David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the same answers as the previous speaker. The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme—and the emissions trading system—is only one of several great public policy challenges that sit in front of the Senate at this time. We have the global stimulus package, we have the CPRS legislation and most recently we have had the Fair Work Bill. These are all enormous and important pieces of legislation for this Senate to consider. They all have one thing in common: those opposite do not have a clear policy, a clear approach or indeed a clear response to any of them. With the CPRS that is very clear. The Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, has said in his public utterances, both last year and again recently, that he is in favour of an emissions trading system. Those opposite have been completely unable to keep faith with Malcolm Turnbull’s utterances and they have been unable to give those utterances any shape or direction. This is a public policy challenge of enormous complexity and the other side have written it off as simply too hard.

This debate is typical of what has now become known as the Malcolm Turnbull three-step, which he has deployed for every major challenge that has confronted him since he became leader. Step 1 of the Malcolm Turnbull three-step is to support a Labor initiative, to drape himself in the flag of bipartisanship and to try and win a day’s media for himself as a constructive statesman. Step 2 of the Malcolm Turnbull three-step is to cast doubt upon the Labor initiative. We have seen those opposite for many, many months snipe and undermine and run a guerrilla war against the Labor Party’s emissions trading initiatives. Finally, step 3 of the Malcolm Turnbull three-step is outright opposition, the cynical exploitation of the issue for those few votes they can harness from it.

But this is a debate that is very important for this country. Notwithstanding the Turnbull three-step there are some clear indicators about where this debate is going. Our side’s position, the position of the Labor Party, the position of this government, the position of the minister, has been very clear from the moment we were sworn into government. One of our very first decisions was to move to ratify the Kyoto protocol. After 11 years of inaction, after 11 years of climate change scepticism, this government moved immediately and decisively to take hold of the issue and started building solutions. The CPRS has now been announced in large form, and there are some very important features of it that those opposite are unable or unwilling to come to terms with. At its heart the CPRS is aimed at managing a transition—a transition from our contemporary economy to a post-carbon economy. In managing that transition there are certain features, such as the permit regime, and other features such as how the coal industry is being dealt with—