Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Cameron seems confident about his government's carbon tax proposal, which will put increased costs of living upon every Australian. If he is so confident, let us have an election about it. If you want to go the whole hog, let us have a double dissolution. Let's go for it, Senator Cameron. If you believe what you say, get out there and ask the people of Australia what they think about the lies of your leader, Julia Gillard, who promised us just a year ago, hand on heart, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' Here we are a year later debating the carbon tax, which is going to destroy the Australian economy for no benefit whatsoever. Senator Cameron might tell me I am wrong. After all these taxes on every Australian, by how much are you going to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2020? Even your government's own modelling shows that carbon emissions will go up, not down. Senator Cameron walks out of the chamber because he cannot answer that, because he knows that what I am saying is a truthful reproduction of the Commonwealth government's own modelling.

My own state of Queensland today—as Senator Mason asked about in question time—have done their own modelling. Even they are saying what an impact it is going to have on the Queensland economy. The Queensland state Labor government has done modelling that shows it is bad, the New South Wales state government has done modelling that shows it is bad, the Western Australian state government has done modelling that shows it is bad and the Commonwealth government has done modelling that also shows it is bad.

Senator Cameron talks about the world heating up. Senator Cameron, you have not been following the debate. They do not talk about global warming anymore. It is climate change, remember, not global warming. Statistics over the last two decades show that the climate has either cooled or has certainly not warmed up. He says tides are rising and quotes the CSIRO. I still ask Senator Cameron or the CSIRO to explain to me why 140,000 years ago—a long time—tidal levels were about where they are now, as shown in the CSIRO's graph. The graph shows that, over the next 120,000 years, tidal levels went right down. Then suddenly, 20,000 years ago—this is the CSIRO's graph, not mine—the graph shows that tidal levels scooted back up to where they had been 140,000 years ago to approximately where they are now.

Senator Cameron is part of the group trying to scare people into not buying near the water because the tide is rising, so we all sell our properties next to the seaside and on the river. Professor Flannery, appointed by the Labor government to head the Climate Commission, is part of the group saying, 'Oh, all is lost, the tide is increasing and we are all going to be washed away!' Professor Flannery, I might add as an aside, gets $180,000 a year for two days a week of work.