Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Hansard source

I think I am going to have to raise the tone of the debate in this chamber and concentrate on Senator Wong's answers to questions today. Who remembers a few days ago, when the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Minister Combet, said this:

From 2020, all nations face binding obligations to reduce emissions and our major regional trading partners … will expect us to deliver along with them.

And what have we learned today from the front page of the Australian? What is one of our major trading partners, indeed the world's third-largest economy, doing about a price on carbon? What have we learned? Let us have a look at page 1 of the Australian:

Senior Japanese diplomatic officials in Tokyo have told The Australian there is 'no chance' of the country adopting a scheme similar to Australia's carbon tax or emissions trading scheme in the foreseeable future.

That is what the front page of today's Australian reports the Japanese to be doing.

The coalition's argument against a carbon tax is simple, has always been simple and can be said in one sentence: the carbon tax is not in our national interest, certainly not now. We argue that only when a sufficiently comprehensive group of our major trading partners, particularly those countries that are, like Australia, energy-rich, trade exposed nations such as Canada, Russia and Brazil, commit to a price on carbon will it be in our national interest to do so. The coalition has argued that from the beginning. If Australia acts unilaterally, it will not change the environment, it will not change our weather and it will not change the climate at all. It is a very simple argument, and has been from the word go.

China and India say they are going to do something, but I will believe it when I see it. The Economist came out on 25 February. Just off the press, it said:

China is still likely to consume 4.4 billion tonnes of coal in 2030, when its carbon emissions are expected to have increased from 6.8 billion tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent in 2005 to 15 billion tonnes.

That is more than double. The Chinese and the Indians can promise all they like, but their consumption is going up, and it is going way up.

The great lie is not about whether there should be a carbon tax or not. The great lie was not even the Prime Minister's dishonesty about whether there would be a carbon tax. That is not the great lie. The great lie is pretty simple: the Labor Party has argued very simply that it is in our national interest to have a price on carbon irrespective of what any other nation on earth does.