Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion of censure in the following terms, 'That this Senate censure the Labor-Green alliance's unprincipled use of their numbers to stifle debate that involves the national interest.'

Leave not granted.

I move:

  That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion of censure.

Five out of six senators from each state of the Commonwealth of Australia were elected at the last election on a promise of no carbon tax. Two out of two senators for each of the territories were elected on a promise of no carbon tax. One hundred and forty-eight members out of the 150 House of Representatives members were elected on a promise of no carbon tax.

So today the Australian people are quite rightly asking: why is it that the carbon tax legislation has been carried through the House of Representatives? There is nobody in Australia who believes that Ms Gillard would be the Prime Minister of this great nation if she had said there would be a carbon tax under a government she led. With six days to go before the last election, with the polls indicating a very, very close result, Ms Gillard and the Labor Party collectively stared down the camera lens and said to the Australian people, broadcast into their living rooms through the mechanism of a television, that there would be no carbon tax.

They have betrayed the Australian people. They have deceived the Australian people. When we said at the last election that you could not trust Labor on this, they got out their hapless Deputy Leader, Mr Swan, who said we were being hysterical. Today we know we were historical, because history has recorded that Labor has done exactly that which we predicted. What is the saying: Oh, what tangled webs we weave when we set out to deceive? That is what Labor have got themselves into. Having deceived the Australian electorate, they are now entangling themselves more and more in the corruption of the democratic process in this country. That is why they cannot accept any debate on this matter. That is why they want to stifle and gag debate.

We also have the Australian Greens, those great champions of freedom of speech—except when it attacks the Greens. Then we will have an inquiry into the media and they will have an inquiry into whatever else. Senator Brown could not even defend the Greens' position. That is why—possibly in a disorderly manner, Mr Deputy President—I said to the Leader of the Australian Greens that the tie he is wearing today is very apt, except that it should have been on his back, because that yellow stripe of cowardice is what the Greens have displayed today by not being willing to justify on the public record why they have moved the gag on a matter that is so important.

Let us not forget the carbon issue was sold to the Australian people originally as the 'greatest moral challenge of our time'. It now seems the 'greatest moral challenge of our time' somehow allows the greatest deceit of our time; the greatest, unprincipled and unprecedented gagging of debate in this Senate somehow is allowed. The simple fact is the Labor Party can twist and turn as much as it likes, but members know that the only reason that they are in government, albeit by their fingernails, is that they promised there would be no carbon tax—something that they are now trying to ram through this place in such an unprincipled manner that they would gag debate. They have done so twice already today.

If the carbon tax is such a great policy and initiative, why did not Labor say that during the last election? What was their difficulty in saying to the people of Australia: 'This is a great idea and we will implement it. We will do it.' They said the exact opposite. Confronted with their deception of the Australian electorate, they are compounding their unprincipled behaviour by seeking to gag every single debate in relation to this matter. We will not stand for it. We will, as a coalition, stand up for the Australian people. We will give expression to their voice as they want it heard, unlike what Labor and the Greens did in cutting out all those submissions to the Joint Select Committee on Australia's Clean Energy Future Legislation. (Time expired)

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Generally, you can judge a contribution by the level of sound and fury and the absence of facts. Senator Abetz really does take the cake. He seeks to censure the government on the basis of us seeking to facilitate debate on the clean energy bills. The Liberal-Nationals opposition have made it clear that they will oppose everything. They will seek to delay, filibuster and do anything they can procedurally to prevent the debate. Why? Because they have nothing to contribute to the debate. They have nothing to say. They have no amendments, no constructive contribution to the debate. All they can do is hide behind delay, delay, delay and procedural arguments. They have nothing to say about the policy.

For Senator Abetz and the Liberal Party to come in here and try to lecture us about abuse of the Senate and about the procedural matters of the Senate is an absolute disgrace. What a hide for you to come into this chamber, Senator Abetz, and try to lecture us. We remember Work Choices and the way you rammed through legislation week after week, month after month, abusing your majority in this place.

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

I rise on a point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President. Senator Evans has been here long enough to realise that he should not be addressing senators individually across the chamber and that his remarks should be through the chair. I ask you to bring him to order.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the minister to pay the usual courtesies.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I again highlight the fact that all the Liberal Party has to contribute to this debate is process, points of order and delay. Do you know what we are debating? We have already debated this morning to extend the hours, which the Liberal Party opposed, in order to ensure that we can bring into this parliament the clean energy bills—the bills that were passed in the House of Representatives half an hour ago. We have given the Liberal opposition months of warning about these bills. The time frame was made public months ago and the opposition have known exactly the plan for bringing them before the parliament. We have scheduled an extra week of the parliament to facilitate debate on the bills. The procedure and the time frame have all been laid out. The Liberal Party's position is that they oppose everything. They do not have anything to contribute but they are going to try to prevent the parliament debating these bills. They are continuing their policy of trying to prevent this parliament dealing with legislation. The parliament saw an outrageous filibuster on the student services legislation as senator after senator came in not to debate amendments, not to debate the subject matter, but to delay the Senate dealing with it. We have had more MPIs moved by this opposition than any other opposition in the history of the parliament. We have had less legislative time than any other government because the Liberal opposition have taken every opportunity to delay the legislative program.

Today we have a debate about process, as the opposition demonstrate once again that all they have is the ability to oppose. All they have is negativity and opposition but they have nothing to say about policy, nothing to say about the great debates that this country is engaged in. The Labor government make it clear that we are facilitating debate on these bills. We are allowing the Senate the time needed to enable all senators to debate these bills. The reason we have to move these procedural motions is to ensure that that debate occurs. We will move more motions to facilitate debate. We made an offer to the opposition to have a cooperative approach on this, and that was knocked back. I made the offer to Senator Abetz to allow every senator to make a proper contribution to the debate. But they have not agreed to that, and they have rejected that approach. They have been told by their leader, Mr Abbott, to oppose, oppose, oppose; disrupt, disrupt, disrupt. They have been told to contribute nothing but opposition to the debate. The government will continue to pursue the procedures that allow us to facilitate proper debate in the Senate, and the Liberal opposition have to decide whether they have anything constructive to contribute to the debate. (Time expired)

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a disgusting day when the Greens, who were the paragons of virtue and were allowing open and transparent debate to enable all sections of the chamber to take part in the carbon tax debate, become part of a guillotine process so that one political party in Australia and the Independents cannot be part of the debate—no-one can be part of the debate because the Greens have changed. It is a new paradigm. The paragons of virtue have now descended the greasy pole to be just like everybody else. I bet there are a few Democrat voters out there who wonder where they have ended up in supporting the Greens. There used to be a sense of honour in here, but they have taken it and trashed it.

Just like the deceit with the carbon tax, they are saying one thing while being something else. The Greens today have shown that they say one thing out there but are entirely something else. When leave was sought for the making of a brief statement, even that was denied. That is where this whole debate has got to. They are running and hiding because this whole tax is such a debacle, such a fiasco. It is disturbing that, because the Greens have chosen to adopt this attitude, we are denying not just political parties but the people of Australia the chance to be involved in and hear the debate in all its complexity, with all its nuances. The Greens exude this almost nauseating faux nobility, but when you put them to the test it is the same party that denied Annette Harding the chance to have an inquiry into her rape and it is the same party that is now denying opportunity for debate. That is the Greens; that is who we have; that is what they have become.

The Australian people are very uneasy about this carbon tax. We had a demonstration in support of the tax out the front of Parliament House, but there were more placards than people—no-one turns up; the support is all contrived. In a couple of weeks time I am going to sell a mob of cattle and I am going to tell the truck driver to take them to Dubbo. I expect the cattle to end up in Dubbo. I will certainly be disappointed if he decides instead to take them to Weabonga and just let them go in the hills. It is exactly the same thing—when you have a contract with the Australian people, their expectation is that you will take them to a certain position, and the position this government said it would take them to was that there would be no carbon tax under the government this Prime Minister led. Instead, the government took the people to the hills and just let them go. Then Graham Perrett goes out and says they will not change the truck driver. It does not matter about the truck driver; it is the destination that matters—in this case the destination that those opposite are taking this nation.

This is why it is so vital that we turn this around. In these times of uncertainty, with what we are seeing in Europe and what we are seeing America, what the government is doing to this nation is culpable. Those opposite know that and that is why they are guillotining; that is why they are shutting down debate; that is why they are not allowing the Australian people to have their proper say. It is ludicrous to say that we have had a chance to look at this legislation. We have not. The government has wrapped it and stacked it and brought it in here in a bundle. If we asked those opposite to quote sections of it or to go to the pertinent parts of it, they would not know it themselves—they would not have a clue. It is going to come in here because they want out—they have other things to deal with. They have to work out whether Mr Rudd is coming back and whether he is going to take out the Prime Minister. This is the whole soap opera that our nation has become under these people. It is a disgusting, hopeless approach to government. Every facet of this government is now a total and utter debacle.

What about regional Australia? The government inquiry went to Melbourne and to Sydney and to Canberra, but who did they talk to? They talked to their mates. The big banks are going to be happy—soon they are going to get this massive commission stream which the Greens will bring into place. The Greens are supporters of big banks and big banks' commissions. I am surprised to see Senator Rhiannon is going to be supporting the big banks in getting billions of dollars of commissions out of struggling working families, out of people who currently cannot afford their power and out of people who currently cannot afford the daily necessities of life.

This is where the nation is going. Is it going to change the climate? No. We have asked Minister Wong this question 600 times and never once have we got an answer. How much will this change the temperature of the globe? The answer is absolutely not at all. It is merely a gesture and in the cruellest form will be delivered to people who cannot afford it. They are going to be lumbered with it for life, and the absolute insult is they listen to you now and they are hearing you shut down the debate because you are scared. You are running, but you are not going to hide—we are going to flush you out.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we have the opposition complaining about the use of the guillotine and the gag. We have done some research and established that the Howard government used the guillotine 116 times—let me repeat that: 116 times—for such legislation as the Telstra privatisation legislation; the migration excision legislation; the wheat marketing legislation; Work Choices, which I will come back to in a minute; Welfare to Work and the Northern Territory emergency response. In other words, the opposition have used this guillotine many times. I know they will complain about amendments being brought in, but who remembers, under Work Choices, 100 pages of amendments being delivered 20 minutes before we started the debate in committee? The opposition knows how this place works. They have been there and they have done it before, so to start carrying on about its use when 116 times—

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Joyce and Senator Abetz were heard in silence. I ask that you extend the same courtesy to Senator Siewert.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They say there has not been enough time to debate. We were talking about it yesterday and we know there have been 35 inquiries, the most recent of which was reported just yesterday, where the opposition took the opportunity to talk yet again about the carbon tax. We have had an MPI basically every sitting day this year in which we have been talking about the carbon tax. Just yesterday we had another hour, and guess what? The debate and the comments are all the same; there is nothing new. They do not bring up something new; they are just saying the same thing over and over again. They had another hour yesterday and we are going to have another hour again today to talk about the economic and employment opportunities that would be foregone as a result of the Gillard government's carbon tax—it is essentially the same. The rule in here, for people who do not know, is that you have to have a different motion every day, so they change a few of the words and say the same thing. I could have written the script yesterday for what is going to be said today, because they do not come up with anything new. They are just using it as an excuse because they do not like the policy. They are using it as an excuse to say the same thing over and over again.

We have spent nearly 1½ hours this morning with the opposition trying to block extension of hours. All the legislation that I just talked about had extension of hours. The opposition has blocked extension of hours on more than one occasion. This morning they were trying to do the same thing again. We sat for hours in this place until very late in the evening talking about the pieces of legislation that I have just articulated when the opposition were in government, so they know very well that they are using this to block an important debate on carbon legislation that has far-reaching implications. Yes, we know it has far-reaching implications because we need to accept that we need to change the way we do business in this country if we are going to address this absolutely imperative issue. As I said, they do not come up with anything new; they just say the same thing over and over again.

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

And you do not like it because it is true.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said, they just keep saying the same things over again. Like Janelle Saffin said the other place last night: it is like Groundhog Day. I thought it was a very good example to use. The point she made is that in Groundhog Day Bill Murray actually learned each time it came around. The opposition do not seem to learn. They are still buried in the dinosaur past. They are not looking at what the opportunities are or the way we need to move forward in this country. I suppose that is what they want to do. They just want to keep entrenching business as usual and not put in place measures as to how we can develop in the future. People can see what those opposite are up to.

Senator Cormann interjecting—

Senator Cormann, if you want to have a say then put yourself next on the list.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am on the list. What a good idea.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Fortunately there are only two more speaking spots left on this. As I said, the opposition have used this guillotine 116 times for legislation that also had far-reaching impacts.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many times did you vote for it?

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many times do I have to keep repeating this? We have had a lot of debate on this and we are going to have two more weeks of debate—we have put aside an extra week to ensure that we are talking about this some more. They will have plenty of time to explore this legislation, as they have had in other inquiries. They did not participate adequately in a number of the opportunities that were provided to them to thoroughly explore this because they were so entrenched in opposing it rather than looking at exploring how this will make a difference.

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

I will only need a minute of the Senate's time to set up my position in relation to this motion. For the 11 or so people who may be listening on NewsRadio in relation to this, what is at stake here is whether there ought to be a suspension of standing orders to debate the coalition's censure motion. That is the issue; it is a procedural motion. I think there ought to be a suspension of standing orders. Whether you agree or disagree with the intent of the censure motion it is an important issue and there ought to be debate on it. It is a fundamental issue. It does not mean that I necessarily support the censure motion in its current form, but I do have serious reservations about the way that this debate has been handled and the fact that there will not be a Senate committee to look at this, as is normally the case with such fundamental pieces of legislation.

It does not matter who guillotined what, who guillotined whom over previous legislation or who did what to whom. The issue is: is it fair? Is it reasonable that there be a debate on a censure motion? In order to do that you need a suspension of standing orders. It is a fundamentally important issue, whether you agree or disagree with the censure motion. I believe this Senate ought to agree to a suspension of standing orders to deal with such a contentious and important issue.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Gillard Labor government is treating the Australian people with absolute contempt. There can be no more emphatic promise made by a Prime Minister in the shadow of an election—five days away from an election—than the promise made by the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, when she said, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' And, of course, this morning in the House of Representatives Labor members were kissing and dancing, celebrating in the aisles, celebrating their betrayal of the Australian people.

This whole debate about the carbon tax, as the Prime Minister wanted to remind us today, has been going on for some time. There has been debated over the last three or four years. The Australian people were entitled to believe that the Prime Minister had come around to their view. The Australian people were entitled to believe, in the lead-up to the last election, that the Prime Minister, having debated the arguments for and the arguments against a carbon tax, had come to the view that a carbon tax was not in the national interest. Given the debate over the three years of the last parliament and given the emphatic promise made by the Prime Minister and repeated by the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer in the lead-up to the last election, the Australian people, as they were casting their ballot papers, were entitled to believe that the Prime Minister, having listened to all of the arguments, had agreed with their judgment that the carbon tax was a bad tax which would do nothing to reduce emissions, would push up the cost of everything, would reduce our international competitiveness, would cost jobs, would result in lower real wages while prices went up and would shift emissions overseas. But we now know that, in order to hold onto government, in order to hold onto power, the Prime Minister had to give in to the demands of the Australian Greens, who were the only political party going into the last election campaigning on the promise of a carbon tax. And here we are.

The lie continues today. This is what the Prime Minister said on radio in South Australia at seven o'clock this morning: 'The carbon tax is going to ensure we cut carbon pollution by 160 million tonnes in 2020.' I refer to the Treasury's own modelling. Do not take my word for it. I refer you to table 5.1, 'Headline national indicators', in the government's own Treasury modelling, on page 88. What does it say? It says that CO2 emissions in 2010 were 578 million tonnes. What does it say about the expectations under the carbon tax, described here as the 'core policy scenario'? In 2020, CO2 emissions would be 621 million tonnes. By my calculation, that is an increase of 43 million tonnes in CO2 emissions in Australia after the carbon tax has been imposed by this government. The cutesy, spinning sort of argument that the government puts is that emissions are going to be lower than they otherwise would have been. Emissions continue to grow under the carbon tax but they will grow by less.

Let us go to the next part of the interview that the Prime Minister gave in South Australia today. She then said: 'Under the carbon tax, we will continue to see incomes grow. Average incomes will go up by $9,000 to 2020.' Let us go back to the Treasury modelling to see what the Treasury modelling says about that. I invite people to go to chart 5.12, 'Real wages'. Real wages under the carbon tax are going to go down by just under six per cent. Real wages will be about six per cent lower under the carbon tax by 2050. And there is no end in sight. If you look at that chart, the line keeps going down and down and down. It goes off the graph. But here we have a Prime Minister who says that real wages are going up.

Let us work on the assumption that average incomes will go up. Full-time average incomes today are $70,000 a year. That means that the carbon tax will impose a $4,000 pay cut, effectively, in today's dollars. This is the ongoing deceit of this government. It is going on right now as we speak. Right now, the government still cannot tell the truth about their carbon tax. This is why they are running away from the debate. This is why they want to shut down the Senate debate on this—because they are embarrassed by how bad this legislation is, legislation which will do nothing for the environment. (Time expired)

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government has this morning spent an hour and a half dealing with procedural motions only. There are substantive bills on the Notice Paper that I would encourage senators to turn their minds to so that we can deal with the legislative agenda in the Senate rather than continue to have this confected opposition debate on the carbon price legislation. All the government is asking the opposition to agree with today is that the bills be introduced into the Senate so that they can be dealt with as a message today and we can then have them available for debate in the next two weeks. The opposition now have taken the view that they are going to flop to the floor like the Liberal dead body and say: 'We're not going to do anything. We're going to just throw out the anchor and try to drag everything down. We will not engage in the debate; we will simply say no.' That is characteristic of Mr Abbott in this whole debate. All Mr Abbott wants to do is say no, no, no—no policy debate, simply a no. He is completely oppositional, without any policy—simply say no. The opposition here today are doing that. They are picking up Mr Abbott's 'Just say no' policy—

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Mr Abbott' to you.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I said 'Mr Abbott', in fact, for those of the opposition who are listening. They are not listening to the debate. They only want to say no on this issue.

I will deal with some of the substantive matters that the opposition have raised. In a debate such as this, it is incumbent on those opposite to actually construct an argument and to come to the debate with clean hands. Let us look at the record of the opposition when they were in government:

There was also one circumstance where:

… Australian Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett had to debate Telstra legislation he had not seen and comment on the minister's second reading speech that had not been read to the parliament and had been tabled only 30 seconds before.

Those quotes are on page 80 of the essay 'The Senate a paper tiger', in the book Howard's Fourth Government: Australian Commonwealth Administration 2004-2007. In addition to that:

… Work Choices legislation was given to non-government senators only half an hour before the debate began, and consideration of the 1252-page bill was compressed into a five-day committee inquiry and five days of Senate debate … amendments were introduced by the government just 35 minutes before the government guillotined debate.

That is what the opposition has stood for. This government created a Multi-Party Climate Change Committee that met for nine months on this issue before completing its work in July The opposition were invited to participate on the committee but chose not to because they simply want to say no. They have no policy; they simply want to continue to be obstructionist and say no, rather than engage in debate. (Time expired)

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The question is that the standing orders be suspended.

The Senate divided. [11:05]

(The President—Senator JJ Hogg)

Senator Collins did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Coonan.

Question negatived.