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

Let us go through piece by piece what the minister has said. She has said that it is the coalition, the Greens and the Independents who are going to mount this fear campaign. Let us hear what she has said over the last couple of days. She has talked about droughts. Will the ETS fix the drought, Minister? No, it will not. She has talked about the Great Barrier Reef. Will the ETS cure the Great Barrier Reef? No, it will not. Will the ETS stop Greenland from thawing? No, it will not. Will the ETS stop the Murray-Darling Basin in its reduction? No, it will not. Then she talked about deaths, the hundreds and thousands of deaths. Will the ETS stop that? No, it will not. Even in her closing speech, she talked about bushfires. Is the ETS going to stop the bushfires, Minister—is that what it is going to do? Is your ETS, conducted from your room in the bottom storey of a building in Canberra, going to stop the bushfires, Minister? No, it will not.

We have all the way through this debate asked you two clear questions which you have refused to give, been unable to give or avoided giving the answer to. We asked: how many parts per million will the Australian ETS reduce global emissions by? Gee, we have never got an answer—not once has she given us an answer. Calamitous statements in abundance, we have had those—calamitous statements that you can take the whole family out the dinner on—but she has never answered that question. She has never drilled down to the science. She has never been decisive. She has never once answered the question of exactly what this will do.

We asked the minister: how much will this ETS reduce the temperature of the globe by? Never once did she even attempt an answer because this is a Labor Party gesture for Kevin Rudd to go to Copenhagen with—that is all it is. This massive new tax that will be lumbered on the Australian working family will do nothing to change the temperature of the globe. It is the most self-indulgent, hypocritical statement by a government of this time, but the Australian people are awake to you and the gig is up.

We have asked what exactly this massive new tax will do. The minister talks about the 130 million tonnes that it will reduce global carbon by, but what is that on the scale of global emissions? How much has she reflected that to exactly where China or India are and what will happen if we do not have a global solution? She has refused to engage with the propositions from the conservative side of government, the Greens, the Independents and the people throughout the community who have a differing view to the government. She has never once clearly mounted a case as to why we cannot delay now for merely days till Copenhagen—merely days.

How conceited are you, Minister? How arrogant have you become? How belligerent has this Labor Party become? All the time you would taunt us, when we were formerly in government, about arrogance, and it has taken you merely a couple of years, and look at what you have become: this arrogant monster that will not wait days till Copenhagen. What is wrong with you that you cannot wait days till Copenhagen? You refuse. Your belligerence has become so apparent to the Australian people. You will not wait merely a matter of days to go to Copenhagen.

We hear about your modelling. The modelling is based on 2008 modelling, but the minister refuses to concede exactly where the modelling is. We have had Danny Price and Frontier Economics clearly spell out the holes that are in the modelling, but once more we have absconded from dealing with the reality that the modelling is flawed. Yet we march relentlessly on. You will pursue your course despite the expense to the Australian economy, to Australian jobs and to Australian working families.

You do not care about working families. You were going to ‘ease the squeeze’ on working families, and what are you going to do to working families? You are going to put working families out of work. You are going to make pensioners poorer. You are going to put farming families off the farm. That is what you are going to do. That is the indictment on you in relation to Australian working families: a massive new tax in every corner of their life, from every power point, every time they iron their clothes, cook their dinner—