Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

Oops indeed, Senator Fifield! That is a fine question posed by a Labor MP. Another went on to say:

When Kevin took her advice, that was the beginning of the end for him. Now it’s her problem and she’s proposing the same thing.

There is trouble in the ranks over there, quite clearly, as they worm their way through this issue yet again. It is so difficult for them because, not just is their policy flawed, not just can they not get the politics of it right, but their greatest problem is that they are carrying this laggard of a Prime Minister along with them, who has deceived the Australian people. She has flip-flopped on this issue so decisively. If you can flip-flop decisively, that is what she has done. She stared down the barrel of every possible television camera she could find in last year’s election campaign and told the Australian people, ‘There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead’—words that will haunt her day after day after day throughout the life of this parliament, because she said it so emphatically, because it was the most solemn promise that she made. As Senator Fifield rightly pointed out, if she wants to break that promise, if she wants to institute her carbon tax, then she should have the courage to go back to the Australian people and ask them for endorsement to do it. She should seek a mandate to actually introduce it, because she can claim absolutely no mandate from the last election for the things that she has done.

Contrast this with the reality that, on this side of politics, since the direct action plan was released in January last year, we have had a clear, consistent policy, a policy we stand by today as much as we stood by it then. During that entire time, the government has had Prime Minister Rudd back down from having a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme; Prime Minister Gillard assume the throne; Prime Minister Gillard rule out a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme; Prime Minister Gillard cobble together a government; and Prime Minister Gillard come out and say, ‘We will now have a carbon tax’. All of that has happened in the time that our policy has been locked in, so the hypocrisy of those opposite to want to talk about our policy knows no bounds, when we have had a very clear and consistent approach.

The important difference is that our policy, our approach, works on exactly where and how you can most efficiently and effectively reduce emissions. We will subsidise actions to do so and we will focus on that five per cent target in doing so. That is how our policy will work: focusing on the five per cent of emissions and subsidising them to get them abated and reduced. The government’s policy, the government’s carbon tax, is a tax applied to 100 per cent of emissions. That is why it costs so much more than the coalition’s policy. That is why it is so much more expensive: because it applies to 100 per cent of emissions as against incentives targeted to five per cent. That is why, of course, it has such spin-off effects on the rest of the economy. As it applies to every tonne of carbon emitted in electricity, to every tonne emitted in the transport sector, it all flows through to everything else in the economy and pushes the price of everything else up. And do you know what? Ours is guaranteed to reduce emissions, because we are targeting reductions; their’s is just a tax applied to everything, with absolutely no guarantee whatsoever it will reduce even one tonne of emissions. (Time expired)