David Bushby (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to also add my comments to the debate on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 [No. 2] and associated bills before us in this place today. We are in the midst of a debate on the single most intrusive and far reaching government intervention into the activities, and the wallets, of all Australians that this nation has ever seen. Many Australians would recall the debates surrounding the introduction of the GST or the sale of Telstra, the long and detailed speeches in this place highlighting the potential good and bad consequences of these significant measures, the high level of media focus, the near hysteria in the media and the calls by consumer and welfare groups that the sky would fall in.

This package of bills is far more extensive and intrusive than either of those measures. The impact it will have on every Australian extends far further than either the GST or the sale of Telstra. And the impact on the cost of living for all Australians will be far larger than it was for either of those measures. It will in fact place a tax on everything you buy—a compounding tax without the input tax credits of the GST. Why is it a tax? Because everything you buy has at some point been grown, manufactured, serviced or transported using energy, and this bill is all about energy and what it costs—and the deliberate intention of making it cost more.

Let us have a quick look at that issue. Eighty-five per cent of our energy is produced by coal. This is because it is far and away the cheapest form of energy available to us. Indeed, we have hundreds of years of resource available to us to continue to produce abundant and cheap energy. This abundance of a cheap, long-term energy source has provided us with a strong comparative advantage as a nation and has, to a very significant extent, underpinned our development as an industrialised nation. But the intention of the CPRS is to eliminate coal as a cheap energy source, to make it less competitive against other less emissions-intensive forms of energy, so that those other forms of energy can compete and replace coal based energy generation in Australia.

What are our options if we look past coal? I would have thought that, if climate change was indeed the greatest moral challenge facing the nation, all options that could reduce emissions would be on the table. However, this is not the case. Hydro, although being almost emissions free, is not politically correct because it involves the building of dams. In my home state of Tasmania, if we had been able to build the Gordon below Franklin dam in the 1980s and its follow-up schemes, we would not have needed to link into the national electricity market, and, hence, coal-fired power, via the BassLink cable, nor would the refurbishment of the oil-fired Bell Bay Power Station—just next to the proposed pulp mill site, incidentally—into a gas-fired generator have been necessary. In fact, with the Gordon below Franklin scheme, Tasmania would have been capable of generating all of its energy in an essentially emissions free manner. Surely any environmental consequences of this and similar hydro schemes would fade into irrelevance compared with the need to address the ‘greatest moral challenge of our time’.

The same question can be asked about nuclear energy. Although not cost competitive against our cheap and readily available coal, it is cost competitive against coal saddled with a carbon cost. Given that we also have the natural advantage of access to ready domestic supplies of uranium, which adds to our security of energy supply, if we are going to look to replace low-cost, emissions-intensive energy generation with higher cost but lower emission forms of energy generation then nuclear must be at the top of the list as a major contributor to that effort. Renewable energy sources are both expensive and, as yet, incapable of providing baseload power. As such, to the extent that they do replace emissions-intensive power generation, it will come at a significant cost to the consumer and possibly to our energy security as a nation.

There is no simple answer for replacing our abundant and reliable energy sources with similarly abundant and reliable low-emission energy sources. The passing of these bills will painfully highlight that fact to every Australian. This debate is about whether or not we should allow the future of this country, and our children, to forever be lumbered with an artificial cost imposition that will severely impact our competitiveness and our economic growth. It should be a rational debate on a government mandated policy with far reaching consequences. But the Rudd Labor machine has taken great steps to hide this debate behind a smokescreen of hysteria; behind an attempt to smear those who see faults in their plan as evil wrongdoers betraying the planet.

I and those on this side of the chamber have news for you. We refuse to accept that, just because this government asserts that this suite of bills is a solution to a problem it says need solving, we must blindly capitulate to that assertion. We will continue to critically examine your legislation, query its impact and its need, look at alternatives and generally do the job that the nation expects us to do as members of the house of review.

Several hundred years ago we saw the advent of the Enlightenment. As I am sure you are all aware, the Enlightenment was a period in western thought, during which reason and rationality took hold of humanity as the primary drivers of thought and decision making. It replaced a long period of many centuries throughout which individual thought and rationality was effectively outlawed, and individuals were forced to comply with mandated beliefs and concepts by a mixture of the church and the state. This period is fairly accurately described as the Dark Ages as it was a period where the state had the power to do as it liked, and citizens had little freedom or liberty. There are, fortunately, many people who consider that a rational examination of the science behind the anthropogenic impact on climate should be undertaken before action to address greenhouse gas emissions should be implemented. There are also many people who, upon examination of the government’s horribly flawed CPRS, consider that it fails on all fronts in delivering the stated objectives of economic responsibility and environmental sustainability.

Through the manipulative invoking of popular sentiment and goodwill towards the environment, this government has attempted to label not just those who want to rationally examine the science but also those who would dare argue against their CPRS as completely out of touch with scientific truths and modern thought. It has labelled those who dare to oppose its agenda as the dreaded climate sceptics or, even worse, dredge up the extremely pejorative term of ‘denier’, a term that has offensive, racial, anti-Semite overtones. By doing so, they do nothing but take us back to pre-Enlightenment attitudes.

In a democracy, people must have the right to query and question decisions made by their leaders that will affect them. Indeed, it is vital that they can do this. If they cannot, the power of the state can grow to a level that is unhealthy for its citizens. It is a great irony to me that those who dare to query and examine the issue are labelled by climate alarmists as flat-earthers, while those who blindly accept what the government, environmental movements and many of the mainstream media feed to them are considered to be contemporary thinkers.

During the attempted first passage of this legislation in August this year, I likened Senator Penny Wong to a high priestess of climate change and suggested she would burn climate sceptics at the stake if she had a chance. It was a particularly strong metaphor. However, it is one by which I stand. The religious fervour that has been whipped up worldwide in support of absolute and unquestioning belief in anthropogenic climate change and its utter infallibility is reaching alarming levels. Earlier this month an English High Court judge, Mr Justice Burton, said:

A belief in man-made climate change and the alleged resulting moral imperatives is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations.

This statement was made in relation to the case of a man who was removed from his position as head of sustainability for a residential property firm on the basis, he believed, of his eco-minded beliefs. The rules upon which this man built his case, the 2003 religion and belief regulations in the UK, were established to protect employees from being made redundant on the basis of their religious beliefs. The court found a belief in man-made climate change to be a religious belief.

The second and more important issue at hand is that of the legislation itself. There are those who deny the existence of climate change and there are those who deny the existence of anthropogenic climate change, but generally it is the Rudd government’s flawed CPRS legislation to which many of us here, and a substantial proportion of the Australian people, hold objection. What should have been a rational debate on the suitability and workability—or not—of this legislation has descended into an ideologically coloured and emotionally driven free-for-all.

The majority of ordinary Australians, those whom this tax will affect the most, have been provided with little or no assistance in understanding what the CPRS actually is, let alone how it will work or how it will affect them—and let me assure you, it will affect them. What the Australian people have been denied is a clear and transparent debate on the actual outcomes of this legislation. Whichever way you look at it, this legislation is a tax on all Australians. It will increase the cost of living for every single person in this country. It is clear to anyone who has taken the time to actually acquaint themselves with the detail that it will not even come close to achieving the professed goal of reducing global emissions. In fact, it is entirely possible—and indeed probable—that the reverse could be the case.

I doubt that anyone in this place could mount a credible argument that the implementation of the CPRS will not come at a cost to Australians. Sure, you can certainly argue about the extent of that cost. But the fact is that the specific intention of the bills is to make the cheapest sources of energy available in Australia more expensive so that other forms of less greenhouse gas prolific energy generation become more price competitive. Given the extent to which energy is a cost in just about everything we do in Australia, a government-imposed increase in price must come at the cost of either higher prices for just about everything or significant changes in our lifestyle, almost certainly involving a lower standard of living.

Now, I concede that there are justified times when peoples must accept a cost in order to deliver a corresponding benefit. In considering such a program as this, it is incumbent on legislators to consider and weigh up the potential costs against the likely benefits. If the benefits justify the cost, and the cost cannot be avoided in order to deliver those benefits, then it would seem reasonable to proceed. If not, then any such proposal should be rejected. This should be the threshold question that all members of this place ask in respect of any legislation before them that imposes burdens on any or all of the Australian people.

In respect of this legislation, the argument that the government would put is that the CPRS is needed in order to deliver the ‘benefit’ of helping reduce the global emissions of greenhouse gases to lower the impact of mankind’s activities on the climate. Climate change alarmists highlight how a failure to lower global emissions dramatically within a specific time period—which, incidentally, always seems to change and is always just a few years hence—will mean that the earth will pass a tipping point of no return. The consequences of this apparently include sea level rises, resulting, depending on what you read, in six-storey buildings on the beaches of Perth—in your home state, Senator Cash—having water lapping at their top floors or the warehouses in Salamanca Place, in my home state of Tasmania, going under, as dramatically pointed out by Senator Bob Brown just a few years ago when he alerted Tasmanians to the fact that we would see the sea rise by many metres in the coming decades. I think he may have revised that estimate down somewhat now.

However, even those who so passionately advocate that the world is about to end due to greenhouse gas emissions would have to concede that this suite of legislation is a dud. They might not agree with me or my coalition colleagues on many things, but what I am sure they would agree with is that there is no point in the Australian parliament imposing a massive burden on Australians if there is no corresponding benefit for the environment.

I have participated in a number of Senate inquiries into this legislation, as well as the economic impacts it is likely to have. And I can tell you that the overwhelming body of evidence on the government’s CPRS is that it will contribute nothing to the government’s stated aim of reducing global greenhouse emissions. This is because, to the extent that it is an actual problem, global greenhouse gas emissions can only be reduced if there is an international agreement in place that severely restricts the ability for emissions to be substituted from a carbon regulated jurisdiction to a non-carbon regulated jurisdiction to avoid what could be termed the ‘squeezing the balloon effect’.

Decisions about where to make products are now made on a global basis. A range of factors are considered, but the relative costs of production and competitiveness of production are major factors in those decisions. A substantial carbon cost added to the cost of production in one jurisdiction will put it at a great disadvantage against another that is without such a cost. Similarly, cost is a major factor in most purchase decisions, and the ability to purchase a similar product or service at a lower price from a non-carbon regulated jurisdiction will certainly impact on purchasing decisions—and, hence, on the levels and place of production.

When you consider, for example, that aluminium can be produced in Australia with far less greenhouse gas emissions than in almost any other country—apparently, in some places, seven times as much gas as is produced than in Australia for a given quantity of aluminium—if this scheme, this CPRS, led to less aluminium being produced here, and more in less greenhouse gas efficient nations, then the net impact would be an increase in emissions. Given that a product like aluminium, which is a lightweight alternative to steel, will also play a leading role in increasing transport and other efficiencies, it would seem logical to produce more of it in just those places where doing so will emit less greenhouse gas emissions—and, therefore, to create a legislative environment here that attracts the aluminium industry, not renders it unviable. But these bills will, perversely, deliver the opposite outcome. The same argument can be mounted for just about any major industry in Australia and, to a lesser extent, a lot of the smaller ones. So not only would such outcomes be disastrous for our economy and for jobs in Australia, and would come with the great additional burden of increased costs for everything in Australia, but the environmental benefits are doubtful, if at all existent.

A true international agreement, under which our major competitors also instituted coordinated price impositions on carbon, however, could severely restrict the likelihood of carbon leakage and help to maintain the relative competitiveness of Australian industry, our economy and Australian jobs. It could even provide an environment where we could compete directly on the basis of being able to produce goods and services in emissions-intensive areas on the basis of our greater emissions efficiency—that is, actually going out and attracting such high-emissions industry to Australia, for the very reason that doing so will lower global emissions, even though it might add to higher emissions in Australia. Our carbon emissions make up a grand total of 1.4 per cent of the world’s total emissions. It is essential that an Australian emissions trading scheme be designed with the intention that it be proactively reactive to the existence or absence of a global CO2 emissions solution.

So what is the likelihood of a global solution? Ignoring the great and highly concerning sovereignty issues contained in the draft text of the Copenhagen agreement, the big problem is that we have seen no evidence that an international agreement is imminent. Recent international forums have provided little hope in that regard. Nor is it at all likely that the greater number of our main trade competitors will adopt a price on carbon in the near future. Sure, many countries are currently implementing their own schemes to reduce emissions, but these are not necessarily ETSs and they do not necessarily undermine the competitiveness of their domestic economies or come at the great cost that the CPRS will for all Australians. There are many forms in which action can be taken to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but many of our crucial trading competitors have not yet even shown signs of taking any significant action.

I consider that there is a lot to be gained for Australia through adopting cleaner, more efficient and sustainable ways of generating, supplying and consuming energy, and of generally doing business and living in this great country. I also acknowledge that there is a strong political will for action in that regard. However, I refuse to accept that Australia should proceed to adopt a scheme that will do none of this, that will fail dismally in addressing any environmental concerns—whether proven or otherwise—and that will certainly cost jobs and put up prices of every day goods and service, groceries, household power bills and transport costs. A scheme that will put Australian businesses and industry at a huge comparative disadvantage, reduce our competitiveness internationally and undermine our economy generally, is clearly not in the interest of the people I represent—and I cannot bring myself to vote for it.

I am of the opinion that, in the absence of a clear, well-defined and well-supported international agreement, the scheme represented by this bill is fatally flawed. Despite the clear fact that the amendments the coalition is negotiating will improve it, I find it hard to see how its fatal flaws can be addressed. If the issue of greenhouse gas emissions does need action, there are better ways of addressing it. The government must acknowledge that simply introducing an ETS because that is what they promised, is not enough. They have an obligation to ensure that their ETS will deliver the outcomes it is intended to deliver, and at minimum economic and social cost to Australians. The CPRS will not achieve this outcome. It should not be supported.