Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Whilst you were out of the chamber and Senator Sherry was replacing you, Senator Wong, he gave us some advice on how the first five or 10 per cent of our fast start money had to go to the islands in the Pacific and elsewhere. It was very interesting, but it was not what I asked him. I asked him how much money it was. The Prime Minister was overseas just a couple of days ago and he made some comment about the undeveloped countries. He said that we have to put in something like $10 billion—I think that was the figure. He did, however, make a statement on how much money would have to be paid.

I have continually asked you what that money is. I have heard $4 billion. I have heard $7 billion. It is beyond belief that the Prime Minister should go over to a forum and make a statement about putting money on the table but that he does not tell us how much money it is. As far as Ron Boswell or anyone else is concerned it does not really matter, but you have to tell the people what that money is. They deserve to know. That money is public money and the amount should be made public. It is beyond belief that you tell us that the Prime Minister went over and made a statement about how much money—he did not actually specify what Australia had put in but he told people what he thought the money should be—but that that amount is not made public.

I made this statement too, Senator Wong, and I will make it again: last week there was polling done by the Australian Chamber of Commerce that said 54 per cent of the people did not want to progress down this path until after Copenhagen whilst 34 per cent said that they want to go immediately. One week later—and this is the same pollster with the same question—the 54 per cent has gone to 60 per cent and the 34 per cent has gone to 27 per cent. The reason this is happening, Senator Wong, is that you will just not come clean. You will not tell the people what is involved. So no wonder people are turning off this and the support for it is dropping like a brick. And next week it will be less. You cannot expect people just to take you on your word. You know what it is and the Prime Minister knows what it is but you will not tell them. I cannot go over there and beat it out of you but you should be able to tell the people what the cost of it is.

There was another aspect I raised, and I was told that 450 million certificates will be issued. The other issue I wanted to get some advice on is this: what happens if this emissions trading scheme turns to custard, if it does not do the job, if no-one else goes in? I suspect that will be the case. We will have the EU in, which is a collective of countries, but so far no-one else has made a move to join. Yes, you have a few press releases from China, Japan and a few other places that have made some sort of commitment, but in real terms the EU is the only one that has put an ETS together and it is highly qualified. A couple of weeks ago they removed 162 industries from it, so it is the ETS you have when you do not have an ETS.

But what I want to know, and what I think everyone wants to know, is: if this goes bad, if no-one joins, if Copenhagen is a wash-out and no-one turns up with a real commitment, how do we get out of it? We would have 450 million certificates valued at somewhere between $20 and $30 each. They have a price. They would be property rights. Once we push these into legislation, they will become property rights. If everything turns bad, what is our strategy to get out of this? What is our exit plan? Have we an exit plan or do we just write off something like $129 billion over 10 years and say: ‘Well, that was bad luck. We miscued on that one’? These are the things that people want to know. It is no good telling me that they have to be acquitted. I do not know what that means in real terms. I want to know how we recover our money. How do we extract ourselves from this mess if no-one else joins?

I think basically what people are saying in the polling is: ‘We’ll pay our fair share. If everyone in the world joins, we’ll pay our premium.’ That is how I am interpreting the polling that indicated that 60 per cent of people did not want to go down that track and 27 per cent did. The poll was taken by Galaxy over the weekend. The reason the popularity of this is falling is that you are not explaining it. You are not telling anyone. You are standing up there and giving glib replies but you are not answering any questions. When its popularity drops further next week, down to about 14 per cent, you are going to be officially labelled the worst saleswoman in the world because you have not been able to sell this to the public. You cannot even sell it in this parliament. Please tell me how we get the $129 billion out of this if the worst comes to the worst.