Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Oh, the direct action plan! That was the one that left us with an $11 billion black hole in the election costings—that was the one. I have not heard very much about it lately. Is that still your policy? Today that is their policy, apparently—an $11 billion black hole in the budget. That is all they have got to contribute.

This is a serious challenge to the Australian economy. It is a serious challenge to our climate. When I talk to business I know they want certainty and they want leadership from the political leaders of this country. When they look to invest billions of dollars in electricity generation they want to know what the rules are going to be and what the returns on those investments are going to be. When they hear the Liberal Party taking the sort of position it is taking now, they are dismayed. They are dismayed at the lack of leadership because they say to us: ‘We will argue about the detail, but we want to know what is going to happen. If we are going to invest billions of dollars in electricity generation in this economy, then we need to know what the rules are. We need the politicians and the Australian parliament to resolve these issues so that we can make our investment decisions.’ Without that certainty, we know that we are not going to get the investment we need in power generation in this country.

It is important that we come to terms with the serious public policy issues at stake here. To be fair, even though we have been frustrated by Independents and the Greens in trying to get the CPRS established in the last parliament, at least we have now serious engagement from Independents and the Greens on the way forward on a major public policy issue. We know the Australian public expects us to seriously engage on this issue—not to invent a new three-word slogan, not to go out and do PR stunts pumping petrol in the suburbs but actually to engage in a serious climate and economic issue confronting Australia. They want more than three-word slogans. They want this parliament to get down to the job of crafting a response to the climate change challenge, to limiting our carbon pollution and to putting a price on carbon. We think that is the serious business of this parliament. We thank those Independents and Greens who are interested in coming to terms with this. We will argue about the detail, we will argue inside the framework about how to supply it, but all of those people will be in there arguing about the serious public policy debate and the Liberal-National Party have again marginalised themselves with their negativity, with their complete absence of public policy.