Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Climate Change and Water (Senator Wong) to a question without notice asked by Senator Boswell today, relating to the emissions trading scheme.

In today’s Courier-Mail, there is a photo of the member for Capricornia, Kirsten Livermore; the member for Flynn, Chris Trevor; and the member Dawson, James Bidgood with ‘censored’ written across their faces. They obviously are not speaking out for their electorates on the emissions trading scheme. Today in question time I asked Senator Wong whether she had given them instructions not to speak out. She denied it, and that may well be true. But I do not know why these people do not speak out for their electorates when their electorates are coming under so much pressure. These electorates represent the coal-mining industries of Queensland. Most of the coal mines are in these electorates. The mayors of the towns in these electorates have pleaded with the government not to go ahead with the emissions trading scheme. But the unions have been absolutely quiet on this issue.

The mining companies have come out and warned the government about how many jobs will be lost if it goes ahead with the scheme. There will be thousands of jobs lost if this $2.4 billion carbon tax is placed on the mining industries. Every dragline that runs on electricity and every electric motor used in those mines will be hit with a carbon tax. Yet, day after day, the people who should be opposing this tax are sitting there like stunned mullets, not saying a word.

Today, in question time, Senator Milne asked a question about agreements on emissions, and the answer was that there were no international agreements on anything. There is no modelling on a white paper and no modelling on a green paper to tell us where the economy is now. No modelling has been done on the economy. The government is absolutely determined to go ahead with this scheme, and there is no opposition coming from the government benches.

Senator Cameron was an absolute raging lion before he came in here. He was on every radio station and in every newspaper saying what he would do when he got here. He got here after garrotting Senator Ian Campbell, and he has been like a weak, whipped squib. He has not said a word. He has been one of the great disappointments of the Labor Party. I am sure the union people who put him here would be disappointed by his lack of commitment to the union movement. It is a disgrace. Where are the people who represent the blue-collar workers? Where are they? Why have they disappeared? Why do you let down the people who pay their union fees, who keep your labour movement together through blood, sweat and tears? You have walked out on them. You know that you are trading their jobs off for Greens preferences. You are making exactly the same mistake as your previous leader, Mr Latham, did. He decided that he would trade off the jobs of timber workers for Greens preferences. The blue-collar workers dumped him, and you are going to get dumped. Mr Rudd is also going to get dumped in exactly the same fashion, unless he listens to the people whose jobs will be lost because of him. He is going to be deserted by the blue-collar workers.

Let us go back to the beginning. This thing started as an absolute farce. A professor said that we had to get rid of our cattle herds and our sheep flocks, we had to farm 240 million kangaroos and we had to turn our arable farming land into a tree plantation. It was a joke then, and everyone laughed at it and thought it was ridiculous, but it is getting damned serious now—(Time expired)

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would not usually speak in the taking note of answers debate, because obviously it is usually members of the backbench who put their views, but really that contribution deserves a response. What we are seeing from Senator Boswell and many in the opposition is more of the same behaviour, the same opinion and the same dogma that ensured that for 12 years they pretended that climate change was not happening. That is the reality.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why did we set up the first greenhouse office in the world?

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, you did set up the first Australian Greenhouse Office—I will take that interjection, Senator Macdonald—and do you know what? I think tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of the first report presented to your government recommending an emissions trading scheme. So, 10 years ago, your government had a recommendation to establish an emissions trading scheme, and that was the beginning of 10 further years of denial and neglect by those opposite because you are not up to the challenge.

Senator Boswell comes in here and says he is the friend of working people. It is a pity he did not think about that when he joined up with the rest of the opposition to pass the Work Choices legislation. I would like to see if Senator Boswell is going to be one of the ones who say, ‘Yes, Work Choices is dead,’ because so far what we have seen on the other side is that they just cannot bear to let it go.

Going back to the emissions trading scheme, I want to just remind senators opposite of this statement. I could do a Senator Abetz—you know, ‘Who said that?’—but really it was not very funny when he did that, so I will not try and copy it. Mr Turnbull, in May 2008, said:

The biggest element in the fight against climate change has to be the emissions-trading scheme …

Mr Turnbull, at the Press Club, said:

The Emissions Trading Scheme is the central mechanism to decarbonise our economy.

Now what is Mr Turnbull saying? He is saying, ‘Oh, look, it’s not really a necessary tool at all.’ Do you know why? Because senators like those opposite, the sceptics from Western Australia and the sceptics from Queensland, who do not want to act on climate change, who want to dump this issue, this great challenge that this country faces, are looking for any reason they can find to oppose action on climate change, just like they did for more than the last decade.

The fact is that we know that climate change is not going to go away. Senator Boswell and others can come along to committees and argue the science all they like. Perhaps they should go out and talk to a few Australians about this issue, because people understand what is required. What we need to do is to make a transition across our economy. We have to move to a lower-polluting economy. We have to respond to climate change, and Australians understand that. And, yes, we have an absolute responsibility to ensure that we support the jobs of today while we are making that transition. That is why the government has put in place substantial assistance through free permits and the provision of funds—about $750 million for the coal sector, as well as free permits for those companies in Australia who face the highest costs under the scheme. We understand the importance of that.

I again remind Senator Boswell that the Treasury modelling, which is the largest modelling exercise in the nation’s history, shows that we continue to grow as an economy, including in emissions-intensive sectors, and that modelling in fact assumes less generous assistance than the government is proposing. Senator Boswell would have more credibility if he just came into this place and said, ‘I simply oppose any action on climate change because I don’t think it’s real.’ He should just say that because that is his position.

The problem is that that has not been Mr Turnbull’s position. It is now apparently becoming Mr Turnbull’s position as he is pursued by Peter Costello. That is the reality of the politics on the other side: the sceptics, who are substantially represented in this chamber, who do not wish to take action on climate change, are running the Liberal Party’s policy when it comes to climate change action. Senator Boswell is amongst those in the opposition who simply do not want to take action.

As I said in question time, we also saw this week a company that the opposition had tried to use, had tried to point to and say, ‘They’re going to close down,’ come out and say, ‘We don’t know why Mr Robb would say that.’ Well, I can tell you why he would say that—because you on that side will do and say anything to avoid this responsibility, to avoid taking action.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pity that the Minister for Climate Change and Water did not abide by the convention of her party and let a backbencher speak here, because when she reads that contribution she will realise how much waffle it was.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No-one was game to do it.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are right, Senator Boswell. I do not think any of her Queensland colleagues are prepared to get up and defend this flawed emissions trading scheme, particularly before this Saturday. There is only one of Senator Wong’s Queensland colleagues in the chamber, and I assume Senator Moore might speak, but I bet none of her other Queensland colleagues will, because they do not want a bar of Senator Wong’s emissions trading scheme. You only have to look at the actions of Mr Bidgood, the member for Dawson, which takes in a lot of the Bowen Basin coalfields; Ms Livermore, whose electorate takes in a lot of the Central Queensland coalfields; and Mr Trevor, from Flynn, which also takes in many mining fields. They do not want to talk to the media about this at all. Why not? Because they do not agree with Senator Wong’s emissions trading scheme.

In fact, I have been all around the countryside on Senator Cormann’s committee looking at the emissions trading scheme and I cannot find anyone in support of it, not even the AWU, not even the CFMEU. None of the unions want it because they, like us, have an interest in working families, whom the Australian Labor Party seems to have abandoned when it comes to the emissions trading scheme. And three members of parliament from North Queensland in the ALP have been gagged by this minister and by her party so they will not say anything about a flawed emissions trading scheme that will cost working families in my state of Queensland their jobs.

Where are the Greens on this important issue of saving the jobs of working families? The Greens, of course, are in complete disarray. As I pointed out this morning in my notice of motion, the Greens are preferencing the Labor Party in 12 marginal seats, which could result in the return of Anna Bligh’s Labor government. Anna Bligh has made it quite clear that once she is returned she will be proceeding with the Traveston Crossing Dam. What hypocrisy from Senator Brown—canoeing down the Mary River saying, ‘We are opposed to the Traveston Crossing Dam,’ and then giving preferences to Labor to build that dam.

It is not me saying this, Mr Deputy President; you have only got to look at yesterday’s news reports which show that the Greens political party in Queensland is in complete disarray. In fact the Greens candidate for Gympie, Mr Ken Hutton, returned 15,000 how-to-vote cards prepared by the Brisbane office of the Greens party giving preferences to Labor because he does not want a bar of returning a Labor Party which will build the Traveston Crossing Dam. So here is the hypocrisy of the Greens, joining with their mates in the Labor Party—and they are only the left-wing faction of the Labor Party—destroying all those jobs in the Mary Valley of Queensland and ensuring the construction of that dog of an idea, the Traveston Crossing Dam, which will not help at all.

Where are the Greens when it comes to protecting the jobs of working families up my way in the Bowen Basin coalfields? What about out in Mount Isa? Where is the Labor Party out there protecting jobs? I want to know if Anna Bligh, the Labor Premier of Queensland, has raised a finger to help the working families in Mount Isa, in Collinsville, in Moranbah, in Glenden—in all those Bowen coalfields towns—and in Mackay, Rockhampton, Gladstone and Emerald. Has Anna Bligh lifted a finger to help those working families or are they just going to roll over to this flawed emissions trading scheme of Minister Penny Wong?

It is a scheme that the federal Labor members in that area do not want to have a bar of. It is a scheme that very few Labor senators from Queensland in this chamber want a bar of. That is why the minister suffers the indignity of having to come in after question time and defend herself in the take note of answers debate. It is because none of her colleagues have any interest in that scheme. They know, like we know, that it is a dog of an idea and will cost workers jobs.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know that Senator Macdonald is absolutely fixated on what is going to happen in the Queensland state election. We have seen that all week. It does not matter what the topic is—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am a bit excited.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the interjection, Senator Macdonald: I note that you are extremely excited about the process around the Queensland state election. The question in this taking note motion was, I believe, Senator Boswell’s question to Senator Wong during question time about the carbon emissions trading scheme, the ETS. That was actually a replay of an urgency motion we had in this place earlier this week around the Queensland election. That, again, was trying to beat up issues, trying to scare the community. It reinforced the clear difference between us. On one side there is the understanding, the acceptance, of the challenge of the worldwide fear that we have about what is going to happen to our planet. We as a government accept that we have a responsibility and within that responsibility we have put forward legislation for consideration. We have known from the start that it did not matter about the science, it did not matter about the reason. On the other hand, there are people, particularly those in the opposition—not all, of course, because there are a wide range of views—who refuse to accept that there is a challenge. We have had a series of attacks from people on the opposition side who refuse to accept that there is a challenge for our community in which we have a responsibility to take part.

We continue through our legislative process and through the special fund that has been provided by the government to provide information about the issues of global warming—about our need to have a scheme that looks at the industries within our nation to see how we can reduce carbon emissions, and to work effectively and cooperatively with industry and with communities to identify the issues and see what we can do together to make a change. It seems to me, Mr Deputy President, that that should not be such a big issue with which we must struggle. However, consistently, there is open rejection.

This week—for some reason!—we have a particular Queensland flavour to the rejection. Most times it is just about why we as a whole nation should not be accepting our responsibilities. This week it is all about Queensland. While I am often all about Queensland, because I was elected by Queensland people, the attempt over the last few days to score cheap, easy points in the week before a state election is not useful. I do not know why people think that an interchange in the Senate will impact on the voting of any citizen of the state of Queensland, but, nonetheless, I am happy to be part of the debate. However, I would think that it would be more useful if we looked at the wider issues.

Certainly, Senator Boswell has raised real concerns about the jobs that will be impacted by the schemes that we brought in under legislation to respond to the challenge of global warming. We have never denied that there would need to be a transition in employment through this process. But the reasons we have put out to the community are specifically about the wider issues—what we must do as a nation, what we must do as a range of industries, to take up the responsibility from which there is no escape. The government have acknowledged that, through the process of information, through the process of working with industry, we are trying to ensure that people can see that they will have a role to play—in fact, there must be the engagement of industry, because without the involvement of industry there will be no progress.

A scare campaign, which is generated simply to cause fear, to cause concern, is not positive. There must be a transition in industry, and certainly we have talked about the kinds of jobs that must be created in our state. I will talk about Queensland in response to the excitement of Senator Macdonald. There are a range of jobs that must be created in Queensland to keep people employed, particularly now as we know there are the other issues of the global economic crisis. But it is particularly concerning that we do not have positive input from the opposition; what we have is a series of scares, a series of negatives and actually an attempt to make political points out of what should be an opportunity in our state and in our nation to be part of what is an international response. One of the real worries is that people are underestimating the concern and the knowledge of so many people in our country. We know there is a problem; we must be part of the solution. (Time expired)

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor’s emissions trading scheme has become a complete dog’s breakfast. The Rudd Labor government has come up with a scheme that will do nothing for the environment and will put even more pressure on the economy and jobs. Senator Moore just said how we need to focus on the needs of the planet and address the challenges of global warming. The Labor government’s emissions trading scheme will do nothing to address the needs of the planet and will do nothing to address global warming. It could well be argued that it will make things worse. Given that it could well make things worse, Australians are well entitled to ask the questions: why do we have to make these sacrifices? Why do we have to lose our jobs? Why do we have to put additional pressure on the economy, particularly at a time like this, if it is not going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a global level, which the government is telling us that it wants to achieve?

The government has put out a green paper, it has put out a white paper and it has done some Treasury modelling. As the Senate, obviously it is our responsibility to scrutinise what the government is proposing in this area. The Select Committee on Fuel and Energy, over the past seven or eight months, as Senator Macdonald has mentioned, has done a lot of scrutinising of the government’s proposals for an emissions trading scheme. The government has not provided access to any of the modelling information it has been trying to keep secret. I am going to raise a few issues here. You might all recall the Treasury modelling that was released on the government’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. We as a committee commissioned Dr Brian Fisher to conduct a peer review of that Treasury modelling and the conclusion he came back with was that this Treasury modelling was seriously underestimating the impact of the government’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme on the economy and jobs. Why? Are Treasury officials to blame? Have they done the wrong modelling? No, it is the government that is to blame, because the government directed Treasury on how to conduct its modelling. The government said, ‘You don’t have to assess the impact of the global economic crisis on how the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is going to play out in terms of the economy and jobs,’ even though the current circumstance is the worst economic crisis we have had since the Great Depression. The government did not model the most realistic scenarios such as the scenario that other parts of the world do not take action as fast as we do. These are the reasons Dr Brian Fisher expressed his concerns.

Since then, the committee has had evidence from Mr Paul Howse, the National Secretary of the Australian Workers Union. He also said that the Treasury modelling was inadequate. Jennie George, the member for Throsby, and Senator Glenn Sterle—a whole range of Labor members of parliament—have expressed concerns about the impact of the government’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme on the economy and jobs. Given that fact, it is quite proper for a Senate committee to want to apply some proper scrutiny to what the government is proposing.

In order to be able to do this, we needed to have access to unpublished modelling information that Treasury is keeping secret on the assumptions, the model codes and databases and all the other underlying information that the government has fed into the process. The committee wrote to the Treasurer on 9 December. For two months the Treasurer of Australia did not respond to a request of a committee of the Senate. Then we had an order of the Senate passed on 4 February, and the government refused to comply with it. The government came into this chamber and claimed that commercial harm could be incurred by the external organisations that they have contracted to assist them with their modelling. One of those organisations is Monash University. We as a committee bent over backwards and changed the motion to see whether we could accommodate Monash University so that our committee could do our job and apply proper scrutiny but also could protect the interests of Monash University. Still, the government came back into this chamber and said, ‘We are not going to give you the information.’ But do you know what? They were hiding behind Monash University by saying they could well be exposed to commercial harm.

Monash University has written to the Treasurer. I will seek leave to table the letters written to the Treasurer and I will seek leave to table the letter that I, as Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Fuel and Energy, have sent to the Treasurer since then in response. It has got absolutely no concerns about this information being released, so it is time that the government stops hiding and starts to release the information that the Senate select committee needs to apply some proper scrutiny to this flawed emissions trading scheme. I call on the government to table the information the committee has asked for by close of business today, and I seek leave to table the correspondence that I have mentioned.

Leave granted.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion to take note of the answers from the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong, on greenhouse gas emissions targets. In referring to the targets, I want to comment that Dr Brian Fisher would be the least authoritative person when it comes to any assessment of greenhouse gas emissions, Treasury modelling or whatever. I remind the Senate that Dr Fisher was Chairman of ABARE for a long time. He peopled ABARE with climate sceptics, and that is one of the reasons we have had such a poor performance over 10 years whilst ABARE was in his control. When I came in here it was Dr Fisher who, in answer to questions about Peak oil, said: ‘Put climate change to one side. By putting climate change to one side, we can run our vehicle fleet on liquid coal.’ That is in an era of climate change. Anyone who can say that with a straight face in a Senate committee on oil cannot be believed on anything in relation to climate change. If he wants to put climate change to one side, then I would like to put Dr Brian Fisher to one side when it comes to any assessment or analysis of what he has got to say.

The issue on the government’s targets is this: the government has been out there saying a five per cent reduction is unconditional, and I accept that, but it has been laying it on by saying that it will go to 15 per cent and the parameters of that are ‘where all major economies commit to substantially restrain emissions’ and ‘all developed countries take on comparable reductions to that of Australia’. The latter category is annex 1 countries—‘comparable reductions to that of Australia’. I asked today what the criteria for that was because the community has to know whether there is any realistic capacity or intent of the government to go to 15 per cent. That is the critical issue here.

What we discovered from the answer today is that we could not get an answer to what a ‘major economy’ is for the purposes of this definition. We could not get a definition of what ‘substantially restrain emissions’ means. We could not get an answer for which countries constitute major economies, and we could not get an answer to what criteria constitute ‘comparable reductions to those of Australia’. What that means is that there will be legislation before the Senate where the people of Australia, through their parliamentarians, are being asked to decide on an emissions trading system with parameters between five and 15 per cent, with people being misled into thinking that 15 per cent is a realistic proposition. The only way you would not be misled into thinking that is by having parameters so you could actually see whether the government has properly used its discretion over those definitions. Instead of that, we will have to vote on this before we have any understanding of what terms such as ‘major economies’, ‘substantially restrain emissions’ and ‘developed countries taking on comparable reductions to Australia’ actually mean.

From what the government has said to date, there is a very dubious criterion being applied to population and comparable efforts. This is an extraordinary effort; the head of the climate department tried it on again in the economics committee last night by saying of contraction and convergence, ‘Well, that meant everyone had to be equal’. I asked him why that is not fair and got this convoluted answer about some countries having more hydro resources. In fact, Australia has some of the best renewable energy resources in the world, so it is hardly an excuse. The whole issue here is that the government has absolute discretion in applying these criteria and the community and parliament are not going to know what those criteria are before they vote on the legislation. It gives the Australian government maximum wriggle room on ‘15 per cent’ in Copenhagen. Furthermore, Australia has not said whether Australia will go higher than 15 if the rest of the world goes through all these criteria the government has set or whether they will block a global treaty if the rest of the world tries to go beyond 15. These are issues that are critical for the Australian people to know before this legislation comes before the parliament for a vote.

Question agreed to.