents of the planet. Everyone accepts that Australia produces only 1.2, 1.3 or 1.4 per cent of world emissions—a very tiny percentage. China actually increases its emissions by that amount every eight months. The government is seeking to bring in a great big new tax of $120 billion, which is outrageous.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I draw your attention to standing order 75 about tedious repetition. I am concerned that this member is now in breach of that standing order. He has made reference to a ‘great big new tax’ 19 times now in this debate. I think that is a record in this debate. He has now said it more times than Barnaby Joyce. But there has been no reference to the megatax that the opposition would put on Australian taxpayers.

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

Order! There is no point of order. The custom in this House is that repetitious comment does not apply to speeches.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say it is a great big new tax for the 20th time. (Time expired)

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unlike the member for Fisher, I will not be tedious or repetitious and I will actually talk about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and cognate bills and the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. I will actually talk about our policy, the policy of the opposition, some of the history of where we are today and why the Senate and the opposition should actually side with the government on this. It is because it is in the national interest, in the global interest and, in fact, in their own best interest.

It is always entertaining to come into this place and listen to all sorts of people make all sorts of speeches on matters which they have no belief in or commitment to. It is a real dilemma for a lot of people in the opposition when they really do not believe in what their party is doing. So you hear these bizarre contributions where it is all at the edges and where they try to divert attention from the actual debate to something about camels or something else. You will hear all sorts of things. They will provide wonderful and bizarre statistics and unique examples. They will offer ridiculous solutions. They will find unholy bedfellows and cuddle up to anyone who even looks remotely like siding with them on these matters. They will play the politics of fear and smear, which is nothing new in this place.

Anyone who is a veteran of listening to these speeches will understand exactly what that is about. It is about diverting attention from the real matters at hand that are absolutely of critical importance to our generation. In the end, we are the people who are charged with making the decisions, with moving the debate and the policy forward and with providing a national platform—(Quorum formed)

I thank the opposition for calling a quorum and interrupting my speech because it does two things: one is that it gets my colleagues in to listen to me—so thank you very much—and the other one is that it proves that I must have been saying something so significant that those opposite really did not want to hear it. They are up on their feet now and they want to stop me again. If you give me an opportunity to go through my speech, you will have an opportunity yourself later.

There is no question that this is a global issue. It is an issue that does start at home. If anything, it starts at the national level; and that is exactly what we are proposing. The real risk of climate change is great; and it is something that we must do something about. This is not an issue where we can all sit by and watch and hope that somebody else will take charge. Australia on our own will not change the world. On our own Australia will not have the weight, the gravitas or the capacity to change what is happening in the climate; but we do have a significant opportunity. What we can do is to lead. We can lead by demonstrating to the rest of the world that when you are committed you can take positive action and you can make a difference. We can also innovate. We can look at new ways of doing things and create new economies. We can show the rest of the world how it can be done—whether it is through solar energy plants, whether it is wind energy, whether it is wave energy or whether it is through a range of other innovative things that we can do. We can create new markets and create new technologies. We can assist our neighbours. We can assist the Pacific island countries in our neighbourhood with their issues related to climate change, which I can tell you for them are very real; and they are very real today, not tomorrow.

We can begin the process which everyone in the world is beginning to take on board. We can do that in a proper fashion with a process. We can set a basis and have rules. We can establish a system. What we can do is make it affordable and we can make it acceptable to people. We can make it real. All of this may seem complex and a little confusing at times, and I can understand that because there are a whole range of people out there whose only task in life is to make it complex, to make it confusing and to ensure that ordinary people do not get a real opportunity to make a fair assessment of what it is. Let me put it to you in three points that really encapsulate what we are talking about and how we can move forward.

When you are talking about climate change, the first thing that you must do is to set some sort of a limit—put a cap in place, some sort of measure or benchmark. That is what our policy is about: putting in a cap, having something to measure to and having a benchmark. Without that, you have nothing. If you do not have a benchmark then how do you know where you are going, how do you know where you need to be and how do you know what you ought to be doing to get there. It is a critically important part, and it is simple—everyone understands that. The second thing you must do is to charge the actual polluters, not the taxpayer and not others. You need to give the polluters the incentive but you also need to actually charge the polluters themselves. It is the carrot and stick approach. That will effect change. A voluntary system will not, but charging the polluters will. The third thing you need to have is a market based system. You need to compensate people. People should not have to pick up the bill for what is taking place in the world. They will through a range of mechanisms but there ought to be compensation in place. Really it is quite simple—it is the three Cs: you put a cap in place, you charge the big polluters and you compensate people for the costs that they will face. These are not complex matters; and this is exactly what we ought to be doing.

Let me elaborate on a couple of those points. When we talk about a cap, it is about putting a limit on the amount of carbon pollution that all emitters actually make. Some will emit more carbon pollution than others. But by setting a benchmark, by setting a cap, what we say to people is ‘if you come in below that then you have spare capacity’, if you like. If you come in above that then there is an incentive to reduce your emissions. If you do not, we will charge you for it. It is as simple as that. If you do not, either because you do not want to or because it is difficult or uneconomical today, then you pay a price. We charge the big polluters.

What that means is that you set up a market based system where those who pollute less—and the incentive for them is to reduce their pollution emissions as much as possible—trade on the credit they have and trade it with the big polluters who, for whatever reasons, cannot match the cap. That gives you a market based system. The beauty about a market based system—and the Liberal Party should be very familiar with this concept—is that it is the market that decides, not politicians, not bureaucrats, not anyone else. It is actually based on some real principles about letting the market decide. Let it pick the winners. We are not going to tell you how to do it. We are not going to tell you how to achieve it. We are going to say: ‘Here is a set of rules, here is a system, here is a guide. There is a global marketplace for this. That way we are not just bound on what we do here but on what the rest of the world does as well. Here are the playing rules and a level playing field. You go and do what is necessary based on that.’ For some reason, the great triumphant confluence of supposedly the Liberal Party, small business, big business and the friends of business now seems for the first time to think that a market based solution somehow is evil, wrong and nasty and it should be something else—we should just slug the taxpayer. I do not recall that ever having been the policy of the Liberal Party anywhere in policy statements, but it is nice to see that there has been a change—this massive swing to the ultra-Left, Cuba revisited, from the Liberal Party. So we have put in place a market based system, charging the polluters.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, a point of order on relevance: I wonder if the member has read the Prime Minister’s essay.

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

There is no point of order. There has been enough use of standing orders to limit the opportunity for members to speak and I would advise those in the chamber not to use that tactic again in the near future.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for your protection and for highlighting that point. Charging the polluters is really important, because if you do not have a method by which you can actually make this happen through a compulsory system—a set of rules—then it just simply will not happen. A voluntary system—a compensation fund or something else where people could voluntarily dip in or dip out—might suit one or two, but it is not the basis on which the globe can change or through which we can make real efforts towards carbon pollution reduction in the future. We know the outcome of simply trying to make it a voluntary system. If it is slightly difficult, then people simply do not change. Unfortunately, that happens to be a human trait.

By charging the polluters we ensure that the incentives are built in. They are built in for the market solution for the biggest polluters not only in Australia but in the rest of the world. The big polluters will clean up their act. They will do it for one of two reasons: either because they see a business opportunity or because the penalties are too high and therefore they must clean up their act. This is already happening. I am not talking about something that may or may not happen in the future. I am talking about things that are taking place right now.

A whole range of emitters right across the country, big and small, have already taken on the challenge. They are a step ahead of government. In fact, they are two steps ahead of the opposition. But the reality for them is that they have already agreed that something has to be done. They have seen the writing on the wall. They feel the change that is coming and that it is global. They understand that, to compete, you must compete hard but you are going to have to compete in a new world. This is not unusual. Through industrialisation, through other changes in human history, it is the forward thinkers—the ones who are prepared to take a risk, to lead, to demonstrate how things can be done—that win. We are going to be left behind unless we make the changes. I can assure you that, whether the opposition or anyone else in this place doubts what is happening out in the market, business has already led that change. That march is taking place right now. Only through charging polluters and having a market based system will that actually work. In particular, as I said, this is about making sure that the right people pay, not the taxpayer at large.

The third area that I mention, the three Cs, is that of compensation. Yes, we do—and I do—accept that all these things do not come for free and anyone who tries to tell you that or somehow guise it in the view that it is all for nothing is wrong. There is a cost associated and we are prepared to talk about it. Not only are we prepared to talk about it but also we understand that it will be about one per cent of the cost of living. Where that is the case, we will compensate people. That is the fair thing to do. We do not believe that working families and people on low incomes should have to bear the heaviest burden. We think the heaviest burden should be for the heaviest polluters. They are the ones who pollute and profit greatly from it. Their contribution back is to (a) cut down their pollution and (b) pay for it. It should not be up to every single taxpayer to make that commitment. But consumers and people who use it can be compensated where there is an increased cost. Again, this is a fair and credible set of rules, a way forward, a policy which is not just an Australian policy. It is a global policy, a global system. This is the way that we will be moving forward.

I want to touch on—and I do not have a lot of time left—a range of issues which I think are important. Copenhagen has been pilloried across the opposition benches as being a complete failure. Let me just say that the agreement is not perfect. That is for certain. It is not a perfect agreement, but it is an agreement. There actually is some progress, little be that progress, but progress is better than nothing at all. In contrast to that progress, we have an opposition who like to see us go backwards. They would like to see every country fighting over this. For the first time in history we have rich countries and poor countries agreeing at least on a way forward, however small that may be. It is a crucial step, and what it means is that we ought to all move forward, not move backward.

Australia, as we all know, is a very dry and quite barren country in most parts and prone to a lot of drought. We will be the hardest hit, so there is a bit of self-interest here. I think we have to do something for ourselves here. If we do not lead, who will? I can tell you from talking to my Pacific Islander friends and neighbours that for places like Tuvalu and others it is very real for them right now, today, because they understand it and they see it more than most do.

The science is always an issue. I want to be brief on this; I do not want to argue the science, because I think I would be wasting my time. The reality is that I am not a scientist but neither is anyone else in here a scientist who is an expert on climate change. I take it on good faith. I read, I listen, I attend forums and I use my own intelligence to make decisions—but is that not what we always do on these things? Rather than criticise the science, I either say that I believe it or I do not believe it. I either accept what is being told to me or I do not. Do I accept the CSIRO or the Australian voices? Do I accept it or not? I am no more an expert than anyone else but I do accept it. For me the science is real. The risk of not listening to the science is that we deal a very poor hand for future generations. I am not prepared to take that risk. I think we ought to do something.

That risk might be measured in different ways in relation to how much it will cost us. It might cost us a little; it might cost us a lot. But, whatever that cost is, I am prepared to take the risk and say that we need to do something, because I believe this is real. I know some people believe it is not real. I accept that they believe that it is not real. You will always find some article or somebody who says it is all a con job—a global con job; a global new world order and somehow we are all in on it. By the way, they think you are in on it as much as we are in on it. I do not subscribe to those views. I think we have something real to deal with and we ought to do something about it.

You might think that it was just the Labor Party saying this in this place, but it is not just us. I am not just talking about our belief and conviction. I know that in the Liberal Party—I cannot talk about the National Party; they are a creature of their own design—there are some good, sound minds who did believe in it and who continue to believe in it. In fact, one of them used to be the leader of the Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull. In his contribution to this place he made clear not only his belief but also what we should do, and he talked about a market based solution. He has the three Cs—he has courage, conviction and commitment—and he is prepared to run his own career in those terms.

There are a few things that I also want to say in terms of the differences between our policy and the opposition’s policy. Our policy does not slug the taxpayer; it slugs the big polluters. It is a policy that will actually deliver an outcome. It is costed. It is affordable. We admit that there is a cost, but people will be compensated. It will work. It will actually deliver what we say it is going to deliver, because there has been a sound basis for it—unlike the opposition’s policy. The opposition’s policy is just a big tax fund, and people can volunteer to it. By all accounts, it is actually going to make things worse, not better.

The challenge is now for the opposition: come back to the table and give us the costings. We have already heard the opposition finance spokesman, Senator Barnaby Joyce, say that there are going to have to be big cuts to spending to pay for this new fund, this new tax, that the opposition are putting forward. He has also talked about the Public Service—I wonder if that is Defence or whether he is talking about hospitals or education. The money does not come from nowhere; it is not for free. (Time expired)

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and related bills yet again in the parliament. As the member for Ryan, I have had the great privilege of being a member of this wonderful chamber of democracy, representing the people of Brisbane’s western suburbs, since 2001, and I continue to treasure that honour and that trust. Today in the parliament I again want to express my thoughts and my views and touch a little bit on my philosophy which has brought me to the conclusion that the government legislation is not the right thing for the community I represent, and is not in the best interests of our country.

At the outset, I want to take the opportunity of congratulating and commending the new leader of the federal opposition. I want to compliment Tony Abbott for the courage that he showed last November that saw him become a candidate for the leadership of the federal Liberal Party. I am sure that everyone would agree with me that holding the office of leader of a national political party is indeed a distinct privilege—and I pay tribute to him. Equally, in good grace, I want to pay tribute to his predecessors, Dr Nelson and Mr Turnbull, for their efforts in trying to deliver government for the opposition. Of course, they had great challenges in their own way. Dr Nelson would have been deeply disappointed at his replacement by Mr Turnbull and it is only in the nature of humanity and emotions that Mr Turnbull would have been equally distraught by his loss to Mr Abbott. But I think it is important for all of us to extend goodwill and grace in such circumstances. These things are never easy, but they are also not personal. They are the life of politics, in a sense. For my part, and on behalf of those people I represent who do have high regard for both Dr Nelson and Mr Turnbull, I think it is important that I put on the record my own thoughts in that respect.

Last December, following the change of leadership, I received an email from one of my constituents—Stewart from Brookfield—who said:

I have never before been motivated to contact my local member in 30 years of voting. I note that you have not supported Malcolm Turnbull and Ian MacFarlane in their recommendations on the ETS. Despite the spin that you have placed on your website, you are clearly a climate sceptic. For the sake of our children, you have lost my vote.

I want to first of all thank Stewart very kindly. Obviously I am not going to mention his last name, because I have not had the opportunity of calling him and asking for his consent.

As I said in my maiden speech in 2002, I am a representative and a member of the parliament not just for those who voted for me and not just for those of a coalition political inclination or those who are of a conservative political bent; I am a representative and a member of parliament for all people—for those who voted Labor; for those who voted Democrat; for those who voted Greens; and for those who voted for Independents. I am a representative of everyone. Therefore, I say to Stewart: thank you for expressing your view to me. I also want to respond to Stewart, because that is my duty as his local member of parliament.

There are three points in relation to this. The reason that I do not support the government’s ETS legislation is that it is a great big tax. It is a great big, fat, juicy tax. It is going to be a tax on business; it is going to be a tax on families; it is going to be a tax on every sector of our economy. The second reason is that it is a great big lie. It will not deliver the cuts to emissions that will make an ultimate impact on reducing global emissions that will, supposedly—according to the Prime Minister—save our world and save our civilisation. Emissions will still exist; they will just exist in other places, in other economies. What happens under the government’s ETS is that they are traded—and I will speak more on those two points later.

The third point is that the consequence of this ETS, in my humble judgment, is that it will cost jobs. It will involve the export of Australian jobs to developing economies in Asia in particular, to places like China and India, and that really cannot be in our national interest. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are going to be lost because they are either directly or indirectly connected to energy—to electricity, to power. Our modern way of life means that energy—power supply and electricity—is at the heart of our lifestyle. Energy is at the heart of the very way we conduct our business.

The fourth point is that with the ETS there would be a total transformation of the economic architecture of our country. More to the point this would happen in a very short space of time, literally a handful of years. Surely, with the great impact of a change to the economic architecture, one needs to be prudent, one needs to be careful and one needs to be cautious.

They are the four points that I want to elaborate on in this presentation. In relation to the first point about a great big, fat tax I want to thank a Sydney resident, Dr Michael Cejnar, who contacted me during the leadership ballot and encouraged me to support Mr Abbott. He reminded me of the consequences of adopting this awful policy of the Rudd Labor government. He reminded me to communicate that with my constituents, to sell the message and to elaborate on exactly how it is a carbon tax. I want to thank him because he has very kindly sent me a whole bunch of shirts to hand out to constituents in the Ryan electorate and I intend to do that. The shirts bear the logo, ‘No carbon tax’ and they bear the internet address, www.nocarbontax.com.au. I want to thank him for doing that. I have one here that is XL size and I want to thank him for that.

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

The member for Ryan has displayed his item, he will now put it away.

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I want to elaborate on this great big new tax idea because I am not quite sure that, given the complexity of this legislation and these bills, people really understand the massive impact it is going to have on their businesses, on their lifestyles, on the way that they carry out their daily lives, on their workplaces and in just doing their normal regular activities. Because taxes will touch on every consumer good whose production requires electrical power. I take the example of a hair dryer. I want to elaborate on this because I have here a regular hair dryer—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Ryan is going to test the patience of the chair if he wants to pull a whole range—

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think it is important. We are talking about a significant piece of legislation.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. Let us be clear about this. The standing orders do not encourage the use of props.

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I do—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Ryan will resume his seat. The standing orders do not encourage the use of props. There has been a practice of allowing it where it is deemed to be particularly relevant and within constraints. The display of a standard hair dryer does not seem to me to meet those requirements. I advise the member for Ryan not to test the limits of those provisions of the standing orders nor my patience. I call on the member for Ryan.

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, with all due respect I recall a former leader of the Australian Labor Party, who was also the shadow Treasurer, holding up a little pyjama bear to express a point in relation to the GST. With all due respect, I think it could not be more relevant to show that, when a mum is using a hair dryer, there will be power costs involved. With all due respect, Mr Deputy Speaker, it is entirely relevant and I am flabbergasted that you will not allow me to do that.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Ryan can remain flabbergasted and can now continue his speech.

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. With all due respect, I would like to continue that line of thought. I also have here a regular bottle of orange juice. Of course, it has to be put in the fridge, so therefore there are going to be costs of electricity, there are going to be costs in making this cold—

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I thought you had been most generous to the honourable member for Ryan. You have made a ruling which he is now flouting. The member for Ryan of course is a senior whip.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On that point of order and just to be clear, the Practice is quite clear about the use of props and I am more than well aware of the use of props over a number of years by both sides of the chamber not only in debates but also in question time. I enabled the member for Ryan to display the shirt that had a particular relevance to the debate and to the point he was making. I have made it clear that I do not intend to entertain the use of a whole range of props that he is now proposing to display. If the member for Ryan continues to do that, he will leave me with no choice but to take action and that is not in his interests. I call the member for Ryan.

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If I may seek clarification, I was not intending to put forward a dozen items to make my point. My point was only to raise three or four to suggest the different range of sectors of the economy and the different groups of Australians that would be affected and I am not sure why that is a problem. With all due respect, Mr Deputy Speaker Bevis, and I know you are a fellow Queensland MP, to all those Australians listening this is, in my view, a slap in the face to the people of Ryan, to all those constituents that I have the great privilege of representing. I cannot even come in here as their local member and try to make my point by holding up a little bottle of orange juice to say this is going to be put in the fridge, it is going to use power to be made cold—

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Clearly, the member for Ryan is disputing your ruling. You have given a ruling. He then wishes to argue after you have made the ruling. I believe his conduct is highly disorderly and disrespectful.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Youth and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, the member for Ryan—and I am mindful of your comments—has indicated to the chair that he has three or four items that he wanted to display to talk about the impact of the ETS on ordinary household items. I would not have thought that was excessive, but ultimately I defer to your judgment, of course.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the difficulty with the point the member for Moncrieff raises is that whilst the number may have some relevance, it is not the determining feature itself. The nature of the matters being now brought as display items do not, in my opinion, add to the debate, nor are they necessary for the member for Ryan to make his point. I have sufficient confidence in the skill of the member for Ryan that he is able to speak to the issues without the need for the sorts of props he is now using.

I repeat, for the benefit of the member for Ryan, that I did enable him to use the first prop, which was, if you like, not a standard thing which might be deemed to be necessary to assist him in making his point. I do not think that apples and orange juice meet the same criteria, and he will not use those props. I call the member for Ryan.

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If I may continue; I do recollect in the previous parliament a colleague of ours who brought apples into the chamber and put them on everybody’s desk to make the point about the significance of apples in his home state of Tasmania. Apples are what Australians eat every day; they are good for our nutrition, and the tax on apples is going to be something that I am sure will affect a lot of people all over Australia.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have lost count of the times—I think it is now four times—that the member for Ryan has ignored your ruling to desist from using props. I ask that he be sat down.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am reluctant to do that, and I am endeavouring to enable the member for Ryan to make whatever points he wishes to make in his speech, within the confines of the standing orders and the Practice. On the last, I think, three occasions on which I have made rulings on this matter the member for Ryan has rather returned to the question of whether the ruling is accurate. I advise the member for Ryan to resume his speech on the subject matter or to use the forms of the House if he wishes. I call the member for Ryan.

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just make this observation that, whilst not a senior member of the House of Representatives, I am in my third term and, with due respect to the parliamentary secretary, who has been here for only two years, the observations I make are relevant to previous members in this parliament who have made statements and carried themselves in a certain way to which I was a witness.

In relation to this bill, which I am speaking on again, I know that the people of Ryan and all Australians will be interested to know that when the bill was rejected in the Senate last year it was rejected by a vote of 41 to 33. That was not close. Our constitutional structure is that the Australian parliament is made up of two houses: the House of Representatives and the Senate. Of course the Senate is just as significant as the House of Representatives, so, as a margin of 41 to 33 is so significant, the audacity of the government in bringing this bill back can only say one or two things. It can say that it is hubris and arrogance. To quote a former Prime Minister, it is something that—but perhaps I should not go there. I just want to make the point again that 41 to 33 was a major vote of no confidence by the Senate on this bill. I think, therefore, that this arrogance that the Rudd Labor government is starting to embrace must cease immediately.

I am disappointed that my time is fast running out but I think I have made my point in relation to orange juice and apples and the simple hair dryers that are probably in the drawers of every household in the country, and how these items will be affected by an ETS tax. The point I want to make is that the government has not been able to tell Mr and Mrs Smith who live in Keperra, or Mr and Mrs Jones who live in Enoggera, or Mr and Mrs Brown who live in Ferny Grove exactly how much extra tax they will pay in year 1, year 2, year 3, year 4, year 5, year 6, year 7, year 8, year 9 or year 10 after the introduction of this bill. They do not know what the tax is going to be. It is going to be significant, but they are not being told the implications for their household budgets. That is why it is important.

Respecting the invitation of the Deputy Speaker, I will not pull out of my little goodies bag other items that I have—I only had a couple of others. In addition to my hair dryer, my apple and my bottle of orange juice, I had a simple roll of toilet paper. Every business and household in Australia and many restaurants and cafes have bathroom facilities, and of course they all have toilet paper in them—or I hope they do—because that is part of their requirements. I do not know what the cost of a toilet roll is going to be in seven or eight years time as a consequence of this ETS tax, but I know that there will be an increase. Why? Because in the production of paper there is going to be energy and electricity involved. Do all those people listening out there in this great land of ours really think that the compensation that is offered now by this government either will not be reduced or taken away or will actually improve their household budget at the end of the day? I am sure that Australians are smart enough to realise that, from buying toilet paper rolls to buying an apple or an orange juice, or from using their hair dryer to putting on the TV, all those items will go up in cost.

In relation to this ETS, we heard recently that President Obama, who is going to grace us with his presence in a few weeks time, is now backflipping fast on the idea of a US emissions trading scheme. So we alone of major nations will have an ETS if the bill is successful. Of course, I count on my colleagues in the Senate to ensure that it does not succeed. I refer to an article by Christian Kerr in the Weekend Australian of 6 February 2010:

Australia is looking increasingly isolated in the global community as Kevin Rudd presses on with his government’s emissions trading scheme.

US President Barack Obama admitted just two days ago he might have to abandon his proposal for emissions trading in favour of direct action in order to steer his carbon-cutting plans through the US Senate.

None of the world’s top five polluters—the US, China, Russia, India and Japan—has an ETS.

So what do we do? Good on us! We go out and say: ‘We’ve got to have an emissions trading scheme. Don’t worry about the US; they’re not important. Don’t worry about China. Don’t worry about India. They’re the great polluters. But we’ll save the world. We’ll save civilisation’—as the Prime Minister says. My time is fast running out, so I want to end on a quote from the Prime Minister when he was opposition leader. He made this point:

… 20 million people facing one of the great challenges of our civilisation and certainly of this country’s settled history.

That is what he said. (Time expired)

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The contribution from the member for Ryan confirms that the coalition freak show is back in town, but I am pleased to again have the opportunity—

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: I ask the member to withdraw that comment for the slur it places on me. I certainly do not consider myself to be someone having inherently freakish characteristics. I take great offence.

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

The point of order is understood. Whilst the reference was couched in terms of the broad, it did follow immediately on the reference to the member for Ryan and I think it would assist the House if the member for Newcastle withdrew.

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you.

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But I am pleased to again have the opportunity to debate the CPRS legislation with the opposition. It is the third time that I do so. This is not a debate, though, that can go on forever. Action does need to be taken. Yet still from the opposition we see chopping and changing. Since we took our policy to the 2007 election, we have had four different coalition leaders, each with a different climate change position. Two of these, though, to be fair, were similar to the CPRS the government puts before the House today in the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and cognate bills. As the member for Wentworth detailed in the House on Monday, the Howard government, in its lead-up to the 2007 election, had a very similar ETS model to the one we debate here. The Australian people spoke very clearly about which model they preferred at that election, however, and they gave the Rudd government a mandate to tackle head on the issue of climate change.

The first opposition leader post Howard, Dr Nelson, was captured by the sceptics, the deniers and the dinosaurs in his party, and he blindly opposed our government’s ETS. But then along came Mr Turnbull. I never thought I would hear myself describe Malcolm Turnbull in this way, but he was a voice for reason in the Liberal Party. Along with his colleague Ian Macfarlane, he negotiated a workable piece of legislation with the Rudd government that could have seen Australia be one of the leading nations on the implementation of an ETS. I congratulate Malcolm Turnbull and Ian Macfarlane, along with our Minister Penny Wong and Minister Combet, for the bipartisan and genuine spirit of cooperation they displayed in those negotiations. I must also congratulate the member for Wentworth for the admirable stand he now takes in holding to his conscience and his rational understandings and for committing to crossing the floor to support the government on this legislation. Similarly, I put on record my congratulations to Senator Boyce and Senator Troeth in the upper house, who took a principled stance when this legislation last went to the Senate.

But history shows again and again that we can never trust the Liberal Party to bargain in good faith. They just do not understand it. We are now left with another leader and his great big con job—a climate change con, totally contradictory to the position they have negotiated in good faith through Malcolm Turnbull and Ian Macfarlane. The opposition’s new direct action plan does less, costs more and is not funded. It is a great big con job that will mean either higher taxes or cuts to services to the Australian people.

There are three problems with that policy: it does not work, it does not require anything of polluters and there is no cap on pollution. To quote Andrew Probyn of the West Australian:

… the dirtiest polluters, including coal-fired power stations, would be able to continue to increase their emissions, provided it was within a “business as usual” trajectory.

But I remind the House that the Stern report specifically rejected a ‘business as usual’ approach to emissions reduction.

The opposition’s big con slugs taxpayers instead of big polluters. In fact, it is not only going to increase tax; it is going to rob taxpayers blind. Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, has refused to rule out cutting funding to hospitals, schools or defence to pay for that unfunded $10 billion climate change con job, so just where is the money coming from? Who knows?

To top it all off, we have a tricky five per cent target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Do not believe it. The opposition’s five per cent 2020 target reduces greenhouse gases less than the government’s target because it is based on a cut from 1990 emission levels rather than the government’s 2000 level—a whole decade of emissions. The difference in the reduction by 2020 will be 310,000 fewer tonnes of carbon. To make up for the difference, of course, I guess we could always plant a few more trees.

he opposition proposes an emission reduction fund to support industry and business to act, but how much is it? What is it for? Who pays? We just do not know. The challenge, though, for the Leader of the Opposition and his finance spokesman, Barnaby Joyce—I have to say: Virginia Trioli, you were spot on—is to explain how they will pay for this climate change con job. Will they increase taxes? What services will they cut? How will they slug the Australian people to pay for this?

I must also, though, comment on the member for Paterson’s contribution to this debate—firstly, the one he made in the House last week. When speaking in the debate, he committed to a $20 million Hunter region hub for clean energy. He is about 10 years too late and, in particular, ignored the benefits that the Rudd government has brought about in my region. We have already established a centre of clean energy, and he knows that, but his attempt to jump on the bandwagon after 12 years of his government’s inaction is as big a con job as the direct action plan we now discuss.

But the member for Paterson was not satisfied with just one speech; he delivered another speech yesterday to throw his weight behind a 2005 report that claimed there would be a loss of 17,000 jobs in the Hunter if an ETS were introduced. This report, in particular, was a narrow report that assumed no other measures or programs to support employment and made no link between an ETS and job creation in a clean energy economy, the jobs that would be created as new technologies are employed to reduce emissions and the jobs that will result from investment in clean energy.

I would describe it as the ‘Chicken Little speech’—you know the one: the sky is falling—and also as, ‘Off with their heads!’ Whose heads? Apparently mine and those of my colleagues the member for Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon, and the member for Charlton, Greg Combet. Our crimes? Apparently we are part of a conspiracy to cause massive job losses in our region. Well, Bob Baldwin, I am very willing to stand on my record regarding employment and keeping Newcastle working, even during a global financial crisis, and I am very willing to stand on the record of the Rudd government in using responsible economic management to keep Newcastle and the nation working too.

So where have you been, Member for Paterson? It is 2010, and current figures show that Hunter employment is at 5.3 per cent, when the national average is 5.8 per cent. The Hunter Valley Research Foundation says that good policy, good business decisions and good fortune have helped the region to a sustained economic recovery. The Hunter’s economic performance has indeed, it says, ‘been extraordinary’. Peter Shinnick, chair of the Hunter Business Chamber, has said that thanks to the federal government’s tax cuts, social welfare cuts and stimulatory spending, combined with the decreasing inflationary pressures—in particular, petrol prices—consumer confidence in the Hunter has stayed strong. This has been the result, though, of more than $1.37 billion invested in Newcastle by the Rudd Labor government in just two years. As I said when it was revealed that my electorate of Newcastle had received the most out of any electorate in the country from the Jobs Fund program, I make no apology for that.

The member for Paterson then proceeded in his speech to call me an icon of hypocrisy, alleging that on one hand I call for and praise investment in rail and port infrastructure. Bob, not only do I call for it, I get it—$1 billion investment into the coal chain by the ARTC—and I will continue to meet regularly with our coal loaderr operators—Port Waratah Coal Services and the NCIG—and assist their engagement with the Rudd government to make sure their activities and issues are understood by this government and that genuine working relationships are established so that optimum benefits flow to Newcastle and to the Hunter region. The member for Paterson went on to say that, on the other hand, I condemn everything to do with coal powered energy. That is not true. It is just another con job, and that will not work—because, Mr Baldwin, I remind you that I am the granddaughter of a miner, a union man who took part in the Great Lockout at Rothbury. Coal is in my blood, and I have never, and will never, condemn its contribution to our economy and to the energy it produces.

In fact, as member for Newcastle, I have worked closely with the University of Newcastle to support their return to the clean coal CRC. And I have worked closely with the CSIRO energy flagship in my electorate to support their work in carbon capture and storage and their work with our energy generators to reduce carbon emissions from coal fired power stations. Mr Baldwin, I even went to America and met with the head of FutureGen, the great carbon capture and storage consortium, to learn more about clean coal technologies, as well as the US energy department and the US commercial and government equivalents of our CSIRO energy flagship. Bob, I also meet regularly with the Miners Federation to support our miners, and I meet with our mining company managers as well, so as to be able to represent their issues with my government. I am also a regular with HunterNet, our manufacturing cluster organisation, which has many members who rely upon the coal and power generation industries. Why would I do those things? It is because coal fired energy remains the cheapest base load power available to the world at this time.

The member for Paterson also alleges that I am prepared to just export our emissions overseas. No, that is not true either but I am prepared to export our coal, our research and our technologies, because I have visited some of those developing nations and resource-poor nations that benefit from our coal, and I have seen the benefits that lift people out of poverty through access to cheap power generated by coal.

But perhaps the member for Paterson mistakes for hypocrisy my ability to build a clean energy agenda in Newcastle and the Hunter whilst at the same time supporting our coal economy. He just does not get it, does he? They are not mutually exclusive, and I am very proud of my record in doing just that. I remind him that we have seen $130 million invested by the Rudd government in just two years in Newcastle alone—$20 million for the Clean Energy Innovation Centre, $100 million for the Australian Solar Institute based in Newcastle, $5 million for CSIRO’s solarthermal research at Steel River and $2.3 million for renewable energy integration research with India, also at Steel River. Initiatives such as Newcastle City Council’s Together Today and the Energy Australia led bid for the federal government’s smart grid city program distinguish us as leaders in the clean energy agenda. I am very proud that the stakeholders work so well with me and my government to deliver these wonderful achievements and initiatives. I take this opportunity to point out that the national Clean Energy Innovation Centre has its website up and running at www.cleanenergyinnovation.net.au, and it is a wonderful resource for businesses trying to reduce their emissions and enter the clean energy economy.

Bob, supporting coal and clean energy are not mutually exclusive. Together they represent the path to energy security, employment growth and economic prosperity in Newcastle and the Hunter. But perhaps that is just too complex for the member for Paterson. After all, he has never shown any signs of building any future agendas with the good people of Paterson, just his usual vote buying with his big spend campaigns. That is why the member for Paterson will always be a marginal seat MP.

In his speech, the member for Paterson also mentioned Tomago Aluminium, a smelter in my electorate, and implied some sort of betrayal of them by my support for our ETS. I quote:

With … Tomago Aluminium in her electorate, her hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Rubbish! Even your own colleague Senator Boyce, who crossed the floor last time to support our ETS, said that as a manufacturer she knew that early adopters of new technologies and new approaches were always the winners in business, and that applies to Tomago Aluminium as well.

But I thank the member for Paterson, because it gives me the opportunity to praise the work of the CEO of Tomago Aluminium, Mr Andre Martel, who recently announced that he will be returning to Canada, with a new CEO to be appointed. I would like to put on the record what a pleasure it has been working with Andrew Martel and his organisation and assisting their access to our ministers so that their needs and their issues are well understood. I recall, too, a business dinner some years ago at which someone questioned the reality of climate change. It was Andre Martel who cautioned his colleagues then that they ignored climate change at their peril—that it was significant for their businesses and that they should include it as an important factor in their strategic plans, just as Tomago Aluminium has done for some time. I wish Andre Martel continuing success and thank him for the professional relationship we established.

I say to the member for Paterson: the coalition of old is clearly back. Do not let facts get in the way of your great big scaremongering and sledging campaign. Member for Paterson, Tony Abbott’s great big con job on climate change and your great big rant and attack on me and my hardworking colleagues just does not cut it—with me or with the people of Newcastle and the Hunter, who understand the importance of responding to climate change, who know that an emissions trading scheme is the most effective way to assist polluters to cut emissions, to compensate working families for any cost transfers and to give certainty to business to invest in the clean energy economy for the future. So, Member for Paterson, apparently your leader believes climate change is just crap—and from your speech yesterday it seems that you are up to your eyeballs in peddling exactly that.

In contrast to the opposition, the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme makes polluters pay for their pollution and thereby encourages them to invest in cleaner technologies. In fact, almost every other developed nation envisages some form of carbon price as a key plank of its policy. None currently relies, as does the opposition, solely on direct action. In particular, the European Union has an ETS that will cover about 45 per cent of emissions but uses regulation to drive emissions down in the transport and agriculture sectors. Japan has also proposed a cap-and-trade scheme or a carbon levy to meet a promised 25 per cent emissions reduction by 2020. Over 30 countries, including the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States and New Zealand, either have introduced or are preparing a CPRS.

The Rudd government’s market based scheme is the most cost-effective way of reducing emissions. I must say that when we are talking about hypocrisy there is some in the coalition not supporting a market based approach, one that gives incentives to business to set that market itself within a limited cap. I find that remarkable. Market based schemes are widely recognised as the best way to reduce carbon pollution. John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull, Joe Hockey—most of the mainstream members of the Liberal Party have all supported that approach.

The government’s responsible approach is based on the global scientific consensus, including the work of our own scientists from the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. Climate change action is in the nation’s interest. As one of the hottest and driest countries on earth, our environment and our economy potentially will be hardest and fastest hit.

We have heard lots about the impact on household costs. The modelling shows about a one per cent increase, but our compensation plan—one which has been fully costed and modelled—means that 92 per cent of all households will receive assistance. The difference between the Rudd government and the opposition on climate change is simple. Our plan caps and reduces Australia’s carbon pollution for the first time ever. Abbott’s plan does not reduce pollution; in fact, taxpayers will be slugged with a $10 billion bill to see emissions grow, apparently, by 13 per cent by 2020. Our plan makes polluters pay for their carbon pollution while offering them assistance to manage that. Abbott’s plan lets polluters off scot-free while households pick up the bill. Our plan takes the money raised from the polluters and reallocates it as cash assistance to working families. Abbott’s plan does not deliver a single dollar in assistance to working families.

If coalition history is anything to go by, I can see that direct action plan rolled out only to the electorates that they need to win in an election. We remember their history with the Natural Heritage Trust and the Regional Partnerships. Those were rorted; they were only about direct action where they needed to buy votes.

We have taken direct action. We have taken early action. We are providing up to $200 million in 2009-10 through the Climate Change Action Fund to help industries, small business, community groups, workers and communities prepare for the introduction of the CPRS. This includes up to $20 million for business information packages, up to $100 million on energy efficiency strategies and up to $80 million on capital investment grants for businesses and community organisations.

Mr Abbott’s climate con job contains no such plan to assist community groups or households. Mr Abbott’s climate con job costs more, does less and is unfunded. Our policy is a policy that works. It makes polluters pay but still provides them support, and it helps working families. It provides businesses certainty so that they will invest in clean energy alternatives. It caps and reduces Australia’s carbon pollution for the first time ever. Abbott’s plan does not reduce pollution and it slugs taxpayers. Our plan makes those polluters pay; his plan lets them off scot-free. Our plan takes the money raised from the polluters and transfers it into cash assistance for working families; Abbott’s plan does not deliver a single dollar in assistance to working families. Those are the differences. It is time to embrace change and be part of the climate change solution. Climate change is not ‘crap’, Tony Abbott, and effective management of climate change could never happen under the coalition’s great big con job. I commend these bills to the House.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Emerging Trade Markets) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am a little flabbergasted at the previous speech from the member for Newcastle. I hope she does not injure herself as she falls off that fence that she has been straddling for the last 20 minutes. I fear that poor old Grandad, who fought so hard for miners rights at Rothbury years ago, is turning over in his grave at the selling out of the coal miners of the Hunter Valley. Indeed, over the last 12 months I have had hundreds of emails from coal miners terribly concerned about the future of their jobs and the industry which they are so passionate about.

I have spoken twice previously in this House on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and for the sake of my constituents I am speaking on it again. I heard the speech from the member for Oxley about an hour ago, and he said that he has been watching people in this debate speak about things that they do not believe in and have no commitment to. I can tell you that I have a commitment to this issue. I believe this is probably the single biggest issue that we as a country need to deal with in our generation. If we do not get this right, our country in the near future, as well as in future generations, will be paying for this for years to come.

Since this legislation was first introduced, the Prime Minister has been getting some criticism that he has not being doing a very good job of explaining it. I do not think the Prime Minister does anything without carefully thinking it through. Being foolhardy and careless is not one of the Prime Minister’s weaknesses. The reason he has not done a very good job of explaining it is that the more he explains it the more devastating the effects on Australia become.

We have heard some fantastic presentations in this House, particularly from the members on the government side, about the effects of global warming, the reality of global warming, rising sea levels. I remember the member for Isaacs had half his electorate underwater at one stage. You will get no argument from me: climate change is a real issue. Whether it is going to be as dramatic as the member for Isaacs and the contribution from before Christmas from the member for Makin, just to name a couple, have claimed, remains to be seen; but we would be foolhardy to ignore that climate change is something that we need to address.

No-one from the government side has made that link, has stood up here and said, ‘You need to support the CPRS because this is how it is going to reduce the temperature of the globe.’ Not one person on that side has said, ‘This is why you need to support this bill.’ They have been very emotive about climate change, and they have been very derisive, claiming that those of us who want to dare challenge the great world leader in environment change, our Prime Minister, are deniers, dinosaurs and worse. Not one of them has defended their legislation. If they could explain to me how this legislation is going to reduce the temperature of the globe; how it is going to make it rain in the upper catchments of the Murray-Darling, so that we can return agriculture to full production; how it is not going to put the suburbs of Port Phillip under water, I would vote for it—I would support it. But they have not done that.

The other thing that is quite fascinating is that last year we had this build-up to the world conference in Copenhagen, and the Prime Minister got himself appointed as a Friend of the Chair—sort of like the hall monitor of Copenhagen. He might have got a little badge that said ‘prefect’ and got to buzz around. He changed his timetable so that he could be there with the President of the United States and could be in all the shots as our world leader in fixing the climate. Of course, Copenhagen was somewhat of a disappointment, I suspect, to the Prime Minister. From my own point of view, what happened at Copenhagen was not surprising.

But it is like Copenhagen never happened. I was in this House at 10.30 last Tuesday, the 2nd—I remember it very clearly—and the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change, Mr Combet, was introducing this bill into the House for the third time. And guess what that day was? It is not a big deal in Australia, but many of you will have seen that great movie Groundhog Day. Last Tuesday, 2 February was Groundhog Day. I had to pinch myself that I was not sitting on the set of some bizarre movie as the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change reintroduced this bill. It was like the world had not moved on. It was like the United States had not rejected a cap-and-trade scheme and had started speaking about direct action.

The member for Newcastle’s speech was a classic example of, ‘If we say something earnestly enough, and we say it often enough, it must be true.’ On the fact that this legislation would have a devastating effect on the members in her electorate—the members of the steel industry, the coal industry, the port industry—she just said that was not the case; therefore, it must not be the case! The member for Paterson was right to highlight the hypocrisy of her, and the government she is a part of, when they trumpeted in the Newcastle Herald photos of Minister Albanese and Prime Minister Rudd in their hardhats, opening new rail links and commissioning port facilities for the export of coal, an industry that this CPRS intends to tax to the hilt. How is the coal industry going to innovate? How are the electricity industry generators in the Hunter Valley, and the people the member for Newcastle represents who work in those generators, going to adapt to a lower carbon future if the top of their profits is taken off, is taxed?

We have heard a lot from the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change about how this tax is going to be redistributed to pensioners and low-income earners—and that, as a matter of fact, some people are going to be better off under this scheme, so it must be good: ‘We are going to save the environment and people are going to have more money in their pockets; it is just those evil polluters that will pay.’ Well, guess who the ‘evil polluters’ are? The evil polluters are those people who, when they wake up in the morning, turn on their lights to see what the time is. When they turn the tap on and the system comes into play and they have a hot shower—they are the evil polluters. When they get on the electric train and travel into the city to work, and use electricity, they are the evil polluters. The irony of that is that, if you get into your V8 Commodore and travel from Campbelltown to the city, Mr Rudd is going to compensate you. I think he is going to give you a cent more for your fuel, if you go in your car, but if you go on the electric train, that is taxed under the CPRS. So you will pay more to go on the electric train from Campbelltown to Sydney than you would if you drive your V8 Commodore! Where is the sense in that?

There was talk about compensating our pensioners, our elderly. In an aged-care facility in a medium-sized town in my electorate already the increase in electricity prices means that every bill they get has gone up by $3,000. The CPRS will probably put their electricity up by another $4,000 a month. Where is the compensation for that? Are they going to say, ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Jones, your contribution to this country for the last 101 years has been magnificent but, because of the government’s CPRS, we’re going to restrict the use of your air conditioner between two and four o’clock in the afternoon’? In Coonabarabran, which is the place I am speaking about, in summertime it gets very hot. ‘But, Mrs Jones, I don’t care that you’re 101 and you’ve paid taxes all your life. You’re an evil polluter. You’re using electricity.’ Where, oh where, is the sense in that? But it is worse than that. There is no environmental impact, because the idea of the CPRS is to make people use less electricity. When you do not have an alternative, you either turn it off or you pay more. If you cannot afford to pay more, you have to turn it off.

The other thing is that a lot of jobs will be exported overseas. There is no greater example in my electorate than in the town of Kandos. In the redistribution of electoral boundaries, it is going to be in the seat of Hunter, and I wonder if the member for Hunter has as much care about the people of Kandos as I do as their present member. The town of Kandos has a cement plant. It employs between 110 and 120 people and it has been there since 1880-something. There are people in that plant who have worked there all their lives and they are the sixth or seventh generation to work in that plant. Under the CPRS, Mr Rudd has said, ‘We will give you a permit for 90 per cent of your emissions—but not all of your emissions, just the emissions in the baking process.’ To make cement, you mine the limestone and the shale, then you mix it all up and crush it up and you bake it using a coal-fired power station and you end up with something called clinker. The final stage of the process is that you grind the clinker up, and that gives you your cement. Mr Rudd said to the people of Kandos cement plant: ‘We’ll give you 90 per cent for the baking process.’ That equates to 30 per cent of the total emissions cost at that plant.

At the moment, the cost of producing cement in Kandos and the cost of importing it from China or Indonesia are about lineball. There is an advantage for the owners of this company because it is located in the central west of New South Wales and has handy access to the large construction areas in Western Sydney and access to western New South Wales. But with a 30 per cent increase in tax, when the competitors from China and Indonesia do not have that, guess what is going to happen. That plant is going to close and they will be importing either cement or clinker from China or Indonesia into Port Botany. That is the reality of it. That town of Kandos has one major employer. There are 1,400 people and one major employer. The town has an excellent high school and a wonderful primary school, and a lot of the other jobs—contractors, truck drivers and whatever—spin off from that plant. If it closes down, a lot of the small businesses—the supermarket, the local butcher, the newsagent, the garage—will be unviable. So the town of Kandos is in real trouble.

When the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change stands up here and says that low-income earners are going to be better off under this scheme, can he explain how a cement worker who is currently on about $60,000 or $70,000 a year and is going to go on unemployment benefits is better off? Has he managed to explain that? It is not just my cement plant in Kandos. Professor Garnaut himself said, in the early work done for this government in the lead-up to this policy, that 126,000 jobs will be removed from regional Australia. If anyone wonders why we as the National Party came out early on in opposition to this scheme, it is because we were the sacrificial lambs. Regional Australia was going to pay for this scheme. The people in the leafy suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne may get a pang of conscience, trade the Volvo in and buy a Prius. Maybe they will tick the green square the next time they go to Fiji for holidays and pay a bit more for their airline ticket, or tick the box on their power bill and get some poor fellow in the hills at Crookwell to plant a few trees to ease their conscience when they turn on their hot-water system or their jacuzzi, but they do not see themselves changing their lifestyle. Maybe if they work in the banking sector, the finance sector or a large trading house they think, ‘There’s a bob to be made out of this!’

Who is going to pay? The people of the regional Australia, the farmers. We had a great discussion last year about removing agriculture from this legislation, but they were talking about removing some of the emissions of agriculture and the ability to claim any of the sequestration people can do. But look at the inputs into agriculture: fuel, farm chemicals based on petroleum and fertilisers based on petroleum. So the people of rural Australia, the farmers, the people that feed Australia and 50 million other people around the world, are going to be hit, but their counterparts overseas will not be. Oh, this is a wonderful idea!

What I find astounding as I sit here and listen to the members on the other side who represent regional Australia is how they just stand here and sell out their constituencies. As the Prime Minister stands at the dispatch box at question time and talks about the CPRS and saving the world, they nod and smile in unison behind him as they sell out the people that put them here. It is worse: I have not heard the member for Maribyrnong, that great champion of the Australian Workers Union—whose membership goes right across regional Australia, in agriculture, mining and trucking—come in here and defend this scheme. You can look at the record. I would be surprised if he has. Those opposite have sold out the people that put them here. Put the member for Maribyrnong in front of a mine shaft with a TV crew and he goes like a thrashing machine. Put him in here, where he has to defend a scheme that is going to affect the livelihoods of the people who put him here, and he is silent. The sell-out of the people on that side of the House has been absolutely breathtaking.

We have a debate coming up about direct action versus the CPRS. Before I came into this place, I was involved in agriculture. I understand the enormous capacity of Australian soils to store carbon. It is not a simple process. Despite the rhetoric from that side, Australian farmers are not simple folk. They do not need saving from themselves. The truth be known, Australian farmers are leading the world in their environmental practices. This is an area close to me. In the late 1980s, my brothers and I were doing experimental work with the New South Wales Department of Agriculture in zero-till farming. The carbon level in those soils has grown exponentially over the last 20 or 30 years—not because they were trying to harvest carbon, but because carbon sequestration in the soil goes hand in hand with the ability of a soil to store water. In agriculture in Australia, storing water is what you need to do to grow the crops. We need to draw on that. We need to let these people in rural Australia who have been doing their bit to improve the environment continue to do so. We need to recognise it, encourage them and reward them.

This debate has become one of rhetoric versus practicalities. The people of Australia are waking up. They are waking up to the facts. I will tell you how it happened in the couple of minutes that I have left. They did a poll. Eighty per cent of Australians want to do something about the environment. That is true. We all do. So the Labor Party said: ‘Let’s give ‘em something. We won’t go too much into the detail; we’ll just give ‘em something. We won’t explain too much about what it is, but we’ll tell ‘em it’s good for them.’ What they have done is sold out the people of Australia. They have sold them down the drain. They are making them uncompetitive with the rest of the world for the sake of votes. They have been caught out. This piece of legislation, deservedly, is a dead duck and it should be treated as such.

Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise once more to give more support to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and the related bills, which will put in place the government’s plan to reduce carbon emissions and transition Australia’s economy to a low-carbon future. The Labor Party went to the last election with a promise to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions and to do that by way of an emissions trading scheme. This legislation honours that promise. We made that commitment based on the scientific evidence that the world is warming and that Australia is one of the countries most at risk from continued climate change. We made that commitment based on economic advice that an emissions trading scheme is the lowest cost way to achieve reductions in carbon emissions. The opposition can pretend otherwise, but there is no zero-cost way to achieve the changes in behaviour and the structural changes in our economy and our way of life that are needed to limit the rise in temperatures. The question is: how do we pay for the change that is needed?

The government thinks the big polluters should do their bit while households are protected from the extra costs that might flow through to them from the scheme. The opposition, on the other hand, thinks that the big polluters should keep doing whatever they like and the cost of reducing emissions should be picked up by taxpayers. Taxpayers will be paying for an opposition scheme that does not even promise to reduce carbon emissions. They might even be paying for emissions to rise. That is opposition value for money for you. I believe that Senator Joyce must have come up with that one.

Our scheme puts a cap on the amount of carbon dioxide allowed to be produced in Australia each year and requires the biggest polluters to buy permits for the amount of carbon dioxide that they each produce. The supply of permits prescribed by the government and the demand for permits from those big polluters creates a market and therefore a price per tonne of carbon. There will therefore be a carbon price built into the economy which will create an incentive to reduce carbon and a penalty for producing carbon. A carbon price will influence investment decisions and drive the transition to a lower carbon intensive economy through greater energy efficiency, renewable energy and other technologies for reducing carbon, such as carbon capture and storage.

In our scheme, the revenue collected from polluters buying permits will go back to households and in some cases to industry by way of assistance and adjustment measures. Low- and most middle-income households will receive direct financial assistance out of the revenue from the sale of permits to big polluters. Households will receive money to cover the extra costs of electricity and other goods and services that may be passed on to them as a result of the CPRS. The CPRS is a transparent market mechanism that will provide business with the certainty that they need right now to start making investment decisions that will shape our country for the next 20 to 50 years.

On the other hand, the opposition has come up with a grab bag of initiatives that may or may not reduce emissions at a huge cost to the taxpayer, and business does not know what it will mean for them from one year to the next. There will be a lucky dip for well-connected businesses that can get the ear of the minister and get grants for their projects if they are in the right marginal seats. We saw how that worked under the previous Liberal and National government with Regional Partnerships and the Water Initiative. Other businesses will be subject to penalties the opposition cannot even quantify.

The opposition is having us on. This is a political fix for the opposition, not a rational piece of policy making in an area of vital importance to Australia’s future. Once upon a time, the opposition did have a credible and rational plan to address climate change. It is this plan that we are debating now. These bills, amended since the last time that they were debated in this House, are to some degree the opposition’s plan. The bills incorporate the sensible and responsible amendments negotiated between the government and the opposition last year—things like the dedicated funding available to meat processors like Teys Brothers and Swift in Rockhampton or Borthwicks at Bakers Creek to support the development and deployment of technologies to reduce emissions from their waste water. There will also be assistance to convert their operations from coal to natural gas or perhaps even to move to co-generation.

The amendments also include things like the exclusion of agriculture from any liability under an emissions trading scheme while at the same time allowing farmers to earn credits for the carbon stored on their properties or carbon abated as a result of their farming practices. There is more assistance to the gassiest coalmines and measures to support the expansion of electricity generation from waste coalmine gas, a growing industry in my electorate. These are sensible and responsible amendments. ‘Sensible’ and ‘responsible’ are two words no longer associated with the Liberal Party and the National Party.

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

Order! It being 2 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member for Capricornia will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.