Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

The government will be voting against the suspension because the Senate unanimously determined—at Labor's initiative—that this morning we should be debating the Productivity Commission Amendment (Addressing Inequality) Bill 2017. This is the bill that we are meant to be debating this morning. It wasn't us who listed this, because we respect the fact that non-government senators determine what is debated in private senators' time. However, what the Labor Party is now proposing is to vary the business. That is precisely the basis for why we voted against the previous motion. It is only fair to all senators who've prepared themselves for this debate on the Productivity Commission Amendment (Addressing Inequality) Bill 2017 that this be the bill that is dealt with.

Let's not pretend that this has got anything to do with Labor wanting to pursue more effective action on climate change. This is all about Labor wanting to beat up on the Greens. This is all about a tiff between the Labor Party and the Greens—and I see Senator Di Natale nodding. This is just the latest political stunt by the Labor Party. How do we know this? It's because the Labor Party has already been successful in having precisely the same topic as the topic of this motion listed for debate later today as part of the MPI. Labor are clearly so embarrassed by their Productivity Commission Amendment (Addressing Inequality) Bill 2017 that they're desperately trying to avoid debate on it. If they had any commitment to what they've asked the Senate to list for debate this morning, they would have proceeded with it.

Clearly, Labor is no longer concerned about rising inequality. That was the sort of thing that Shorten was trying to deceive the Australian people about in the lead-up to the last election. Now, under Mr Albanese, they're no longer concerned about rising inequality, so they no longer want to pursue this particular piece of legislation. They're prepared to prioritise a political stunt, trying to flesh out a tiff between Labor and the Greens, ahead of dealing with what, last week, they were telling us was an important piece of legislation.

When it comes to climate change, our government is absolutely committed to effective action on climate change. We are committed to effective action on climate change in a way that is economically responsible, and we absolutely stand by our decision 10 years ago to vote against Labor's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme—so called, because it would not have helped reduce global emissions; it would have just shifted Australian emissions into other parts of the world where, for the same level of economic output, emissions would have been higher. So the world would have been worse off, the global environment would have been worse off and Australian jobseekers would have been worse off. So Australians would have been asked to make a sacrifice for no impact on global emissions at all. In fact, arguably, emissions would have been higher, because we would have made it harder, for example, to produce LNG here in Australia, and, of course, for every tonne of emissions from Australia producing LNG, we are able to displace five to nine tonnes of emissions in China and the same level in other economies around our region. We would have made it harder for Australia to help reduce global emissions, because we would have made it harder for ourselves to attract investment in expanded LNG production and exports into those countries. We would have made it harder for ourselves to keep the aluminium industry here in Australia, which is environmentally more efficient than those aluminium businesses in the other parts of the world. That would have led to higher emissions than would have been the case for the same level of economic output here in Australia.

There were many flaws with Labor's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The Greens at the time were quite right in joining the Liberal and National parties in voting that disastrous piece of legislation down. But let's just be very clear: this is a debate for later today during the MPI. This is not a debate we should be having during private senators' time, given Labor advised the Senate on Thursday—and indeed the Senate unanimously agreed in the placing of business—that it wished to place on the agenda for this morning the Productivity Commission Amendment (Addressing Inequality) Bill 2017. That is the bill that we're ready to debate here and now, and that is the debate that we should be getting on with instead of having one Labor stunt after another.