Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1)

agrees that putting a price on carbon is an essential step in reducing carbon pollution and transforming our economy to achieve a clean energy future;

(2)

notes that in many manufacturing regions in Australia, business, unions, government and community organisations are already working to develop green jobs and clean energy production processes; and

(3)

agrees that governments must work with the manufacturing industry and communities to assist their transformation to meet the challenge of a carbon constrained future.

We know that greenhouse gas levels are one-third higher than before the Industrial Revolution. We know that global temperatures have risen 0.7 degrees Celsius over the past century. We know they continue to rise. We know that the last decade was the world’s hottest on record. We know that globally 2010 was the equal warmest year on record. We know that 2010 is the 34th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average. We know that climate change and global warming are real.

We know the consequences are real and we know that climate change will change our lives in real and practical ways. It will change the way we work and it will change the way we live. It will change our economy and our industries. This change is inevitable. The way that this nation responds to this change is not inevitable. It requires political leadership. That is why the Gillard Labor government has committed to taking action on climate change—action to transform our economy into a high-skill, low-carbon economy; action to transform existing jobs; action to reskill workers for the future. We are not sitting on our hands. We are not denying that the future will be different but we are taking real action now to transform our economy. We are taking action to create new job opportunities in a clean energy generation and taking action to help Australia’s trade-exposed emission-intensive industries. That is why the Gillard Labor government is already working with trade exposed employers to support jobs, like those jobs in my electorate at BlueScope Steel Australia at Port Kembla in the Illawarra.

Around the country organisations are already rising to this challenge—organisations like Green Jobs Illawarra. In 2009, Regional Development Australia Illawarra launched their Green Jobs Illawarra project and, with the assistance of the federal and state governments, started along the road to transforming our economy. Green Jobs Illawarra brings businesses, unions, innovators and community organisations together to help create the conditions to develop sustainable green jobs to power a future low-carbon economy. With project areas now including Wollongong, Kiama, Shellharbour, Shoalhaven and Wingecarribee, Green Jobs Illawarra has grown from a good idea to a positive force for change. Some of their current activities include a green streets project, showcasing the best practice in sustainable construction, design and technology; the retrofitting of iconic public buildings; a wind power industry project; a transformation of the manufacturing and engineering industry; green jobs in Aboriginal community projects; and the establishment of a green technology and innovation advisory service for small to medium sized businesses across the electorate.

A clean energy future will open up opportunities that we are only just now beginning to imagine, but in order to kick-start this vital transformative work across the region we need simply to put a price on carbon. Recognition of the need for action on climate change is not new and it is not without precedence in this place. Despite this, the disgraceful fearmongering on public display quite recently by the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Gilmore, who last week found her way to the BlueScope steelworks in my electorate, has really been quite appalling.

It is beyond question that the Gillard government is not prepared to see jobs go offshore as a result of our transition to a low-carbon economy. Nor do we want to see the emissions that come with those jobs go overseas. That is not the solution that we are working towards. Labor has a commitment that all funds raised by a carbon price will go to assisting households and businesses to transition and to programs to tackle climate change. That is why the opposition’s fear campaign is both baseless and debasing.

When you listen to those opposite talk in this area you see a combination of denial of the science and a complete abandonment of hope—an abandonment of hope that a great country like Australia has it within itself to face the challenge of the future. Those opposite belong to a party which would stand on the side of a street and, when it sees a house on fire, argue amongst its members about whether or not it is a fire. When they cannot resolve the argument about whether or not it is a fire they would argue about the cause of that fire. Then, in the process, they would argue about the media coverage of that fire and complain that it has been unfair and unbalanced. At the end of the day, while they are sitting on the sidelines arguing about the cause of the fire, it is Labor that is in there doing the hard yards—

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

Mr Hunt interjecting

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

the hard work, to put the fire out. They squabble amongst themselves, they deny the science and they argue about the cause, but it is Labor that is there doing the hard yards, working with industry, working with unions and working amongst the community to ensure that we confront the challenge of the future.

We take heart that there are employers out there, including the CEO of BlueScope, in my electorate, who understand that there is a need to put a price on carbon. I quote from a statement by the CEO of BlueScope—

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

Do you want to finish your sentence?

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the member for Flinders wants his opportunity to speak he will be quiet.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

who said quite recently on the Inside Business program:

In relation to energy, there is absolutely an argument that says there needs to be a carbon price so we can have natural gas base load generation in Australia, because no-one’s going to build new coal fired generation because it’s not going to make sense and it’s too carbon intensive, but you need a price signal for natural gas.

We are more than willing to meet with sensible employers like the CEO of BlueScope, who is a member of our business roundtable—consulting on assisting industry as we move to price carbon and transform our economy. We will work with sensible industry and business leaders as we work with households, community representatives and union leaders to ensure that, as we make this transformation, we bring industry along with us and we do it in the Labor way.

I am very pleased that the Leader of the Opposition has finally found his way to the electorate of Throsby. The last time he was there he was spruiking the benefits of Work Choices. I am also very pleased that the member for Gilmore found her way north to visit my electorate and to make speeches outside the gates of BlueScope—but what she will not do is spend the time talking in detail to those workers, employers and business leaders. They understand, as we understand, that to survive in a competitive global industry we need to get ahead of the curve, we need a carbon price and we need to help industries and businesses make the transition.

As the Prime Minister said recently, this is the year of decision. It is the year of action versus inaction. It is the year of acceptance versus denial. The task ahead of us will not be without challenges. On this side of the House we believe that Australians are up to this challenge. I and the member for Cunningham will stand side by side with all of the workers in the manufacturing industry to ensure that we build an industry based on hope, with the technology of the future. We will not debase ourselves with the fear campaign and the lies peddled by those opposite. (Time expired)

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

Is the motion seconded?

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion.

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

Pink batts, green loans, citizens assembly, cash for clunkers, carbon tax—anybody notice a pattern here? This is not a debate about belief or science. This is not a debate about targets. This is a debate about economic competency and the best way to manage a problem. The government which gave us pink batts, green loans, the citizens assembly which never saw the light of day, and cash for clunkers, which had a problematic birth as well, has now given us a carbon tax.

I want to deal with this issue through a series of steps: firstly, the promise; secondly, the global situation; thirdly, the proposal; and, fourthly, our system. Let me begin with the promise. It is now infamous right around Australia that twice in the last week of the election campaign the Prime Minister ruled out a carbon tax. Firstly, on the Monday before the election, she most famously said: ‘There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.’ Secondly, on the day before the election, in her last 24-hour pitch to the Australian people to seek a mandate, she said on the front page of the Australian newspaper, the major national broadsheet: ‘I rule out a carbon tax.’ An election is about seeking a mandate to govern. It is about what we agree to do and it is also about what we agree not to do. There could not have been a more express, clear or absolute statement to the Australian people.

The Prime Minister has been through a series of defences since that time as to why that promise was broken. Firstly, she denied that there was a broken promise. We went through this evasive period where she would not even utter the words ‘carbon tax’, even though that was what she had produced, preferring instead to refer to a ‘fixed price on carbon’—which is, by the way, the very definition of a carbon tax. That was unsustainable because it was farcical and a fraud upon the Australian people. Secondly, she put forward the notion that, really, that was what she meant all along—‘Well, I’d always intended to say this.’ But there was no getting around the fact that she had ruled it out.

Most recently, we have had this wonderful roadblock analogy: if you head home intending to get there by taking the main highway and that highway is blocked, then you can take another route. The problem is that right from day one, before the Prime Minister even left her workplace, that highway was always going to be blocked. Every person in this chamber knew that the Australian Greens would hold the balance of power in the Senate, that they wanted a carbon tax and that she would deliver a carbon tax. The context of her comments was that right throughout those last two weeks we were advertising that, as sure as night followed day, the government would produce a carbon tax. The reason we said that was that the Greens wanted it and that the coalition, the government and Australians all knew that the Greens would hold the balance of power in the Senate. The road was blocked before the journey began. That is the fallacy, the fraudulence and the myth behind the Prime Minister’s latest attempt to excuse herself. She deceived the Australian people outright, and she is continuing to engage in that process and practice now.

The second part of the member for Throsby’s motion is about the international circumstances. We are going through a period of deception about what is occurring overseas. There is movement, as there should be, on climate change. It is important to take action, but it is about taking the right action. The Prime Minister’s reference to coal fired power stations being closed down in China was utterly deceptive. I have done a little bit of research on this. In the words of Professor Warwick McKibbin of the Reserve Bank of Australia—I know he is only on the Reserve Bank—China is currently, from 1990 to 2020, going through a period of increasing its total emissions by 496 per cent. It is going through the fastest growth in human emissions in history. That fact is the precise opposite of the impression that the Prime Minister of Australia wanted to leave. You have a duty not just to be literally truthful but also to be truthful in the intent of what you say if you hold the high office of Prime Minister of Australia, and that duty has been breached.

Moreover, specifically on the question of coal, in 2002 Chinese coal consumption was 1.5 billion tonnes, and the best projection is that in 2015 Chinese coal consumption will be four billion tonnes. In other words, their consumption of coal will be 266 per cent of what it was in 1992. So we are not only seeing the greatest growth in human emissions in history; we are seeing the greatest expansion of coal fired power in the history of industrialised society. That is happening right now—today—in China, and that is precisely the opposite of what the Prime Minister sought to convey. It was deceptive, deliberate and dishonest—unacceptable from somebody who holds the highest office in the land.

That brings us to the impact on families of this government’s proposal, and all the while we say that there is a better way. I begin at the highest levels, the Nobel laureates Finn Kydland, Thomas Schelling, Vernon Smith and Jagdish Bhagwati who, along with others, put together an assessment of 15 different approaches to dealing with climate change. They took as their starting point the reality of the science and the need to take action. Of those 15 different approaches, they examined three versions of a carbon tax, and they ranked them at numbers 13, 14 and 15. That is what Nobel laureates have said. I acknowledge that there is debate, but these are three of the Nobel laureates in economics from the last decade, and that is what they have said at a global level.

How does the tax operate here? It operates by raising $114 billion—on the basis of Treasury’s modelling for the emissions trading scheme, it will be roughly proximate. That money will be raised through higher prices for petrol, gas and, above all else, electricity. The electricity prices for mums and dads will start by rising by $300 per annum, on average, according to the work of the Australian Industry Group, the New South Wales regulator and the former Prime Minister, the member for Griffith. In this House on 3 February last year the former Prime Minister acknowledged that there would be a 19 per cent increase over two years but then refused to say what the increase would be in the third year. So we will see that it begins there; but the Minerals Council last week let the cat out of the bag when they indicated that the price of carbon will rise from $26 to $52 over the coming few years. What that means is that, in this week of the New South Wales election, the price of electricity should be declared by the Prime Minister to be increasing from $300 to $600 per family on top of everything else.

The other great myth propagated by this government is that carbon pricing will replace all other electricity price rises. New South Wales IPART prepared a legally binding determination which said that without carbon pricing there would be a certain proportion of increase but that with carbon pricing 25 per cent would be added over three years. That is a legally binding determination which stands to this day. So we know that electricity and gas prices will rise in order to raise $114 billion, the vast bulk of which will be cycled around the economy. Another myth here is that that will affect demand; but demand for electricity and petrol is largely inelastic. New South Wales IPART showed that a 50 per cent price rise in electricity had an elasticity of 0.01 per cent—in other words, for every 10 per cent increase in the price there was approximately a one per cent increase in demand. It is an incredibly blunt instrument, and jobs will be lost. That is why we believe there is a better way—and the member for Gilmore and the member for Hughes will address this—involving direct action to reduce emissions by cleaning up our power stations, our coalmines and directly investing in our farms, our soils and our trees—real action to reduce emissions which can begin immediately with a fast start to make Australia a country which is smart as well as clean. (Time expired)

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to enthusiastically support the motion moved by my colleague the member for Throsby. Firstly, let us be very clear of the distinction between our government and the misguided contribution made by the member for Flinders a few moments ago. Our government has always expressed the need to mitigate the effects of climate change and assist our economy to transition to a clean energy future. In contrast, the opposition has held several different positions and still remains divided on whether climate change even exists. The Leader of the Opposition has just reached his seventh position on climate change, and I doubt that it will be his last. Our government believes that a carbon price is the cheapest and fairest way to cut pollution and drive investment in a clean energy future. Even the shadow Treasurer believes a carbon price is inevitable.

A carbon price will raise revenue from large polluters, and this will assist households, support jobs and tackle climate change. Even without household assistance, Professor Garnaut makes it very clear that the impact of carbon pricing is small compared with other significant reforms, such as the GST. Our government wants our economy to continue to prosper and we want our environment to be preserved for future generations. Our government wants to ensure that local industries are not left behind and that we consult them to help make that transition to a clean energy future, as the member for Throsby just described. That is why our government has continued to state that every cent raised by carbon pricing will go towards assisting households, assisting businesses to make the transition and tackling climate change.

Many businesses appreciate the necessity to move to a clean energy future and have already implemented their own sustainable policies to remain competitive. For instance, GMH strives to minimise emissions and waste through the use of innovative technologies and environmentally compatible materials and processes. TNT has developed a program to raise awareness of climate change and to seek to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Their primary objective is to reduce the environmental impact of TNT’s operations and boost the financial performance of TNT by improving fuel efficiency.

Even a local council in my electorate of Reid, the City of Canada Bay Council, has been very active in implementing environmentally sustainable practices and codes that have been recognised and praised at federal, state and international levels. Other industry leaders are actively seeking a fast and effective response about carbon pricing from our government for the long-term benefit of our country and have warned against inaction. The Chairman of Origin Energy, Kevin McCann, said in October last year:

Origin considers the best way to set a carbon price is an emissions trading scheme, however many of the same benefits can be delivered by a carbon tax.

Jac Nasser, Chairman of BHP Billiton, stated in November last year:

Economies that defer action are likely to face higher long-term costs, as global investment is redirected to early movers.

As one of the most carbon intensive economies, if Australia acts strongly to reduce its carbon footprint, its emissions-intensive sectors are likely to maintain or improve their competitiveness in a low-emissions world.

The government is also looking at the challenges emissions-intensive trade-exposed industries face. The government has made it clear that we will help the EITEIs transition to a low-pollution future. We do not want to see jobs going offshore. We want to support existing jobs while simultaneously creating new ones, ensuring the carbon price mechanism is fair and protects our international competitiveness.

Thirty-two countries and 10 US states already have emissions trading schemes and many more countries are planning to introduce an ETS. The opposition is well aware of this, as is the member for Flinders, as the list of countries already operating with an ETS is noted in the opposition’s direct action policy, if you can call it a policy. The UK has had an ETS for several years. Germany, France, Italy and our close neighbours in New Zealand have all implemented an ETS. It is clear that other major economies, governments, local manufacturers and community organisations are taking action on climate change because there are obvious benefits for industry, the environment and the economy.

While the opposition continues to argue internally about what to do, our government has been very clear that we believe climate change is real and that it is human induced. The opposition voted for my motion to that effect earlier this year. We believe that implementing a carbon price will cut pollution and drive investment in clean energy. We will provide incentives to business to cut pollution and the necessary assistance to households to support them through the transition. The government will continue discussions with relevant stakeholders in the community to ensure that we have the right design for our country, for our future. I strongly support the member for Throsby’s motion.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion proposed by the member for Throsby. Sadly, this motion is just a continuation of this government’s conscious and deliberate deception as they try and hoodwink the public to support the insanity of burdening the Australian economy with a carbon tax. Let’s have a closer look at the detail of this motion. The first deception of the motion is the use of the words ‘putting a price on carbon’. These words are simply Labor code for ‘a great big new tax’. One thing you can be sure about is this: if it looks like a new tax, if it increases prices like a new tax and if the Labor Party has anything to do with it, you can bet your bottom dollar that it is a new tax. But this government is incapable of telling the truth as it refuses to call it what it is: a new tax. The second deception of this motion is the phrase ‘reducing carbon pollution’. This new tax is about reducing emissions of the odourless gas carbon dioxide. The words ‘carbon pollution’ create the false impression that this tax will address the problem of toxic black carbon soot and particulate matters that are emitted into the atmosphere, especially from diesel exhaust. But this new tax has nothing to do with this real environmental problem.

If we cut away the deceptions in the first paragraph of this motion, what is left simply reveals the government’s failure to grasp the most basic economic principles. This tax simply will not be effective at decreasing carbon dioxide emissions as it fails to understand that electricity and petrol are relatively price inelastic. They are essential services. We can look at the example of what happened in Norway after it introduced a carbon tax in 1991. The Norwegians, just like this Labor government, thought that introducing a carbon tax would reduce CO2 emissions. However, what happened in Norway is that per capita emissions actually increased by 43 per cent after the tax was introduced. In other words, the introduction of their carbon tax was a complete and unmitigated failure, and now this government wants to take Australia down the same mistaken track. That is why the coalition’s plan, our direct action plan, will be more effective at reducing CO2 emissions.

As for the second paragraph of this motion, about the government’s creation of so-called green jobs, we thank the member for Throsby for reminding the House of this government’s track record in creating green jobs, such as the jobs they created with the disaster of the ceiling insulation scheme, the Green Loans fiasco and the solar rebate scheme—one bungled and flawed scheme after another that have wasted billions of dollars of taxpayers’ funds. Again, we should be learning from the mistakes of other nations, especially Europe, where in many countries, for every green job they have created, in the same process they have destroyed at least two other real jobs in other sectors of the economy.

We come to the third and, thankfully, final paragraph of this member’s motion, and here the deception continues. As for the talk of a carbon constrained future, perhaps the member is in secret talks with the Chinese or with our friends from India, as in future decades these countries will be using more and more coal as they lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

Recently we have heard the government try to sell the story that everyone will be compensated for price increases that will result from this new tax. Let me see if I have this right. The government introduces this great, big new tax, then it creates a giant money-churning bureaucracy in Canberra, then it gives a few hundred million dollars to the UN and then it has enough to compensate everyone. We have the Prime Minister, who promised that there will be no carbon tax under a government that she leads, now saying: ‘Trust me—you’ll be compensated. The cheque’s in the mail.’ The public will not be fooled twice.

Members of parliament should stand up for their constituents, but where is the member for Throsby? He has not only sold out his own electorate to curry favour with the inner-city Greens but, with motions like this, he is leading an assault on the very people who voted for him, threatening their jobs and planning to punish them by increasing their cost of living. The obnoxious and dishonest political spin and misleading propaganda that characterise this motion are a disgrace and an embarrassment to the member who moved it. (Time expired)

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The fact is that the world is warming. The trend is absolutely indisputable and it is also intensifying. Simply, the numbers do not lie. Sadly, those who misrepresent the facts do lie and they should be ashamed for attempting to deceive the public.

Australia has been warming consistently, decade by decade, since the 1940s. Similarly, decadal averages of sea surface temperature around Australia have increased every single decade since 1900. There has been no cooling effect. Every decade has been hotter than the previous, on land or at sea—the numbers do not lie. Both air temperature and sea temperature are increasing and they are warming with increasing speed.

That these changes are contributed to by human pollution is not disputed by the overwhelming weight of credible science. Global warming is indisputable and is affirmed by every single major national scientific academy in the world.

The National Research Council, established by Abraham Lincoln, has affirmed:

Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for—and in many cases is already affecting—a broad range of human and natural systems.

Those scientists who say it is not happening clearly cannot convince other scientists of the merits of their views. Their positions have no scientific credibility and can only be discounted. In short, they are full of it—laymen who profess superior scientific knowledge. The conclusions of the great majority of qualified scientists directly engaged in the development and peer review of the science inform us that global warming is here and it is getting worse with increasing speed. These are the facts that we must contend with and the forces that we as humans must counter.

Industry has stated emphatically that we need to price carbon. The Business Council of Australia, Origin Energy, TRUenergy, AGL, Santos and Shell Australia have all said that we need to establish a new economic playing field on which industry—very much including these energy-generating companies—can get on with investing in the infrastructure that keeps our society powered and running.

On the basis of the feedback that I have been receiving in my electorate of Hindmarsh, community opposition to the accepted science is absolutely minimal; opposition to decreasing Australia’s emissions is negligible; and interest in the numbers, how the mechanism will work and its effect on consumers is quite real. People are also interested to learn that the USA is now pushing ahead with cuts of 17 per cent, and even China is pushing ahead with 40-odd per cent cuts per unit of GDP. The world is pushing ahead and getting on with doing its part—except, it seems, Australia.

The question is: how do we decrease our emissions? I believe those who do the polluting should pay, not those who are captive to the necessities that industry creates. We have in our midst politicians who want a command economy where big government tells everyone what to do, where their money goes and what they can buy. Like governments of the Soviet era, we have here in this parliament an opposition that opposes and seeks to undermine the principles of market economics. The opposition’s big government will drain taxpayers of $30 billion, handing money over to select big businesses. Australians will still face higher and higher electricity prices, broke and alone, under the opposition’s policy. We have a limited supply and the relentlessly increasing price of electricity and people’s inability to afford this electricity—none of this will change under Tony Abbott’s Soviet style carbon economy.

In contrast, the government will charge the big polluters for their pollution and give a large part of that, possibly $25 billion or so over five years, to the consumers, who will themselves be able to choose how to spend it. Labor is the party of consumer choice. We can have 20 million people making personal decisions on spending money on less carbon intensive goods and services, promoting market forces—(Time expired)

Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I oppose this motion and I will state my reasons for doing so. Bob Harrison is the former state member for Kiama, who served in the New South Wales parliament for over 13 years and is a life member of the Australian Labor Party. He was also former Mayor of the City of Shellharbour, and I have a lot of time for Bob. He is a respected parliamentarian and remains a respected member of the community. Bob is extremely credible and when he has got something to say people stop and listen.

Earlier this month, Bob contributed an article in the Illawarra Mercury, whose banner read, ‘Carbon tax will burn Illawarra.’ He was scathing in his criticism of the Prime Minister’s strong advocacy and her deal with the Greens. He wrote:

It was sickening to listen to boasting by Greens Senator Christine Milne that the Greens’ “power sharing deal” with the Federal Government has delivered a carbon tax. I don’t remember voting for any power sharing deal with the Greens.

Bob’s theme was that this carbon tax will have a significant and adverse effect on the employment prospects for the greater Illawarra region.

As a representative of an electorate, part of which relies on the steel industry in Port Kembla, I totally agree with Bob’s sentiments and observations. The tax has all the hallmarks of another disaster in the making. Bob is not on his own in expressing those concerns. BlueScope is a major product manufacturer in the Illawarra providing jobs for thousands of workers, including those from the suburbs I represent in and around Shellharbour. BlueScope’s CEO Paul O’Malley is a little more diplomatic in expressing his concerns. He says they could live with the tax, provided tariffs are imposed on their overseas competitors who will not have to pay a carbon tax.

“If there’s going to be a CO2 tax, it should not tax local manufacturers and give importers a free ride,” he said.

The likelihood of protective tariffs being applied is so remote that some manufacturers are saying they could move their operations overseas. It would be cheaper for them, and they would not have to put up with Labor’s biased industrial relations laws, which favour the unions, as well as onerous taxes just to appease the Greens. China and Indonesia must be clapping their hands with glee. I would also suggest that BlueScope’s views are not unique throughout Illawarra manufacturing and allied industries. BlueScope and OneSteel have said:

It’s a direct threat to this NSW regional economy and the 12,000 workers and their families …

Even the unions representing the manufacturing industry have today deep concerns at the impact this carbon tax is going to have. But the South Coast Trades and Labor Council are all in favour of it. They, who allegedly seek to represent the views of the workers in the Illawarra, the Australian Workers Union, have dismissed these concerns as scaremongering. Yet, in the concluding remarks of its Illawarra head, Mr Andrew Gillespie, as reported in the Illawarra Mercury, acknowledges that many workers were concerned about the talk of BlueScope potentially shifting operations offshore. Mr Gillespie said:

I keep telling them I can’t give you answers on carbon price, or carbon relief, because it hasn’t been done yet.

Fuel prices are predicted to keep on rising, oil production globally has plateaued and food costs will rise. The government is now offering a raft of dispensations for carbon emitters. If the government is to compensate low- to middle-income earners, what is going to be achieved practically? Nothing. That is why I totally oppose the thrust and sentiment behind this motion. A carbon tax is not an essential step and it is specious in the extreme to argue so.

The only thing I agree with in this motion is that governments must work with the rest of the community and the manufacturing industry to meet the challenge of a carbon constrained future. This motion was moved by the member for Throsby, in whose electorate BlueScope Steel sits. My former colleague Jennie George, now retired, did a splendid job representing the working-class voters of the seat of Throsby. We may not have agreed on a number of issues, but she had my respect in the way that she stood up for the welfare of those she was elected to represent. I just wish I could say the same thing about her successor. Has he even bothered to sit down with the CEO of BlueScope to discuss the concerns so publicly expressed before putting his motion? If he has not, it would be in keeping with the growing practice of Labor governments in discounting the need for consultation.

I will certainly be doing all I can, and if that means crossing swords with the member for Throsby and the unions, then so be it. I condemn this motion for being just too clever by half. Nobody wants this carbon tax except the members opposite. Unlike them, I take seriously my responsibilities and the interests of the people I represent. I thank the Leader of the Opposition who took the time to visit BlueScope and the workers last week. This motion and the tax it seeks to promote just says loudly and clearly that the member for Throsby has deserted the workers he so loudly claims to support.

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

Climate change is real. I think that is the starting point of any of these debates. It is real and it is happening today; it is happening now. We know for a fact it is because of human emissions and activity. It has been well documented, and there is a vast body of science supporting it. Scientists all around the world from every major institution and every reputable and credible organisation all agree. A few people have got a slightly different view, and that is their right.

In the vast body of work that has been done there is no argument: they agree on climate change. They agree on the impact. They agree on the quantum and they also agree that something needs to be done. I have a strong view—and as the Prime Minister said—while Australia should not lead the world; we certainly should not be left behind. I think it is important to take note of this in the debate that is taking place in this House. Climate scientists are telling us that carbon pollution is causing climate change, and this is having an enormous impact on the world’s climate.

Australia needs to act. We need to act and we need to do it now. We have talked about this issue for many years. There is no better time than the present to make change. We know that, by acting on climate change, we are doing the right thing. We are not just doing the right thing according to some esoteric principle; we are doing the right economic thing for us. If there is any country in the world that will have a greater impact on it from climate change, rising sea levels and a range of other climate impacts, it will be Australia.

The Intergenerational report, for example, highlights that, without action on climate change, Australia’s GDP will fall by around eight per cent by 2100. If people today looked 20 years into the future, not too far away, we could look back and say that this almost seems like small bananas in terms of the big picture as to where Australia will be in two decades time. We need to make certain that we are part of the global carbon economy and not left behind as some sort of pariah.

It is about creating jobs for the future. It is about setting ourselves up for long-term prosperity. In all of those talks that we have in this place about mining, energy and resources, we always talk about the wasted years when we could have done more. Now is the time when we can do more, achieve more, plan for the future and make sure that we have jobs for the future in this country. Reducing our carbon pollution is a significant part of that. It is also a significant challenge. No-one argues that; no-one debates that. Given that Australia has a very carbon based economy with more than 80 per cent of our electricity generated through coal fired sources, we need to start turning that around. We need to provide more than what we are currently doing. You can only do that through economic incentive. In the end goodwill and good talk will only take us so far. There are only two ways through economic incentive: one is to provide an incentive not to pollute—in other words charge a price on carbon—

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

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The member for Oxley will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.