Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

To call this government 'a farce' is just typical scaremongering and another silly comment and stunt put up by those on the other side. It does not quite match the stunt of wanting to have a plebiscite and then saying that they wouldn't take any notice of the result. What must the people of Australia think about that? Here they go: 'We want to have a plebiscite, we want to spend millions of dollars'—all that money that goes into running a plebiscite—but then their leader says, 'But I won't take any notice of it.' I don't think the people of Australia are conned for one moment with the scare campaign and the silly tactics we see coming from the other side.

The first question of the day in today's question time was probably, in my three years in this place, one of the most bizarre I have heard. If that is what their first question of the day is going to be about they really need to look at their tactics committee. We are seeing the scare campaign and we have seen it before. We have seen it in a number of areas. It is exactly the same one we saw through the global financial crisis. The scare campaign then was that a large number of people in Australia were going to lose their jobs. I think Mr Hockey said that 300,000 Australians were going to lose their jobs. Instead, what happened? We have 700,000 more Australians in jobs today than when the government took office. That is despite the impact of the GFC.

Those on that side completely waste question time. I know that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, personally have a great interest in how question time is run. I listened intently to your speech the other night regarding how question time should be run. For those on your side to have so little respect for what you have to say and for your philosophy and beliefs does not augur well for them as a group or as individuals.

Recently we had 13 of Australia's most prominent economists, including a former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia and several financial market economists, come out in support of a carbon price. The group of economists included Grattan Institute director Saul Eslake, St George chief economist Besa Deda, Citigroup Global Markets' Paul Brennan and Westpac chief economist Bill Evans. Still those on the other side deny the need for a carbon price. Those people I just mentioned declared that putting a price on pollution is the best way to reduce carbon pollution. They described a price on carbon as 'a necessary and desirable structural reform for the Australian economy'. This reinforces yet again is that every credible participant in this debate knows that the only responsible thing for our nation to do is to put a price on carbon. As former Liberal leader John Hewson said:

Australia needs to take substantive, urgent and apolitical action on carbon pricing for the sake of our economy and our environment. The failure of our generation to act will cost future generations dearly.

That is the important thing. It is the cost to the future generations that is of key concern to us on this side of the chamber. Those on the other side come in here and it does not matter what we want to put up they say: 'No, no, no.' As I said earlier in the week, their policy on climate change should not be called direct action; I believe it should be called direct no-action because that is what they are the party of—direct no-action on everything.