Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Cameron always had to fight with the Trots, so there you go. If you want to have action on climate change—and I believe we must—it will not be cost free. If you are going to reduce greenhouse gases, there is no cost-free solution. To me the debate is about finding the most effective way to abate greenhouse gases to a sufficient level to actually make a difference when it comes to the issue of risk management in terms of climate change.

I understand that some of the sceptics about the science of climate change have been strengthened by some of the conclusions of the IPCC. There was some sloppy work in terms of some of the conclusions, but overall the body of work is still significant and robust in my view that we need, from a risk management point of view, to deal substantially with climate change. I agree with the Prime Minister, who said that dealing with climate change is one of the great moral issues of our time. I find it curious that the Prime Minister did not mention climate change once in his seven quite significant speeches leading up to Australia Day on his tour around the country. I find it disappointing that in those speeches about where we are heading as a nation there was no mention made of climate change, because climate change has made and will continue to make an impact on the Murray-Darling Basin, for instance.

I could not support the government’s scheme. I believe the government’s scheme was made even worse by the amendments agreed to by Mr Turnbull. They made a bad scheme even worse in terms of the payouts and the structural imbalances that would have been caused in the economy. It would have done nothing to assist the hundreds of thousands of small businesses with the impact it would have on the price of electricity. I believe this nation needs a well-designed emissions trading scheme, but it is true to say that what occurred in Copenhagen has been a setback for those wanting global action on climate change. The actions of China and India have not been helpful in order to achieve that.

So I cannot support the CPRS in its current form. I believe we need to look seriously at the Frontier Economics model, which is an intensity based scheme. It is much more efficient and you can go for deeper cuts. We need to have cuts that are much more significant than five per cent and we need to look to the science in relation to that.

I welcome the coalition scheme insofar as I believe it is an interim measure. It does not lock us into long-term decisions which will severely impact the economy but at least it does deal with a number of aspects that need to be dealt with in terms of soil carbon and R&D and at least it is beginning to tackle the problem. I only see it as a stopgap measure. Eventually this parliament will need to come up with an efficiently designed emissions trading scheme to deal with the problem. It is a stopgap measure until there is global consensus, but my concern is that once we are locked into the government’s scheme that will be it.

I believe we need to have meaningful targets. Neither scheme goes far enough. I believe there ought to be some bipartisanship. Where there is common ground, we need to get on with it and do all we can to cut greenhouse gases as deeply as possible and as efficiently as possible.