Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to rise to speak on the package of bills that are before the parliament, which are presented by the government as bills to abolish the carbon tax. The bills do do that—consistent with the position taken to the election by the Labor Party as well—but the bills do much, much more than that. If passed by the parliament the bills will also abolish any chance of Australia having a formal legal cap on carbon pollution and any chance to move to an emissions trading scheme, which I will address in some detail.

The bills also abolish the Climate Change Authority—an independent, strong voice set up to advise the parliament, the government and, perhaps most importantly, the Australian community about the very difficult and highly contested issues associated with climate change. This continues an emerging theme with this government to abolish strong, independent voices and make sure that all advice to the Australian community and all advice to the parliament is filtered through ministerial offices or, more often, the Prime Minister's office.

The bills also abolish tax cuts, or changes to the tax free threshold established for the future, completely contrary to a promise made by the Prime Minister to keep the household assistance package put in place by Labor in full. And, as the House knows, the bills also seek to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

These bills represent the culmination of the most hysterical and mendacious campaign in modern Australian political history. It is a campaign that rests on 10 whopping falsehoods about climate change that have been peddled across this country by the Prime Minister and his fellow travellers. In the time I have to deal with these bills I want to deal with those 10 whoppers.

Whopper No. 1 is that the jury is still out on the science of climate change. That is a whopper peddled by the Prime Minister right across this land over the last four years. As we know, the Prime Minister famously described the science of climate change as 'absolute crap'. He only said that once; his usual formula is that the science—he calls it the 'so-called science'—is not yet settled. The member for Dawson, I read recently, said that this view represents the view of many in the coalition party room. Many in the coalition party room simply do not accept the science of climate change. To use the language of the member for Dawson, and many on the other side of the parliament, they do not 'believe in climate change', as if this were a question of faith rather than a question of science.

This is not a new perspective from those opposite. After his defenestration from the leadership of the Liberal Party, the member for Wentworth famously wrote, in a Fairfax newspaper, about the now Prime Minister's attitude to climate change but also the attitude of the majority of the coalition party room. In that article, the member for Wentworth reflected on the views of Nick Minchin. Nick Minchin is the man who collected the numbers to do over the Liberal Party's policy on emissions trading that had been taken to the election in 2007 by then Prime Minister John Howard. He dangled those numbers in front of any candidate for the leadership willing to go with his views.

The now Treasurer, apparently, to his credit resisted that temptation and stuck to his then principles of supporting an emissions trading scheme—unfortunately he has since discarded those principles—but the member for Warringah, now the Prime Minister, happily took the temptation. The member for Wentworth wrote in the Fairfax papers, immediately after that, that it was Nick Minchin's view, expressed to all of the candidates, that the majority of the coalition party room simply did not believe—again using the language of faith rather than science—in 'human induced global warming', to use the term of the member for Wentworth.

It is simply misleading to say that the science on this question is not settled. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its latest report—its fifth report—in September last year, and in that the 209 lead authors, supported by more than 600 contributing authors, lifted their level of certainty about the existence of climate change and its cause by human activity to 95 per cent. The member for Dawson complains that that is not 100 per cent. If, in coming to this place, the check-in staff at the Adelaide airport had said that you have a 95 per cent chance of making it from Adelaide to Canberra on your flight, then I might have declined to get onto the aeroplane. But, in scientific terms, 95 per cent certainty is seen as a gold standard. It is equivalent to the level of certainty that relevant scientists ascribe to the link between tobacco and lung cancer. Even at its highest, if it is only a 95 per cent risk—and the member for Dawson is right to complain that it is not a 100 per cent risk—what sensible person or member of parliament would not take reasonable action to hedge against a 95 per cent risk, which scientists have been telling us for years, if found out, would have such significant and serious consequences?

Maurice Newman, the Prime Minister's senior business adviser, tells us in regular op-eds in The Australiannewspaperthat the IPCC—those several hundred leading climate scientists who authored the fifth report—are a fringe group that do not represent the mainstream of scientific opinion. He is simply not right about that either. This is a view that the Prime Minister has peddled as well. That hotbed of left-wing conspiracy, NASA, told us last year that some 97 per cent of climate scientists who regularly publish in this area agree with the IPCC that the climate is changing because of human activity. Our own institutions, such as the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO—very widely respected institutions—have expressed the same view on many occasions.

Whopper number two that is peddled by the Prime Minister is that, if there was any global warming over the course of the 20th century, it has stopped—'Nothing to worry about here; it has stopped.' Even the Prime Minister has once said that the world has actually slightly cooled since the 1990s—'So, if there was anything to worry about, do not worry anymore.' This is something, again, peddled by Maurice Newman—the PM's leading business adviser—who wrote earlier this week in The Australian newspaper that it is actually since September 1996 that the warming has stopped. Again, that is just not true.

The World Meteorological Organization told us only some months ago that the decade of the 2000s was warmer than the 1990s, which was again warmer than the decade before it, and so it goes on as you go decade by decade back into history. NASA, over the course of the southern summer, told us that the 20 hottest years in the world on record are all since 1990 and that 13 of the 14 hottest years on record are all since 2000. The CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology have said time and time again exactly the same thing—that global warming continues to impact the world and continues to impact the world's oceans. In their latest State of the climate report, the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO remind us that calendar 2013 was the hottest year ever in Australia, in spite of not being an el Nino year, which will usually see the hottest temperatures in Australia. In spite of not being an el Nino year, 2013 was the hottest calendar year ever in Australia, and there were 28 days in that calendar year that were among the one per cent hottest days ever in Australia—28 of them out of 365. That is the same number of days to get into that top one per cent band in temperature for the whole three decades, the whole 30 years, between 1910 and 1940. The world is continuing to get warmer.

Whopper number three by this Prime Minister and his fellow travellers is that the Prime Minister consistently refuses to acknowledge any link between climate change and an increase in the frequency and the severity of extreme weather events such as droughts, heatwaves, fires, storms and more. There are countless examples of the Prime Minister talking about this lack of any evidence of any link between these things, but perhaps the most unseemly example of it was the slanging match into which the Prime Minister entered with the senior official in climate change from the United Nations about the Blue Mountains bushfires which afflicted so many communities in New South Wales last year. The Prime Minister said that there was no evidence of any link between extreme weather events and climate change, and I have said—as many others on our side have said—of course you cannot draw a link between climate change and any single event. But that is not what the Prime Minister said. The Prime Minister said that you cannot draw a link between climate change and an increase in extreme weather events generally, and that is what conflicts with very clear scientific evidence.

I remember the minister resorted to some advice from Wikipedia—I am sure he remembers this as well—to point out that Australia has had bushfires for as long as records go back and as long as our Indigenous memory goes back, and we all know that to be the case. That is not the question. The question is whether there is an increase in risk, whether there is an increase in the frequency and the severity of this type of extreme weather event, and you do not need to go to Wikipedia to find out about this. You can go to our own advice from the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO. You can go to the minister's own Country Fire Authority from Victoria that talks about an increase in risk, severity and frequency of bushfires associated with climate change. The minister could have gone to his own departmental website, which talks about a quite clearly established increase in risk of this type of extreme weather event. You could have gone to the Climate Commission's report before the government abolished it.

The CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, again in their latest State of the climate report published earlier this year, tracked the forest fire danger index—an index which has been tracked for many years here in Australia—and very clearly found that the risk of forest fires since 1970 has risen markedly associated with climate change. It is up by 50 per cent in the area around Melbourne Airport. The Bureau of Meteorology provides similar advice about the risk to Australia associated with climate change, with Australia experiencing more frequent and more severe heatwaves. All of this advice is quite clear—another whopper from the Prime Minister.

Whopper number four from this Prime Minister and his fellow travellers is that world leaders need not trouble themselves with this issue; that they should focus on the important things like economics and security; and that they should leave these things to environment ministers, because it is not an economic issue—it is simply a fringe environmental issue. Well, shortly before the Prime Minister's visit to the United States, President Obama said that this is 'one of the most significant, if not the most significant, long-term challenges that the United States and the planet faces'. The Tory Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, said climate changes is 'one of the most serious threats the United Kingdom and the world face'. Asked about this, our Prime Minister simply said, 'I don't think so.'

Blocking this from the G20 agenda has been a consistent position that the Prime Minister has taken in his position as chair—again, as if this is not a matter for world leaders but simply a matter that the Minister for Environment and his colleagues around the world should deal with, a fringe issue. Well, that is not the view taken by the rest of the world. In March, the United States and the European Union, together responsible for about half of the world's nominal GDP, signed a joint statement saying that 'sustainable economic growth will only be possible if we tackle climate change. This is a central economic challenge for the world's future'. In February, just a few weeks before that statement, the Premier of China, Li Keqiang, and the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, signed an expansive memorandum of understanding about the view of those two nations—the two largest economies in the world, the two largest emitters of carbon pollution in the world—that recognised 'the urgent need for action' leading in particular to 2015. This month Premier Li of China and UK Prime Minister David Cameron signed a joint statement recognising that 'climate change is one of the greatest global challenges that we face'.

And it is not just an economic challenge. President Obama has talked about the quadrennial US force posture review conducted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff there. In particular, he remarked on the fact that the Joint Chiefs had identified climate change as one of America's greatest threats to national security. Of course, why should any of that concern the members of the G20? We will just leave it to the environment ministers!

Wopper No. 5 by our Prime Minister and his fellow travellers was enunciated in his famous trip to Canada. There the Prime Minister said, 'There is no sign that trading schemes are increasingly being adopted'—carbon trading schemes. 'If anything, trading schemes are being discarded, not adopted.' Again, that is not right. The only nation that is seeking to discard a carbon trading scheme is this one, under this government. It is simply not right to say that others are doing it. I will talk a little more in my remarks about the position of China. But South Korea, our third largest export partner, introduced a few weeks ago a tax of about $20 a tonne on thermal coal imports. South Korea is our third largest market for thermal coal. They are introducing a very broad emissions trading scheme on 1 January 2015. This adds to the long list of emissions trading schemes in place among many of our oldest trading partners—the United Kingdom, Germany, France and many others—and also many states and provinces in North America.

After the warm embrace of the Canadian Prime Minister, who shares the Australian Prime Minister's views on this matter, we know that the Australian Prime Minister let it be known to Australian journalists that he was going to set about building a 'coalition of the unwilling' who would fight the Americans, the Chinese, the Europeans and the Koreans—all of those other leaders who were intent upon taking real action on climate change. He said he would build that coalition in partnership with the Canadian Prime Minister and he even named the other members of the coalition—the New Zealand Prime Minister and the United Kingdom Prime Minister. But the problem was that he did not actually consult with those other members of this so-called coalition of the unwilling. And we know what then happened: to the great embarrassment of the Australian Prime Minister, the New Zealand Prime Minister was forced to say at a press conference some hours later that he was caught completely unaware by the Australian Prime Minister's announcement about his apparent membership of this coalition of the unwilling. And he restated New Zealand's commitment to taking strong action domestically on climate change but also to being a responsible, constructive part of international progress. And I have stated a number of times the position of the UK Prime Minister. Suffice it to say that the UK government came out very quickly to confirm that they had no intention of being a part of the Australian Prime Minister's coalition of the unwilling.

Wopper no. 6 that the Prime Minister and, frankly, also the environment minister have repeated time and time again over the last several years is that China will never take a serious action on climate change and certainly would never introduce carbon trading.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, that's not what we've said.

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Perhaps the environment minister has not gone to the extent of saying China would never introduce carbon trading but certainly the Prime Minister has; this has been repeated by him and many others. I will concede that that is an important point because China has quickly become the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, the largest polluter in terms of carbon dioxide pollution. Despite the fact that China still only emits about a quarter of the carbon pollution per head of population that Australia does, in aggregate terms, being a very large country, it is now by far the biggest carbon dioxide polluter. It has been responsible for about two-thirds of all the growth in carbon pollution that has occurred since 2000. So I will concede that the Prime Minister is right to be focused on what is happening in China because it is such a significant part of what is, after all, a global problem. But again he is just wrong. Maybe it was a reasonable position to take a few years ago, but he should admit now that he has been wrong and China has changed. Anyone who takes an interest in this area of policy will have noticed an extraordinarily significant change in policy from the Chinese leadership in the last 18 months, particularly because of the awful air quality in the northern part of that country.

I have talked about a number of the bilateral agreements, statements and memoranda of understanding that at a leadership level, particularly with Premier Li Keqiang, China has engaged in with the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States. These are incredibly important statements of intent by China not just to do a whole lot of things domestically—which they are doing—but also, following the disappointment of Copenhagen, to be a leader, along with the United States, as one of the two largest economies and powers in the world leading into the very important conference that will take place in Paris next year. Last week the seventh emissions trading scheme started in China—some of them are at the provincial level, for example, in Guangdong, and some of them are starting up at the city level, for example in Shenzhen—with the expectation that the Chinese leadership will try to move to a national carbon trading scheme in the second half of this decade.

The Minister for the Environment often says that these permits are given away for free. Such may be the case in some of the different markets, but what is clear is that in all of those six markets that have been operating for a while there is now a burgeoning carbon trading market. If you look at Shenzhen, for example, which I think was the first emissions trading scheme introduced in China, a permit was trading last week—and I have not looked at this week's price—at the equivalent of about 8.5 euros, so higher than the price at which the permits would trade, on Treasury advice, under Labor's emissions trading scheme with a linkage to the EU scheme, higher than the price at which permits would trade under the amendments that I will be moving later in this debate.

Whopper No. 7 is that the carbon price mechanism, the framework that the government seeks to demolish entirely, would be a wrecking ball through the Australian economy. The Prime Minister used a whole range of different colourful epithets for this. He said it would be a cobra strike at the economy. He said that the South Australian town of Whyalla would simply disappear off the map. I think he made the same prediction about Gladstone and some other parts of Australia as well. Again, the truth is entirely different. The truth of the impact was exactly as Labor predicted. The economy did keep growing. More than 160,000 additional jobs were created in the first 12 months of this carbon price mechanism that, according to the now Prime Minister, was going to have a wrecking ball impact on the national economy.

Also what it started to do, along with our renewable energy policies, is drive down carbon pollution, particularly in the electricity market, which is the largest source of carbon pollution in Australia. We saw a reduction in carbon pollution of around seven per cent in the National Electricity Market in the first 12 months and, as we predicted, there was simply a modest impact on prices. That impact was more than covered through our household assistance package, particular for low-income and fixed-income households, like pensioners, and for middle-income households. The impact on power prices again was exactly as we predicted and again was covered by our household assistance package, particularly for low- and middle-income households.

Taking my own state of South Australia for example, power prices went up by about 4.6 per cent as a result of the introduction of a carbon tax. If our amendments are passed to move to an emissions trading scheme, Treasury's advice to us in government is that that impact would be reduced by about three-quarters. So the ETS impact on South Australian power bills would be in the order of 1.1 per cent and that is way more than covered by the household assistance package. To put that into context we should compare it to the increase over the last four years in SA power bills of 43 per cent because of investment in poles and wires—the network investment that has bedevilled electricity systems all around the country. That very significant gold plating of network infrastructure has led to very significant increases in power prices, which again the Prime Minister mendaciously tried to attach to the carbon price on many occasions.

Whopper No. 8 was the Prime Minister's statement to Alan Jones earlier this year that the renewable energy targets 'are significantly driving up power prices right now'. Again, that is simply wrong. Report after report released recently has put the untruth—I was going to use some other word—to that statement. The renewable energy policies that the Labor Party put in place over the last several years have been an unambiguous success. They have seen renewable energy capacity expand significantly. Wind power tripled under our time in government. When we came to government we saw the number of households that had PV solar panels go from 7,500 to more than 1.1 million households. They are getting out of the power bill race, getting out of the power bill trap, creating their own power and relieving enormous pressure on the grid, particularly in those parts of Australia that are impacted by heatwaves.

We saw the tripling of the number of jobs in the renewable energy sector. We saw billions of dollars come into this sector in investment to the point where by the middle of last year Australia was rated, along with the powerhouses in this area—China, Germany and the US—as one of the four most attractive places in the world to invest in renewable energy. It is no surprise that, since the election of the new government, Australia has slipped in that index a couple of places every quarter. I think it is now about eighth in the world when it was fourth.

This has been an extraordinary success. As every renewable energy program in the world does—and there are dozens and dozens—it does have modest up-front costs but it also has swings and roundabouts benefits in the sense that it is suppressing wholesale power prices, particularly at the peak times for power during heatwaves when power might be sold for thousands of dollars, particularly in the south-east of Australia. Those prices have diminished by as much as 90 per cent in those peak times and that flows through to consumers.

I mentioned some reports that have been clear about this. The ROAM Consulting report that was released I think a month or two ago, the Bloomberg New Energy Finance report that was released a few weeks after that and even ACIL Allen's report, the consultancy engaged by the government as part of its renewable energy target review, have confirmed that prices will go up if the renewable energy target is removed because that suppression effect on wholesale power prices will be removed and consumers will be exposed to the almost certain increase in gas prices that we are going to see as the LNG capacity comes on in Gladstone.

Whopper No. 9 is that the government's direct action policy will achieve the bipartisan minimum target to reduce carbon pollution by five per cent by 2020. There is not one serious commentator that agrees with this whopper—not one serious commentator. It is a whopper that has been repeated by the now Prime Minister and by the now Minister for the Environment for four straight years with a straight face. I commend them for that, because there is not a serious commentator that agrees with them.

I had the opportunity to address this at length in a debate yesterday, and I do not propose to go through that again, except to say that in the most recent report about this, from RepuTex, a very expert modelling firm that works in this area, it reported that the direct action policy would fall about 70 per cent short of the target. Ken Henry, the former Secretary to the Treasury, confirmed earlier this year that, for the direct action policy to achieve the target, the government would have to spend between $4 billion and $5 billion of taxpayer dollars every single year to pay polluters to start to reduce their carbon pollution—rather than having an emissions trading scheme that has the polluters pay.

Whopper No. 10 was a whopper that the Prime Minister engaged in, again in his overseas trip. It was after President Obama released his Clean Power Plan, a very significant plan to start to reduce carbon pollution in existing power plants. This follows on from the President's plan to impose emissions standards or pollution standards on motor vehicles and on new power plants. This was about existing power plants, a reduction of 30 per cent in that pollution by 2030. The Prime Minister said—again with a straight face—that President Obama's plan was 'very similar to the actions that my government proposes to take'.

Once one gets through the laughter about that statement, one goes back to the member for Wentworth because the member for Wentworth expressed it better, I think, than anyone else has when he said about Direct Action that it is simply a 'fig leaf to cover a determination to do nothing'—and, for that matter, 'a recipe for fiscal recklessness on a grand scale' was the statement that the member for Wentworth made in the debate in this place. The direct action policy has no discipline on pollution whatsoever. The so-called safeguards mechanism has been discarded by this minister, so all you have is a dressed-up slush fund to pay taxpayers' dollars to big polluters to start to reduce their pollution.

Labor's position on these bills will be no surprise. It will be the position we enunciated clearly to the electorate in September, a position we have been advocating ever since, and that is to terminate the carbon tax now and to move to an emissions trading scheme that has a formal, legal cap on carbon pollution for the first time ever in this country, a cap that reduces over time and then lets business work out the cheapest, most effective way to operate. I foreshadow that, in the consideration in detail stage, I will be moving amendments to that effect.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Blaxland.

Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the package of bills to repeal the carbon tax. On 7 September last year, the Australian people spoke with a resounding voice. They spoke to have the carbon tax pulled. They no longer wanted to have their household budgets damaged by this reckless tax. We on this side of the chamber kept our promise to the Australian people, and today, for the second time, we are debating the carbon tax. We all recall former Prime Minister Gillard, on 16 August 2010, stating:

There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead …

To many honest, hardworking people living within the Lindsay electorate, that single, uncomplicated promise was enough to return my predecessor and his then mentor—for whom he was getting a tattoo—to the roles of trusted servants of the Australian people.

Fast forward to Friday, 16 August 2013. The temperature at Kingswood train station was a very brisk six degrees. As winter days go in the Nepean Valley, it was a perfect temperature, touching 22 by mid-afternoon. The vibe of the people at the station was positive and a constant one: they wanted change. Cost-of-living pressures, employment and the carbon tax were constant themes of complaint against the previous government. In the weeks leading up to election day, I had spent countless hours—and many pairs of shoes—meeting and talking with constituents face to face. In fact, we met with over 30,000 people across the Lindsay electorate. There were tales of woe of constituents who felt so, so let down by the previous government, deceived by the previous government, let down by a Prime Minister who recklessly claimed things and then went on against the wishes of the people who had elected her to be there.

It was heartbreaking to walk through areas like Werrington and see pensioners wrapped up in blankets, restricting themselves to one room of their home because they were too frightened to put on a heater on those cold days that we get in Western Sydney. This was the sort of pain that those opposite inflicted on Australians everywhere and the people of western Sydney, the people I now have the opportunity to represent. We found many other pensioners and seniors at their local clubs, be it the St Marys Band Club, the RSL clubs or their bowling clubs, because at least they could get away from the cool temperatures there because those clubs were heated. Perhaps one of the worst examples of the carbon tax was the pain imposed on a retired war veteran and his wife, whom I met when I doorknocked. They told me that their costs had increased and that they had—once again—confined themselves to one room of their home. This is not what they fought to defend in our country. I found it quite heartbreaking and disrespectful to stand there and to see our war heroes in those sorts of conditions.

For those of the members now in opposition who struggle to count past 10 with their shoes and socks off: the Australian people did vote to repeal the carbon tax. In Lindsay, 53,446 of the formal votes lodged on 7 September 2013 were against the ALP: that is, 61 per cent of the voters I represent told former the Prime Ministers, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, and those opposite—whoever is in charge—that they did not want a carbon tax. On a national level, repealing the carbon tax will help families, strengthen our economy and remove a massive weight from this country's shoulders.

This package of bills currently before the House is a central part of the coalition's plan to build a stronger economy and help address the cost-of-living pressures on all families. We all have a moral responsibility as elected servants of the Australian people to honour the decision that the Australian people have asked us to make. In terms of dollars, the carbon tax will realise a $9 billion hit on the Australian economy this year alone. That is a $9 billion hit on jobs, a $9 billion hit on investment, a $9 billion burden on Australia that we just do not need and, more to the point, that we cannot afford. At home in Lindsay, the carbon tax is a burden on the budgets of our hardworking families. The repeal of the carbon tax will finally remove the pressure and stranglehold that has been placed on these families by the former Labor government.

As a result of this legislation, local families will be $550 a year better off. The opportunity this affords for families in the Lindsay electorate, from Penrith to St Marys, Glenmore Park to Cambridge Park, Kingswood to Castlereagh and Mulgoa—right across the electorate—is considerable. Lindsay is the fourth youngest electorate, so that $550 across a family's budget will have an important impact. For the 31,604 families in Lindsay, it will make a huge difference. It could mean more text books, tutoring for school kids, driving lessons for our teenagers, membership of the local sporting clubs or football team and, wait for it, the luxury of being able to turn on a heater in winter or an air conditioner in a hot, hot summer. For the 31,604 families, being $550 better off will be the result of the repeal of the carbon tax—$550 for a better future for these families; $550 that they can choose how to spend.

I am proud to be a part of a government that has been consistent, a government that supports the Australian people, a government that is delivering on its promises, a government that is committed to cutting $1 billion a year from the red tape that is currently choking so many businesses. The repeal of the carbon tax will mean that compliance costs will fall by around $87.6 million. This immediate relief will mean that local families and business owners such as those on High Street, Penrith, and Queen Street, St Marys, or in any of our industrial parks can get back to the job of doing business and stop jumping through so many government hoops.

Like all Australians, the people of Lindsay are a proud people and we will choose to make sacrifices if it means providing for a better future for our families. We do aspire to a lifestyle of choice and freedom and we resent those who attempt to take these things from us. A big part of our lifestyle is Western Sydney is sport and recreation and the choices we make to raise our families. Penrith is home of the Whitewater Stadium, which was a Sydney Olympics asset, so in the year 2000 we saw both rowing and whitewater rafting within the Lindsay electorate. The whitewater rafting site requires a lot of energy to pump the water from the holding dam into the top of the whitewater rafting course. Since the Olympic Games this site has become quite popular for both recreation and competitive sports for local groups and many families. In fact, it is an important tourist attraction for the region. As a direct result of the increase in electricity prices, the Penrith Whitewater Stadium has had to close during peak electricity usage times, after 1pm on weekdays, from April through to October. I refer to comments made by Jack Hodge, the Manager of Penrith Whitewater Stadium, in the Western Weekender on 14 February this year:

The carbon tax has also contributed to a forecast increase in our electricity bills by 15 per cent.

We have been trying to reduce these costs through demand management by shutting down the stadium in the peak electricity times after 1pm on weekdays from April to October.

I would like to reiterate for the House how significant this is. This is an international sporting facility that leads to sporting teams from across the world coming to the Lindsay electorate, staying in our hotels, dining in our restaurant precincts, yet it has to be closed down because of the carbon tax and increases in electricity prices. This is about as reckless as you can get. It is damaging the people in Lindsay and it is damaging our economy in Western Sydney. It is absolutely appalling. How can we expect businesses to continue when they are up against these sorts of imposts?

I would also like to refer to Penrith council, which produced a report for a council ordinary meeting on the cost the council is facing. The report says:

The Carbon Price on electricity for 2013-14 is charged at … Based on Council's 2012-13 usage the estimated Carbon Charge for 2013-14 is just over $400,000.

The report also says:

In the period from July to December 2013 the cost of the Carbon Price to Council on waste services was $239,424. This is made up of $102,323 for waste sent straight to landfill, $34,629 for garbage processing, $73,867 for composting, and $28,605 for recycling. This equates to $478,848 once pro-rated for 2013-14.

For fuel costs, the report says:

Over a full year this equates to $26,900 potential savings if the Carbon Price is repealed.

The total saving for Penrith Council is $906,000 annually—nearly $1 million. The bottom line of the report for me, where the rubber really does hit the road, is when it says:

… electricity costs and fuel costs will be offset in the calculation of the rate peg.

In other words, straight through to the ratepayer, another way of hurting the people of Western Sydney

That just goes to show how reckless those opposite are, to deliberately hurt the people of Western Sydney, to hurt the good families of Western Sydney.

I would also like to talk about what we are doing—the Direct Action Plan. It is great to have the Minister for the Environment here with us today because he has been a wonderful advocate for and supporter of the Cumberland Plain Woodland. The Lindsay community, together with Macquarie, will benefit from the $15 million boost to the bushland in Western Sydney. They will see a Green Army campaign of 15 Green Army teams working on local projects in the Cumberland corridor. This is an important environment reform, which will have massive significance for the people of Western Sydney. It will also provide employment and training opportunities for the local community through the Green Army and the 20 Million Trees program.

When we look at what we are doing to provide direct action on the ground, to work with local communities to reduce our impact on the environment, we can see quite clearly that we are supporting the people of Western Sydney. We are supporting families. These 15 Green Army teams will provide a massive boost to the families in Western Sydney, unlike those opposite who have done nothing but charge and charge through our councils, through increases in fuel prices, through the $550 a year of costs to the average families. I stand proud to support these bills today. I thank the Minister for the Environment once again for looking after the people of Western Sydney.

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

The member for Lindsay talks up the coalition's Direct Action Plan but I have very little confidence that the Direct Action Plan will deliver effective carbon emissions reductions. I believe it will not do anything of the kind and the question that the House needs to ask in considering the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No.2] and related bills is whether this is the best way to reduce emissions or whether there are better ways. I believe the best way to reduce carbon emissions is to transition to renewable energy. I want to praise Clive Palmer, the member for Fairfax, for his announcement that his senators will vote to keep the renewable energy target. I also want to praise the member for Fairfax for indicating that his senators will not vote for two of the bills in the clean energy legislation package before the House—that is, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (Abolition) Bill 2014 and the Climate Change Authority (Abolition) Bill 2013 [No. 2]. This is inconvenient for Prime Minister Abbott but very encouraging news for the planet.

It is an inconvenient truth for the government that jobs and investment in regional areas in solar panels, solar hot water and high-efficiency appliances are contributing billions of dollars worth of economic activity each year. It is an inconvenient truth for this government that over 14 per cent of Australia's power was produced by renewable energy in the 2013 calendar year. It is an inconvenient truth for this government that more than two million household clean energy systems have now been installed across the country, with the majority being either solar power or solar hot water. It is an inconvenient truth for this government that investment in Australian clean energy during 2013 was, for the third successive year, over $5 billion. It is an inconvenient truth for this government that at the end of 2013 over 20,000 people were employed in the renewable energy industry. It is an inconvenient truth for this government that last year the 140-turbine Macarthur Wind Farm, the largest in the southern hemisphere, led one of the best years of large-scale renewable energy in recent years when 705 megawatts of new projects came online. And it is an inconvenient truth for this government that, perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, the renewable energy target will actually lead to lower power prices.

Modelling completed for the Clean Energy Council by leading energy market experts ROAM Consulting found that power bills would be more than $500 million cheaper across all Australian households in 2020 with the renewable energy target in place than if it were removed. Beyond 2020, this figure is even higher, rising to a maximum of $140 cheaper per household or a $1.4 billion total saving on power bills. This is because fewer renewables, such as wind and solar, would mean more of our energy would have to come from gas-fired electricity, which is becoming more expensive all the time. Indeed, the Australian Industry Group, which represents many of the country's large manufacturers and other energy users, said this year that the rising price of gas is emerging as possibly the biggest energy issue we face. They and others have projected that gas prices may triple this decade, causing massive problems for some of our more energy-intensive industries.

I have talked about the impact of rising gas prices on both manufacturers and consumers previously. I regret that no action has been taken to protect consumers from rising energy bills. Cutting the RET would make matters worse and, regrettably, the legislated review of the renewable energy target has undermined confidence in the industry and undermined investment.

The Liberal Party is quick to cry foul and make hysterical claims about sovereign risk if a Labor government takes any action which impacts on any company's bottom line, but the way in which it subjects the renewable energy industry to constant policy changes and rough handling beggars belief. These are real industries, mostly in regional areas, providing a real service in a carbon constrained world. They are the industries of the future. They are certainly the industries that economies from China to the US and Europe are now embracing and they deserve better.

This government's record on climate change has been quite shameful. It is not just the axing of the Climate Commission and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. It is not just the inquiry into the renewable energy target or the shameful international positions the government has taken saying that no country can be expected to sacrifice resource revenue to tackle climate change. Is the Prime Minister not aware that the economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment—no environment, no economy?

But it is worse than that: the Prime Minister appointed Maurice Newman as chairman of his Business Advisory Council. Mr Newman has described climate change as a scientific delusion, says Australia is hostage to climate change madness and accuses the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of dishonesty and deceit—and the Prime Minister makes this man his key business adviser! Is it a scientific delusion that in Australia average air temperatures have increased by 0.9 degrees Celsius since 1910? Is it a scientific delusion that since the 1950s every decade has been warmer than the one before it? Is it a scientific delusion that 2013 was Australia's hottest year since records began more than a century ago?

Given these facts, it would be crazy for governments and business not to take the forecasts seriously. These forecasts include more heatwaves, more droughts and more bushfires. It would be imprudent and negligent for either government or business to ignore this. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted the displacement of between 13 million and 94 million people in south, south-east and east Asia from an increase in the size and intensity of tropical cyclones and resulting storm surges. The tragedy of disasters like this is that they are avoidable. The renewable energy industry has the capacity—if only we helped it rather than tried to strangle it—to take us down a very different path. In March, the CEO of the Clean Energy Council, David Green, said solar PV was transitioning from being disruptive technology to being incumbent technology. This is very significant indeed.

Climate change is a serious issue that demands a serious and effective response. It is time for the Prime Minister to acknowledge the flaws in what is an expensive, inefficient and ineffective direct action policy. Labor's position on climate change has not changed. We will not support the repeal of the carbon price unless there is a credible alternative that will deliver meaningful action to tackle climate change. We already voted to abolish the carbon tax in the Senate and replace it with an emissions trading scheme, and we will do so again when it comes before the Senate.

The Australian government's Climate Change Authority, a body which this government wants to silence, shut down and kill off through one of these bills, has indicated that 'climate change is unequivocal'; that 'human influence on the climate system is clear'; that 'Australia should be pursuing a stronger target'; that 'taken as a whole, the government's conditions for moving beyond a five per cent reduction appear to have been met'; that 99 countries are acting on emissions, with these including Australia's major trading partners 'covering over 80 per cent of global emissions and 90 per cent' of economic output; and China and the US are 'stepping up their efforts' to reduce emissions. Both have targets. 'China is investing heavily in renewable energy projects, closing inefficient power plants and trialling market mechanisms to reduce emissions'. Indeed, the authority's analysis shows that Australia can achieve a 15 per cent to 25 per cent reduction target while national income and the economy continue to grow.

I said that the member for Lindsay talked about Direct Action. Yesterday, the government put forward to replace Labor's initiatives—the initiatives which these bills seek to kill off—a bill to broaden the Carbon Farming Initiative to turn it into a key plank of the government's direct action policy. That bill uses the mechanism of an emissions reduction fund. My concern is that the Emissions Reduction Fund will turn into a $2½ billion dressed-up slush fund paying large corporations for things that they were going to do anyway. I say this after closely examining the legal advice about that bill provided by Environmental Justice Australia, formerly known as the Environmental Defenders Office, to the Australian Conservation Foundation. Let me express great concern at the decision by the government in December last year to withdraw funding from the Environmental Defenders Office. It is a very is short-sighted decision, and I take this opportunity to urge the Liberal government to reconsider it.

Environmental Justice Australia has said that it is very difficult to properly assess the scheme because important details are left to other legislation, to legislative rules, to the discretion of the executive or to the details of individual contracts that will be entered into between the Commonwealth and project proponents. Environmental Justice Australia notes that the scheme being created gives a large degree of discretion to the executive and the relevant minister; even when there are specific criteria or conditions set out in the bill, they are subject to executive variation; and, of course, this creates further uncertainty about the operation and effectiveness of the scheme.

They also raise serious concerns about the mechanics of the scheme. For example, sequestration offset projects can have a permanence period of either 25 or 100 years—that is to say that the period for which the proponent has an obligation to maintain the project and ensure that sequestered emissions are not released back into the atmosphere can vary. So, if you nominate a 25-year permanence period, you are subject to a 20 per cent reduction in the number of carbon credits you are entitled to. The white paper and the explanatory memorandum say the 20 per cent discount will cover the costs of replacing carbon stores if the projects are discontinued. But why the government believes that only one in five projects will go for 25 years rather than 100 years in these circumstances is very unclear.

I am also concerned about up-front payments. The white paper says that the Emissions Reduction Fund will pay for emissions as they occur and will not provide up-front payments. But the white paper also says that, in certain circumstances, there will be ways to deem or pre-calculate emissions reductions from certain activities. So the risk is that payments may be made for emissions that do not, ultimately, materialise. Furthermore, the scheme contains no explicit mechanism that relates to the performance of any contractual obligation and no penalties for failure to deliver the contracted quantity of carbon credit units.

If the only way you can enforce a breach of contract is therefore through the common law, there can be little doubt that the absence of a penalty mechanism to promote compliance will act as a significant barrier to ensuring that contractual obligations are fulfilled. I also note that, while part 12 requires the regulator to publish information about the scheme, proponents actually get five years to report on projects. So it will not be possible to assess the effectiveness of the Direct Action scheme for a considerable period of time.

Last week I spoke in the House about a delegation from the Australian Conservation Foundation who had come to advise members of a petition from tens of thousands of Australians urging we 'Don't Drop the Ball on Climate Action '. They said to us as members of parliament:

For two years now Australia has had a set of laws called the Clean Energy Future Package, widely known by the public purely as the "carbon tax".

What is less known is that it is working. Australia's carbon price is doing its job of cutting our pollution, making it a safer, healthier country for all of us while also doing our fair share in the effort to tackle global warming.

We also know that in the past 12 months, Australia's carbon pollution levels dropped by more than it has in the past 24 years. We know that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, part of the package, is making a profit while cutting pollution.

And we know this is happening while the economy … growing at 3.5 per cent in the past year.

Australians want to see us take action; 86 per cent of Australians want us to cut our carbon pollution, 45 per cent see global warming as a 'serious and pressing problem', a figure that is up 9 per cent from only two years ago.

…   …   …   

The Australian public are speaking up. They are worried about global warming and they want Australia to do its bit.

We have the laws, already in place, that are working incredibly well.

And they ask us as parliamentarians to listen to the Australian people concerning this and to vote to keep these laws in place. I will be voting to do just that.

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

Carbon taxing in this country is a costly, futile nonsense that should be brought to an immediate end through this bill and the other bills in the package. The cold, the hard, the indisputable reality is that nothing Australia does alone or could possibly do in limiting carbon emissions, even cutting them to zero, can make the slightest impact on our climate. Our gross emissions are globally inconsequential, barely one per cent, and are offset entirely by the rapid acceleration of emissions elsewhere in the world. If Australia stopped emitting every gram of greenhouse gasses from today, from this minute, and never emitted another, ever, our emissions would be made up elsewhere inside one year. The sacrifice would be utterly and absolutely pointless.

The only way there can be an appreciable reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions over time, carrying the theoretical potential to reduce the long-term impact on climate change, is if there is a concerted, coordinated, global effort that includes the world's biggest emitters, particularly China and India and especially the United States. The prospect for that is as remote now, probably even more remote, than it has ever been.

Members opposite are in total denial of these fundamental facts. Their carbon tax has inflicted great damage on Australian industry and our families. There has been at least a $15.4 billion negative impact on our economy, a $9 billion attack on Australian jobs. They have imposed cost on Australian families and the Australian economy through what is, ridiculously, the most comprehensive and among the highest carbon taxes on the planet on a fundamentally dishonest premise. They must know it in their own hearts that this was a fundamentally dishonest premise. It is a relic of the Labor-Green's deal, which of course ought now to be redundant, but Labor still hangs on to the carbon tax in spite of the fact that it is clearly no longer politically useful for them.

Labor's carbon tax has certainly made a significant contribution to the fact that unemployment rose by 200,000 people under the Labor government, much of it, clearly, the result of the carbon tax. Our industry ceased to be competitive, particularly energy intensive industry. Smelting and industries of that nature came to Australia because of our low-cost energy advantage. But we have squandered that advantage. We have taxed it away. Carbon taxing on our electricity costs has meant that we can no longer be competitive internationally in energy intensive industries. This plus the renewable energy target have meant that, when decisions are being made about extending the life of aluminium smelters and other heavy energy consumers, those decisions—almost invariably these days being made in a foreign boardroom which has the option of coming to Australia or being in other parts of the world—are going against Australia. They are going to countries now where there is not likely ever to be a carbon tax. They are going to countries that can offer the cheap energy that once Australia was able to provide as an incentive. So refineries are already starting to close and, as new investment decisions are required, sadly, others will close into the future. Thousands of Australian jobs will be lost. Value-adding will go to other parts of the world. There will be no new refineries or energy intensive industries built in this country.

Our car manufacturing industry is moving to a position where it will cease to exist—another industry which requires significant energy. It has not just been the uncompetitive work practices et cetera in this country that have led to the demise of the car manufacturing industry; it has clearly been high energy costs, too, and the prospect that those energy costs would continue to go up and up and up, because the Labor Party wants to lock in increases in this carbon tax every year. We are only days away from seeing a practical example of that: the carbon tax going up, because Labor has already legislated for it to go up on 1 July.

We hear reports of our airlines, for instance, chalking up losses and, if they were not paying a carbon tax, those airlines would instead be returning a profit. Instead of our aviation industry being at risk, it could in fact be trading profitably, if there were no carbon tax.

Many farmers are now having to make the decision that they cannot afford to irrigate. The cost of electricity is so high that the increased yields they expect to get from irrigation cannot justify the higher cost, so we lose productivity. This is a ridiculous tax. This is a tax on our advantage. This is turning Australia into an uncompetitive country.

The renewable energy target, which is another part of Labor's high energy cost strategy, adds to the enormous cost and energy cost that Australian industry will face into the future. This is a tax that is having a significant impact.

The previous member in his remarks said that the carbon tax is working. It is working: by closing down Australian industries therefore you do reduce your emissions; and if you close down a refinery, there are fewer emissions. But then we are not going without aluminium or steel or other products; we are buying it from other countries where there is no carbon tax and no intention of having a carbon tax. This is the greatest case of self-inflicted harm that I think any country has ever contemplated. We continue to use the products, but Australian jobs are lost and we are not able to undertake this work.

Members opposite have been needlessly, artificially and wilfully inflating the performance of other countries on carbon tax to try and justify their own actions in relation to implementing their carbon tax. I am not sure that the former Prime Minister was being deliberately dishonest when she said 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' I think that she probably was intending that that would be the case but she was so devoid of principle that, when it came to doing a deal to hang onto the trappings of office, she was prepared to trade in those principles irrespective of the damage that it was going to cause to our country.

The Labor Party keeps talking about examples in other parts of the world. They frequently tell us about China making huge efforts to reduce their emissions. A prime indicator of China's intent, according to the former Prime Minister, was that China was shutting down 'dirty' coal-fired power stations, was commissioning a wind turbine an hour and was drastically reducing its emissions intensity. All those examples epitomise Labor's deceit on the issue.

What the former Prime Minister did not say—and I am sure deliberately didn't say when she was talking about the closure of dirty coal-fired power stations—was that the ones being closed in China were small, very old, inefficient plants and that they were being replaced many times over by massive new coal-fired power stations, so that net emissions were—are and will be—possibly for decades to come going up and going up substantially.

For every gigawatt of coal-fired power capacity China has been shutting down, three were being built. There is no doubt they are cleaner. Some of the new technology that is available for coal-fired power stations and some of those being planned for Germany are right at the cutting edge of coal-fired generating technology: critical, supercritical and even hypercritical generators, built around advances in boiler construction that allows much higher pressures meaning less coal has to be burned to spin the turbines for a given amount of power. In net terms, and in spite of this technology, the reality is: China's emissions from coal-fired power are going up.

There have also been these suggestions that the Chinese are building a lot of wind farms. It is true that they are building a number of wind generators but they make a very, very tiny contribution to China's energy needs—about two per cent—and the reality is that China's total emissions are going up substantially. In 2000, China's total emissions were around three billion tonnes, around six times ours; in 2020, there are expected to be 12 billion tonnes, around 24 times ours.

There is no evidence that countries around the world are lining up to introduce carbon taxation schemes like the one this legislation abolishes. In fact not one of the top five emitters—China, the United States, India, Russia, Japan, generating between them well over 50 per cent of total global emissions—is proposing to do what Labor asked Australia to do. The reality is that there are very few emissions trading schemes anywhere in the world.

We look at New Zealand and Europe, the examples that are often put up. New Zealand a year or two ago introduced a two-for-one discount on their emissions trading certificates, so the real cost of their carbon trading scheme now is about $1.80 a tonne. Of course their scheme does not cover most of their economy.

When you move to Europe, the price is about $8 a tonne but, if you look at the real impact of the carbon tax on people in those economies, in Europe the scheme raises just over $1 per person per year. The New Zealand scheme also raises a very, very small amount of money. The European scheme is 400 times less onerous than the Australian scheme, so our scheme has 400 times the impact of the European scheme. There is no country in the world engaging in this level of self-harm. There is no logical reason why it should continue.

This government was elected with a clear mandate to scrap the carbon tax and reduce costs to business and households. Indeed, the last two elections were won by parties promising not to have a carbon tax. But Labor did not deliver; they welshed on their commitment. The Australian people voted at the last election to get rid of the carbon tax. This government intends to honour its commitment. Now is the time for the Australian parliament to respect the wishes and the mandate of the Australian people and vote to get rid of this insidious tax.

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How extraordinary that the Deputy Prime Minister talks about this parliament respecting the mandate of the government after the debate we have seen on this budget of broken promises.

I rise in opposition to this package of 11 bills before us. I note, in doing so, as per the member for Port Adelaide, that this debate today represents the culmination of what has been, as he put it, a hysterical and mendacious campaign. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to be able to speak once more in this debate to put on the record again my views on tackling climate change. I am very proud to be part of the Labor Party that stood up for carbon pricing under Kevin Rudd, under Julia Gillard and now under the present Leader of the Opposition. I am proud to be part of a party that looks to the evidence and, in doing so, looks to our future.

Yesterday I did not get the chance to speak on the direct action or, rather, the carbon farming initiative legislation. The gag that was imposed once again betrayed the lack of confidence this government has in its policy settings, and rightly so. The member for Charlton, in his contribution, put to rest the straw men that constitute the best the government can put up in this case, as we saw through the contribution of the Deputy Prime Minister. I urge members opposite to look at Hansard to consider the contribution of the member for Charlton in yesterday's debate and perhaps compare that to the international overview that the Deputy Prime Minister offered us a few minutes ago.

Fundamentally, this is a government that does not have the courage of its convictions. This is a government that is continually afraid of debate and afraid of scrutiny. This is particularly disappointing in a debate such as this, a vital debate around Australia's future. This debate, or rather the management of it, over the past few months demonstrates the lack of bona fides the government has in the area of climate change, and that the tawdry political fixes that brought the current leadership of the government together are hurting Australia's economy as well as our environment. Of course it has not been a great couple of days for the environment minister—or the person we are to refer to using that title—because, whatever he may be, his record on the environment is less than zero.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The artist formerly known as—

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, 'the artist formerly known as', as the shadow Treasurer says. I could not get the minister to respond to me in question time yesterday despite my best endeavours to help him out. But I do hold out some hope that he may be able to revert to type. Perhaps he can, in light of yesterday's events, dust off that thesis of his and walk away from the tragic history of the coalition's retreat from rationality and reality in the challenge of climate change.

We have seen some progress in the debate on climate change in very recent days. The Palmer United Party, it would seem, has looked to the evidence and to the future and has indicated it will support the continuation of the RET, the Climate Change Authority and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. This is good news, great news and a sensible development. In carbon pricing, the position is less clear, but I am hopeful. In that regard, I look to some comments of the Climate Institute from last night. They look to the fact that Mr Palmer is open to a meaningful debate, an evidence based debate. Mr Connor from the Climate Institute said:

It should be recognised that Mr Palmer has come a long way today and declared he has an open mind on the issue.

An open mind is really what we all should have in this challenge, and I hope members opposite in the coming weeks will follow Mr Palmer's example. I note also that the Climate Institute's polling indicates that Australians are demonstrating that they have an open mind on these matters. Despite the campaign of hysteria, the mendacious campaign waged by members opposite, Australians are seeing beyond this hysteria and more Australians now want to keep the current carbon laws rather than repeal them, and the majority clearly think that the Abbott government should take climate change more seriously. This is progress, and I am sure it is a curve that will continue.

This is a cynical act of a deeply cynical government which always goes to the lowest common denominator. In this case, the lowest common denominator means the climate change deniers, although at least they are honest. It is those who have conjured up this absurd policy that really are to blame here because in their hearts they know better, which is why they have been hiding from the debate.

As I thought about my contribution in this debate, I thought about two matters that have been consistently put by government members in the debate on the budget: the refrain, the pompous refrain that Labor is all politics and no policy—a favourite of the Treasurer—and the feigned concern for questions of intergenerational equity. I think both need to be applied to this debate. When I think about this politics charge, is this not the purist politics on the part of those opposite? They cannot find a disinterested expert to back in their position, and media releases from the likes of the Minerals Council are no substitute for that sort of evidence based analysis from disinterested parties, economists or climate scientists.

This is of course all about a price that has been paid in the leadership of the Liberal Party. It is all about the internals of the coalition giving way to the hard right. Concerns of intergenerational equity, spoken of so often in the debates on the budget, go to the heart of this debate. It seems pretty elementary to me that concerns of equity and sustainability go hand in hand. How can any of us deny our children and their children the quality of life that we have enjoyed, in particular, the opportunity to take pleasure in our wonderful natural environment? On this point, a few moments ago, the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia put the proposition, in effect, that what we do in Australia is immaterial. This is morally bankrupt. A developed economy, a high-emitting economy like Australia must play a leadership role. We must do our share in meeting this great global challenge. The alternative is unpalatable and morally wrong.

What is at stake today? We see 11 bills to amend a number of acts as well as some consequential amendments to a range of non-carbon related acts. What is at stake here is the abolition of the price of carbon and the removal of the ETS without any mechanism to take its place; the removal of important industry assistance, including support for Australian jobs through the steel transformation plan; the abolition of the Climate Change Authority, although we have had good news on that; and the abolition of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, although again there are grounds for optimism there—and that would, of course, cease any commercial term loans to help new, ambitious renewable projects over the estimates. I also note that this is legislation that is designed to work retrospectively if adopted after the end of this financial year—a presumption we should always be cautious of.

As the member for Port Adelaide has mentioned, the House and the Senate have already dealt with these bills. Then as now, we saw from this government procedural games seeking to prevent meaningful debate in this place. I simply say that the self-satisfied cleverness of the Leader of the House is obviously pleasing to him but makes even clearer the case that this is at its heart a mean and tricky government without the courage of its convictions. There are parallels between this government's aversion to debate, this notion of policymaking as a game, and its aversion to the science of climate change.

As I have previously said in this place, I believe that taking effective action on climate change is the most urgent priority facing Australia. Unlike members opposite, I believe that putting a price on carbon must be at the core of taking effective action. I believe the scientists of climate change, not the member for Dawson, and I believe the economists on how we should respond to meeting this great moral challenge. And of course there is a consensus in both of these communities of experts that flies in the face of the actions of this government. I refer members opposite to September's fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is important reading, and I urge them to have regard for those findings.

While we have heard the numbers plenty of times, I think and hope they are worth repeating. Perhaps, like Mr Palmer, members opposite may develop open minds. Ninety-seven per cent of climate scientists concur that climate change is drive by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. I am not sure about the Minister for Agriculture, and I hope that he makes a contribution to this debate. I look forward to hearing his contribution on these matters as I always look forward to his contributions in this place. Also, 86 per cent of economists, normally the friends of members opposite—normally the friends of last resort on economic matters—support an ETS as the cheapest and most efficient way to reduce carbon pollution. The contrast with the lack of support for so-called 'direct action' is striking.

Labor has consistently promised to put a price on carbon. I was elected to this place on this basis and I will continue to act accordingly to support a price on carbon. Putting a price on carbon is, of course, the most efficient way to allocate capital to cleaner ways of producing and using energy. We need also to put a cap on carbon pollution. We need to continue to support the development of our renewables industry, a job-creating industry, and we need to retain the Climate Change Authority so the Australian people can continue to have the benefit of that. It is what this government fears the most in this area of policymaking and right across the board: high-quality, independent advice to drive considered public policy debate in this place and in the community. We need to replace a backward policy, a policy that is all about a political fix—an internal political fix at that—the Liberal Party policy, which simply will not work, with one that will: an emissions trading scheme replacing the carbon tax with a market based mechanism that caps pollution and lets businesses determine the most effective and cost-effective way to operate under that cap. I am sure the Minister for Small Business in his heart of hearts would look to that example. As we know, there is a wide range of modelling, in particular from Treasury, that tells us that in earlier years we would also significantly reduce the cost of living as well as reducing the cost of carbon. We would reduce the cost of living while maintaining Australians' capacity to enjoy a decent standard of living into the future.

I think I should touch briefly on the Clean Energy Finance Corporation—not least because my capacity to participate in the specific debate in respect of that legislation was, unsurprisingly, gagged. I think I should make mention of the fact that that body has been a great success and will return real dividends. In its first months of operation it has been strikingly successful at providing loans to organisations, and over time we see the capacity to make investments that would account for 50 per cent of the five per cent emissions reduction by 2020 target at a profit to the taxpayer of $2.40 a tonne. In 12 months we have seen great success; but, despite those successful operations—again, in defiance of the evidence—through these bills the government is again seeking to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. This is a government that has been unable to see past its ideological blinkers and appreciate the role the Clean Energy Finance Corporation has been playing in facilitating investment in renewable energy that would otherwise be missed by normal commercial banks. It is the sort of innovative public policy that Labor is up for and members opposite are in denial about.

The choice today is stark. We have a choice to be open minded like Mr Palmer—a choice to stand up for our children and their children—or to blink in the face of this great moral challenge, to blink, as the Deputy Prime Minister has rightly put it, from our moral responsibility to play a leadership role, to blink and reduce our future to meaningless, misleading three-word slogans. The choice before us fundamentally comes to whether it should be polluter-pays or paying polluters that guides Australia's policy approach to this area. The coalition's approach is focused on the creation of an allegedly $2.5 billion emissions reduction fund, the core of Direct Action, which would pay Australian companies to reduce pollution. So, where the Labor focus is to cap the amount of pollution that can enter the atmosphere and then have a system for business to find the cheapest way to reduce pollution, the coalition will simply use taxpayers' money to pay big polluters.

I note, briefly, that independent research and modelling undertaken by SKM-MMA and Monash University Centre for Policy Studies shows that this fund will see pollution increase to eight to 10 per cent above 2000 levels by 2020, will reduce pollution by a third less than Labor's policy, will require significant additional investment to achieve the 2020 target, and will see both costs and pollution increase over time. In doing so, it will subsidise the pollution of businesses that do not make changes.

Despite these issues and the posturing by the coalition, there is still no comprehensive approach that marks anything like a credible alternative to Labor's policy. So, we in the Labor Party want to tackle climate change in the most cost effective way possible. That is why we support replacing the carbon tax with a system that puts a legal cap on carbon pollution and lets business work out the cheapest and most efficient way to operate within that cap. The science is settled here, and the way forward is clear. To turn our backs on science, economics and, indeed, the rest of the world is not an option. To mortgage our future on the farce that is direct action is not an option. I know that Labor stands on the right side of history in this debate.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to start by thanking the Labor Party. I would like to thank the Labor Party and the Greens for coming up with such a dopey policy that they ended up in opposition. I would like to thank the Labor Party and the Greens for standing behind that policy in such a way that they churned through their leaders.

I would like to thank the Labor Party for getting themselves into such a position that they got annihilated in an election. I would like to thank the Australian people for realising how stupid the policy was, and I would like to thank the Palmer United Party for realising that we must honour our election commitment and scrap the carbon tax. As I have said before, it was nothing but a big, new, broadbased consumption tax. It was a broadbased consumption tax, based on power, to connect every household to the Australian Taxation Office via something slightly above their skirting board called the power plug. No matter what they did in their lives, in an inelastic form they were going to pay more for it.

Every time someone turned on the electric blanket the carbon tax was in bed with them. When they opened the fridge, a little white light went on to remind them that the carbon tax had been with them all night. When they turned on the kettle the carbon tax was having breakfast with them. When they went to work the carbon tax would go with them, because those opposite still believe that there should be a 6.85c per litre increase in diesel prices. When they turned on a photocopier the carbon tax could replicate itself. When they turned on the light the carbon tax would be in the office with them. It did not matter what they did. If someone tried to fly away from it, they would find that the carbon tax was on aviation fuel. But it would only be on the aviation fuel when they were flying away; if they took another airline it would not be there. It was the most absurd idea.

Those on the other side of the chamber believed that they could single-handedly change the temperature of the globe. How did they go? They might be going all right at the moment; it's been rather cold lately. We have had a bit of snow. Maybe it is working! Or maybe we were just being ripped off. And maybe it is about time that this rip-off is changed.

I was in the chamber the other day when the member for Hunter said those on the other side of the chamber still believed in terminating the tax. He said that. If you go back to the Hansard you can read the comments that were made. So there are still terminators on that side; it is just that they are, sort of, varying.

Now we have a bit of a schism in Nimbin because the Greens are on one side and there are variant views in the Labor Party about where they are. This is the ultimate wedding present for the Labor Party and the Greens. It represents the matrimonial fit of the Labor Party and the Greens. It represents how the right wing of the Labor Party can be stepped on by some of the mad antics that were proposed by the Australian Greens.

Let's look at some of the other ridiculous combinations and permutations of this big new tax—this extra tax system. It was the case that the moment you got to 25,000 tonnes of carbon emissions in an abattoir you triggered a $24 a tonne tax. That means that when you processed that extra beast it would cost in excess of $600,000. Who came up with this stroke of genius? Those on the other side of the chamber did. And they have written books about it. They still stand behind it. The member for Lilley still believes in it. They are all still here, but if they want to stand behind this policy they will stay in opposition. They will stay in opposition because the Australian people will not have the wool pulled over their eyes about this. It is going to be rather interesting today to see whether the Labor Party, the former Treasurer, the member for Grayndler and the Leader of the Opposition forthrightly stand behind this dopey tax that they took to an election and got absolutely annihilated on, or whether they can see the reality.

Apparently, the former Vice President of the United States of America—God bless his cotton socks!—also believes that the policy is dopey. I do not know where your friends are these days. Where are they? Who still believes in this? Maybe the shadow Treasurer still believes in it. We know that some of the members from Western Australia are not very keen on the idea, at all.

It was a great epiphany for the Australian people to realise that now it is quite apparent that the numbers are available to get rid of this ludicrous tax. This tax did nothing to cool the temperature of the globe but did everything to destroy the Labor Party's and the Greens' chances of ever being in government.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a tax on cooling your beer, wasn't it?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As you said, it is a tax on cooling your beer. It is a tax on everything but it delivered nothing but absolute, unmitigated chaos.

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am incredibly pleased to be following the Minister for Agriculture, whose contribution was spectacular in its incoherence and in its complete misunderstanding of economics. And I am glad I followed him because he has been writing the coalition's climate change policy since 2009. This repeal bill marks the death of liberalism. It marks the death of Deakin's Liberal Party. It marks the ascendancy of the DLP and of reaction within the coalition. This bill is a repudiation of using an efficient, market based mechanism to combat climate change and instead resorting to incredibly inefficient, Soviet-style command and control that would do comrades Lenin and Stalin very proud. They would be very proud that Comrade Abbott delivered that legislation.

The truth is that this legislation to repeal the clean energy future package is built on multiple lies. These lies include that the jury is still out on climate change, that there is no link between climate change and extreme weather events, that climate change is not a priority for world leaders, that there is no international action around emissions trading schemes and that the carbon price is a wrecking ball through our economy. I intend to touch on all five in my address.

We saw the first one again from the Minister for Agriculture, who did not quite come out and say it but is well on the public record as saying that he does not accept the science of climate change. That has been confirmed by people like the Prime Minister, who has said, 'Climate change is complete crap.' We have also had other contributions such as talking about 'grapes growing on Hadrian's Wall' and other spectacular contributions that demonstrate that the coalition's policy is premised on the fact that they do not accept the science of climate change. They stand on the side of the climate sceptics, such as Monckton and Alan Jones; we stand on the side of reputable scientists around the world, such as CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and NASA.

Let us repeat the pertinent fact here: 97 per cent of published scientific papers on climate change—of peer- reviewed papers—have found that climate change is occurring and that it is man made. Let me repeat that—97 per cent of peer-reviewed scientific papers on climate change have found that it is occurring and that it is man made. Those on the other side do not accept that. They might pay lip service to it, but they demonstrate that they do not accept it by their actions. Scientists have now said that they are as certain of this link between the actions of man and climate change as they are of the fact that tobacco and smoking cause cancer. That is how certain they are of this link; yet those on the other side continue to repudiate it.

They also do not accept that there is a link between climate change and extreme weather events. No responsible person would claim that one extreme weather event is specifically caused by climate change, but what reputable scientists have said is that climate change—the atmosphere and sea temperature warming—drives an increase in the number of extreme weather events and increases the severity of those weather events. We are already seeing that now, where we have got an unusual number of extreme weather events occurring around the world today. Those on the other side repudiate that because they cannot face the truth about the significance of climate change as a global challenge.

Thirdly, they claim that taking action on climate change should not be an international priority. We saw the Prime Minister's ridiculous attempts in Canada—or 'Canadia', as he referred to it—to form a coalition of the unwilling, where all these conservative governments would stop international action on climate change. That was notable for two reasons. Firstly, that acknowledges that there is international momentum on climate change—because why else would you try to stop it? Secondly, it was notable because he could only find one conservative friend to join his coalition. The UK government, a conservative government, and the New Zealand government, another conservative government—both of whom have market mechanisms in place to combat climate change—repudiated and rejected Prime Minister Abbott's ridiculous attempts. They repudiated them because the world is moving towards action on climate change.

Right now, one billion people live in nations or provinces where there is an emissions trading scheme. By 2016, that will be three billion people living with emissions trading schemes at a national or subnational level, and they include 13 of our 20 top trading partners, including our top five trading partners. China have trials of emissions trading schemes in seven provinces and cities that cover 250 million people, and they have plans to have a national emissions trading scheme by 2015 or 2016. That is our number one trading partner right there.

Within the United States, we saw the ground-breaking announcement by President Obama very recently of a 30 per cent reduction on emissions from coal-fired power, and he is leaving it up to each state to achieve that cut. A very significant number of states, including California, the eighth largest economy in the world in its own right, will use an emissions trading scheme. President Obama has stated that his preference is for a national emissions trading scheme, but the Tea Party reactionaries in congress prevent that, just as the Tea Party reactionaries over the other side of this chamber are opposing concrete climate action. In Japan, there are carbon prices in existence right now. South Korea has a legislated ETS that will start next year—it is the law of the land in South Korea and it will begin next year. The truth is that, by 2016, three billion people will live in nations where there is an emissions trading scheme. So we are not leading the world—we are not even a first mover—but we need to be part of the solution rather than being part of the problem.

The fifth lie that this repeal legislation is built on is that somehow the clean energy future legislation is a wrecking ball destroying the Australian economy as we speak.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I ask the member to withdraw the word 'lie'. It is offensive and it is against parliamentary language. He is repeatedly using it and I would ask him to refrain.

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would call on the member to refrain from using the word 'lie', particularly where it is linked to a member. The minister has taken offence, and I ask the member to withdraw.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, on the point of order, standing orders are clear about reflection on members, but the member for Charlton was not reflecting on any individual member; he was reflecting on a policy debate and making a very good point.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, further to that point of order, the use of the word 'lie' in parliamentary debate is unparliamentary in itself, whether or not it is reflecting on an individual member. To claim that parties or persons have lied has been ruled by previous speakers as unparliamentary.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Further to that point of order, there is plenty of precedent which could be argued the other way on this matter, and the member for Charlton should be allowed to proceed and continue to make his very excellent points.

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, all members. I call on the member for Charlton to consider those comments that have been made and to continue with his contribution.

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. It is a gross untruth to argue that the carbon price is a wrecking ball through our economy. Let us look at the actual facts. Facts should be the foundation of debates in this place, but unfortunately those on the other side have a very passing familiarity with facts. The truth is that, since the carbon price began, we saw 160,000 jobs created in the first year of the scheme alone, we have seen very strong economic growth during this period, and we have seen inflation within the Reserve Bank's band of moderation. The economy as a whole has been performing reasonably well during this period—so no economic wrecking ball. What has actually happened is that it has been working; it has been driving down emissions.

The emissions for the national electricity market since the carbon price began have fallen by 17.2 million tonnes, or 10 per cent of total emissions, from the national electricity market. This is increasing renewable power generation by 37 per cent and the carbon intensity of the energy grid has fallen. So anyone on the other side who says the carbon price is not working is perpetuating a massive falsehood not supported by facts. And the government's own figures, produced by the Department of the Environment and endorsed by the Minister for the Environment, show that, in the first two years of the carbon price, emissions in the economy are 40 million tonnes less than they would otherwise be—because we have a fixed price emissions trading scheme.

And what of the scare campaign of those opposite? Those opposite participated in the most despicable scare campaign this country has ever seen. The Prime Minister donned a high-visibility vest and travelled around the country for three years scaring the life out of pensioners and workers. There is no more despicable act a politician can do than to scare pensioners and workers.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are a hypocrite!

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But that is what they did. Let's look at the facts.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: the parliamentary secretary at the table needs to withdraw that remark.

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think that is a reasonable request. I call on the parliamentary secretary to withdraw.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Withdraw the fact that he is a hypocrite!

Mr Bowen interjecting—

Mr Conroy interjecting—

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! That is also unacceptable.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The first point of order is addressing that. It is not the member himself who has taken offence but somebody else in the chamber, and the comments were not made against the person who has asked me to withdraw.

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would ask the parliamentary secretary to assist the House. He did direct his initial comment to the member, and I ask him to withdraw.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If it helps in the order of the House, I withdraw.

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, it does. I call the member for Charlton, from whom I would ask for the same level of civility.

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unlike the other member, I withdraw unconditionally. We have seen two interventions from the member for Paterson because he is ashamed of his actions on this topic—and he should be. But let us look at their scare campaign: Whyalla still exists; I am yet to find a roast that costs $100, despite the Minister for Agriculture's exaggerated action; and resource exports are still strong. Some 160,000 jobs were created in the first year of the carbon price despite the claims of those opposite. The climate change actions of those opposite are built on sand. It is the worst form of DLP style reaction. They reject market mechanisms and instead resort to a Soviet style command and control slush fund—and they cannot find a single reputable economist who supports it. This is a long way from where the coalition was a few years ago. In 2007 they went to an election promising an emissions trading scheme. The member for Paterson campaigned on an emissions trading scheme based on the Shergold report—which we picked up—called the CPRS.

Government members interjecting—

We have interjections from those opposite that somehow what happened at Copenhagen caused them to change their views. Nothing could be further from the truth. They changed their position well before the Copenhagen climate change conference. They changed their position in 2009 when Malcolm Turnbull was knocked off by Tony Abbott. Tony Abbott, a self-confessed weathervane on this issue, saw a political opportunity to knock off the member for Wentworth. So he reversed his position. He previously supported an ETS, and he also supported a carbon tax at other points in time. He saw the political main game and, with rank political opportunism, chose to knock off the member for Wentworth. So let's have none of this rubbish that they changed their position on the basis of circumstances overseas.

The truth is that every reputable economist in the world has found that a market based mechanism is the best way of combating the negative environmental externality of carbon pollution and climate change. An ETS is the best way of doing it. We have always supported a flexible price emissions trading scheme. We were forced to begin with a fixed price period because of the economic lunacy of those on the other side. But our stated policy is a shift to a flexible price emissions trading scheme as soon as possible. I am very proud to support an emissions trading scheme. Unlike those opposite, the Labor Party has had this as a longstanding policy because it is the best way of combating climate change.

People who are opposed to an ETS are not just taking political points, they are opposing concrete and efficient action on climate change. What they are saying to Australia is: 'We don't care about future generations. We don't care about taking advantage of the clean energy industrial revolution. We don't care about the fact that the countries that will succeed in the next century will be those that successfully decouple carbon pollution from economic growth and develop new technologies to take advantage of the future. We want to be a rustbelt economy.' That is what those on the other side are saying through their actions. They are not just pursuing cheap populist politics, they are condemning this generation and future generations to an environment and economy in worse shape.

I am proud of the stance Labor is taking on these bills. I am proud of Labor's environmental record. I will be able to look my daughter in the eye and say that I took action and stood up for this generation and future generations in combating climate change. I will be able to look my daughter's children in the eye and say I fought for current and future generations. Those on the other side stand condemned as reactionaries who put their narrow political self-interest above the national and global interest. When this nation has asked them to do the right thing from an economic and environmental point of view, they have been found wanting because of their cant, cheap populism and hypocrisy. I am proud to oppose this repeal legislation.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today in support of repealing all of the carbon tax measures. These measures are affecting our community, our society and individual families. In fact, no-one escapes it each and every day. The previous speaker said he is against repealing the carbon tax because he wants to be able to say to his daughter that he stood firm. I accept that wholeheartedly. But the same member has voted to support massive levels of debt which will also affect his children, and his children's children for generations to come, unless action is taken.

In speaking to these carbon tax repeal bills today, it is time to commence action. I rise today to tell Labor that it's time, to use one of their old slogans. I rise today to represent the unemployed in my area and ask Labor to assist them. I rise today to represent those who are affected by the increased costs of living caused by this carbon tax. I ask Labor to support them today. There is no difference between the outcomes that the coalition seek in reducing our carbon emissions and those that the Labor Party seek. We have a common objective, a common agenda, to reduce emissions. Our intention on that is as solid as it can be, albeit our method of approach will be vastly different.

I say to the Labor Party: it is time to listen to what your constituents have said. There can be no doubt whatsoever that at the last election the overwhelming verdict of the people was to get rid of the carbon tax and all its measures. By repealing this carbon tax we will be putting $550 back into the pocket of the average Australian family. I have sat here and listened to members of the opposition talk about costs of living, the effects on pensions, the effects on the unemployed, the effects on those on low incomes and the effects on families, but I say in all sincerity that it is hypocritical, to say the least, to plead the effects on individuals if when they have the opportunity to address that and provide relief they refuse to step up to the plate and do what is required.

It has now been over nine months since the election. For nine months the Labor Party, in cohorts with the Greens, have been blocking this key election commitment made by the coalition and the verdict delivered by the Australian people. The promises we made to the people are clear, are irrevocable and need to be delivered. A mandate was delivered. It can also be argued that in the second Senate election in Western Australia that the people gave a clear mandate to get rid of the carbon tax and the mining tax, which we will be debating later today. It is clear. It is not clouded. It is irrefutable.

Clearly, as I said, once these bills go through energy costs for a household will fall by $550 a year on average. We have already seen electricity companies talking about not putting the carbon tax on their bills from 1 July in anticipation of the repeal of these insidious taxes that were brought to this House on the basis of a lie. We are not alone in wanting to get rid of the carbon tax. Earlier I talked about hypocrisy—running out to the media and saying one thing and then coming into the House and doing another thing. Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the member for Port Adelaide said at a press conference on 16 July 2013, ahead of the election:

The Government has decided to terminate the carbon tax to help cost-of-living pressures for families and to reduce costs for small business.

On that point alone I say to members opposite: live up to your commitment made prior to the last election and get rid of the carbon tax—or is it the same quality of commitment as that made to the people by the former Prime Minister when she said, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead'? Going into the 2010 election the Prime Minister indicated that there was going to be no carbon tax—hand over heart; genuine commitment: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' Going into the last election then Prime Minister Rudd and the now shadow environment minister, Mark Butler, said on 16 July:

The Government has decided to terminate the carbon tax …

If they decided to terminate it, why have they changed their minds now? Why is it that now that they are in opposition they have changed their minds? The member for Port Adelaide, Mark Butler, is a repeat offender of telling Australians one thing and then doing another thing here in the parliament. He said at a morning doorstop in this place on 18 November 2013:

The government and opposition are as one. We agree the carbon tax should be terminated by next year.

Today is the day to step up to the plate and be as one. You made the statement. You said something at the doors of parliament and all we hear today is, 'Sorry, but that was yesterday.' Further, on ABC Capital Hill on 17 June 2014—how many days ago was that?—fewer than 10 days ago, he said we should terminate the carbon tax.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Terminator.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have another name for it. Out in the country where I come from we use a slightly different name. I will not go into that because I respect parliamentary debate and discussion.

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, we won't, thanks.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say to the Australian people who are listening to this: you cannot go out to the people ahead of an election and tell them you are going to do one thing—and we saw that with the carbon tax—and then change your mind. We saw them announce for political advantage days before the last election that the carbon tax was gone, but now they support it. Ten days ago the shadow minister, the member for Port Adelaide, said we should terminate the carbon tax. What has happened since then?

When I look at the rising costs of living for my constituents, when I look at the rising costs of business for my constituents in the industry portfolio and when I look at the job losses that have occurred because businesses can no longer compete because we are one of the few countries that have a carbon tax—it is a direct cost on exports, and our country survives on exporting our products; we put ourselves at a price disadvantage—I say that today the coalition are standing up for you. We are determined to deliver on our election commitment. You voted us in to do this, and we will do it.

The cost of energy will go up on 1 July if this legislation is not passed. The cost of energy will go up because part of the carbon tax is that it goes up on 1 July. It will go up to $25.40 a tonne. That will be a further increase on the electricity bills of each and every Australian from 1 July. I say to all of those members: listen to the people of Australia. They all want to support reducing carbon emissions. They all want to support that. It is a great idea and worthy of achieving. But they do not like being stung in the neck, particularly when that sting in the neck was based on a direct and deliberate lie by a former Prime Minister, compounded by the last Prime Minister—before the one we have now—who said that it was gone. And here today we have the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow minister for the environment supporting those carbon taxes. So we have 'Electricity Bill' Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, saying, 'I am happy that on 1 July I will be putting up your electricity bill.' He can take personal responsibility. He will be putting up the electricity bill on 1 July. Also on 1 July there are a lot more flow-on effects from the carbon tax which will affect each and every individual in Australia.

There have been retiring members of the Senate who have said that people need to look at the fact that the coalition was elected to deliver an outcome and that those bills should be passed because, when they are passed and people see the effect, they can judge us one way or another. They can judge whether the cost of living did come down or there was no change. They can judge whether we actually had the fortitude to get the ACCC to pursue people who were not reducing the cost of energy when they had a reduction in their carbon tax bill.

We are committed. We are determined. One of our main objectives is to reduce the cost-of-living pressure. On 1 July, as I said, the carbon tax is due to go up by five per cent more, rising from $24.15 to $25.40 a tonne. This will do incredible damage to our Australian economy because all of those cents and all of those dollars add up to costs and make it much more unaffordable for Australian businesses to compete. I gave a commitment to my people in Paterson that I would repeal these taxes. It was the main agenda item going into the last election. We are determined to repeal these bills, and we encourage people to come on board.

As for the incoming senators of the Palmer United Party, they should also have a look at what the agenda of the Australian people was in changing the government. I am not going to comment on last night, because I did not catch all of the detail. I was not at the press conference. But I can say that the Palmer United Party have the opportunity to show that they also listen to the Australian people and act in the national interest. When people are out there on struggle street—and a large percentage of my constituents are on struggle street; a very high number of my constituents are pensioners and seniors who rely on a very small income—that cost of the carbon tax in their energy bill alone, whether it is for electricity or the $70 hit on their gas bill, is something that they can ill afford.

Today, members opposite have the chance to stand up, be counted and act in the national interest. I ask them to support these carbon tax repeal bills because former Prime Minister Rudd said that they would. Their current shadow environment minister said, as little as 10 days ago, that they would. Today is the day. It is time to deliver on your promises and your commitments and not avoid the issue any further.

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the amendment to be moved by the member for Port Adelaide to establish an emissions trading scheme. For me, this debate is about the appropriate action that we should be taking on climate change. For me, that issue comes down to one question. There is one simple question that members of parliament need to ask themselves: should we take action now to mitigate the effects of a changing climate on our economy and our environment into the future, or should we purely be concerned about the present and maximising current economic gains and advantage at the expense of future generations of Australians? That is the dilemma that is posed by the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No. 2] and associated bills.

I believe that we as members of parliament are custodians of the welfare of Australians in the present but also into the future. We have a moral and economic obligation to act with an eye to the future. We have a responsibility to consider the advice of scientists and economists and put in place policies that mitigate the effects of climate change on our kids and on future generations of Australians. And that is what a price on carbon is all about. That is what the renewable energy target is all about. That is what the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is all about. And that is what the Australian Renewable Energy Agency is all about. The bills before us seek to repeal those actions, seek to stop those actions, seek to stop that investment in the future mitigation of climate change. The government, in introducing these bills, believe that MPs' only obligation is to the current generation, to the exclusion of the interest of future generations of Australians, and that is the great shame in what is going on with these carbon tax repeal bills.

I am not a scientist. I do not purport to an expert on climate change. But I have read the evidence, I have assessed the reports of experts, and the conclusions of the studies and reports are, in my view, inescapable. They are summed up quite succinctly in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, the fifth by this international body of scientific experts on climate change. In the executive summary the first point they make is:

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice has diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased.

That is the view of scientific experts about what is occurring in our climate.

We have a responsibility to act reasonably. A reasonable and sensible person, in my view, can only reach one conclusion: that man-made climate change is occurring and that if we do not mitigate the incidence of the warming of our planet then we will see damaging consequences for our, and the world's, resources, environment, infrastructure and economy. Future economic and social development will be damaged by additional costs associated with adapting to climate change. The longer we wait to deal with climate change, the more drastic the action we need to take and the greater the cost. So I say to all parliamentarians in this debate: think about your kids. When we talk about this it is about our kids. The cost of delaying action will be passed on to our kids in the future—with interest. If we do not do something today we pass on that cost and it will cost us more.

What are those costs? Reports have been quite conclusive. There will be changes to agriculture. Sea level rise will damage private property, this will push up insurance costs and we are already seeing this. Infrastructure will be damaged. There will be health effects associated with hot weather. And we will get more incidents of extreme weather events—droughts, cyclones, high winds.

The difficulty that many face with this challenge is that it is in the future. Many of the reports point to the fact that climate change will get more and more severe if we do not do something about it, so it is very much a problem that people see in the future. Those with a narrow-minded view believe that we should not worry about the future, that we do not have an obligation to mitigate the costs now because all our responsibility is in the present. But there are present-day examples of climate change and they are occurring right in our neighbourhood.

In the Pacific, climate change is not a looming threat, it is a present danger. In any international forum associated with Pacific islands these days, in the Pacific Islands Forum and in the Pacific Islands Development Forum the No. 1 issue on the agenda is climate change. And the view of the leaders of the international community about Australia's action on climate change is pure condemnation. This is the view of Tony de Brum, Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands:

Tony Abbott must listen to the scientists and not play politics with the survival of Australia's friends in the region. We expect a lot more from our big brother in the south and we hope Australia will tone down the rhetoric on this issue, especially being president of the Security Council. We need Australia to show leadership on this issue as it's life or death for us.

Australia needs to get real. Scrapping a carbon price goes completely against the grain of what the world is doing. It looks like three billion people will be living under a carbon price worldwide by 2020. We need Australia to be a leader in that process, not a laggard.

That is the view of the Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands, a leader of one of our closest friends in the Pacific. It is pure embarrassment for Australia to have the foreign minister of another nation say that Australia is a laggard when it comes to climate change. He is not alone, unfortunately. Last week Fiji's interim Prime Minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, when opening a regional summit, singled Australia out as 'selfish'. He said there was 'collective disappointment and dismay' in the Pacific at the failure to address climate change.

The response of this government has unfortunately been to pull out of every single international climate change initiative, to withdraw funding for policies and programs that were supporting climate change eradication, particularly in the Pacific. What an embarrassment when Indonesia, a country that Australia is an aid donor to, went to the Pacific Islands Development Forum last week and announced $20 million in funding to fight climate change in the Pacific because Australia has pulled out of all those international actions. What an embarrassment for the nation of Australia, the leading economy in the Asia-Pacific region, to be moving backwards on the greatest challenge facing our neighbourhood.

In the Marshall Islands, unfortunately, communities are already being displaced. Communities that have inhabited islands for thousands of years are already being displaced. A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate to meet some students from Tuvalu and Kiribati, young leaders of their countries, who were pleading with Australian politicians not to ignore them, pleading with us to help them tackle this ever-present threat to them. Crops have dried up, so the traditional foods these communities have survived on are no longer there. There is a distinct lack of water. Sea level rise is damaging private property and infrastructure is being inundated. Not only that; the populations of these countries are becoming more and more unhealthy. Diabetes and obesity are on the rise because natural crops are drying up and populations in these countries are now being fed by tinned food imports.

Climate change is happening now, it is happening in our backyard and scientists say we need to do something about it. Unfortunately, the attitude of the Liberal-National Party is to ignore that.

Labor introduced a carbon price because that was the advice of expert economists—that a market based mechanism is the best way to approach climate change, that it is the cheapest and most efficient way. It is a polluter pays system. A polluter pays for the damage they do to our economy and to our environment and the results speak for themselves. Carbon emissions from the electricity market have fallen by seven per cent since the carbon price was introduced. Renewable energy generation in the electricity industry has increased by 25 per cent. In the first year of the carbon price, 15,000 jobs were created.

Our economy has grown, inflation has been low and unemployment has been relatively stable. We have linked it to international schemes. There are other emissions trading schemes coming online throughout the world. The 30 European nations have an emissions trading scheme. South Korea has an emissions trading scheme. Provinces in Canada have an emissions trading scheme as do states in the USA. New Zealand has an emissions trading scheme and five provinces in China—about to be six—have an emissions trading scheme.

We have seen the commercialisation of projects totalling about $10 billion through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation in Australia. That is the record of a price on carbon in our community in Australia, but what are we doing? The coalition, the Abbott government are seeking to stop that progress. They are seeking to repeal the price on carbon. The crazy thing about this whole thing is here we have a Liberal-National coalition, the so-called advocates of market based economies, now advocating a system which gives direct subsidies to polluters. So we are going to move away from the system in which the polluter pays to a system in which the taxpayer pays. Taxpayers provide direct subsidies to big polluting companies in the hope that they will reduce their carbon emissions over time. This is absolute lunacy and it goes against the very being of what the Liberal Party stands for in a market-based mechanism to deal with externalities in our economy. It makes no sense at all. It is a subsidised system, providing direct subsidies to polluters.

Where do you think the money for those subsidies will come from? It will come from the pockets of taxpayers. Taxpayers will fund direct subsidies to big polluting companies to ensure, they hope, that they will reduce their carbon emissions over time.

Ninety-eight per cent of economists believe that this system will not work, that it is the wrong way to go, that it will be more expensive for our economy and that over time it will not reduce emissions. The reason it will not reduce emissions is that you do not have an economy-wide price on carbon, you do not have a market-based mechanism. Under a market-based mechanism the price is set for carbon pollution in our economy and we allow businesses, households and individuals to make their own decisions about how they reduce their impact on carbon emissions over time. We allow the market to make the decision about how pollution is reduced. When the market does it, the market finds the cheapest, most efficient way. That is the basis of a market-based model. That is Liberal Party philosophy, by the way, but it has been completely thrown out the door for cheap political gain, for maximising economic gain in the present rather than having an eye to the future, rather than thinking about the interests of our kids and future generations. That is why this policy must be condemned. That is why Australia is being embarrassed in the international community. That is why we are being seen as taking a backward step when it comes to a responsible approach, the cheapest, most efficient approach, to deal with climate change and carbon emissions. I say to members opposite: think about our kids in this debate.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can you believe that it is 10 months since the last election and still the Labor Party continue to betray the will of the Australian people? They had a chance on 20 March this year, 108 days after the carbon tax legislation was introduced, to do what the Australian people voted for at the last election, but instead, Labor continues to vote to keep the carbon tax. They continue to side with their Greens partners to keep the carbon tax, despite telling the Australian people at the last election that they had terminated it. On 16 July 2013, Kevin Rudd declared he had 'terminated' the carbon tax, except he did not. He was not a terminator and neither was now opposition leader Bill Shorten, who was standing next to him.

At the 2013 election, Anthony Albanese, the member for Grayndler, wanted to set the carbon tax rate to zero. Despite winning the Labor Party's popular vote, he was overruled by Bill Shorten and the union bosses both in relation to the leadership and the carbon price. After spending a full year defending the modest impacts of the carbon tax, the member for Port Adelaide confirmed on Sky on 4 November 2013 that the carbon tax was too high. But then he did nothing to address the effects of those impacts.

Ahead of the Senate by-election in Western Australia the Labor Party told the people of WA that they were scrapping the carbon tax and then in Canberra voted to keep it. They were lions in Perth and kittens in Canberra on this issue. The consequence of this deception by the Labor Party is that in less than a week, on 1 July 2014, the carbon tax will go up by more than five per cent, rising from $24.15 to $25.40 per tonne. So the unnecessary damage of Labor's carbon tax during the last two years not only continues but becomes even more of a burden on Australian families and on the more than 75,000 businesses across our country. I speak here of $15.4 billion in damages to the Australian economy over the last two years through the operation of the carbon tax—damage to our international competitiveness, higher electricity prices and even more jobs put at risk. Of all the states in the federation which can least afford pressure on jobs, my state of Tasmania sadly leads that list. We have the highest unemployment rate, both youth and adult, and the lowest participation rate in the country.

If Labor did what they should—that is, bend to the will of the Australian people—average living costs in Tasmania and around the country would be $550 lower than they would otherwise be, according to Treasury modelling. I had a Salvador Dali moment in the Federation Chamber earlier this morning where I heard the member for Franklin stand up and passionately argue against a 40c per tank rise in the fuel excise. This was, somehow, terrible for the people of Tasmania—but, at the same time, she joins her Labor-Green mates on the other side opposing a $550 easing of the cost-of-living expenses of Tasmanian families. If you are looking for a tier 1 example of hypocrisy, you would have seen it from the member for Franklin in the Federation Chamber earlier today. If Labor got out of the way and let the government implement what we were elected to do, the result would be reduced costs for businesses and households, a boost to local jobs and manufacturing, and the restoration of Australia's international competitiveness—yet, Labor simply refuse to accept the outcome of the election, despite the very clear mandate we campaigned on.

In my electorate of Bass, I was wearing out my shoe leather day after day on the four key things that we said we would do if we were to win the 2013 election. We said to the people of my electorate that we would stop the boats. And here we are and it has been over six months since a successful people smuggling venture to Australia—not a three-word slogan but real policy delivered with resolve by a government that does what it says. We said we would build the roads of the 21st century, and there in the budget we saw $50 billion—the largest infrastructure spend in this country's history. We said we would fix the budget. It is an enormous job of fixing that we have to do because those opposite, in just six years, achieved $191 billion in deficits. There was another $123 billion in projected deficits across the forward estimates and peak debt was rising to $667 billion. We have to borrow $1 billion every month just to pay the interest on our debt. If we were to do nothing, that would rise to $3 billion in loans each month just to repay the interest on our debt. So it is a big issue and a big problem that the Treasurer has to address—and we are fixing the budget.

The fourth of those promises— and the subject of these bills—was that we would repeal the carbon tax. That was, in my view, the most clear articulation of a policy intent in our history. We were specifically focused on redressing what many considered to be the greatest policy deception in our country's history—that famous statement, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' Just three days ago, on 23 June, the government reintroduced its carbon tax repeal legislation to the parliament—three months after Labor and the Greens combined to vote it down in the Senate.

We will persist until this toxic tax is repealed, because it does not achieve the policy effect it was intended to achieve. Domestic emissions continue to rise under the carbon tax. They go from 560 million tonnes in 2010 to 621 million tonnes in 2020—and the way we achieve the abatement effect is not by cutting emissions in our country but by investing billions of dollars of taxpayer's money in dodgy carbon credit schemes overseas to achieve that intended abatement effect. It is deception upon deception. How did we ever get to a situation where Labor and the Labor-Greens governments in this country were able to preside over $15 billion in damage to the Australian economy for a policy that does not even achieve its intended purpose? They do have form—and I will be speaking later on the minerals resource rent tax. It is one of many ideologically driven and costly policy promises that does not achieve that intended policy effect.

Let's consider the beneficial impacts for households and businesses of repealing the carbon tax. As I said earlier, the removal of the carbon tax in 2014-15 will save the average household over $550. Retail electricity prices will be around nine per cent lower and retail gas prices around seven per cent lower than they otherwise would be. On this basis, household average electricity bills will be around $200 lower than they otherwise would be in 2014-15 with a $25.40 carbon tax. Household average gas bills will be around $70 lower than they otherwise would be in 2014-15 with a $25.40 carbon tax. The removal of the carbon tax will reduce the consumer price index by around 0.7 of a percentage point than it otherwise would be, according to Treasury modelling. When the CPI is lower, that means less cost-of-living pressure on Australian families. Business compliance costs are also expected to fall by around $87.6 million per annum as a consequence of repealing the carbon tax.

Contrary to the quite mendacious claims of those opposite, power prices will fall. Consider this quote by Matthew Warren from the Energy Supply Association of Australia on 29 October last year:

Just as the carbon tax increased power prices when it was introduced in 2012, they will fall once it is removed.

And he was right. Consider the front page of the Launceston Examiner in my home state of Tasmania just six days ago on 20 June—and I quote:

Tasmania's Economic Regulator has approved a power decrease of 7.8 per cent, effective from July 1…to all Tasmanian residential customers and small business customers…[The regulator] Mr Appleyard said that the price decrease is primarily due to a reduction in Aurora Energy’s costs of buying electricity, which is as a result of the energy market’s expectation that the carbon price will be removed from July 1.

If you ever wanted to see a correlation between removal of the carbon tax and lower electricity prices, there it was in all its glory on the front page of the Launceston Examiner on 20 June. It is very clear proof that, if the carbon tax goes, cost-of-living pressures on families and business input costs from electricity go down.

There is nothing new in this simple fact. Labor was warned repeatedly about the consequences of their ill-considered policy. As Professor Sinclair Davidson of RMIT University pointed out on 30 June 2011, three years ago, in response to the Labor-Green deal and the disproportionate influence of then Greens leader Bob Brown:

Bob Brown hasn't explained how undermining the Australian economy would reduce that cost and why Australians should bear that cost when the UN hasn't managed to convince its members to act in concert on climate change ... The biggest problem Brown faces is that you can't intervene in the economy on the scale he desires without a massive reduction in our economic wellbeing. The problem Australia faces is that Brown doesn't understand that point.

I can recall then Climate Change Minister Greg Combet taking a delegation of 40 to Durban in late 2011—props for the Prime Minister's grandstanding. It is clear that Labor's national interest assessment on climate policy has been way off the mark since 2008. If climate change truly was 'the greatest moral challenge of our time', as former Labor PM Kevin Rudd so grandly professed, then Labor have failed to follow the careful and methodical approach to policy development that such a challenge demands. Labor relied on slogans like 'delay is the same as denial', a superficial excuse for failing to gain an unequivocal mandate for their environmental policies. Many will recall them back-pedalling on their return from Copenhagen, pledging that 'Australia would do no more and no less than the rest of the world.' What hollow words.

Despite the revisionist ideology of the member for left-wing ideology, two speakers ago, what we have seen under Labor is a long road from Kyoto, to Copenhagen, to Durban, and Rio that is littered with big promises but no binding, international action.    Instead the SS Carbon Australis steamed towards its inevitable iceberg—a policy that was all doorstop and no delivery. History records that Labor did not bring the Australian public along, as Prime Minister Gillard promised at the 2010 election. Her pre-emptive action locked us into a bad policy response ahead of the rest of the world.

As Professor Garnaut presciently observed in his 31 May 2011 report for the then government:

… every dollar of revenue from carbon pricing is collected from ... mostly households, ordinary Australians. Most of the costs will eventually be passed on to ordinary Australians.

And so it turned out. When other countries don't apply the same economy-wide tax then competitive disadvantage occurs.

Labor's continuing deception of the Australian people is evident also in their position on the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. On 18 June 2014, Labor again linked arms with their Greens Party mates to defy the will of the Australian people to vote down the abolition of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. You will recall, Deputy Speaker Broadbent, that we took the abolition of the carbon tax and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to the 2013 federal election. We said at the last election that we would support clean energy projects through Direct Action, and specifically through the Emissions Reduction Fund. This mandate has now been ignored by Labor and the Greens twice. We said that the Renewable Energy Target would provide strong incentives for business to develop clean energy solutions. When the Clean Energy Finance Corporation establishment bill was introduced, we made it clear that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation would displace projects that would have been undertaken anyway to meet the Renewable Energy Target. The Emissions Reduction Fund and the Renewable Energy Target are in addition to strong commercial incentives for businesses to undertake clean energy projects in order to reduce costs. The government simply does not believe it is prudent expenditure of taxpayer funds to keep borrowing money to underwrite a $10-billion taxpayer-funded bank that cherry-picks investments in direct competition with the private sector.

Consistent with the undertakings I made in Bass at the last election, consistent with our pledge to the Australian people, I strongly support this bill and call on the Labor Party to help families and small businesses by supporting this repeal legislation. The will of the Australian people is clear and it is time that the carbon tax was gone.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the timing of this debate today when this issue is so hot internationally—the shifting sands of time are important this morning. Some of you were in this chamber when US President Obama addressed this Australian parliament in 2011. As a new member, I was not lucky enough to be here. However, I, like many across the world, do take an interest in what he has to say. So when US President Barack Obama took the opportunity in a commencement speech at the University of California to rip into climate change deniers only a few days after meeting Prime Minister Abbott, I read his speech with interest. President Obama labelled global warming as 'one of the most significant long-term challenges that our country and our planet faces'. He made a powerful moral case for action. He said:

So the question is not whether we need to act. The overwhelming judgement of science, accumulated and measured and reviewed over decades, has put that question to rest.

The question is whether we have the will to act before it's too late. For if we fail to protect the world we leave not just to my children but to your children and your children's children, we will fail one of our primary reasons for being on this world in the first place. And that is to leave the world a little bit better for the next generation.

He is not alone with views such as these. The European Union has long been committed to international efforts to tackle climate change and has set a strong example through robust policy making. It has introduced legislation and a range of initiatives to tackle climate change. That is why it is difficult to hear EU officials saying:

Australia has become completely 'disengaged' on climate change since Tony Abbott was elected in September last year.

It has been reported the EU officials are disappointed with the Prime Minister's approach, saying Australia was considered an important climate change player under Labor. One well-placed EU official has likened the change to 'losing an ally'. But Mr Abbott has pledged to scrap the carbon price in favour of his Direct Action policy. 'You have a huge amount of scientists and economists saying the Direct Action policy isn't going to work,' one EU official was quoted as saying. There is a particular disappointment in Mr Abbott's decision not to have climate change on the agenda when the G20 leaders meet in Brisbane later this year. Climate change has been on the G20 agenda at the most recent leaders meetings in France, Mexico and Russia.

I note a report in The Guardian says:

Fighting climate change would help grow the world economy, according to the World Bank, adding up to $2.6tn … a year to global GDP in the coming decades.

It states that fighting climate change:

… would lead to global GDP gains of between $1.8tn and $2.6tn a year by 2030, in terms of new jobs, increased crop productivity and public health benefits.

And:

The World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, said the findings put to rest claims that the world could not afford to act on climate change.

He goes on to say:

These policies make economic sense … This report removes another false barrier, another false argument not to take action against climate change.

Like President Obama, I know climate change is real. It astounds me that this is a debate we are still having. Last summer was the hottest on record in Australia: May 2014 in Melbourne broke all weather records with the most days over 20 degrees in the history of the Bureau of Meteorology recordkeeping. The BOM has added a new colour to their weather chart spectrum to indicate temperatures over 50 degrees Celsius, and study after study, report after report, show that our weather extremes, fire, floods and droughts, are happening more often and are becoming more intense. So, yes, climate change is a very real and a very serious issue.

What is it that the bills before us want to do? Through this legislation, the coalition, led by Prime Minister Abbott, wants to abolish the price on carbon and remove the ETS without any mechanism to take its place. It wants to remove industry assistance, including support for Australian jobs, through the Steel Transformation Plan. It wants to abolish the Climate Change Authority and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, ceasing any new commercial term loans to help new ambitious renewable projects over the forward estimates. He wants to repeal income tax cuts that were due to come into effect on 1 July 2015. And, because this government cannot get its act together to get legislation through in a timely way, this bill is designed to work retrospectively and everything will be backdated to July 1.

This Liberal government talks about their economic credentials, about how they now accept the science and

about how they are finally serious about climate change. But, as with so many things, actions speak louder than words: the introductions of these bills show that.

So how did we get here? We are here, because in 2009, the Liberal party walked away from their commitment to action on climate change and blocked an ETS. As an aside, the Liberal Party were not alone in walking away from this issue; the Greens also must take some of the responsibility for delaying action on climate change: they too decided to play politics with our future and got action and inaction confused. The Liberal party, however, are most culpable for leading a campaign of misinformation in an attempt to influence public opinion. We are here, because political opportunity overcame good sense, responsibility and knowledge.

The ETS model has been recognised around the world as the most appropriate and efficient way to tackle carbon pollution. Under an emissions trading scheme, polluters are encouraged to pollute less, so they pay less. An ETS is the most appropriate market mechanism to achieve both a cap on emissions, while at the same time creating incentives to change long term behaviours. But instead, the Abbott government is pursuing the so-called Direct Action Plan—perhaps more aptly named 'indirect inaction.'

I am often approached by my local constituents confused, asking: what does direct action actually mean? Beyond a misnomer, a contradiction of terms, a joke, not much. In the words of Tony Abbott, under direct action, the Liberal government 'will bring in more trees and better soils'. Experts, including the CSIRO, have dismissed the claims of Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt on reforestation. They show that, even for the most hopeful of souls, tree planting on the limited scale proposed by Mr Abbott simply will not work.

One of the other aspects of the policy—and there are only a few—is utilising soil carbon technology. Under this part of the plan, Mr Abbott and Mr Hunt have decided that soil carbon can deliver up to 85 million tonnes of reduction per year at just $10 per tonne. This is in spite of recent studies showing the price is more likely to be around $80 per tonne. Mr Hunt's own department is estimating that this technology would only deliver one 20th of the claimed reductions. In fact, based on the CSIRO's study, the government would have to take two thirds of the Australian land mass to meet the emissions reduction targets. It is, as former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry has described, quite simply bizarre.

A Senate inquiry into direct action did not have a single expert who would support this government's Direct Action Plan, and that probably suits this government, because Mr Abbott does not think climate change requires urgent, serious action—we know that. We know that he believes that climate action is not an issue that should concern world leaders. He believes there is no sign other countries are adopting emissions trading schemes and that China will never introduce carbon trading.

And now we are seeing some detail about the minister's Emissions Reduction Fund. It has a good name, Emissions Reduction Fund—that has got to be a good thing—but recent research by Monash University shows that the ERF will see pollution increase by eight to10 per cent above 2000 levels by 2020; reduce pollution by nearly one third less than Labor's policy; require significant additional investment of between $4 billion and $15 billion to achieve the 2020 target of at least a five per cent reduction on 2000 levels; see costs and pollution both increase over time—even with spending increasing to around $88 billion from 2014 to 2050, pollution would still increase by about 45 per cent over this period; and subsidise the pollution of businesses who do not make changes, with these public subsidies calculated at around $50 billion to 2020.

Despite these issues and posturing by the coalition over the last three years, there is still no comprehensive approach that can be seen as a credible alternative to Labor's policy. Tony Abbott and those in his government are willingly consigning themselves to the wrong side of history. In generations to come, this inaction, this indifference, this incompetence, will be judged harshly.

Locally, my electorate is playing its part in pollution reduction. Our tip, a main contributor of pollution in our community is utilising innovative methane capture technology. With Labor government funding we are also using renewable technology to power our public spaces and we are pursuing public lighting strategies to reduce our energy consumption. Our local industries are also making changes with the assistance of Labor's Clean Technology Investment Programs. Labor's $1 billion investment has assisted some of our local manufacturers, from a steel processing plant to a sausage maker to an agricultural chemical plant, to become more efficient, more cost effective and more sustainable.

In speaking with local residents, I find that they too want to do their bit to reduce emissions, and many already have. They know it may have its costs, but do they like the idea that it might save our planet; do they think they have changed their behaviours in order reduce their footprint? They certainly do. So then, if my electorate is doing its part and getting serious about climate change, why can't the Abbott government? Because, as outlined previously, they simply do not take this issue seriously. But on this side we refuse to do nothing. What Labor put forward is a policy which will ensure action on climate pollution. Our sensible, reasonable amendments included a much-needed legal cap on carbon pollution; the retention of the Climate Change Authority to ensure independent analysis and advice; and a continued commitment to Australia's renewable energy research and development.

It is one of the most important debates that we are having in the chamber this week. It is for all of us to think, and to think long and hard about why we are here. Are we here to do the best for our chosen parties, or are we here to do what is best for our nation? Are we here to play politics, or to represent the best interests for our communities? Are we here to make the easy decisions, or the right decisions? I know why I am here, and it is certainly not to close my eyes and ears and hope that a problem of this magnitude will go away. In short, as a country, we could lead. But these bills mean that we will not even follow those who will lead.

Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity to open these remarks by quoting from a previous leader, one individual who was set up to whisk the Labor government back into office with decisive policy-making and correcting the errors of their lost ways. Having found out that the Australian people were pretty miffed about the carbon tax being introduced by the wrangling and manipulation of a minority government, the then leader, Kevin Rudd, is quoted as saying:

I am the first one to admit, having returned to the prime ministership, in the past, the Government has got a number of things wrong. All governments do. I seek, however, to admit it. For example, I don't think our actions on the carbon tax were right.

When Barry Cassidy then asked what was wrong with that, the erudite Kevin Rudd answered: 'Well, to begin with, we did not have a mandate for it.'

This is an inconvenient truth for the member for Wills and those opposite. And might I say, categorically, to those on the opposite side that there are very few things I would put Kevin Rudd up in lights for, but on this matter his responses should be indelibly etched in flashing neon to those opposite, because they still do not have a mandate for keeping the carbon tax. They never had a mandate to introduce it in the first place. Now from a position of opposition, the reality pill has yet to kick in.

We, this side, the one in government, have a mandate to get rid of the carbon tax. There is not much point to hammering home the fact that this ineffective carbon tax has had only miniscule effect on emission reductions yet has damaged the bottom line for more than 75,000 businesses and reduced their ability to employ people. Those in opposition just do not get the fundamentals of business basics 101. You have to make a profit to be able to employ people. If your expenses are too high, like a massive electricity bill, you simply choose to do the work yourself; you simply cannot afford to employ someone else to help.

There is also not much point in telling those opposite that their whingeing and whining about changes that are proposed in the budget could be fixed with a simple vote in the Senate that actually acknowledges the will of the people. Good grief, wouldn't it be great if they were motivated by responding to the wishes of the voters at the last election! And before those opposite shout and catcall about the budget, just consider for a moment, take a breath and think about the damage they have done to the long-term prosperity of this nation by making us uncompetitive both internationally and on the domestic market. I guess trade economics 101 does not include the concept of analysing the cost of production to assist an industry to survive import competition.

Every time I drive past a supermarket and every time I go shopping, I feel a sense of sadness for the people living in my community. Every single time they purchase an item of food there has been a cost increase, mostly due to electricity increases. But every time I see the increased price of an ice-cream for a young child, I am angry. The price of that particular treat for that child has had a double whammy from the carbon tax. First, there is the increased electricity and then the 200 to 400 per cent increase—depending on the brand and the supplier—in the refrigerant replacement. Every time I pass the auto mechanic, I recall the conversation when he said that half of his business had been regassing car air conditioners. After the carbon tax came into play, he lost half of his business. A lot of the older people in the community simply could not afford to regas. They had to use the earlier version to stay cool in their cars—you know, the one where you wind the window down or open it! Where was the opposition, the government of the day, when most of those who could not afford this were actually pensioners? It is almost laughable, if it were not so sad, that those opposite say they are the true defenders of the economic wellbeing of pensioners. That is absolute irony at its best. After the introduction of the carbon tax, how many pensioners went to bed early because they could turn off their heaters to save power? If those opposite bleat any more about being the defenders of the downtrodden and those who receive welfare, as if they are the only ones who have any compassion, they should really swallow another reality pill. Are those opposite so shallow that only the pensioners of today matter? Is there no vision? We must look after not only our ageing population of today but also those of the next 50 years and beyond. We must look after all those who are in need of assistance through difficult times in their lives and those who through disability will have disadvantages that are lifelong impediments.

This carbon tax is like an insidious snake that has slithered through every aspect of Australian life, leaving a path of toxic waste behind it—job losses, impacts on businesses, and family hardship. A good government looks towards the future and plans. Sometimes that planning means that difficult decisions are made. But let me assure you that getting rid of the carbon tax is not one of them. It is not a difficult decision at all. It is common sense 101. Giving a sense of stability, growing the strength of the economy—these actions allow businesses to grow and employ. They give a family the ability to plan and to save. Australians know this strategy works; it has been done before, and it can be done again, but only with strong policy decisions and stickability. That is political common sense 101.

Just last Sunday while visiting a conference on seaweed harvesting and research I had the opportunity to chat with some international scientists. At the beginning there were the general introductions: 'Oh, you're a member of parliament. Oh, this government. Are you Labor or Liberal?' I thought, 'Well, that's interesting; I'm not sure I'd know the different parties from different nations.' When I replied 'Liberal', their response was a chilly, 'Oh, you're getting rid of the carbon tax.' I proudly replied yes, and asked, 'So, do you know why?' They mumbled a little then about it being a forward-thinking concept and that it had made a huge impact on emissions reductions. But shock and horror was written all over their faces when I explained that the emissions reductions had been quite minimal and that the previous government had actually subsidised those very industries that were the worst emitters, like Alcoa and the producers of brown coal. From that point on the conversation was welcoming and mutually interesting. I guess that is international clarification 101.

I despair that the misunderstanding from those opposite is so entrenched. However, 'You can't blame ordinary people with little or no science education for wanting to be seen to be good citizens who care about their grandchildren's future and the environment'—words from former NASA scientist Professor L Woodcock. It is my belief that every Australian wants to ensure that the planet is a better place for the future, for their children and their grandchildren, but this carbon tax is not the mechanism, as has already been proved. Those opposite often have a bit of a whinge about official recognition of science, but science is about research and applying that research. Professor Woodcock also said:

Carbon dioxide has been made out to be some kind of toxic gas but the truth is it's the gas of life. We breathe it out, plants breath it in. The green lobby has created a do-good industry and it becomes a way of life, like a religion. I understand why people defend it when they have spent so long believing in it, people do not like to admit they have been wrong.

Instead of wasting the last six years on imposing a policy that (a) did not have a mandate, (b) was a tax that would never exist in a government led by Julia Gillard, (c) was going to be terminated by Kevin Rudd, (d) was going to be set at a rate of zero by the Hon. Anthony Albanese and (e) is dodged, ducked and woven around by the Leader of the Opposition, it is a hot potato issue for them.

They should have invested in research and development for our planet as there are now new gases impacting on our atmosphere. But do they dare to follow the will of the people? Not on your nelly. They posture and prevaricate, then bluster and—oops; I probably should not say those words in here, but I am sure you know what would follow. It is all about political pointscoring at the expense of community pointscoring, because the community—the Australian taxpayers—are the ultimate beneficiaries of repealing this dismally ineffective carbon tax. We all know that when you have disease you invest in research to cure the disease. We have hundreds of people fundraising every day for that very purpose. A nation invests in research. A government does not tax the researchers and then subsidise those that may be successful.

I venture to say that because vision and forward thinking are not in the DNA of those opposite it is all about the immediate solution, the quick fix, the silver bullet. Every Australian knows that a good solution is one that has been considered and investigated, one that has been analysed and tested. No such procedure was put in place in regard to the carbon tax. And why was that? Because, I remind you, there was never a plan, there was never a mandate, and—oops—there still isn't.

When I was growing up I learned a little about the Labor Party from my parents. We thought it was a fairly democratic representation—at least, that was my impression. As I learned more I thought that surely that meant that you followed the will of the people after an election. But, sadly, I learned that that is not the case; it is about power broking, about doing a deal to actually form government and then bringing in a devastating policy that was the deal you did with, in this case, the Greens. But isn't the deal you make at the ballot box the most important one? And before those opposite start in again: stop and think before shouting. We have been charged with fixing the black hole of debt that was imposed on this nation. Let's not bluster with comparisons that have no meaning and that act only to confuse.

In the closing stages of the last Labor government there was no intention of addressing the debt; that would be someone else's problem. If those opposite had won government then the Treasurer would have just told the trusting Australian public that they were on track to deliver budget surpluses. If that did not happen, and it was not likely to, and the paperwork had come to light, then it would have been a case of: 'Oh, I must have made a few calculation errors, or perhaps borrowed a little too much. Oh well, we'll just borrow some more to pay off the debt'—something like $1 billion a month, and that could grow to $3 billion a month. I imagine this might be national bankruptcy 101, and those opposite certainly gained a distinction in that course.

Our nation has been held to ransom long enough. Anyone in business knows that there are a number of calendar events that have an effect on a business's sales. Let me give you some very clear examples based on my confectionery business. Over more than 17 years the pattern became quite clear. Good businesses develop marketing strategies to overcome these temporary drops in sales. My business was fudge making. Our initial marketing was of fudge as a comfort food in the colder months, so as the weather warmed our sales dropped. We developed markets in tourist places. Around the end of the financial year there would be a drop in sales; nobody wants extra stock to count. At the time of the Melbourne Cup, a national event—and we were a national business—we had reduced sales for about a week. But by far the biggest and most inexplicable hit on sales was the six weeks leading up to an election. In February last year—which just goes to show how little understanding those opposite have of business dynamics—the then Prime Minister Julia Gillard called the election for August. After an initial 'thank goodness' period, the usual wobblies set in for small business sales. It became worse and worse as the election slowly came closer. Every Australian knew that the carbon tax was a disaster. They could not wait for the election. Even the Labor Party knew, flicking out the leader and flicking in a new one, along with the statement about 'terminating the carbon tax'.

But those opposite cannot even keep that experience top of mind.

We have seen all sorts of industries saying how much their business will improve after the carbon tax is repealed. These included business groups and chambers and the dairy industry, whose costing go up to $40,000 per year, particularly for one dairy in my area. The energy suppliers are going to drop their prices. There are so many beneficiaries in this repeal bill. I just cannot fathom why political posturing takes precedence over people and productivity.

We have heard much of this before, and still those opposite bathe in the reflected green glow of a political alliance while business bleeds and jobs evaporate. This time two years ago the member for Throsby urged our local councils to get creative to reduce the impacts of the carbon tax. Back in June 2012 IPART estimated that council electricity costs across New South Wales would be at least $14 million. Good grief, how many roads, footpaths, community centres and libraries could that have built? Those opposite whine and gripe at the budget policy of freezing the federal assistance grants, yet their ill-conceived carbon tax on local governments has been catastrophic, and has had a much greater effect.

Shellharbour Council has had to develop a completely new waste disposal system as they were liable for the carbon tax hit. It was a great idea, except now they have to increase the tip fees and they will have to employ lots of new rangers. Perhaps that was the underground strategy. Kiama Council has had an 18 per cent rise in the cost of their electricity, and that is partly just to keep the streets lit.

Each and every one of us enjoys watching our children play sport and watching our favourite teams. In Gilmore we have hundreds of sporting clubs. Our councils provide the sports fields, and I am pretty sure Gilmore is not unique. Lots of these teams also play at night. That is okay in summer, with daylight saving, but it is pretty hard to see the ball or field lines in winter, so most of the fields are lit—well, at least for the moment. The cost to some councils for this service to the community can be around $80,000. Most councils support sport and subsidise it, but now they are thinking about having to get a bit of a payback from some user-pays system. So in an electorate like Gilmore, where sport is really part of the community, where sports fitness is used to fight increasing obesity, where we are developing leadership and community contribution, they are going to have to fundraise to pay for the electricity to light the fields. So when members attend the next sports presentation or watch the next big game, I hope they see the following in the eyes of the children and the young people: 'the carbon tax made my uniforms more expensive and my parents had to fundraise with sausage sizzles for my uniform, my transport and for trophies—and not only that, they also had to fundraise to pay for the electricity to light up the field.'

Those opposite just aren't playing cricket, especially if it needs night lights. Often they lean over the dispatch box and say, much like Arnie Schwarzenegger 'We'll be back with the carbon tax.' We all know what happened to the Terminator. It was crushed and broken, which is exactly what should be happening to this very damaging policy.

Debate adjourned.