David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I will follow the dictate of the day and confine myself to Senator Ronaldson's question. We have just heard in the triumphalist tone of Senator Ronaldson the distortions that continue to bedevil this very important debate. Whether we are talking about the carbon price, whether we are talking about the mining tax or, indeed, whether we are talking about border protection, on all of these key questions we see that the Liberal Party's policy does not survive even the barest of scrutiny.

Senator Ronaldson has just said how outrageous it is that government policy might pick winners in the Australian economy. I invite Senator Ronaldson to turn his eye to his own policy. The coalition's policy with respect to carbon is that they will achieve a five per cent target in CO2 emission cuts by 2020 based on 1990 levels. The coalition policy boasts that they will abate some 140 million tonnes of carbon per annum. It is entirely probable that most people in the electorate would be astonished to discover that the Liberal Party come to this debate with the same target that the government have.

If one listens to the coalition, as they roam the highways and the byways of this country, one might very well think that they were climate change deniers. We hear them proclaiming that it is impossible to reduce the temperature of the planet. We hear them saying that carbon is not a real threat to our climate. We hear them deny that there is anthropogenic climate change. But when you sift through their policy, you find that they possess the very same target that we do. But they do not intend to achieve this target through using a carbon price—a price signal. They have no intention of achieving this target by using the tried and tested mechanisms of price, demand and supply—no, no, no.

The coalition come to this debate with their own plan, the Direct Action Plan—a plan which defies the markets and the price signal. By their own reckoning, it will cost $3.2 billion over four years—no doubt a number designed by the most reputable of catering companies when the Liberal Party sat down to do their costings. So how is it, Senator Ronaldson, you might say on the one hand that you are appalled to have a government picking winners in the Australian economy, when in fact it is our policy that talks about the market and a price signal and your policy has at its very heart the notion that you will pick winners in the Australian economy? Your Direct Action Plan only works if a future coalition cabinet sits around a table and does precisely that—pick winners in the Australian economy. And no doubt there will be plans and plots across Australia that you will choose to fund and others that you will not choose to fund, and your own marvellous Stalinist five-year plan to abate carbon will be launched. It will be you who will be picking winners in this economy. It is this government, this Labor government, which has understood that the price signal is the way to achieve true and effective change in this economy.

Senator Ronaldson has clearly not read his own policy, because he proclaimed that a future Liberal government would rid the country of a carbon tax. But, of course, what you would not be ridding the country of is the goal to abate carbon and you would not be ridding the country of the fact that, by your own reckoning, you are signing up to $3.2 billion of additional expenditure over four years. How is it going to be funded and from whence will it be funded? That is just one of many mysteries that make up the $70 billion black hole that is the Liberal Party's policy proposition. They have no idea how any of this stuff will be funded. They have no idea what they intend to do, but they do have a strong commitment to rhetoric. This is why Senator Ronaldson says that Labor's policy will destroy this country. Well, you did not get the memo, Senator Ronaldson. While the rest of the coalition have been crab-walking away from their apocalyptic pronouncements, you have come into this place and continued them. I can assure you that on 1 July the Australian economy will be in very fine repair. It will still have the lowest inflation and unemployment rates.