Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The difficulty in engaging in this matter of public importance debate with the opposition is that they do not actually believe in climate change at all. They do not believe that the climate is changing and they certainly do not believe that the climate is changing due to human activity. The problem they have when coming into this place is that they do not want to engage in the science and they do not want to engage in a rational debate. All their utterances are about generating fear and trying to scare the public for their own short-term political opportunity. We see this because, while those over there say they do not believe in it and they do not believe that pollution is a bad thing for the environment, they still have their own policy, which seeks to reduce carbon emissions to the same level that we seek to reduce them to.

But the fundamental difference between the way the government goes about it and the way the opposition propose to go about it is that they say: 'You're still free to pollute. Pollute as much as you like. The biggest polluters in this country are free to continue to pollute our environment as much as they like.' The opposition will take taxpayers' dollars and give those taxpayers' dollars as a gift to those companies in the hope that they may introduce some carbon abatement and may reduce their emissions. They say, 'Pollute as much as you like,' and they expect us and the taxpayers to actually give those companies who are the biggest polluters taxpayers' money to help them through the process. Our approach is the one that is supported by the market. It is the approach that John Howard supported in the previous Liberal government. It is the approach that they came to after a long, detailed and lengthy study by Peter Shergold, on behalf of John Howard, for the previous coalition government. They came to the conclusion that the way to reduce our pollution of the environment was to put a price on it. There are a number of ways in which to put a price on it and, clearly, with our legislation we are now proceeding down a path of putting a price on pollution.

What is the importance of putting a price on pollution? We know the market reacts to price signals. Every time you put a price into the market, the market that has to pay that price will seek to avoid it. How will it avoid it? It will be avoided by doing things in a more efficient manner, by investing in clean technology and in materials that cost less to heat and less to cool and by having buildings that cost less to heat and less to cool. New products will be developed in order to avoid paying that price signal, which will affect the way business conducts itself.

It is very important to keep focused in this debate. We know that the tax that will apply to pollution will apply to the 500 biggest polluters, not to anyone else. But we know that many of those companies, certainly in the first instance, will simply seek to pass on some of those costs, and it will work its way through the economy. But all the money raised through that tax still sends that price signal. It still puts a price on pollution so that people will try to avoid that process all the way through the economy, all the way through the market. Every cent raised will go into supporting households, jobs and new technologies that will help industries and our society adapt to the very important challenge ahead of us—that is, reducing pollution and the impact of human induced climate change.

I do believe in the science, and right across the world everyone else does. Australia is a little odd in the sense that we are having this debate when, really, the science has been settled for a long time. As a developed country we are in the position of knowing the effect of human induced climate change. We know what we have to do about it. We know that we can do something about it, yet those in the opposition simply seek to avoid the whole issue and use it as a political opportunity. Instead of taking the responsible path of acknowledging that the science is there, that overwhelming science is there, that we need to act and that we need to change the way in which we act in our society to reduce pollution, instead of acknowledging that we need to do something about it, they simply say: 'It's not real. It doesn't exist. Pollution is safe.' In fact, I think they have started up Friends of CO2. I think that former senator Nick Minchin and several other senators that I see on the other side—well, there are only three of them—