Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

that we said it was in our national interest to wait until the Copenhagen conference before making a final decision. We needed to know what our trade competitors in other parts of the world were going to do before we could make a judgment on whether it was in our national interest to impose a price on carbon in Australia.

Back at the time Senator Thistlethwaite was quoting, in 2007 when I gave my first speech, the overwhelming expectation was that there would be a comprehensive agreement on pricing emissions. That was the expectation in 2007. We now know that Copenhagen was an absolute failure. The then Prime Minister Rudd had some colourful language to describe what happened in Copenhagen. It would be unparliamentary for me to repeat how then Prime Minister Rudd described what the Chinese did to the Copenhagen talks on climate change. I would not want to expose myself to the wrath of the chair by quoting the words used by the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. There were some little creatures and some natural activity involved, which I would not want to describe in terms too technical, because that would be offensive.

We know that Copenhagen was an absolute failure, and in Copenhagen Australia's national interests changed. When it became clear that the US would not go ahead with a cap-and-trade scheme—which they will not—and when it became clear that China, India and a range of other countries that we compete with would not be going down this path, there was a need to change track. That was the whole reason why, under Malcolm Turnbull's leadership, we voted against the carbon tax in July-August 2009. That is why we thought we needed to vote against it again in December 2009. It was the responsible course of action. Once it became obvious that Copenhagen was such a failure, we needed to make a judgment on how Australia could make the best contribution to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions without putting its economy at risk and without imposing excessive costs on Australian working families.

This government does not care about any of this. It was really telling to listen to the contribution by Senator Milne; clearly she must think that elections are a troublesome interference to her pursuing her ideal vision for the world. All of us scrutinising what the government is doing is clearly a very cumbersome interference to Senator Milne being able to get 100 per cent of what she wants irrespective of what people across Australia think. That is not how democracy works. Elections do matter, and on this very bad carbon tax, which we were promised we would not get, the Australian people deserve a say.