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

I move:

That on the introduction of any of the following bills into the House of Representatives or any other bill that forms part of the Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, provisions of these bills be referred immediately to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 15 June 2009, including, but not limited to the following:

(a)

Australian Climate Change Regulatory Authority Bill 2009;

(b)

Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009;

(c)

Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges – Customs) Bill 2009;

(d)

Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges – Excise) Bill 2009;

(e)

Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges – General) Bill 2009;

(f)

Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009;

(g)

Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS Fuel Credits) Bill 2009;

(h)

Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS Fuel Credits) (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009;

(i)

Customs Tariff Amendment (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) Bill 2009;

(j)

Excise Tariff Amendment (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) Bill 2009; and

(k)

Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Household Assistance) Bill 2009.

This is a motion to refer to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee the bills which comprise the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in its entirety—with the one exception of the forestry components, which will commence slightly later.

The subject matter of the bills that are proposed to be referred has been a matter of consideration and inquiry for a long period of time. I want to take the Senate through this so that we can be clear about what is occurring. In February last year the government set out its approach, consistent with our election commitment, to introduce a trading scheme—the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The release of the green paper made very clear what the government’s timetable was. We had an extensive process of consideration of the green paper, which led to the decisions in December and the publication of the white paper. It is these bills which give effect to the white paper. So that is one set of processes. And I would remind senators that the green paper garnered over 1,000—I think 1,026—submissions and the CPRS draft legislation received a further 160 non-campaign submissions as well as 11,000 general responses.

In addition to the green paper and white paper consultation processes, the government also commissioned the Garnaut review. That review went through last year. It received almost 4,000 submissions and held information sessions all around the country to gain feedback—and I will come to that. Prior to that there was quite a lot of discussion by previous governments and the state and territory governments through their state and territory task forces on the design of a trading scheme.

So this has been a heavily scrutinised and considered reform that has had extensive community engagement. Just under this government there have been a green paper process—1,000 submissions; the Garnaut review—4,000 submissions; and a white paper process. In addition, the government referred the exposure draft of these bills to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics, which has reported. The bills which have been introduced into the other place by my colleague Mr Combet today largely reflect the content of the exposure draft but obviously there are some changes. Hence, we think it is appropriate that this go to the appropriate committee, which is the Senate economics committee, which previously dealt with the exposure draft legislation.

So if there is any suggestion that there has been insufficient scrutiny, I would say to the chamber that this has actually been one of the most scrutinised reforms, just under this term of government, that this parliament has seen. There have been extensive government processes, extensive parliamentary processes and extensive community processes which have enabled the community to engage very closely with the model that the government was putting forward. I would also make the point that, in addition to those processes, the parliament has taken a very great interest in climate policy. In fact, in the 12 months to date we believe there have been some 13 inquiries before the parliament to deal with climate change matters. Hearings relating to these inquiries have been held all over the country. We calculate that there were approximately 787 appearances before these committees. So let us be clear. Just under this government there have been a green paper process—over 1,000 submissions; the Garnaut review—4,000 submissions; public hearings held by the Garnaut review all over the country; and Senate committee processes plus 13 committee inquiries into climate change.

This is an overdue reform. It is time for action. There are those who want to delay consideration of this scheme—not because they want a better process, not because they are focused on a better outcome, but because they simply do not believe climate change is real and they simply do not want to have to make a decision to vote for or against this bill. That is the question.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Stop trying to cover up your backflip.

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

I will take that interjection. Senator Abetz accuses us of a cover-up. But we have been transparent. We have come to the Australian people and said that we want to take action on climate change, and we have set out this process. I can tell you where the cover-up is: it is on that side. It is those opposite who want to continue to delay consideration of this, not because they think it is the right thing to do, not because they think it is in the national interest, but because they cannot get a position. I want to talk for a while about what has occurred, on the opposition side of the chamber over the last few years—in fact longer than that. This issue of an emissions trading scheme has been on the public policy agenda for a very long time. In fact, those opposite might like to know—

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Abetz interjecting—

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

I will take that interjection too. Senator Abetz said it was put on the agenda by the Howard government. It certainly was on the agenda for a long time, Senator Abetz. In fact, earlier this year was the 10th anniversary of the first report to the Howard government on the establishment of a trading scheme. I do not know what everyone else was doing 10 years ago—I certainly was not here—but you were already talking about it then. And the opposition’s position is, ‘Let’s just keep talking.’ I want to remind the opposition of a couple of things. It seems quite remarkable that Australian politics has come full circle. We seem to have a position from some members of the opposition which is at odds with former Prime Minister Howard. I remind those opposite that, in February 2007, Mr Howard said, ‘There can be no argument that greenhouse gases are having an adverse impact on the Earth’s environment.’ So I am wondering where Senator Bernardi and Senator Minchin are—oh, Senator Bernardi is in the chair, and it is bit unfair to verbal him when he is in the chair.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We’re all here.

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

And Senator Joyce and Senator Boswell are here too. It is quite remarkable. We have senators in this chamber who are more conservative on climate change than former Prime Minister Howard. Now that is an achievement. That is really an achievement. They are here and they are all here ready to talk about why we should not do anything. Let us remember, even your conservative Prime Minister took a position, eventually, that recognised the science. So who is out of touch on this issue? It is Senators Minchin, Bernardi, Abetz, Boswell and—

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don’t leave me out; I want to be in.

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

Joyce. Senator Joyce does not want to be left out. I put you in at the end there because you are proud to be amongst those who do not agree with former Prime Minister Howard. It is interesting to actually read some of former Prime Minister Howard’s own work. It is commonly known as the Shergold report and it is the report to the then Prime Minister entitled Report of the task group on emissions trading.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Abetz interjecting—

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

Mr Acting Deputy President, I will take Senator Abetz in a debate any time, but he keeps foaming at the mouth in this debate. He has not actually drawn breath in terms of interjections since I have been on my feet. I am sure he will have the opportunity to put his views, which are more conservative than Mr Howard’s, shortly. But he might do me the courtesy of at least drawing breath at some point during my discussion. I remind those opposite of Mr Howard’s report, which occurred while they were in government. I did not hear them at the time jumping up and down and saying that Prime Minister Howard was going to act too precipitously. I did not hear them at the time publicly saying this was going to be a dreadful thing and how appalling it was for Australia to go down this path. I would like to remind those opposite what was said in this report, which was presented in June 2007, before the election. It said:

… waiting until a truly global response emerges before imposing an emissions cap will place costs on Australia by increasing business uncertainty and delaying or losing investment. Already there is evidence that investment in key emissions-intensive industries and energy infrastructure is being deferred.

You received that advice in government two years ago, and you are still arguing a position that you do not want to give business the signal on certainty that was called for when you were in government, and that even then Prime Minister Howard took heed of. I will remind you that the task group also said:

… the Task Group has concluded that Australia should not wait … It believes that there are benefits, which outweigh the costs, in early adoption by Australia of an appropriate emissions constraint.

What have we seen since then? We have seen this extraordinary crab-walk from the other side. Frankly, the climate change troglodytes, those who simply do not believe that climate change is real, have gradually, gradually gained control of the party room. Their voices, when in government, were muted; but now, when in opposition, they have gradually pushed the opposition to a more and more extreme position on this issue. The position that is occasionally articulated by Mr Turnbull is the same position that Mr Nelson took and was, as I recall, one of the reasons you replaced him as leader, because those in the Liberal Party thought he had taken the wrong position on climate change policy. Mr Turnbull has now taken the same position. So I am not quite sure where the consistency is.

I remind those opposite also of the timetable that was proposed when they were in government, which included the passage of the legislation in 2009. That was your policy. It is interesting to note the way Mr Turnbull’s position has changed on this issue. Mr Turnbull said at the Press Club on 21 May 2008—and you should listen to this, Senator Joyce, because you will really enjoy this, particularly after your Press Club performance:

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

Do you agree with that, Senator Joyce? The fact is that Mr Turnbull used to believe in this. On 26 May, some five days later, he said:

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

He then started to crab-walk away from it. What is the reason for this? How do you go from having the trading scheme as the biggest element to now saying that it is not necessary at all? There is really only one explanation for that about-face and that is that he is worried about his leadership, he is worried about the numbers in the party room. He is running now an entirely different position because he is concerned about those in his party room who still think climate change is not real.

I want to go back to why we need to have this inquiry and why we want to bring it in in the June sittings, as we previously publicly and transparently indicated. It is because this is an overdue reform. We want legislation passed this year because we want to give business the certainty that they are calling for. Those opposite might not like to remember that the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Industry Group—and I know this will get Senator Boswell going—have all said they want the legislation passed this year. It seems extraordinary that those opposite could be so focused on their own internal issues that they do not listen to the calls from the community, including the business community, about the importance of giving business certainty.

The second reason why we want this passed this year is that Copenhagen is important. Australia needs to go to Copenhagen with targets that are backed by a mechanism to meet them. It is extraordinary that those on the other side say they want a global agreement in Australia’s national interest but are not prepared to ensure that we put targets on the table which are responsibly backed by a scheme to meet them. They say they want a global agreement in the national interest. Well, give the government and the negotiators the legislation that enables them to maximise that chance.

What is occurring in this place and in this debate is that the self-interest of the Leader of the Opposition is trumping the national interest. Malcolm Turnbull knows this is the right thing to do. He is trying to delay taking this into his party room. He is delaying taking a position on this because he is scared he does not have the numbers. We are seeing from the other side the self-interest and weakness of one man overriding what is in the national interest.

This is an overdue reform that has been the subject of intensive and detailed consideration by the parliament. There has been an extraordinary amount of community engagement through the Garnaut review processes. As well, people have had an opportunity to comment on the green paper. This has also been the subject of the exposure draft inquiry by the Senate and has been out for community consultation. The only reason that those opposite would argue for a delay is that they do not want to take a position on this, because some in their party room—and Senator Joyce would proudly number himself amongst them, I am sure—do not believe climate change is real. No matter how long we talk about this and no matter how much consideration is given, they do not want to vote to actually take action.

It is self-interest trumping national interest. It is time for us to engage in this reform. We want this reported on so we can commence the debate on this in the June sittings, as we said to the Australian people we would do.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to draw us back to the substantive part of this debate. We are debating whether these 11 bills should be referred to a committee for examination. I move to the motion moved by Senator Wong:

Omit “15 June 2009”, substitute “11 August 2009”.

This amendment will change the date of reporting for the committee from 15 June to 11 August this year. The reason for the amendment is that in the words of Senator Wong herself, this is a very substantive suite of bills.

Senator Wong indicated there have been over 11,000 general submissions. These 11 bills were put through the House of Representatives this morning. We have not had a chance to examine any of the bills. We have not seen them. The government wants to rush this through. Why does the government want to rush this through when the government has deferred the implementation of the CPRS until well beyond 2010? We believe an extra few weeks will give the community the opportunity to make submissions and allow the Senate due process.

We also need to consider that this is budget week. Committees and senators are going to be inundated with work in examining the budget bills. This week the legislative program is not moving forward as fast as it could because of the budget. The Senate is going to need the remaining two weeks of the winter session—we have estimates in the next fortnight—to examine other bills and to finish some of the work that is already on the agenda that the government considers necessary and urgent. We, therefore, strongly suggest that the committee not report on these bills before the senators have had a chance to consider them by having examination during the winter recess.

The winter recess, as many senators know, is often used for a lot of committee work whilst the pressures of parliament do not exist. This would give ample opportunity for people who wished to make a submission to do so. This would also give ample opportunity for the committee to be ready to proceed with the inquiry. This is not just any piece of legislation; this is one of the government’s most significant pieces of legislation. Senator Wong has admitted that herself this morning. She has indicated that many Australians have expressed a lot of interest in this. Senators need to have a clear and open path and plenty of time to examine the bills. There are 11 bills, not just one bill, so we strongly suggest that the Senate adopts the amendment and moves the reporting date of the committee to 11 August 2009, which will give ample opportunity for the committee to do its work properly and then for the Senate to consider the committee’s report when it next meets after the winter recess. This will give the government plenty of time to make any decisions it needs to after the committee has reported, because the government itself does not want to implement this until well into 2011.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the opposition, can I just put a few markers in the ground. Sure, this issue has been inquired into at some great length by the Senate. As a result of those inquiries and examinations, Senator Wong’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation has been junked. We are now looking at Mr Combet’s legislation because the Prime Minister himself was forced to put somebody else into the ministry as a parliamentary secretary to prop up this failing minister. Her legislation was such a failure that the government itself has junked it. It is now in the rubbish bin.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cameron interjecting—

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know why Senator Cameron is interjecting. It is because day after day of these committee hearings Senator Cameron championed the legislation, saying how good it was and how it had to get through the parliament. He has now been totally humiliated by the Prime Minister saying, ‘The legislation is that bad we are going to junk it and, what is more, we are going to delay the scheme’s introduction by a further 12 months.’

So we have another suite of legislation—11 bills in all—and this government, who were brought into power saying that they would use the Senate responsibly and properly and allow things to be analysed, are now saying, ‘Let’s have a very quick turnaround on this legislation. We do not want an extensive Senate inquiry.’ Methinks I know why they do not want that extensive Senate inquiry. It is because they fear that the Combet model may well go the way of the Wong model of legislation—that is, end up in the rubbish bin because it is so fatally flawed.

Let us make no mistake about this. When Professor Garnaut himself appeared before one of the Senate committees to talk about the legislation, do you know what he had to admit? It was that he has not had time to look at the legislation. If someone like Professor Garnaut, who was allegedly the architect of the flawed Wong model, did not have enough time, surely it is acceptable to say for the Combet model now that we might want some people to actually look at it and consider it?

Senator Wong went on this great little excursion talking about who was, who was not and who might be expressing some concerns about the science in relation to climate change. That is completely and utterly irrelevant to the reason her legislation was junked by her own Prime Minister. She can talk about everybody else but the issue here this morning is that her legislation has been junked, Mr Combet’s legislation is now before us and the Senate has a right to look at that in some considerable detail. To ask for a deferral of some two months for further and proper consideration should cause no problems for any senator who is interested in the role of the Senate being used to its full extent.

When is Copenhagen? It is later this year—November or December. Even if the Senate were to start debating this in August-September, there would be sufficient time prior to Copenhagen. In a very rare convergence of my views and those of Greenpeace, Greenpeace have said what a ludicrous proposition it is to put forward your targets in domestic legislation, set them down in concrete, and then to go overseas and try to negotiate and bargain. Everybody knows your starting and finishing position because you have already legislated it domestically. You has shown all your cards and you have lost all your negotiating powers. Even Greenpeace acknowledges that. Anybody would know that. And you would have thought the person allegedly most skilled in matters of foreign affairs, the Prime Minister himself, Mr Rudd, would have known it as well. Yet the government continue with this nonsense mantra that somehow the legislation has to be passed because of Copenhagen.

I say to the government: you have now broken your election promise in relation to the introduction of this emissions trading scheme. You have broken it because you must have known—or you now know; reality has mugged you—that you cannot introduce it with a commencement date in 2010. That is exactly what we said during the last election campaign, and the high and mighty Mr Rudd, ‘Mr Morality’ himself, said, ‘This is a high moral issue—in fact, the most important moral issue this country faces—and the scheme has to come in in 2010.’ All of a sudden, the morals are out the back door, along with good manners and everything else with this government, and we can now apparently delay this issue of great morality for another 12 months or more.

If it is not to start for an extra 12 months or more, that puts them into the timetable that John Howard and the coalition said would be the responsible timetable during the last election campaign. Labor have now adopted it. Rather than admitting they got it wrong—they got their model wrong, they got their legislation wrong—Senator Wong comes in here and tries to obfuscate. The simple facts are these: Labor tried to rush a scheme. They now know they can no longer rush it. In their rush, they put forward a flawed piece of legislation. The Prime Minister himself has recognised it. Labor have junked it. They have called in Mr Combet to prop up this ailing minister. He has put forward legislation, only tabled today. I have not seen it as yet. There are 11 separate pieces of legislation.

We are in budget week. I think most senators next week will be fully employed preparing for Senate estimates, which then go for a fortnight, taking us well into the month of June. When on earth would a proper inquiry be undertaken for these 11 bills, reporting by 15 June? It is treating the Senate with contempt, and we as a Senate have a duty and an obligation to the people of Australia to ensure that this legislation is properly examined. The reason they want to rush it is not because of Copenhagen but that they are so concerned that proper examination would mean that they might have to junk the Combet model, just as they had to junk the Wong model. We believe in proper Senate scrutiny of this legislation and I fully support the excellent amendment moved by my friend and colleague Senator Parry.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Delaying the reporting date on this issue to August this year is fair enough. We have had the claim that Malcolm Turnbull is crab-walking on this. I can tell you that Mr Rudd makes Mr Turnbull look like Rudolph Nureyev.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who?

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Rudd is Rudolph Nureyev. This is the man who has more pirouettes, more turns on this issue than one could ever display. I watched him last night. Maybe he was giving us a display of it last night with his little jink in front of the camera. ‘Rudd’ is short for Rudolph Nureyev. He is the archetypal policy dancer on the ETS. Do you know why he is doing it? He is doing it because he wants to jump the consequences over an election. He wants to jump the consequences over the possibility of a double dissolution in going to the people. The reason he wants to do that is that he knows full well that the workers in Labor Party seats will be the ones that lose their jobs over this. It will be the people of Mackay, it will be the people of Gladstone, it will be the people of Illawarra and it will be the people of the Hunter Valley. It will be the people that the Labor Party has deserted. The working families of Australia are being deserted by the Labor Party. That is what it is all about. You can go to Copenhagen, to Disneyland—wherever you like—but the position of the National Party on this will be quite clear: to understand the word ‘no’.

Those opposite talk about certainty. I will give you certainty. How is ‘no’ for certainty? ‘No’ is a very certain word; it is very easy to understand. You talk about arguing for a position. It is an amorphous, nebulous concept of this bumper sticker morality which has become the ETS scheme. The answer is no. We cannot put this up at the expense of Australian working families. We cannot start on this banal attempt to sole-handedly lead the world into some sunny, environmental upland, which is what Mr Rudd wants to do. It is all a part of the self-glorification of our Prime Minister as he attempts to become—I don’t know—president of the UN or whatever his grander ambitions are after he leaves this place. His own party have pulled him into gear.

I have never seen a more uncomfortable person than Minister Wong. She looked more uncomfortable than Mr Rudd after he lost his hair dryer. She was hung out to dry by her own Prime Minister. After all the wonderful, glorious statements about saving the world, he marched her out to the front of the building to say what we have already said—only they say no now; we say no, full stop. The reason we need an extension for this inquiry is so that we can drag this mangy cat back out again and all have another look at it, so that we can pull out the entrails of this chicken and divine from them over the table of the Senate, so that we can look into it and say, ‘What exactly are we trying to do here?’ Apparently, Australia is going to cool the planet—single-handedly. The Knights Templar are led by Prime Minister Rudd, only he is not really leading; he is just hanging people out to dry, including the minister.

We have had the Senate Economics Committee inquiry, we have had the fuel and energy inquiry and we have another inquiry going on now. We have 11 pieces of legislation coming back in here and they are going to try to push it on through. They want to do that because they do not want proper examination. The period that we have to look at something that could turn the economy of our nation upside down is contemporaneous with budget estimates. And they are saying that that is respect for the Senate! I acknowledge that the Greens will have an entirely different view. But I imagine that they too want the capacity to really drill down into this legislation. The Labor Party are trying to be sneaky and tricky as they walk over the future prosperity of regional Australia and of the working families of Australia—for what? It is an attempt to go forward with some bumper sticker morality for inner suburbia. But don’t worry about the people of Mackay, don’t worry about the people in Gladstone—

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cameron interjecting—

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don’t worry about your workers in the Illawarra and your workers in the Hunter Valley. No, don’t worry about them. You put on your Giorgio Armani suit and go and do the light fandango at a coffee shop near wherever you live, Senator Cameron, as you morph into this new type of Senator Cameron—this new type of environmentally sensitive, soft, wonderful, marshmallow Senator Cameron. Where has the steel from your spine gone? You have changed, Senator Cameron. You have changed since you have been here. You have changed into something else. And Mr Rudd has changed too.

So we have here the Rudolf Nureyev school of political pirouettes. We see this exercise from Mr Rudd as he pushes Minister Wong out the front door to hang herself out to dry on a piece of legislation that is an absolute debacle. Now they are trying to say, ‘Well, it’s a debacle now, so if we let it mature for 12 months then it will somehow get better.’ A silly idea now is a silly idea in 12 months time—it is just a silly idea that is one year old. We in the National Party are as one. We will be making sure that the entrails of this festering chicken are brought out on the table so we can once more take it apart piece by piece—through Labor seat, by Labor seat, by Labor seat, by Labor seat, by Labor seat. Then we will see what the political Rudolf Nureyev of policy pirouettes does next—the illustrious, the formidable and the ever-changing Mr Kevin Rudd.

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

I have to say that I have not heard quite so many cliches rolled together in one speech in a very long time—from the entrails of a festering chicken through to marshmallows, steel in the spine and all manner of things. Entertaining as that might be, I would like to return to the substance of the matter before the Senate—which is an amendment to change the reporting date in the motion put forward by the government. I rise today to say that I will be supporting the reference of the bills relating to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme to the economics committee for inquiry and I support the reporting date of 15 June, which is the day that the climate policy committee, which I worked with the coalition to establish, will also be reporting.

The fact of the matter is that between now and June 15 June the matters to be looked at are the changes to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme that have been announced since the Senate economics committee reported previously. They relate to some very specific matters. They relate to the government’s decisions to: delay the commencement of the scheme for one year; establish a $10 price for the following year; and give further compensation to the trade exposed sectors, as shown in the budget this week, of $1.1 billion out of the public purse for extended compensation. This is the first time we have really seen a figure for the extent to which this scheme will not be self funding and the extent to which it will dip into the public purse for the next five years for that $1.1 billion—and that is just the beginning, I suspect, but that is a matter to be looked at. The other issue is the target. The government has changed its previous target range of five to 15 per cent to five to 25 per cent conditional upon a number of matters which the government has specified.

The government have said that the targets must be underpinned by mechanisms to meet them, and I will look forward to hearing the government explain how they will achieve a 25 per cent reduction on 2000 levels. Given the current parameters of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, the extent of compensation and so on, I cannot see how in the eight years between 2012 and 2020 that 25 per cent reduction will be achieved under the CPRS. I can only assume that if the government did commit to that and if by some miraculous outcome the rest of the world agreed to the conditions—and I do not believe the government itself thinks they will ever be agreed to, but let us assume they were—then the government is meaning to buy in the rest of the commitment from overseas at-again-a huge cost. I am very interested to know about that, but that will come out in the Senate committee report. Those matters are going to be looked at by the Senate economics committee and by the climate policy committee. I think that reporting on 15 June, before the next session, is within the time frame that the government established at the beginning of this year. Anyone taking any notice of the projected timetable for government legislation would have noted that on no other piece of legislation have we had a clearer timetable established by the government for a very long period of time. It is not my intention to delay the legislation.

I have to say, having listened to the contribution from Senator Joyce, that, when you have already made your mind up as emphatically as he has—whether it is dancing with Nureyev, playing with marshmallows, looking at the fermenting entrails of chickens or all of that combined that leads you to you a ‘no’—why would you want longer to investigate something? You have already indicated to the Senate that, come what may, no matter what, in no uncertain terms whatsoever, the answer is no. So the answer of ‘no’ should be available on 15 June as well as in August or whatever date the coalition is putting forward.

I think the reality of the coalition’s position here in terms of a different date comes down to two things. Firstly, it is to avoid a trigger for a double dissolution and, secondly, it is to avoid a split in the coalition because if the legislation is put forward in June as expected then Malcolm Turnbull, the Leader of the Opposition, if he were to choose to support the legislation, would be seen to have a split in the Senate and would lose control of his party. So it is clearly in the coalition’s interests to put this as late in the year as possible. That would suit the coalition because it wishes to avoid a public split on a major piece of legislation like this. To me that is clearly the main reason behind the delay. The other thing is that, as we all know, for a trigger for a double dissolution you need three months between a piece of legislation coming in and it coming in again and being defeated. If the government was hoping to go to a double dissolution on the climate change legislation then it needs to get it into the Senate and have a decision made on that in June in order to be able to bring it back and be able to go to an October or November election before Copenhagen.

So let’s be very realistic about what is going on here. The reasons the coalition is putting up for delay have nothing to do with further scrutiny of these bills; they have much more to do with holding the coalition together and avoiding triggers. Senator Joyce has said nothing that would persuade me to the contrary on that. Also, Senator Joyce said by way of interjection earlier that he believed climate change was real but that there was nothing you could do about it. That indicates that he does not believe that human activity has any contribution to make. Otherwise, he would understand that you can do something about it by stopping carbon dioxide emissions going to atmosphere. You can make a significant reduction in carbon dioxide going to atmosphere through industrial processes and all the other means by which it is happening. I would say to Senator Joyce that stopping the logging in the Florentine in Tasmania would stop massive amounts of carbon dioxide going to atmosphere. Indeed, stopping the regeneration burns across Tasmania this autumn would stop massive amounts of carbon dioxide going to atmosphere. So there is plenty we can do. If you believe climate change is real, there is plenty we can do, and we could be doing it tomorrow.

I have seen no evidence of a genuine commitment to deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in the urgent time frame that is required. The IPCC has said that global emissions must peak and come down at 2015. They must peak and then come down. The scientists are telling us we are already beyond 450 parts per million carbon dioxide equivalent. The Prime Minister has said that 450 parts per million CO equivalent is in Australia’s interests. I remind the Senate that 450 parts per million gives us only a 50 per cent chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change—that is, defined as an increase of more than two degrees—and the scientists are saying that they are not persuaded by that any longer. They are saying we should be aiming for much lower. They are saying we should be aiming for something like 350 parts per million. That shows that 450 parts per million is not the target but the absolute minimum aim. We should in fact have a much lower target as a global ambition.

Having said that, we do not have time to delay the implementation of the scheme another year. We do not have time to start slowly. The assumption that you can finish strongly assumes that there is no urgent time frame for stabilisation. I notice one of the government’s conditions on the 25 is stabilisation at 2020—which, according to the IPCC, is too late. We can have these discussions in the economics committee and in the climate policy committee, and people who are interested enough to be there can ask those questions and have those discussions at that time. I will not be supporting a delay in the reporting date of these committees. The matters that need to be discussed are there. I note that in today’s paper there is a reference to ‘technical matters’ that the government wants to sort out. ‘Technical matters’ have turned out to be more compensation for the coal industry. I want to put the government on notice: that is not a technical matter; that is yet more compensation. It should be signalled clearly before the Senate economics committee or the climate policy committee actually hold their inquiries. That is not technical; that is a yet bigger burden on the public purse.

In conclusion, I would say this. If you really aspire to dealing with climate change then you do not lock in a weak target until 2020 and leave the Australian budget and therefore the Australian people vulnerable to huge compensation payouts to the industries that caused the problem in the first place. The reason the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Industry Group now want this legislation passed is that they know that the big polluters and the big emitters in Australia—the coal industry in Australia—are never going to get a better deal than the one on the table now. The Business Council of Australia—the members of which are the Liberal Party’s biggest donors—will be on the phone to the Leader of the Opposition saying: ‘Pass this, because we’ll never get a better deal. If this doesn’t get through before Copenhagen, the situation will only get worse as the rest of the world will call for deeper cuts and faster and more stringent action.’ That is why the Australian Industry Group and the Business Council of Australia want it passed. They want it locked in for 2020 so that their members—from the public purse—get paid. The polluters will get paid every time between now and 2020 there is action taken that is beyond the scope of the scheme as it is currently.

That is why they want certainty. They want certainty about the extent of the compensation; they want to know that no change will occur without them being massively compensated. Locking in a low target for such a long time is one major structural weakness of this scheme. It is a disingenuous 25, because I do not believe that even the government thinks that the rest of the world would possibly agree to the conditions. I note that, when this was announced, the government emphasised time and time again the conditionality of the 25 in order to signal to the big polluters that there is a high probability—almost a certainty—that nobody will agree to Australia’s conditions. It is setting up quite an interesting debate for the next short while. There is no group of people in this parliament more committed to urgent action on climate change than the Greens. But the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is an economic tool to give effect to an environmental aspiration—that is, stopping catastrophic climate change. If an economic tool does not deliver environmental effectiveness or economic efficiency then you have to ask yourself: what is the point in putting it in place?

Environmental effectiveness is the priority for the Greens, and environmental effectiveness comes from the science. The science tells us that deep cuts by 2020 are required. We do not have generations to go; we only have a matter of years. And in fact everyone in this parliament has a personal responsibility in terms of making deep cuts. Incrementalism will not get us there. Half a bridge will not get us there. Deep cuts are what will get us there, and what will get us there, in an Australian and global context, is for Australia to put 40 per cent on the table in Copenhagen as a goodwill statement towards a global agreement. But what Australia will do, regardless of what the rest of the world does, is put 25 per cent on the table. That is the Bali negotiating range. China has said that they expect developed countries—annex 1 countries—to put on the table offers at the top end of the 25 to 40 per cent range. The developing world has, for some time, felt a failure of the annex 1 countries to act in good faith on the basis of the original Kyoto bargain—and indeed the other climate negotiations in recent years—and I do not believe it is going to see Australia’s current approach as being a good faith offer in relation to what is necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change.

I cannot put to the Senate more strongly the emergency that we have on our hands and to contrast the response of the Prime Minister to the global financial crisis with his response to the climate crisis. The global financial crisis saw the Prime Minister rushing to the United States and Europe—rushing to meetings all over the place—to talk about what could be done on the global financial crisis. We have not seen the same urgency in relation to climate change. We have not seen the same commitment in terms of dollars. We had no money to spend before the global financial crisis; now we have billions. In fact, millions has become such an outdated figure it just seems a meaningless thing. If you want to spend money now, you have to do it in billions. But there were not billions to spend on structural adjustment on climate change. There are still not billions to be spent on getting Australia off its addiction to coal. But it seems to be that there are plenty of dollars, billions of dollars available, to continue to support the coal industry.

The budget this week is underpinned by the assumption that coal will be back, that the boom times will come again and that Australia’s future prosperity will be underpinned by a resources boom of the future. Hence we see the billions going into the Hunter Valley railway line and the port expansion, into ongoing support for the coal industry and into carbon capture and storage—which is simply legitimising ongoing coal mining. Today there is a major marine conference in Indonesia that is talking about the disaster of the oceans and the collapse of the Coral Triangle. And where is the Prime Minister? He is turning a sod in the Hunter Valley for the new coal railway line. That gives you a sense of where this Prime Minister’s priorities are. He may talk about climate change but his priority is the maintenance of coal and coal exports. He cannot see beyond coal. You have to look at those compensation provisions and ask yourself what happened to the principle of polluter pays. What happened to that principle in Australia? We have now got to the principle that the polluter is paid, and is paid by the taxpayer. We are all going to pay higher energy bills around Australia because the government has exempted the big energy users and emitters from the Renewable Energy Target. Everybody else is going to pay more because of that, not to mention those provisions of compensation, and that is why the scheme is economically inefficient.

Nevertheless, I believe that the hearings we are going to have between now and 15 June will shed some more light on those extra billion dollars to be spent on the big emitters, and we will be very interested to see how Australia is going to get to its 25 per cent given the mechanisms, the delay, and the weak carbon price. We will also see whether there was ever the intent towards transformation in the Australian economy, because delaying a year and setting a $10 price is no signal for transformation. The biggest signal for Australia to pick up on today is the Prime Minister turning that sod for the coal railway in the Hunter Valley. If you want to see where Kevin Rudd wants to take Australia, look at that and recognise that this scheme is simply an economic tool. But it is not an efficient economic tool nor is it an environmentally effective tool, as I am sure the hearings for both of these committees between now and 15 June will demonstrate.

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

I do support the extension of the timing. We spent three weeks listening to evidence in the Senate Select Committee on Climate Policy in order to scrutinise one bill. I understand there are 11 bills being put into the House this morning. As Senator Joyce has said, yes, the National Party is totally committed on this. Nevertheless, we reserve the right to expose further flaws in the bill. Even the people who are not as committed as Senator Joyce and me in the National Party have the right to understand what is wrong with these bills. We will put the spotlight on them, let people give evidence and have a look, and then bring it back. So I fully support the extension of time.

I want to pick up on some of the contribution made by Senator Wong. I do not normally feel sorry for Senator Wong. I think she does a job. But she had to stand next to the Prime Minister the other night. He had already told the Australian people that if we did not act now we were going to be swamped by seas and burnt to death and that it would never rain again. And Senator Wong, in reply to questions from me, has continued that message in the Senate time after time. But I felt sorry for Senator Wong there; she looked shattered. She did not know where to go. The Prime Minister completely pulled the rug out from under her. So, Senator Wong, you were dumped.

Then they said, ‘Senator Wong is not cutting through; let’s get Mr Combet and we’ll run him on as a reserve.’ He has gone out and he has tried to buy off industry after industry with little bits of bait here and there, but I do not think he is achieving anything, because delaying these bills for a year is not going to do anything. It is just going to give a reprieve for a year.

I sat on a committee with Senator Wong and Senator Cameron, and I recall that only one person, one manufacturer, Origin Energy—they have a few wind farms but really are a retailer and can pass the cost on—actually supported this legislation. They are the only ones who actually manufacture anything. I listened to the paper industry in Tasmania, I listened to the zinc industry in Tasmania, and they were totally opposed to this climate change legislation as it has been put up by the government. I went to Western Australia and I listened to the gas industry, and I listened to primary industries. They were totally opposed. We went to Melbourne—to the steel industry, the paper industry and the mining industry. Every industry in Australia is opposed to this legislation, because they know it is going to cost them jobs. They know it is going to wipe them out. Some of the industries have said, ‘It will not particularly worry us cost-wise. We’ll just turn the elevators around and instead of exporting we’ll import. We’ve got the silos that we export out of. We’ll just close our manufacturing down. We won’t do it immediately; there is no certainty, and we won’t spend any more money on these plants and equipment. As they run down we will just import more and, as the equipment gets old and obsolete, we will import more.’ Senator Wong, I commend to you the evidence that people gave. They are not doing it because they do not want climate change or because they want to oppose it but because they know what the legislation is going to do to their business.

There is something missing in this debate, and I cannot understand it. I can understand where the Greens are coming from, and that is legitimate. I can understand where the National Party is coming from, and I understand where the Liberal Party is coming from. But what is missing in this debate is this: why is the Labor Party ratting on their blue-collar workers? We have been told by every industry in Australia that this is going to cost jobs. We have been told by the dairy industry that it is going to cost the dairy farmers $9,000 per farm—that is just for the dairying; the price will go up when the cows have to be slaughtered. We are also told by the dairy processors, ‘It is going to impact on our process workers.’ We have been told by every industry, ‘Our process workers are going to suffer.’ In the mining industry, 10,000 jobs are going to go. Those are blue-collar jobs. Why are you selling those people out? And why do you take their union fees? Why do you go out and say, ‘Pay your $400, $500 or $600; we’re looking after you?’ You are selling them out. You are taking their money and you are selling them out.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Joyce interjecting—

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

Even that, Senator Joyce. It is going to have an impact on the people who live in the leafy suburbs too, because someone else is filling the ships that take the export product out. That is done in the mining industry and in the primary industries, and the people who live in the leafy suburbs are carrying the export load.

I suggest that the reason the Labor Party do not want to extend this legislation is that there is, in the blue-collar areas, an awakening. They are saying: ‘Hang on a moment. What’s this going to do for me? How am I going to live? How’s my family going to live? What am I going to do? I’m a miner. It’s what I know. I’m a forester. I am a process worker in a timber mill. I am not skilled in any other way to make a living. How am I going to feed my family? How am I going to look after my kids? What am I going to do?’ That is dawning on these people now. You saw it a couple of days ago in the Riverina, when a parrot took preference over workers. The parrot was put on a higher pedestal than 800 jobs. You cannot win without those blue-collar workers, and you cannot win without the Greens.

Your moderates in your party—the doctors, the wives, the teachers, the academics—cannot get you over the line, and you are playing Russian roulette. And you do not want another three months for the awakening to go further out there, because it is happening now. It is happening on our polling; it must be happening on your polling. People are saying: ‘I want a job. The global crisis is my main concern. I want to feed my kids. I want to look after my house.’ There is an awakening out there. This should be called the Tanner and Plibersek legislation. You know that without Greens preferences you cannot win. You have never tried to fight the Greens back. You have encouraged them and now they are dictating the terms to you. You have taken a tiger by the tail and you cannot get off its back. Their demands will increase and increase and increase. You can never satisfy the demands of the green lobby. They cannot be satisfied. You are on the tiger’s back and you cannot get off.

At the same time we got attacked from the Right. We defended our position and fought back. You never did. That was with Pauline Hanson—you never did. You encouraged the Greens and said: ‘All right. We’ll let them live. We’ll even throw them a few bones.’ They have got to the point now that they are controlling you. You have let them build up to the point where you are being led around by the nose by the Greens.

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

You’re telling me I never did anything about Pauline Hanson? Watch your mouth. How dare you!

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

You might not like it—

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

Don’t you ever accuse me about racism.

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

I am not lecturing you about racism. I never mentioned the word racism. I said the Right.

Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

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

You never fought the Left back. That is what I am saying. You never stood up to the Greens—never. And now they have devoured you. Now they are leading you around and you are in a crisis. Whether you realise it or not you are in a huge crisis because you cannot keep the blue-collar workers uninformed. They are becoming more and more informed, and you can see it in our polling and your polling. You may not like this, Senator Wong, but you are the fall guy. You are the guy who has been set up to dud the blue-collar workers. You might not like it, but you are.

We are opposed to this bill because we cannot see it doing anything on its own.

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

Don’t bother putting it to an inquiry then!

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

We will put it to an inquiry. We are opposed to it. Of course we are opposed to it. Why do I think it should go to an inquiry? Because, when I sat there for three weeks listening to the evidence, I found out more and more why this bill should not go through. It even gets to the point that you cannot even dump your rubbish without incurring a cost. The more you listen to it, the more stupid it becomes. You cannot put your rubbish in a rubbish dump without incurring a penalty. I never knew that until I listened at the inquiry, and there were many other things that I learned but they only made me realise how stupid and silly this was.

If I were asked to design a piece of legislation that would wreck the Australian economy, that would put people out of work, that would close industry down, I do not believe I could have designed a better program. That is not my view; that is the view of every major person who is involved in industry. I said it yesterday and I will repeat it: one of the directors of the Reserve Bank—and he must have got there because he had influence with the Liberals or the Nationals or presumably the Labor Party—said that Australia will survive a global crisis but it may not survive an ETS. That is someone who has credibility. He is also a director of BlueScope or OneSteel. We heard from both companies, and they said they could not survive with this. And now you have Combet going around offering a bet here and trying to pick the industries off one by one, saying: ‘Here are a few more certificates. We’ll give you another five per cent. We’ll extend it for a year.’ As one person—I forget his name—said, ‘You can’t put lipstick on a pig because it will still look like a pig with lipstick,’ and that is exactly what this bill is going to look like: a pig with lipstick.

It is wrong. The Business Council of Australia have sold their people out and they know it. They are going through a huge conflict at the moment. A lot of people are leaving. A lot of people are saying that they are being sold out and they are in an awkward position. They have the rent seekers on one side who know they can get a quid if these certificates are exchanged and sold around, bought in from overseas. There is a quid in it for them. But who pays? I will tell you who pays—the working families pay. Working families are going to pay for this indiscretion. I am certain—and I have never been more certain in 26, going on 27, years in this place—that this is the worst piece of legislation I have ever seen produced by the Labor Party, and I have seen some stinkers. But this is the very worst.

I cannot believe Senator Cameron. I would have thought he would stand up for the working man. He has completely sold out. I do not know whether he has been brainwashed—although I do not think he is that silly—or whether he is being a good trooper and doing what he has been told to do. But I say to him: you do not have to prostitute yourself. You got here on the Labor vote, on the blue-collar vote, and you are not standing up for them. In fact, the only people who are standing up for them are the coalition. They are waking up fast, and you want to get this legislation through quickly before they do wake up. But I think you have left it too late. They are waking up now. They are waking up in Gladstone, where the cement and aluminium industries are. They know their jobs are on the line. They are waking up in Rockhampton. The abattoir workers in Rockhampton know. The miners in the Bowen Basin know. The word is out: ‘These people are trading our jobs for Greens preferences, and we do not like it. We feel betrayed. We only have our vote to protect ourselves and we will use that vote.’

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

Senator Wong interjecting—

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

I hear the minister encouraging me to speak, so thank you, Minister. Regrettably I have an important meeting at midday, so should anyone else want to follow me I will only be nine minutes. I want to support what Senator Boswell just said. He and I sat on the Select Committee on Climate Policy, which was looking into this legislation. I was also involved in Senator Mathias Cormann’s Select Committee on Fuel and Energy, which was looking into the same issue. I have come to the conclusion, from watching the Labor members on those committees and from watching the approach of the government, that the government desperately want us to defeat this legislation. They do not want to have to face the workers that Senator Boswell spoke about if they have cost them their jobs, but they do want to be able go to their green constituency and their Greens second preference voters in the capital cities and say, ‘We tried to do something but the nasty coalition, Senator Xenophon and the Greens all conspired to knock the legislation off.’ That is what I think the Labor Party want to be able to say. They know, as Senator Boswell says, that this legislation will cost the jobs of workers.

I live in North Queensland, not far from the Bowen Basin coalfields. I know the number of people who work in those areas and the wealth they generate. I also know the mortgages that they have run up in buying investment properties because they have good jobs in the Bowen Basin coalfields. Those people’s jobs will be at real risk, and they know it. Regrettably the ACTU gave very toady evidence to the committee. The ACTU put Labor in government and they want to keep them there, so they will roll over to help the government get through any legislation they bring on board. But the ACTU could not answer the questions about what would happen to the jobs of their members, to the working families of Australia that we heard so much about from Mr Rudd prior to the last election.

It distresses me that what the Labor Party, supposedly the party of the workers—they have long since lost that status, but they still maintain the pretence of looking after workers—are going to do with this legislation is simply export jobs offshore. In the coal area they will go to Indonesia, Colombia and South Africa, places where the people who own the Australian mines already have other mines. They will not invest in Australia when we have an impost that the rest of the world does not have. It is a double whammy: we will lose investment in Australia and the jobs of working families in the Bowen Basin coalfields, but it will not make one iota of difference to the carbon emissions of the planet. Emissions will simply move from Australia to Indonesia, Colombia or South Africa, where they will be even worse. I do not want to speak for them—they are all old enough and able enough to speak for themselves—but it was quite clear that the Labor members on both committees that I sat on in relation to emissions trading share that view. It would be different if you were going to do something about emissions trading or the changing climate of the world, but it will not do anything because the emissions will simply be exported offshore, and in the course of that we will lose jobs.

This is not just in the Bowen Basin coalfields—it is in Gladstone, Mackay, the aluminium industries and the cement industries, and we heard evidence from all of them. In fact we heard evidence from literally hundreds of people. We started at eight o’clock in the morning and finished at six o’clock at night. Some of the green groups would come in and oppose it for a different reason, but witness after witness pointed out the absolute stupidity of this legislation—the jobs it will cost and the loss to Australia’s economy. I recall that in regional Australia the dairy industry gave evidence that, although it does not apply directly to them until at least 2015, this emissions trading scheme will mean a loss of between $6,000 and $9,000 per producer in their industry. We also heard evidence from the Thiess meatworks in Rockhampton which clearly indicated that 400 jobs would be lost in that city.

I wonder what the Labor member for Capricornia, Ms Kirsten Livermore, is doing about that. Is she acquiescing in the loss of 400 jobs from working families in the Rockhampton area? I wonder what Mr Bidgood, the Labor member for Dawson, is doing about all the jobs that will be lost by working families in the Mackay region of Queensland. What are those Labor members doing? I know that they have been muzzled and gagged. What is Mr Trevor doing for all of the jobs that will be lost in his electorate, centred on Gladstone? There will be huge job losses. While we and the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Malcolm Turnbull, were in Gladstone we heard daily announcements of job losses in that city, but not a murmur from the Labor member supposedly representing the interests of the working families in the Gladstone area. Those three members in particular have been gagged by the minister or by Mr Rudd and are not able to raise their voices.

I hope that some of the Labor senators, who clearly know this is a dog of a piece of legislation, will have the courage to yet again roll the minister in her push to destroy Australia without any benefit for the changing climate of the world—and that is the real problem. I know Senator Wong was humiliated by Mr Rudd when he did that partial backflip and put it off for a year. I only hope—and I do not mean the minister any personal ill will—that she is again rolled and that the Labor caucus will eventually say to her: enough is enough. If it were going to do anything about the changing climate of the world or emissions of carbon into the atmosphere then perhaps you could grin and bear it—and I only say ‘perhaps’. However, when it will not do that but destroy the jobs and the economies of many parts of rural and regional Australia, it is just not worth contemplating.

As we were told at the committee, modelling done in relation to rural and regional Australia has not seen the light of day. Why? We can only guess, but I think we can guess pretty intelligently, that the modelling that has been done for the New South Wales government demonstrates quite clearly that this is a dog of a piece of legislation when it comes to rural and regional Australia, and it is a dog of a piece of legislation when it comes to the Bowen Basin coalfields. I talk about that locality in a generic way but there are towns, people, houses, livelihoods and schools there which will all disappear if this legislation goes through in the way desired by the minister and Mr Rudd. There are places like Moranbah, Glenden, Tieri, Middlemount, Clermont, Blackwater and Moura, all of which are hotbeds of unionism. They mounted a fabulous campaign at the last election—and good luck to them; they did it very well—but they are eventually starting to wake up to the fact that this government they put in is hell-bent on costing them their jobs. I would imagine that it will not be long before the grassroots membership of the unions realise that their union bosses, their union leaders, hand in hand with the Labor Party hierarchy, are doing them in the bottom big time. They will work that out. It has been slow, but I think they are eventually starting to realise that this Labor government, which they worked so hard to get elected, is really a government that does not have their interests at heart and will cost them not only their jobs but their houses, their mortgages and their way of life—all to no avail.

At the very least, this legislation needs to be put off until after Copenhagen. The minister, Mr Rudd and—I do not want to malign them—some of those who clearly followed the Labor line for political reasons seem to think that, when we get to Copenhagen, everyone else in the world will say, ‘Gee, Australia’s doing this so we had better follow.’ Again, we had witness after qualified witness who said, ‘Much as we like Australia, much as we think we’re pretty good’—and we are pretty good—’we’re very small players in the international diplomacy field.’ I refer you to the Senate committee Hansard which shows very good evidence given by a consultant who was formerly associated with ABARE. Have a look at that, Mr Acting Deputy President Bishop, and you will see that, at least, we should put this legislation off until we see what the rest of the world does. If the minister is so confident that the rest of the world—China, India, the United States, Russia and, might I add, Colombia, South Africa and Indonesia—will take on a 25 per cent target, yes, let us go for it. If they take on a 40 per cent target, perhaps we should seriously consider it. But we will do that when they do it. Otherwise, all we will do is export Australian working family jobs to other countries for no benefit whatsoever to the changing climate of the world. Tell me: what sort of a government would promote this sort of dog-type legislation? I apologise for dogs. This legislation is infinitely worse than any mangy dingo you would find anywhere in Australia. It is stupid legislation and I would certainly hope that the Senate, and perhaps the government, will take the initiative and delay it at least until after Copenhagen and then have another look at it in the light of what the rest of the world is going to do.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a visceral debate this has been. I think it started off with Senator Wong taunting Senator Bernardi while he was in the chair. I thought that was cruel and unusual punishment, and I think she acknowledges that. Senator Bernardi could not respond and was gagged, in a sense, by being in the chair. Thankfully I will never be in the chair, so that is something I do not have to worry about. To me, the issue is one of process—that is, not the whys and wherefores of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme—

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Correct.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Parry agrees with me; he may disagree with the next thing I am going to say. It is this: there are two parallel inquiries—in fact, some would say three parallel inquiries because of the Senate Select Committee on Fuel and Energy, ably chaired by Senator Cormann. I am a member of the Senate Standing Committee on Economics and the Senate Select Committee on Climate Policy. The climate policy committee made a decision to report on the changes announced recently by the government by 15 June. I supported that and, as I understand it, the coalition did not object to that. On that basis, I thought it was quite reasonable for the economics committee to have a similar reporting date, because we have already looked at the architecture of this particular scheme and we have already looked at alternative schemes in relation to the scheme design and alternative approaches to tackle the, I believe, very serious problem of carbon pollution. The government is not putting up a totally new architecture of a scheme; it is putting up different targets and a different compensation package. So in a sense it has not gone back to square one; it has changed targets and changed compensation mechanisms in respect of its amended scheme. I would have thought it is not unreasonable for the economics committee to deal with that by 15 June. That is why, in terms of process, I believe it is not unreasonable to tackle it in the next month.

In the context of the merits of the bill, that is another matter. They can be debated when these bills come to the Senate to be debated and where amendments can be considered and we can look at the merits or otherwise of the substantive bill and any amendments. The whole issue of Copenhagen is something that can be dealt with, I believe, at that time. But, in terms of the process that is already in place with respect to the economics committee and the climate policy committee, these are not amendments that go to the architecture of the scheme. We know what the architecture is because we have had a debate about that and there have been inquiries by the two committees, and I believe we ought to get on with it and then we can have a substantive debate about the merits or otherwise of this amended scheme and any amendments in the context of the debate when the bills are introduced. Therefore I support the minister’s motion.

Question put:

That the amendment (Senator Parry’s) be agreed to.