Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You can deny that these are the impacts of climate change, Senator Cormann, but I do not. These are very real impacts.

Senator Cash may say that she believes that the planet deserves the benefit of the doubt, but she does not mention these risks. These risks simply do not count for her, and clearly they do not count for the opposition. But these are the very credible risks of climate change for my home state of Western Australia. Instead, Senator Cash speaks of the jobs at risk in Western Australia in the mining and resources industry. But she does not bother to mention that the mining council itself admitted during the Senate Standing Committee on Economics inquiry into the bill that, even if the CPRS were introduced, the mining industry would continue to grow. So much for massive job losses!

Most importantly of all, Senator Cash and others like her base their case on a very wrongheaded choice: a devil’s choice between showing good faith in the lead-up to Copenhagen and purportedly saving Australian jobs. But this dichotomy is a false one, and unless it is exposed as false not only will we fail to do all we can to shore up a strong global agreement on climate change that places the interest of the planet front and centre but our economy will suffer as well. In a competitive global economy, it is those businesses and industries that adapt to change in the international environment that thrive in the long term. The international environment is changing as the world gears up to face the reality of a carbon constrained future—one that the opposition refuses to confront.

Many countries are already to moving to put a price on carbon, to encourage innovation and reward effort to minimise emissions.