Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I congratulate the Cormann group for the report of the Senate Select Committee on the Scrutiny of New Taxes, upon which we are commenting. It is the only true scrutiny that these bills have been the subject of. Perhaps that is part of the reason 80 per cent of the adult population of Australia is condemning the government now for the undemocratic move we saw in this place only yesterday.

Yes, of course climate changes. 'Climate change' is a tautology: climate changes continually. It has always and will continue to. Go outside and you will see it changing. But the most important thing that needs to be considered in this whole debate is that this is a global issue. It is not an issue fenced around Australia. The previous speaker spoke about efforts of the past, about recommendations of the past and about actions of the Howard government, but it has always been predicated and always should have been on the global context. It is only this current Labor government that fails to understand that any action taken in Australia must be in the global context. As much as we think we are an incredibly important country, we are a very small player—a very small cog in an enormous wheel.

I draw your attention to the second part of the summary—'Economic pain for no environmental gain'. That it is for no environmental gain is the greatest travesty of this carbon tax, introduced and passed in the lower house yesterday. This country produces less than 1.4 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases. People have said that if we stopped emitting tomorrow there would be no change. Well, there would be a change: there would actually be an increase in global greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide, because efficient industry from Australia would move overseas.

The best example, from the state of Tasmania and the state of South Australia, is the refining of zinc. It is my understanding that our Australian refineries in Hobart and in South Australia convert a tonne of zinc for some three tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted. In the event that Australia were to stop this activity, zinc refining would move to China, where the equivalent figure per tonne of zinc refined is 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide. This shows the stupidity of this argument about environmental gain that is being put by the Labor government. Clearly there will be leakage out of this country, and the contribution to world greenhouse gases and climate would actually increase. Has anybody stopped to ask themselves why this country has done as well as it has and is as wealthy as it is?