Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Labor Party have proceeded through this debate and every time they get put into a corner they appeal to that moral foreboding, they appeal to that genuine belief held by many people that it is right to do something, but they never answer the question. When we asked them how many parts per million this scheme will actually reduce carbon by, they refused to answer. The answer you get is about Greenland, ice caps, drought, fire and floods, but it is never a real answer. When we asked them a question about a simple scientific fact from the research of Dr Christine Jones from the University of New England, which clearly states that more carbon is sequestered in summer grasses than in dry sclerophyll forests, what is the answer we get? Do we get a decisive answer, do we get an honest answer or do we get a whole palaver of avoidance of this and that and soaring rhetoric?

We never get the answer from the Labor Party. When we asked questions about whether this modelling from 2008 has been updated to show the extent and depth of participation by the rest of the world, did we get an answer? No, we did not. Once more they just went back to soaring rhetoric and the allegation that we are deniers. Now we have the allegation that we are apparently part of the extreme right. People can pick this. These are not answers. This is avoidance and the avoidance has been picked by the Australian people. The avoidance has changed their sentiment.

The Labor Party’s inability to be decisive and answer questions is so apparent. It is glaringly apparent from the simple and honest questions that we ask, such as the one about how, if we are financing developing nations, we are going to be financing them with borrowed money. We have no money. We are in debt up to our eyeballs. We will be borrowing money from countries such as China to send back to China to help China develop, when we thought they were already doing a pretty good job at it. A form of verbal detritus is pitched at us when this chamber dares to ask questions.

Over a period of time our daring to ask those questions has brought about some impressive results and the Australian people are awake to this. You say you have answered the question about summer grasses. We know they will sequestrate more carbon than dry sclerophyll forests. Is that in the carbon accounting system that you are proposing for us? Is the Labor Party prepared to accept the science that, if the mechanism of this is the sequestration of carbon, we will go to the primary form of sequestration of carbon and leave behind the secondary form, or will you continue to obfuscate, avoid the issue and put it off to some indeterminate place in the future rather than answering the question?