Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The questioning today, regardless of the wider question but certainly on any issues to do with the carbon tax or emissions trading scheme, were confused, misleading and illogical, and I think that sums up the quality of debate from the opposition on this issue. I respect that the opposition is caught in a bit of a bind. Within that side of parliament there are markedly different views about climate change and global warming, and there have been some quite markedly different policy views expressed about the coalition position as well. The coalition members must be anxious about standing up and saying anything in case their leader changes policy the next day and they are caught back in the old system. So they stand here in this place and spout rhetoric, grab on to whatever slight titbit of information might come from one of the industry groups who are lobbying for their own industry’s position and try to use that to shore up their own position.

In fact, I am a bit surprised that they have raised the issue today, given the latest poll, which seems to show that they are losing support. One of the key reasons the coalition is losing support generally is this very issue. It seems that people are not responding well to the direct action proposal of Mr Tony Abbott. They are not responding well to the way the coalition is dealing with this issue, and who could blame them? Where does the coalition stand? Where is the logicality of its position? It is nowhere.

The Labor Party has announced that there will be a carbon tax and the overall design and mechanism of how it will work. We are asking for input from key groups. We are asking for input from everyone. The Prime Minister has even offered the coalition some role in all of this, which has been refused. Once the overall architecture has been announced, those industry groups who are now vigorously lobbying, as is their right, to have some input into the design will have it. The government is going out there consulting. Time after time in this place I hear the Liberal Party asking for more consultation. The population have got consulation in this time and within a particular framework. One of the bits of that framework, as the Prime Minister has made very clear, is that lower income households will not suffer as a result of the imposition of a carbon tax. Assistance will go to households.

We have also stated that assistance will go to emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries. We will not export jobs offshore. That was indeed one of the bases for the emissions trading system that was previously proposed under the previous parliament. No-one is going to sacrifice 45,000 jobs, I think the figure was, offshore. That is not what is proposed and the coalition know it, but they want to embark on a scare campaign because they have not got a substantive policy to deal with it. Their direct action policy, given their commitment to a five per cent reduction in emissions by 2020, will cost $30 billion. Who is going to pay for that? How is that going to be paid? Mr Abbott has proposed cuts in programs, but we all know that that will not be adequate. And where do you go into the future with that?

We have a problem in the coalition, as illustrated by Senator Williams, who clearly does not believe in climate change. There are others in the party opposite who do believe in climate change. Where do you go? We do not know and I do not think the population of Australia knows. (Time expired)