Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Through you Acting Deputy President: yes, I am capable of disagreeing with you, Senator Di Natale, and that I will. It is amazing how, if the science supports one side of an argument, they are put on a pedestal. As we all know—those of us with a scientific background, and medicine is a prime example of the fact—over history, we have always had vigorous disagreements. We know the first people who looked at the presence of micro-organisms—as Senator Di Natale would know—were roundly criticised by the members of the medical profession when they stood up and said, 'Where are these organisms?' Of course, they were only evident through microscopy. This is the difficulty that we have in a circumstance like this where the opinions of others must always be derided, and I will simply not accept that I can have a different view which you, Senator Di Natale, do not agree with.

The climate is of course changing—the climate has always changed. Where are the challenges for the world? They are in the future provision of energy. Ask yourself the question: 'How is it that a country in the landmass of the United States, with a population of only 23 million people, is as wealthy as we are?' I have put this question to young people and they have said, 'Its iron ore—iron ore is relatively recent.' One even told me it was wool. Well, it is a long time since Australia rode on the sheep's back. The answer has always been cheap energy. What have we lost as a result of this legislation coming in from the Labor and the Greens parties? What we have lost his cheap energy.

Let me go now to the other end of the spectrum, if I can. The United States has created a new record with their employment levels going up consecutively each month for the last five months. Would you like to answer the question why, Acting Deputy President? It has been because of their capacity to extract shale gas. Shale gas has now become so available and so cheap that—and I learnt this when I was in New York last year—American manufacturers are bringing manufacturing back into the United States from Asia, Europe and elsewhere, and the cost of energy to an American manufacturer is now less than 50 per cent compared to that of a competing German manufacturer. That is where the benefit has been. As a result of this, what are we seeing? We are seeing jobs throughout the American economy and we are seeing jobs in areas that have traditionally been areas of high unemployment—because, once again, they have access to cheap energy.

We also are blessed with cheap energy. I would hope the day comes when we would see support for, for example, further exploration of the use of thorium if, indeed, it is an energy source that we can use globally. The Chinese are working actively in this field. They are working actively in the coal to liquids transition with liquid fuels. They are doing far more than other countries, and I can assure you that, regardless of any lip-service from them about an emissions trading scheme, it is a very long way off on their agenda.

We now have the circumstance where we have new participants in the Senate. The Labor Party, the coalition and the Greens have argued this backwards and forwards for five years. We now have duly elected new senators—one would hope that the Australian people knew what they were doing—and their voices should be heard and their opinions need to be taken into account.

In the few minutes left to me, I want to again address some of these questions that were thrown at us in this litany of lies as proposed by Senator Cameron. He goes on about the Australian economy. He goes on about the fact that Costello and Howard left this nation in such a poor state. He goes on about a AAA rating. The one statistic that people must remember is that, because of the deficit and debt that we inherited, every Australian today is contributing $1 billion of borrowed money every month just to be repay the interest. That works out to be $100 per working person per month.

Let me put that $1 billion into perspective. Senator Cameron goes on about education. A new primary school opened near my electorate office only last week. That which cost $15 million. Given the fact that we are paying $30 million a day interest on a debt, we are forgoing a new primary school somewhere in this country every 12 hours. What would that be doing for primary education? Senator Cameron goes on about the lies associated with higher education. I say to him that what this coalition has proposed in terms of opening up opportunities for young apprentices to take financial advantage interest-free to get their apprenticeships and not pay any money back until $50,000 of income is earned is, I think, excellent. As an academic of a regional university in the past, I am familiar with the HELP scheme. The HELP scheme has been extended to pre-university bachelor degrees so that people who may not have been confident enough or had sufficient grades to get into university initially can enjoy the same financial support. Both lower socioeconomic people and higher socioeconomic people can get that financial support. Again, there is a scholarship scheme. Many of us funded our own tertiary education training. There are tremendous initiatives being undertaken by this government. It is now time for the Labor Party and the Greens to accept the will of the Australian people of September last year and get out of the way, allow us to repeal the carbon tax and put that $550 per annum back in people's pockets where they can spend it more useably.