Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think you would almost agree with me, in your quieter moments. This legislation shows us the other side of the Labor Party, and this probably appeals more to Senator Conroy. The truth is that this is the mother of all taxes. The Labor Party is a high-taxing government at any time, always looking for an excuse to do so. After they were elected in November 2007 their first budget was in May 2008, so within six months they started to raise taxes. In their second budget, of course, they added to that, with no less than the alcopops tax. So they are always looking for a reason and an excuse to lift taxes. Well, they have got themselves a bill that will raise the mother of all taxes. This is a tax hike greater than the GST, which raises about $12 billion. Years of long, complex and shifting debate have accumulated in this bill before the Senate. It is a bill that will wreck the economy and deliver Labor the biggest tax take and tax increase they have ever dreamed of.

To many Labor senators, this is the main point. I am sure from listening to their addresses to the chamber that many have not read the bill. They would not even know that it is to commence on 1 July 2011. They would not yet know that, in the first year, the price of carbon is fixed at $10 and then is open to the market after that and will probably range between $25 and $40. They would not know that the minimum commitment is to reduce emissions to five per cent below 2000 levels by 2020, absent a global agreement; and, with a global agreement, to some 25 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020. They would not have a clue about those essences of the bill. Many of them see a tax take and they have ignored the knock-on effect of this tax take, as all tax takes have a knock-on effect.

As I said, I believe there has been a shift in the debate, and the previous speaker particularly highlighted that the Labor Party are blind to this shift. The public no longer accept the rhetoric of scare tactics that climate change is the sole cause of the drying up of the Murray, with no mention of El Nino or overuse of the Murray; or that it is the cause of the shrinking of the icecaps in the Antarctic, which not even Peter Garrett can deny anymore—he tried, but he had his head pulled in. The Antarctic is not shrinking; it is increasing. What an irony that you can no longer use that as the great icon, with the polar bears slipping off the icecaps.

This is the language and the extremism of just some 12 months ago. If you slightly challenge the science then you are burnt at the stake. But thankfully we have had some more honourable scientists come forward and balance the argument. I have been on several Senate committees inquiring into elements of climate change. You should see some of those scientists who are ramping up and drumming up the rhetoric of climate change just for extra research dollars; it is as simple as that. But thankfully some more honourable scientists have had the courage to come forward and put a more balanced argument. The absurdity of the debate reached unbelievable heights when one of Labor’s chief advisers on the issue, Professor Garnaut, suggested that farmers ought to switch out of sheep and beef production and move into kangaroo production because their emissions are less. I notice the Labor Party has not dispelled that recommendation from his very bulky report.

While Senator Wong walks into this chamber at question time and still rants the old language of extremism, the truth is that the Australian public are looking for more moderate presentations. In other words, they are looking for the truth of the matter. If this scheme was ever established, what would be its effect on the economy? What would be the effect on their jobs, their households and their bills? Will they have a job? What is the effect on worldwide emissions? This side of the chamber has had the courage to put it to the government that this is not all about politics. The effect is that people will lose their jobs by the tens of thousands. It will crush the economy and it will have no effect—it will be worthless; zero effect—on global emissions.

Labor speakers have come in here and not told the truth when they have said that we need to pass this now before the Copenhagen agreement. We found out, as other speakers have said, that the US Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change said, ‘You don’t need to go to Copenhagen with legislation in your back pocket.’ Speakers have told us that Treasury modelling has shown that this will have minimal effect on the economy—a 0.1 per cent reduction in GDP over some 40 years, which is nothing. And who is going to still be around here in 40 years? But the truth is that that modelling was flawed because the government set the parameters of that modelling. That modelling had to assume that there was an international agreement—that China, India, the United States and Europe were all party to an international agreement. If that were the case, you may well get that result. But the truth is that they are not and, certainly at this stage, it looks like a distant hope.

Labor speakers have come in here and told us that we have to rush this through to give business certainty. I do not know what business the government have been speaking to—the Business Council of Australia, perhaps—but they ought to speak to the aluminium, coal or mining industry. I thought it was really well put by Anglo Coal Australia’s CEO, Seamus French, when it was put to him, ‘Do you seek the certainty of the ETS?’ and therefore whether we ought to pass this bill. He said, ‘We don’t want the certainty of a bullet.’ That is what this bill will result in if it is passed: it will be a bullet to business. It will be a bullet to jobs. It will be a bullet to households and families. It will be a bullet to the Australian economy. And, as I keep stressing, for what? For nothing. It is for political ends and political gains. If they want to play that political game—if this is what you are trying to do, Senator Conroy—and set it up for political purposes down the track, go ahead and make my day. I see the shift in the public on this and I am happy to keep it simple with them and debate it.