Senate debates
Monday, 23 November 2009
Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Australian Climate Change Regulatory Authority Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges — Customs) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges — Excise) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges — General) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS Fuel Credits) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS Fuel Credits) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Excise Tariff Amendment (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Customs Tariff Amendment (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) Bill 2009 [No. 2]; Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Amendment (Household Assistance) Bill 2009 [No. 2]
1:11 pm
Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source
Where are the unions when it comes to jobs? Where are the unions on the issue of defending the workers’ jobs? We know jobs will be lost in the aluminium industry, we know jobs will be lost at BlueScope Steel in Port Kembla, we know jobs will be lost at Caltex, we know jobs will be lost at Xstrata and we know jobs will be lost at Ford—it is all listed and you can test their claims. We have tested their claims and they are absolutely correct. All these jobs are going to be lost.
You have got no responsibility. You have just proven it. You love the power of government more than the responsibility of public life. After all these years at least you are someone who could stand up there and debate this issue. Maybe some of the new senators have not got the courage to stand up to the government but what have you got to lose, Senator Forshaw? Why don’t you place public service and your public oath ahead of the power of government? You will not. You enjoy being in government too much. You are cowed from the top down and we are now seeing it on one of the most important pieces of legislation. Just as the unions have been bought off on the Fair Work Act, in the end you will not stand up for workers on this bill.
The government has willingly entangled itself with the extreme end of this debate. What it thought was good politics in 2007—and it may well have been—is not good politics now, in 2009. You have put yourself in the hands of Professor Garnaut, who I heard Senator Williams mention. What a joke his report was, suggesting that we ought to replace cattle with kangaroos. That is his credibility. I know Tim Flannery declared that Adelaide was going to run out of water last year. You have put yourself into the hands of these people. You are at the extreme end. Professor Stein, who is one of the people who kicked off this whole debate as the senior adviser in England, has been shunted aside after he suggested that we all ought to be vegetarians. Even the English government has now shunted him and do not accept his findings. The government is certainly not acting on it. You have a shift in public opinion on all of this.
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