Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. I refer the Acting Prime Minister to the Canadian Foreign Minister's categorical statement last week that Canada and the United States will not introduce a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme. Given that the government's modelling of the impact of the carbon tax lies entirely on the introduction of similar schemes across the world, how can the Acting Prime Minister continue to claim the government's modelling is credible, or is he suggesting the Canadian Foreign Minister is wrong?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would have thought it was very clear: we have a different policy from the Canadians. There are a few points that ought to be made here, because the context of the question is the assertion that somehow there is no carbon pricing in Canada, which is simply untrue. The Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Quebec already have carbon taxes. We did not hear any mention of that and of course we do not hear any mention of those states in the United States which are putting in place carbon pricing. This is what I meant before when I said they live in a post-fact world. They simply try to ignore the basic facts when it comes to any issue, because what they want to do is to simply play politics, deny the science, deny the facts. We see that on display in here time and time again. Alberta also has a form of carbon price. As I said before, Quebec does as well, and we have California, in its own right the eighth-largest economy in the world, with carbon pricing.

But what does all this come back to? What all this comes back to is that that side at the moment happens to be dominated by climate change sceptics. We know the Leader of the Opposition has said he is a weathervane. We know the member for Wentworth does not agree with the opposition's approach to carbon pricing and we also know there are a number on the backbench who do not agree. But they will continue to play their basic political games. We will get on with putting in place the difficult reforms that will deliver the prosperity and jobs for the Australians of the future.