Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

This is interesting; I will take that interjection. Senator Macdonald’s proposition is that we should not have regard to what the United States is doing because it was only President Obama who said it. Can someone explain to me how that is a logical position. Are we really saying we will conduct public policy in the Australian parliament on the basis that we do not trust what the President of the United States has committed his nation to? That is extraordinary.

We know that every year of delay increases the price tag for the action we know we have to take. We want this scheme passed because we want to start to send a signal to investors to make the sorts of investments we know are needed to change our economy. That is the only way to tackle climate change, not through smoke and mirrors or tricky little policies. It is hard economic reform: it is about changing the nature of our economy. That might be why we have the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group and other significant Australian companies saying we should pass this and we should provide certainty. We can no longer delay sending a signal to investors. The passage of this bill is about giving that signal to investors and to business, because we know that all we will do by delaying it is increase the cost.

The policy proposition on the other side of the chamber is this: ‘We’re going to walk away from former Prime Minister Howard’s commitment because we really didn’t want to act all along, or some of us didn’t, and now we have the numbers.’