John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for her answer. It does concern me because I am probably one of the very few people in this parliament that has experienced Australia leading the way, in this case in trade. When the Hawke-Keating government agreed to allow the importing of pig meat into Australia it was very costly for Australian piggeries and it shut down a lot of them. My brother and I worked extremely hard in our piggery; it was a seven-day-a-week job. So I am very sceptical about Australia leading the world, and we are about to do it again. I do not know what we did wrong with our piggery. The other pig producer at the time was Prime Minister Paul Keating. He was obviously a much more successful pig farmer than me.

Senator Barnett’s point is very valid. China has committed to a 45 per cent reduction in GDP figures. Their emissions today, going on my figures, would be around seven billion tonnes a year. We should be looking at what China’s emissions will be come 2020. Of course, China’s economy is growing very rapidly, and hence they will be putting out a lot more emissions. Minister, how many of the countries on that list you read out, excluding the European Union—you mentioned Brazil, Japan, the Republic of Korea and so on—actually have an emissions trading scheme in place today?