Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

As I was stating earlier today in relation to this amendment—which stems from the overwhelming support of economists and scientists for the need to act on climate change through an emissions trading scheme—the key feature of our existing carbon-pricing legislation is that it ensures that Australia meets its targets, and the stronger post-2020 targets, if it chooses to do so. Australia's existing carbon reduction policy suite has a greater capacity to meet our current and future targets because it features a legally-binding cap on emissions. That is the part that I want to highlight—the legally-binding cap—because the government is yet to demonstrate how its alternative policy can achieve Australia's minimum commitments. As I understand, all independent analysis to date indicates that emissions will continue to increase under its current proposed framework. Therein lies the problem with the government's policy: it is flawed.

The emissions trading scheme model is not flawed. It is backed up by scientists, economists and, in fact, a growing number of conservatives. This is interesting because we have a conservative government here in Australia, and yet today we have had Lord Deben, a UK politician, make very clear his views on the Prime Minister's direct action policy. He has actually accused the Prime Minister of recklessly endangering the future of the world. He has been really strong in regard to this issue because he sees it as an important issue facing our globe and, as a conservative, he sees that conservatives should be taking this a lot more seriously than our Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, is.

But he is not the only one. There is another conservative, Mr Henry M. Paulson Jr, from the Republican Party in the United States who has recently written a piece in the New York Timeshighlighting that Republicans must not shrink from this issue and that risk management is a conservative principle—as is preserving our natural environment for future generations. He highlights that a tax on carbon emissions will unleash a wave of innovation to develop technologies, lower the cost of clean energy and create jobs as we, and other nations, develop new energy products and infrastructure. So there are a growing number of conservatives who very much support action on climate change in a form way beyond that proposed by our conservative government's direct action, which is Tony Abbott's key plank policy.

One thing I need to put to Senator Cormann is in relation to emissions trading schemes, to which this amendment refers. I understand that the Prime Minister, on his recent official trip to Canada, was telling reporters that emissions trading schemes were being discarded. On 8 June, he said:

There is no sign—no sign—that trading schemes are increasingly being adopted. If anything trading schemes are being discarded not adopted.

I understand the ABC's Fact Check has done some work looking at carbon pricing around the world, based on the Prime Minister's comments. This is available for all senators, because it is work done by the Parliamentary Library.

Fact Check found that there were emissions trading schemes in place across Europe, in parts of the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Japan, and in South Korea a full scheme is legislated and scheduled to commence in 2015. Are new ones being adopted? Yes. Are schemes being discarded? No. So it is clearly a lie. For our Prime Minister to go half way around the globe telling the media and communities that emissions trading schemes are being discarded and not adopted is a complete furphy. It is not true.

I would like to thank the Parliamentary Library for doing that work. We know that after today Australia will be the only country discarding a legal cap on pollution, a price on pollution. Perhaps Tony Abbott was referring to the future—what may happen in the next 24 hours—when he was talking in Canada. He certainly was not talking about any other country. If he was, we have not found it. There is not one. This is the only country going backwards on climate change. This is the only country that will not support what so many other countries are doing in an effort to reduce their carbon emissions. Instead, it will put in place a flawed policy, known as Direct Action, which is neither direct nor having much action. Direct Action is all we have on the table. So, Senator Cormann, how can Direct Action or the Emissions Reduction Fund meet our emissions reduction targets?