Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I am proud to stand here today and say as the last speaker that, like the rest of my party room, I will not be voting for these carbon tax bills. What we are voting on today is one of the bravest, most significant and most necessary structural reforms this country has seen in decades. We are taking a leadership role and the rest of the world will follow suit if we can reduce global emissions. It is at times like these that I cannot help but reflect on the fact that six years ago I was sitting in front of a computer at the University of Tasmania after I was asked to put together a course in environmental finance. At that stage no other university had looked at doing a specific course in environmental finance and how we could use financial markets to help mitigate environmental damage. It is quite ironic that I am standing here in the Senate today, having taken 12 months to pull together all the simple things to teach students how we can counteract a problem such as global warming, and all the best policy advice available is being thrown out the door by a government that is supposed to understand markets and understand business.

Let me start at the beginning. Carbon dioxide, like other greenhouse gases, is pollution. That might be the very first line you type on your first slide that you are going to show your students. If you do not believe that, if you do not get passed that first line, then there is no point progressing with the rest of the course. Carbon dioxide is pollution.

It was interesting hearing Senator Eggleston yesterday talk about historical instances of carbon dioxide pollution leading to periods of global warming. We are well aware of that from climate records, but that does not abrogate the importance of carbon dioxide in today's age. It actually supports the argument that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that can lead to runaway climate change and all the negative impacts we see on our ecosystems and on our future economy.

If it is pollution, it is what economists call an externality—that is, something produced by a company that is having a negative impact is not being reflected in the costs of production of that good. We also know from well-established theory that markets fail. Markets do not always price things well. They do price some things well, but they do not price things like pollution well, so there is an important role for government to step in and fill the externality gap by levering things such as taxes or excises on pollution.

In the last two days we have heard a lot from the CEO of Virgin talking about the impact of the carbon tax. Apart from the fact that he and Qantas signed up lobbying to be included in the price on carbon scheme, we have not heard anything about the excise that has long been levied on aviation fuel or other fuels in this country. What we hear about is the so-called carbon tax and the damage that has done to the profits of a company like Virgin. It was interesting also to see in estimates last week Qantas very clearly saying that the carbon tax was not the issue, whereas we have seen the Prime Minister and our Liberal cohorts in the last two days running the populist line that somehow the carbon tax has destroyed Qantas. I will get back to that in a minute.

This price on carbon, and its accepted theory to price pollution, is designed to transition industries away from pollution to cleaner forms of production. It does not just have to be electricity; there are a lot of other things that we leverage market based instruments on. That is why we call them market based instruments. We are transitioning in this country, and certainly in my state of Tasmania, which has 86 per cent renewable energy, from dirty energy to clean energy. Along the way we have created tens of thousands of new jobs in investment and innovation in this country. I have not heard that mentioned once by anyone on the other side of the chamber in all of the debate.

Yes, a scheme like this will have its costs and it may have design flaws that need to be changed. It will also have risks. It is our job in government to manage those costs and to manage those risks. Getting back to the first line that I am typing for my students, if you do not accept that CO2 is pollution then I can say to you—and I did say this to some students—you do not have to have proof to be prudent in finance. That is what the insurance industry is based on. I do not know if I am going to be run over by a car and killed but I have life insurance anyway because, if I do, it will be catastrophic for my family. I insure my house in case someone breaks in and I insure my car in case I have an accident. It is called managing risk. It is the insurance industry that has driven action on climate change since the 1980s, because it is the only industry pricing the risk of climate change, not just to households and individuals but to businesses and industries.

So taking strong and effective action on climate change—and I emphasise action that is effective—is an insurance policy in itself. That is what climate action is. I say to people who do not necessarily believe in CO2 being pollution that leads to global warming, where does the balance of risks lie? Would you put your money on it if you had to make a bet based on the available evidence? Isn't it prudent to manage our risks? Yes, it is. We need strong action on climate change because it is an insurance policy for the future of our grandchildren, as Senator Cameron so eloquently pointed out. But it is a lot more than that; it is also important for our economy.

So the crisis we face today—and I stress it is a crisis—could not have been more clearly highlighted than by CSIRO this morning when they put out their definitive report on observed changes in the long-term trends in Australia's climate. I will read to you from the section 'Future climate scenarios for Australia'. It says:

Interestingly, the CSIRO's conclusion is the same as that of the Bureau of Meteorology in answer to a question from Senator Ruston during estimates. According to the report:

The report goes on:

When I read that I understand that it is talking about the future—my future and the future of my kids. When I read that I see that it spells cost—the cost of living in this country under climate change, not the cost of my bloody electricity bills this month or next month. This is the CSIRO talking about the potential catastrophe under a future of climate change if we do not take action. We have just given billions of dollars to farmers because of drought. I have no doubt they need it, but how many more billions of dollars will go to them? How many more billions of dollars are we going to have to spend on mitigation strategies for bushfire risk or for rising sea levels? It is interesting, I have never heard the cost of climate change mentioned by the other side of the chamber in this debate. But there it is; that is what we have to do something about, folks. It is clear as daylight.

So why are we standing here today debating whether these bills should be scrapped? There are three good reasons that I can identify. The first is the zombie spin that we saw from the Abbott government in the lead-up to the last election. Once again, Senator Cameron pointed out very eloquently the impact that the short-sighted, offensive, cynical, political opportunism of Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, has had on the debate. I cannot think of a better example than that of Qantas. Qantas is in trouble, workers jobs are at risk, and it is the fault of the carbon tax again! The second thing I can identify is ideology, pure and simple. I was reading the IPA website last night, looking at its freedom index. I have no doubt that that is now a layer that we have to deal with under this new government: how well new regulations or policies impact the IPA's freedom index. Sometimes I cannot help thinking that their ideology has bred pure spite in the attempt to cancel some of these bills, especially that dealing with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Lastly, it is about special interests, about the big end of town, about being puppets on a string, having the IPA, the Business Council of Australia and the other large, vested interests in this country dictating your policy.

Let us consider the carbon tax bills specifically. The cheer squad—the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Australian Industry Group, the Business Council of Australia and the Minerals Council of Australia—is very clear. The Australian says, 'Industry calls for swift repeal of carbon tax.' I wonder why, considering that only 0.1 per cent of Australian businesses are liable to pay the carbon price and that four companies, concentrated in a very small number of industries, alone pay nearly 50 per cent of Australia's carbon liability! This demonstrates how the big polluters, as Al Gore recently in Australia articulated so clearly on 7.30 Report, have hijacked our democracy. They are driving the government's agenda and, sadly, potentially our national legislation. I would like to quote from an article by Ross Gittins, in the Sydney Morning Herald, that I really enjoyed. It is entitled 'We're now a nation of rent-seekers.' He says:

Professor Ross Garnaut has argued that Australia is unlikely to see another era of extensive micro-economic reform because of the growth in rent-seeking behaviour since the days of the Hawke-Keating government.

…   …   …

What gets me is how blatantly self-seeking our lobby groups have become. It is as if the era of economic rationalism - with its belief that the economy is driven by self-interest - has sanctified selfishness and refusal to co-operate for the common good.

He goes on to say:

It's finally dawning on people that major and genuine reform—

which the carbon-pricing scheme is—

requires a degree of bipartisanship at the political level and a spirit of give and take on the part of powerful interest groups. But these prerequisites are further away than ever.

Instead what we get is lowest-common-denominator politics from the pollies and rent-seeking posing as ''reform'' from the interest groups.

He goes on to mention the various business lobbies that have a significant interest in investing to have this legislation changed.

I used to teach the special-interest model and the special-interest effect to students. It is probably a bit difficult to talk about in the time I have remaining, but we all understand that lobby groups play a role in democracy—they get in the ear of decision makers. But they also make the decisions that we as decision makers make very clear. They make the benefits and the costs to us very clear. They can donate to political parties. They can threaten to advertise against you in aggressive advertising campaigns. There is no clearer example of that than with Labor's change of view on the mining tax. I have seen it also with Coca-Cola and the Australian Beverages Council aggressively advertising against national recycling schemes such as a bottle bill. We face these trade-offs. Do we take on special interests and risk getting a backlash from voters? Unfortunately, most voters in this country do not have the time or the energy to invest in fully understanding legislation and how important it is. That is our job as government to do. That is why special interests win. They can concentrate very powerfully the benefits and costs to decision makers, and decision makers know that the general public have lots of things on their mind when they go to the ballot box. That is why it is a con to say that this government has a mandate on the carbon tax, on the mining tax, on turning back the boats or on anything that I have heard in this chamber—you suddenly have a mandate on it. How many Australians go to the polling booth understanding those policies and voting specifically on those? It is my view that people voted for a change at the last election—I do not doubt that—but that was because of the circus that we saw from the Labor Party. I have a very clear view on this—we call it the rational ignorance of voters. There are a multitude of factors that go into decision making when people vote in an election. Unfortunately, once again, it is why special interests get away with dictating government policy.

What about the positive interests that support renewable energy? The Australian Cleantech Review in 2013 estimated at least 53,000 Australians are currently working in the cleantech sector, with strong growth since 2009. Modelling by several organisations, including Austrade, shows that current renewable energy targets in combination with other elements of the clean energy package, including a price on carbon, will deliver $20 billion of investment in renewable energy by 2020. Tasmania, my state, is nearly 100 per cent renewable and receives a $100 million dividend from the price on carbon. I am yet to see any politician, especially not a politician from Tasmania, say how my state will be compensated. One hundred million dollars a year from a price on carbon—because we export clean energy—is 12½ per cent of non-Canberra revenues to the state government. How are we going to be compensated for that? Solar PV accounts for 18,500 jobs and $8 billion in private investment; it is a growth sector. With traditional industries around this country failing—with the car manufacturing sector pulling out of the country, with farmers needing more handouts and with the collapse and troubles experienced by commodity industries, for example, SPC—how are we going to invest in the new jobs of the future? Where are we going get this innovation from? Senator Conroy is here—at least he has done something for this country with the NBN. How are we going to build the industries of the future? I can tell you we have one here now, and it is called clean energy.

The government talk about sovereign risk. I have never seen a worse example of sovereign risk than what the Liberal Party has done to the clean energy sector over the last four years. There is nothing business hates more than uncertainty.