Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate your protection, Mr Acting Deputy President. I would rather have the debate with Senator Whish-Wilson, because, as with so many things that the Greens say, it is all based on scaremongering and certainly not on science. You just have them saying anything on the basis that the end justifies the means. I know the Greenpeace attitude: tell any lie you like, as long as you get the result you want. Isn't it the Greenpeace motto: tell any lie you like, misrepresent any fact, as long as you get the end result you want? All lies and misrepresentations are in order.

Getting back to the bill before us, it is essential that we are allowed to honour the commitment we made to the Australian people, and that the Australian Labor Party made to the Australian people as well. I re-emphasise to the Australian Labor Party and to people who might be listening to this debate: it was the Australian Labor Party, the ALP, the Gillard government, that solemnly promised before the 2010 election that they would not introduce a carbon tax. Yet, today we hear from Labor speakers that it is so good. If it is so good, can you tell me why your leader prior to the 2010 election promised not to bring it in? Because of that promise, she got herself elected. Before the 2013 election, the Senate spokesman for the Labor Party was handing round pamphlets in her campaign saying, 'We've already got rid of the carbon tax.' How is that? This is a pamphlet from the opposition spokesman in this chamber on the environment before the election saying, 'We've got rid of the carbon tax.' Well, they hadn't. But here is her chance now. She can retrospectively honour the promise that she was making then that they had gotten rid of it.

The government will be well advised in relation to climate matters by the CSIRO, whose science and understanding we greatly respect. We will be advised by the Bureau of Meteorology—Australia's weather experts, who are world-renowned. We do not need a Climate Change Authority made up of Labor Party friends, with hundreds of public servants and huge costs, giving the previous government the sort of advice they wanted to hear. I have to say it was more political advice than it was climate change advice.

We do not need that, and the Australian people do not need to have to pay for that. We have some of the pre-eminent scientific organisations in the world—the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO—there to advise us. We also have very expert people in the Department of the Environment to advise the minister. We have a minister who understands these things, unlike previous ministers, and who appreciates what is what and, more importantly, a minister who is determined to ensure that the promises we made to the Australian people before the last election are honoured.