Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased, in continuation, to oppose the environmental and economic vandalism by the Abbott government of the climate change infrastructure that has been put in place in this country. We heard some debate last night from Senator Macdonald—and I will come to Senator Macdonald's speech, which I thought was actually fascinating and quite hilarious.

We hear about the mandate that the coalition have on climate change. I do not believe that you have a mandate when you lie to the Australian public. I do not think you have a mandate when you come here and, year after year, week after week, day after day, talk absolute nonsense and lies about the effects of climate change on this country and the environmental implications and economic implications of climate change. You just cannot claim a mandate when you have lied to the Australian public. Not only have the coalition lied to the Australian public on climate change; they have lied on pensions, they have lied to students, they have lied to schools and they have lied to people on social services in this country. They are a government who came to power based on lies and misrepresentation. I just do not believe the Australian public will not exact a huge price from the coalition at the next election because of their deceitful approach to a range of issues that are so important for the Australian public in this country.

Sure, among the most important issues is having a good economy, but I was the chair of the environment committee for some years and we debated the issue. We had hearing after hearing on the effects of climate change in this country, and the environmental effects are clear—the environmental effects are clear but, in my view, the economic effects, which were contested, are also clear. You can look after the environment and the Australian government can play its part in ensuring that we are at the forefront of decarbonising the economy, creating new jobs in manufacturing, creating new jobs in industry and cleaning industry up. We can do all that at very little cost to the economy. Jobs will still grow, wages will still increase and we will have industries that are better and cleaner. We will have a situation where my grandkids, when they grow up, can be confident that we have played our part in trying to achieve a world consensus to do something about carbon pollution.

The physics of carbon pollution is quite clear—that is, if you keep pumping carbon into the atmosphere, physics tells you that the atmosphere will warm. What is happening at the moment is that a lot of that global warming is taking place in our oceans. That is why the CO2 has gone into the ocean—so the scientists tell me. I am not a scientist, but that is what the scientists tell me. Yes, Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi, you can nod your head. I know that you are a climate change denier. You are proud of that, but I do not think that does this parliament much good. I do not think it does Australia any good and it certainly does not help the kids who are going to be growing up in decades to come. It does not help them.

I take the view that I want my grandkids to have the same opportunities I had—to get out and have a decent life in a decent environment. What is wrong with that? Even if you do not believe it, Mr Acting Deputy President, as you do not, you still have to give the benefit of the doubt to future generations. You still have to give the benefit of the doubt to the environment. That is what the scientists are telling us. They do not believe there is much doubt in this. All the scientists are saying that you have to deal with this issue—or not all of them; there are some scientists who are in it for their own benefit arguing something different. The overwhelming view from scientists around the world who specialise in this area is that the earth is warming, it is man-made warming and it is a problem for the ecology and for economies.

You see, it is not just an environmental issue. I would have thought the party who claim that they are great economic managers would see this—though I do not believe for one minute that the coalition are great economic managers. How can you be a great economic manager when you had John Howard and Peter Costello spending every bit of money that came into the coffers on handing back tax breaks? Peter Costello was the worst Treasurer this country has ever had. He was the weakest Treasurer. He could not stand up to the Prime Minister on economic issues; he gave in to the Prime Minister. He did not build; he did not invest; he did not do anything we needed to do for this economy. Peter Costello was an absolute disgrace. I know you guys all think he was so great but, quite frankly, he was an absolute disaster. John Howard, in combination with Peter Costello, was a disaster for this country. They did not think of the future. They did not build for the future, and that is the problem.

Did anyone watch Q&A last night? If you watched Q&A you would have heard the economists debating what the issues are. What the economists were saying last night was that one of the big problems was the Howard government were economic vandals in terms of how they dealt with the economy. So, when you hear the coalition stand up here telling us how great they were for the economy, understand that is a nonsense. It is another Liberal lie. It is something they tried to build up to justify cutting away at decent rights in this country—to justify cutting away at getting a decent welfare system and a decent health system in this country. They are pulling $80 billion out of the health and education systems of this country. They are abandoning the Gonski approach that says, if a school needs more money, it should get decent finance. If you have kids at a disadvantage in school, they should be supported to get the same opportunities as all the schoolkids whose parents can afford to send them to a private school. Why shouldn't working-class kids get a fair go? The coalition have never explained that, and they will not give working-class kids a fair go in this country.

When you add up the budget this coalition has brought in, their vandal's approach to the economy and their vandal's approach to the environment, we have big issues. As I said before, they came to power based on lies. They lied to the Australian community, and the Australian community is aware of this. The Australian community is telling every politician in this place that their lies will not go unaccounted for. Labor learnt a lesson before the last election, when there was misunderstanding about what we were doing. But I tell you what there was with this mob: there were clear lies before they went to the election. There was a lie after lie after lie. But the public are onto you lot. They know that you lied. You lied about health, you lied about education and you lied about the university system; it was lie after lie.

Sticking a little yellow high-vis vest on and saying you are the friend of the worker is not much good when you then say to GM and Toyota: 'We do not want you anymore. You can go to Thailand; we'll do a free trade agreement with Thailand and all the jobs can go there.' Then they say: 'Oh, but it is the carbon price that is doing this. The carbon price is chasing jobs overseas.' The Treasurer stood up in the lower house and basically defied Toyota and GM to leave the country, and they did. They are leaving the country and that is the sort of economic nonsense we get from this mob over there.

Why would they be doing this? Why would they be supporting the dismantling of what is a good economic policy—that is, that the market determines the price of carbon? Why would they do that? Why would they be putting the economy and the environment in jeopardy? There is one clear reason for it: they are paid millions of dollars by the mining companies. The mining companies are some of their main financial supporters, so they do the bidding of the mining billionaires. They do the bidding of the Gina Rineharts. They do the bidding of the Twiggy Forrests. They do the bidding of Rio Tinto. They do the bidding of BHP. That bidding is: 'You will not charge us for our environmental pollution.' That is what they say, and the coalition says: 'Yes, we will support your position.' They say to the mining companies: 'How high should we jump?' The mining companies tell them how high they should jump, and they jump that high. That is what is going on over here and it is not good for the environment or the economy. You should be taxing things that are bad for the environment. You should be taxing things that are bad for the economy, and that is why you tax pollution. That is why you put a price on pollution.

All over the world, prices are being put on pollution, but what we have in this country are these troglodytes in the coalition, these Luddites who do not accept what is happening around the world, who say to the mining industry: 'We will protect you from paying a cent on pollution. We will protect you from paying any money in tax.' They are completely in the thrall of the mining companies. They are run—lock, stock and barrel—by big business, this mob, and that is why they are doing what they are doing.

They do not care about the national interest. They do not care about pensioners. They do not care about the education system. They do not care about the health system. They lied their way to power and they have been caught out, because the Australian public is onto them. The Australian public's view on climate change is changing. They now understand that the price on carbon has not destroyed the economy. It will not destroy the economy or chase jobs overseas; it can be done at a reasonable price and it can actually create jobs. That is why what the coalition is doing is absolute vandalism of our economy and our ecology in this country.

They are lying to the public. They lie constantly about issues that are before the public debate in this country. They will pay a price, and we should oppose what they are doing in this Senate.