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

My colleague and Senator Macdonald also are right in saying that you just have not come to grips with it. You have not given a full and proper answer to it and yet it is the crux of the whole debate. When you do I suspect that we will be able to move on. We probably will not agree with you but we do request that you give us a full and proper answer to this: Australia’s emissions are 1.4 per cent of world emissions and this scheme at its best—if it works or even if it gets up—will have the effect of a 0.2 per cent reduction in that 1.4 per cent. So we will then be emitting 1.2 per cent. I think Senator Macdonald added that if the Greens amendment just happens to get up by chance, it may reduce it down to 1.0 per cent of emissions. But we are dealing with the government’s target. We will reduce emissions by 0.2 per cent. If that is the case and the rest of the world is not signed up to and active in an agreement, what is the environmental purpose? We say that it is meaningless, and it is meaningless. It will not save the Great Barrier Reef. With a world agreement, as Senator Boswell put so well, we will all sign up and we will pay our rent. But until then, what is the environmental meaning behind it? It is meaningless.

You came in and started quoting that the United States had put down a target, Japan had put down a target and China had put down a target. You cannot fool us. You are across the debate with great detail, but we are across the debate too. We on this side have conviction. Do not doubt our conviction on this issue. That is just a debating point. You are starting to make debating points now, not real effective answers. I cannot even imagine you gave that answer with great conviction. The United States has put out a press release, to put it in its most simplistic form. It is an ambitious target; it is nothing more than that. Their senate at the moment is not willing to pass a scheme—far from it. It has gone into the ether. Let me tell you about China. I do not know if they have set themselves a target but they, and Japan, have said that they are going to look at reducing emissions by using alternative energies and fuels. And guess which one they are going to lean on the most? Nuclear power. There is a boom in the nuclear industry coming from a lot of these countries to lower their emissions. China has told us that they will increase their nuclear energy sources as a way of effectively reducing emissions. That is their idea. They have not got a scheme like this that penalises every one of their industries and I doubt if they ever will. We have dealt with China today—I know it is a sensitive issue with you.

Japan is the same. They are going to rely more and more on alternative energies and fuels, and that is a very good idea. That is why this side of the house supported the alternative fuel bill when it came through. We do believe in solar energy. We brought in the solar panel rebates, which you abolished—you halved and cut through them. It is a failing industry now. We set that industry up—solar panels on houses. Wind power—if you like it; I do not have much time for it—is another alternative energy source. We ought to be debating nuclear energy quite frankly. You are too frightened to. You have not got the sense or the political courage to put that on the table as every other country has. But I can tell you that there is a boom in the nuclear industry coming, but not in Australia. Every other country is now going to lurch towards nuclear power more than they already are, or they will introduce it, because that is the best way to reduce your emissions. It is clean, it is effective and it is cheap.

The EU scheme is often held up as the model. It is said that the EU has an emissions trading scheme. What a lot of rubbish—it is dormant! It does not really trade; it does not trade at all. Typically for the Europeans, I should add, they have set up a scheme but it is not working. It is not a real scheme; it is typically token. Why would France be interested? It is typically token. It is dormant. They are not trading, but if they are trading it is ineffective trading and it is certainly not lowering their emissions. So the European scheme is not a model at all. I think Australia must be the first country ever to want to pass a scheme at all.

I know those on the other side do not believe in business and the effect that all of this is going to have on business. We are not just standing here making that up; it is true. If this scheme passes it will have a devastating effect on our economy, on businesses. I have brought into this chamber my concerns, on which I will have more to say later, about the Victorian aluminium industry, the state’s biggest exporter. We have heard from Senator Macdonald about the nickel industry in Northern Queensland. Every senator on this side has brought in representations from their state about the effect on business. The reason we have done that is jobs. If there is no business, there will be no jobs for blue-collar workers. Senator Boswell was right: the blue-collar workers are turning on this. When you explain the system to them, that their jobs are at stake, they really do get worried. We are not just making this up; this is tested fact.

Where are the unions defending these jobs? Where are the unions pointing out to the government the effect that this will have on workers’ jobs? Where are they when the Minerals Council of Australia have found that 66,000 jobs will be lost, foregone forever? Rio Tinto have said that thousands of jobs will be lost. Xstrata Coal have said that between 5,000 and 10,000 jobs will be lost. In my state of Victoria at Alcoa’s Portland and Geelong plants 1,800 jobs are at risk. At the refinery in Altona, 350 jobs are at risk. BlueScope OneSteel have had a lot to say—they are talking about the jobs of 12,000 workers. These are not middle-management jobs and they are not executive jobs; these are workers’ jobs.

Just on 12 months ago there was a by-election in Gippsland, which includes the Latrobe Valley, the brown coal centre of Victoria and the source of its energy. The Latrobe Valley is typically a Labor area; there is no question about it. The National and Liberal parties ran candidates on this issue at this by-election over 12 months ago when the counterscience was not really out there, when climate change extremism was at its peak and when, if you dared question it, you would be burnt at the stake. If you look at the booth results from the Gippsland by-election when this issue was run—