Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That a motion relating to the consideration of the Clean Energy Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No. 2], and related bills, and the Climate Change Authority (Abolition) Bill 2013 [No. 2] may be moved immediately and have precedence over all other business today, until determined.

The Australian Labor Party have a choice right here, right now to get out of the way and allow this bill to be debated, to allow this package to be traversed so that the carbon tax can be repealed once and for all.

The will of this chamber is clear through the support of the motion to suspend standing orders. The Australian Labor Party and the Greens have at every turn used every opportunity to seek to delay and to seek to deny this chamber the opportunity to debate the package of carbon tax repeal legislation. We saw their behaviour by withholding quorum in the Environment and Communications Committee, chaired by Senator Ruston—that outrageous behaviour, that trade union tactic, to seek to deny a quorum for a duly constituted committee of the Australian parliament. Through its support for the suspension of standing orders, this chamber has made it clear that the Senate wishes to move rapidly onto a substantive motion that will allow the carbon tax repeal package to be brought on.

I spoke on the earlier procedural motion and I will not detain the Senate chamber any longer. I say to the Australian Labor Party and to the Australian Greens: get out of the way and allow the package of carbon tax repeal bills to be debated so that the carbon tax can be repealed and Australian families can get on average $550 of relief. I commend this motion to the chamber.

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

As the chamber knows very well, there was a process in place and that process started with the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee having a reporting date of 14 July, next Monday, for the tabling of their report into this package of carbon tax repeal bills. What we have today is a farcical attempt by government senators to change that entire process, all for their own political advantage. This Senate knew its business and it set the dates according to its order of business. Yet the government has come in and, for the purposes of some political stunt, tried to change the process in order to allow these bills to be debated forthwith. The opposition and the majority of senators in this place—as we know because we had this debate earlier today—agreed that the process should stand.

We believe in proper process. We know that, through the committee process, which is an important part of being in the Senate because this is the house of review, there would be a review of the legislation that was before it. What we are talking about here is substantial legislation on what has been described by many, including world leaders, as the most important and compelling issue facing our globe at this time. But this legislation was not even allowed to be put through the process of an inquiry, with public hearings to hear from experts as to its merits, to inform the senators in this place whether it was decent legislation to pass. We were not allowed to have that process occur, despite the opposition senators asking for it and despite its being custom and practice, time and time again, for the Senate committee process of an inquiry, to call for submissions and to have dates when hearings are held.

The government senators would not allow that to happen. Through that process, or lack of process, they were silencing climate scientists, economists, professionals and experts in the field. What did they get in return? They had 59 economists, including John Hewson, coming out today and stating clearly that there needs to be a price on carbon and legal limits on carbon pollution. Those kinds of voices were silenced in the Senate committee process. Labor does not stand for this. We stand very clearly for an emissions trading scheme. The government did not want to hear experts that agree with Labor, experts that agree with an emissions trading scheme, experts that agree that the carbon repeal bills are wrong as they stand and that there does need to be an amendment to allow for an emissions trading scheme to be introduced. I feel very frustrated by the fact that this government has not allowed proper process to be carried out through the Senate committee structure.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, why don't you just move your amendments?

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

We know that, despite that, the voices of so many experts in the field have not been silenced. They have come out very strongly in support of what they believe is the right stance. It is a stance based on science, Senator Macdonald, which I encourage you to take up. Take up reading the CSIRO's annual report. Take up reading some of the peer reviewed work by the climate commission that you shut down. Take up reading some of the expert reports by Professor Ross Garnaut—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A real independent fellow, that guy!

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

and from the Academy of Science. The list I could give you could be quite long. I would not be surprised that you have not read one iota from some of those scientific experts.

The thing about science is that is based on evidence, it is based on experiment, it is based on fact. You cannot deny it. On top of that, the type of science we are talking about, climate science, has all been peer reviewed. How can the government completely ignore the umpteen number of scientists that have made it very clear that global warming is occurring, that climate change is real, that we just had the warmest May ever, that we just had the hottest summer ever, that there is a link between natural disasters occurring and changes in our climate? How can you deny it when there is so much scientific evidence in this space? That is why Labor acted when we were in government. That is why we stand by an emissions trading scheme now. And that is why I joined with my Labor colleagues this morning, outside in the cold at the front of Parliament House, with some 200 young Australians who want us to act on climate change. They do not want to see the government's approach of burying their heads in the sand, ignoring scientists and denying them the ability to contribute to Senate committee processes. They want to see our democracy working as it should. For it to work as it should, there should have been an inquiry, with some public hearings and a submissions process, and we should have heard from those experts in the field.

But, of course, the government senators did not want that. It does not fit with their agenda. What fits with their agenda is spending billions of dollars on direct action, on a wing and a prayer that some abatement by the biggest polluters might occur. Throw them some taxpayers' money and hope that they change their behaviour—no legal cap on pollution, just sitting back and saying, 'Here, have some taxpayer money, and let's just hope you might change your behaviour.' That has been thrown out of the water by so many economists and scientists, which is exactly what the government did not want to hear through a Senate public inquiry process. That is why those voices have been silenced. And that, I believe, is a threat to our democracy. If we have a government that is not going to stand by the proper processes of Senate committee structures, what does that mean for our democracy? This is supposed to be the government that is about freedom of speech.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 18:30 to 19:30

As I said earlier, there have been some 59 economists today who were united in support for a price and a limit on carbon pollution. I raise this issue today because it is pertinent to what has been debated today here in the Senate—or, at least, the shenanigans that have been carried out by government senators in this place today in trying to stymie the process of a Senate committee in relation to these bills.

I raise the fact that these economists have made this statement today because one of them is the former Liberal leader, Dr John Hewson. He, along with the economist, Geoff Weir, and Australian professors from universities right across the globe have made it very clear today that we need to support a price on carbon and that we need a legal limit on carbon pollution. And that is exactly what Labor's policy is. It is to have an emissions trading scheme where you have a legal limit on carbon pollution.

What is most concerning here is the fact that the government does not seem to understand that, nor care about doing anything about that. This is despite these 59 economists and despite the number of scientists that have also made it very clear that this is the most efficient and effective way to reduce carbon pollution in this nation. Of course, we also know these things are being put in place right across the globe.

But in relation to the bills, Labor's position has been very consistent. I know that Senator Abetz—and Senator Cormann, I think it was—and others on that side of the chamber today tried to make out that that has not been the case. It is certainly a furphy for them to try to drum that up now as some way of saving some credibility in their own situation, knowing that they have their own former Liberal leader coming out against their current position. Labor's position was consistent with the position that it took to the federal election last year, and that is that for these bills, yes, we do think that we need to move from a carbon tax to an emissions trading scheme. Unfortunately, these bills that are before us do much more than that.

If passed by the parliament these bills will also abolish any chance of Australia having a formal legal cap on carbon pollution and any chance of us moving to an emissions trading scheme. Therein lies the problem and therein lies the issue before this Senate: the fact that if these bills are passed that is what we will end up with. We will end up with no legal cap, and Australia will go far back in its credibility in tackling global warming. You have President Obama, China, South Korea, Germany and umpteen countries acting to put a legal cap on carbon pollution and then you have Australia just wanting to rip it up completely. That is something that Labor certainly will not stand for. We want to tackle climate change in the most cost-effective way possible and that is why we support terminating the carbon tax if it is replaced with an emissions trading scheme that puts a legal cap on pollution and lets business work out the cheapest and most effective way to operate within that cap.

You would think that that kind of market based mechanism to deal with carbon pollution would be something that the Liberal Party would support. We know, in fact, that the Liberal Party actually did support it. John Howard, when Prime Minister, supported it. Malcolm Turnbull, when Leader of the Opposition, supported it. Christopher Pyne is on the public record supporting it. There are probably umpteen others within the Liberal Party that do support an emissions trading scheme because, let's face it, the vote was very close when they rolled Malcolm Turnbull.

I call on those government senators to let their voices be heard, because this debate is something that is going to affect our nation not only today but for years to come. And that is what I heard today from those young Australians—those young climate action Australians—who gave me this badge when I joined with my Labor colleagues to meet them this morning. Those young Australians wanted us to act on climate change. They do not want to see us end up with nothing, nor do they want to see some farcical policy where we give taxpayer funds to big polluters in the hope that they may change their behaviour, which will lead to some kind of abatement. It is a laughable policy and something without any credibility.

In the time left to me I want to talk a little bit about my home state of Tasmania, because I do come from one of the most renewable-energy-driven states in the country. Something that my new Senate colleague, Senator Lambie, and I have in common is our passion for Tasmania. That is something shared by my Tasmanian Labor Senate colleagues as well. One of those passions is about ensuring we have jobs growth and ensuring that Tasmania has economic advantages into the future. And if there is one area where there has been growth and which could continue to have growth it is in the renewable energy sector. But will all be lost—all lost!—with these bills if they are passed by this Senate.

That is something that the Palmer United Party and the government senators need to take heed of. It was only a week ago that Hydro Tasmania, our energy supplier in Tasmania, made it clear that the repeal of the carbon tax, as well as the uncertainty about the renewable energy target, would mean that they will cut nearly 100 jobs in Tasmania. That is to the detriment not only of Tasmania but of the rest of Australia, to which Hydro Tasmania sells its power through the grid. It is the long-term effect that will continue to affect all the other renewable energy businesses and the investors who want to invest into this space. Hydro Tasmania is a key one for my state of Tasmania.

What we have from the government if the carbon tax is repealed is nothing. There will be no emissions trading scheme in its place; there will be absolutely nothing. That is not good enough for Labor senators. That is not good enough for the Labor opposition. We stand for renewable energy. We stand for the renewable energy target, which will lead to investment into renewable energy jobs and innovation and to the growth of wind energy, solar energy and all the good things that come from ensuring that we create clean energy. That is why we stand for the renewable energy target and for an emissions trading scheme. We want to ensure that there is a legal cap on pollution and that there are incentives that drive change in our economy for the creation of clean energy. That outcome will be achieved only through the architecture that is provided in the emissions trading scheme and by keeping the renewable energy target. I highlight the fact that Tasmania certainly will be disadvantaged by the loss of any legal cap on pollution and of any price mechanism.

I go back to what those 59 leading economists highlighted today in their open letter. We highlighted earlier that Senator Macdonald was not very au fait with some of the science and what some of the experts in this field had said. These peer reviewed experts in their field highlighted evidence that there is global warming, that there is a need to act on climate change, that we did just experience the hottest summer and the hottest May on record and that we need to do something about it, especially in relation to natural disasters but also for the sake of our children into the future. I refer to their open letter because they refer to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has made very clear that human influence:

… through activities such as accelerated and large scale burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests, is warming the globe and that the impacts of climate change are being felt across the world. These findings are supported by the leading scientific bodies of the world, including the CSIRO and the Australian Academy of Science.

They are two key bodies in this debate that were not able to share their research with the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, which considered these bills before they came into this chamber for debate. I raise that because those are economists highlighting the work of scientists. There is a link here between the environment and the economy. The link is the real risk and shame that ending a legal cap on pollution, ending a price on carbon pollution, will lead to a real deficit in our economy, a deficit in the sense of the lack of renewables— (Time expired)

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support the motion moved by Senator Fifield. I will not keep the Senate for long because I, like I think most other senators, want to get on with the actual debate; what we are debating now is a procedural motion. I have been in this chamber too long to allow the hypocrisy and humbug that we hear coming from Labor Party senators and which we will hear next from Greens senators about this procedural motion. I have been sitting in this chamber for the last six years, and for a few years before that too, and have seen the Labor Party and the Greens guillotine more than 200 important bills with absolutely no discussion in this chamber, yet we hear from them the sort of rhetoric we have heard from the previous speaker about the debate on this motion.

I say to the newer senators: I am a liberal and, regardless of what the executive government may say, I am always one who will allow proper discussion on any bill before the chamber. Having said that, I would gladly move a guillotine on this bill right away, because we have debated this full-time for the last six years. For the last six years we have debated this particular subject. We went to the 2010 election, with Mr Abbott and Ms Gillard promising the same thing: not to have a carbon tax. So why are we debating it today? Why do we have Senator Singh wasting 20 minutes of the Senate's time in a classic filibuster? I say to new senators: have a look, because this is what you going to see a lot of—Labor senator after Labor senator getting up and speaking for 20 minutes on a subject that we have debated ad infinitum for the last six years. I could repeat every speech that is going to be made by Labor and the Greens because I have heard them so often.

We do not need to worry particularly about what various senators in this chamber say; we have to listen to what the people of Australia say. There would not be an Australian who did not know that the last election was to be 'a referendum on the carbon tax'. Who won the last election? Was it the Labor Party, who dropped five senators here? Was it the Greens political party, who, in the first election in Western Australia—before some votes mysteriously went missing—did not even get a senator elected in Western Australia? It was the parties who indicated a preference to get rid of the carbon tax who were successful at the last election. And why? Because that is what the people of Australia wanted.

This is a procedural motion. If Senator Singh is so keen about the debate, let's get on with it. Why did we have a 20-minute filibuster from her to prevent us from getting on with the debate? I hope that the new senators will quickly understand the humbug and hypocrisy that they will hear from the Labor Party and from the Greens.

I do not want to refute some of the comments that Senator Singh made, but I want to raise very briefly a couple of issues. I refer any senator who is interested, to go way back to 12 May 2009 to a question that I asked on notice of the then science minister, Senator Carr. I asked him for a list of all research grants from the Labor government to universities and researchers dealing with climate change. It is on the record at question 1507 on 12 May, 2009. Have a look at that, Mr Acting Deputy President. These are the research grants that have gone to researchers who want to promote the Labor-Greens view on climate change.

I just want to make it clear to anyone who might be listening that I am not a climate change denier. I have long said that the climate is changing. I remember—and I was not around then!—when the earth was covered in ice. I remember that the centre of Australia was an inland sea, and I also remember that it was a tropical rainforest. So, clearly, the climate is changing. I am the first to admit that. I have known that all along. But is it man's emissions of carbon that has caused it? As I have often said, 'I do not know.' I have heard equally from qualified scientists who say no as those who say yes. You do not hear a lot from Australian scientists who say no because Professor Bob Carter could never get a grant because all the grants were going to those who were supported by the Greens and the Labor Party. The list is five years old now, but here are just some of the grants that went to those who wanted to promote the Greens and the Labor Party view on climate change.

Mr Acting Deputy President, I am not a scientist—you know that—but I just happened to be glancing through the Weekend Australianon 21 June and saw the headline 'Coral comes back from the dead'. Yet, if you listen to the Greens and the Labor Party you would think that the Barrier Reef is doomed and that every coral reef in the world is doomed because of climate change. There is an article quoting a respected member of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, based in Townsville, who indicates that there are different arguments about climate change.

If the new senators want an indication they just have to hear what is coming from the Greens. If you do not happen to hold their views—and the same can be said for Senator Wong—you are pilloried.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can give you a list of scientists, but you dismiss them because those scientists do not hold your views, and therefore you say are not proper scientists. It is only the scientists who agree with you that you say are proper scientists. Totalitarian regimes of the 1930s had the same sort of view—

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are called scientists—

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Di Natale, Senator Macdonald will be heard in silence. Direct your comments through the chair, Senator Macdonald.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, but I really do not need protection from the Greens. Heaven forbid that that day should ever arrive!

Back in the 1930s, we had the same sort of thing: if you did not agree, you were pilloried.

Senator Siewert interjecting—

Work it out for yourself. You would know. You are from the ultra-left wing of the political spectrum. You know about the totalitarian regimes of the 1920s and 1930s: if you did not agree with the government, you were ostracised. The Greens and the Labor leadership here have indulged themselves in the same sort of thing.

A scientist from the Australian Institute of Marine Science has had a look at this. There are some questions about it. It is not as clear-cut as that 'reputable' body of the UN, the United Nations climate change commission, would have you believe. Have a look at who is on that. I retain an open mind; I always have.

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

An empty mind.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, okay; have a good debate! If you do not agree with them you get the sort of abuse, the personal abuse, that is typical of the Greens. As I said, I want to get on with the actual debate. We will see how it turns out. But why do we have to put up with, over the whole night, Labor and Greens people filibustering 20 minutes each to prevent us from getting on with the debate?

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Spare us.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, Senator Di Natale, are you not going to speak? Is your leader not going to speak? Can we can get on with the debate; will you vote for it? We have tried twice today to get on with the debate. If the Greens are confident in their arguments, then they will put them to the Senate and we will have a vote on it. Let's get on with the debate and finish with these procedural motions. The Greens and the Labor Party have put impediments before this chamber to prevent us from debating the issue that they feel so passionate about. I urge the Senate to support Senator Fifield's motion.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the previous speaker is a believer in climate change, can you imagine the debates that take place in the party room of the coalition? They must be absolutely hilarious. There is an argument that the coalition have a mandate on climate change. The mandate they got from the public was a mandate based on lies, a mandate based on misrepresentation, a mandate based on fear and loathing. That is the mandate the coalition went to the election on. They ran fear campaigns on climate change, they ran fear campaigns against refugees and they ran fear campaigns against taxing the mining companies. And now they come in here and say, 'I'm a believer in climate change.' Senator Macdonald said he could remember when the planet was iced over. I am one of the oldest senators here and I have to rely on the TV to see that! I did not know Senator Macdonald was that old.

The other issue that came through in Senator Macdonald's speech was this Greens-Labor alliance about some kind of terrible conspiracy against humanity. When Senator Macdonald was talking, I had a look at that well-known group of communist conspirators, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA. This is one of the pre-eminent scientific groups in the world. They say, 'Here is the evidence for climate change.' They do not go on with the nonsense that Senator Macdonald went on with. They go through the scientific analysis of why you need to deal with climate change and what is happening. They indicate that certain facts about the earth's climate are not in dispute.

They say that the heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the 19th century. Here we are in the 21st century and the coalition is not able to understand the signs that were there in the 19th century. NASA goes on to say that the evidence for rapid climate change is compelling: global sea levels rose by about 17 centimetres—6.7 inches—in the last century. The rate of rise in the last decade, however, is nearly double that of the last century. It is not Senator Milne arguing that, it is not Senator Cameron arguing that; it is NASA—the heartland of the United States' technology and science—saying that this is a fact. NASA says that global temperatures are rising and that most of the warming has occurred since the 1970s, with 20 of the warmest years having occurred after 1981.

NASA says that the oceans are warming and that they have absorbed much of this increased heat. So the heat is not actually out there in the air; it is being sunk into the oceans, with the top 700 metres—2,300 feet—of ocean showing warming of 0.302 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. NASA is tracking the increase in temperatures of the ocean, the sea-level rise and the shrinking ice sheets. It says the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass. Data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment shows Greenland lost between 150 and 250 cubic kilometres of ice between 2002 and 2006, while Antarctica lost about 152 cubic kilometres of ice between 2002 and 2005. This is something that is happening now. These are issues we have to deal with now.

NASA also says that Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades. The glaciers are in retreat. The glaciers are retreating almost everywhere in the world, including in the Alps, the Himalayas, the Andes, the Rockies, Alaska and Africa. Senator Macdonald, it is the NASA website saying this. This is what the top scientific and technological organisation in the United States is saying. It is saying these are extreme events. The number of record high-temperature events in the US has been increasing while the number of record low-temperature events has been decreasing since 1950. The US has also witnessed an increased number of intense rainfall events.

Then there is the issue Senator Macdonald raised about the Great Barrier Reef. It is ocean acidification that is killing the Great Barrier Reef. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by 30 per cent. This increase is the result of humans emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, hence more is being absorbed into the oceans.

This is not some loony-left organisation that does not deal with the scientific facts; this is NASA. And this analysis is replicated by scientists all around the world, including Australia. If you go to the Australian Academy of Science's website you will find the same facts. If you go to the Bureau of Meteorology's website you will find the same facts. If you go to the CSIRO's website you will find the same facts. We are dealing with factual issues here, not whether there is some climate change akin to the changes in climate that have taken place over many years. This climate change can be put down to human centred activities. It can be put down to us pouring carbon into the atmosphere. It really is about big business, over the years, not having to worry about polluting the atmosphere—they have been simply getting on with their production, not worrying about what is happening in the atmosphere. Now they are being called to account, because there is a need for us to put a stop to carbon pollution in the atmosphere.

We heard much discussion earlier about the coalition's mandate. I repeat: I have a mandate as well. I made it quite clear, when I was standing for election, that I recognised climate change was an issue and I supported a price on carbon. Millions of Australians voted for the Australian Labor Party and the Greens because they wanted action on climate change. They do not want us to walk away from climate change.

I have a personal interest in this. I live in the Blue Mountains. My house was evacuated twice last summer because it was unsafe for me to be at home. It was unsafe for me and it was unsafe for hundreds of families—thousands of families, actually. We were told that we had to leave. There were 80-kilometre-an-hour winds in the Blue Mountains and fires raging. If you were in Penrith and you looked up to the Blue Mountains, it looked as if somebody had let off an atom bomb. There was a mushroom plume of smoke near Springwood and the Blue Mountains. I was there. I had heard all these things about protecting your house and what you could do and what you could not do. We had radiant heat jumping 80 metres across the Nepean River. Everybody thought, 'The fires are on the other side of the river; we're going to be okay.' Tell the people in Yellow Rock that. The radiant heat—not embers but radiant heat—from the fire started the fires in Yellow Rock. It was so intense. What was the point of me standing out there with my garden hose in 80 kilometre-an-hour winds with the trees bending over around me? I had to get out. Families all around us had to get out. Why? Because the climate is changing. There is more and more of this happening around the country. If we do not take action on climate change, this is what we will be faced with. Do not take my word for it. Listen to NASA, listen to the CSIRO, listen to the Bureau of Meteorology, listen to the science academy and listen to all the experts that tell you this. And yet we are not going to do anything about it.

I think a lot of this is about the coalition's one-liner—they have lots of them—'We're open for business.' Business can do what they like. Business can just go on and keep polluting. In fact, what the coalition is going to do is spend billions of Australian taxpayer dollars paying the polluters to stop polluting. What is the sense in this? There is not an economist in the country who would argue that that is a sensible approach. This was, as Malcolm Turnbull said, a 'fig leaf' for the coalition. It was a fig leaf. They were throwing the fig leaf in because they were on the fear campaign on climate change and the fear campaign that jobs would be lost. Yet every economic analysis said that jobs would continue to grow. I was chair of the environment committee in the last Senate for a number of years. Every expert, whether they were an economist or an environmentalist, would say that job numbers will grow—the sooner you take the steps to embrace the decarbonisation of our economy, the quicker you change our economy, the cheaper you do it and the more jobs you create by that approach. I think it is pretty simple.

I heard Senator Macdonald asking Senator Singh if she was a scientist and how she knows these things. I will tell you how Senator Singh knows these things: the same way I know them, and I am not a scientist. Experts come and tell senators, day in and day out, that this is a huge problem. This is a problem that is not going away and we have to deal with it. The environmental scientists come in and tell you that this is just physics. Physics will determine what happens with more carbon dioxide getting pumped into the atmosphere. It means more wild winds, more bushfires, more acidification of the ocean, higher temperatures, fewer cold days and more warm days. Now we have environmental health experts telling us that diseases only found in tropical areas will be slowly coming down the east coast of Queensland because the heat is coming in and those diseases will thrive in it. This is not us coming up with a scare campaign. It is not Labor saying there is a scare campaign. This is us listening to the environmental experts—the environmental health experts and the scientists.

What do the economists say? The economists say, 'You have to deal with this. The sooner you deal with it the better it is for the economy. The sooner you deal with it, the better it is for employment. The sooner you deal with it, the better it is for you to engage in green manufacturing jobs.' I have no compunction about saying I am not an expert in this area, but I defy anyone in this place to say that the evidence is not in on this issue.

I suppose I could do the same as many of the coalition senators. I could head off to the United States, sit down with the Tea Party cranks, listen to them and get a lecture about how this is all some big conspiracy. I could come back here and say, 'This is all nonsense,' and run these agendas that they have been running—fear and smear campaigns from the coalition. But I take a different view. Who knows how long I am going to be here, either in the Senate or on this planet. I am over 60 now. I have two grandkids. One of them is eight and one of them is six—Amy and Scott. They are dear to me, dear to my wife and dear to our family. What we want for them is a future—not a future with warming of two, three or four degrees higher than temperatures are now, with all the problems that that will create. We do not want them to live in an environment where they cannot go out and enjoy what I have enjoyed for most of my adult life in Australia. From my own personal perspective, I want my grandkids to have a future that is not threatened by global warming. When the coalition senators really look at this and push aside the partisan politics of this I think there will be a few who will be worried about their grandkids' future. You cannot easily dismiss this. If there is an issue, you have to take steps to deal with it.

I want to now briefly come back to the Blue Mountains experience. Saying we are 'open for business' and blaming everything on Labor's economic record is just so much nonsense. Everyone knows that Australia is a wealthy country. Everybody knows that we have three AAA credit ratings. Everybody knows that, compared to every other country in the world, we are miles ahead on economic issues. We are just so far ahead that the coalition create a lie and say we are in bad economic times. We hear time and time again that people cannot go to the doctor without paying a $7 tax because the economy is in such a bad state, but they do not tell us that the $7 tax is going to go to some health research fund. If the economy were so bad, the $7 would not be going to that; the $7 would be going to get the deficit down.

The deficit does not need to come down. We are in a far better position than any other comparable country in the world. This is a lie that is being peddled. Everything that comes from the coalition comes from a lie. Their victory in the last election was based on a lie. It was based on deceit. It was based on fear campaigns. So I do not accept this mandate. No mandate based on a lie is a mandate that you can claim.

What do we have now? The Productivity Commission has submissions from Treasury, the finance department and Attorney-General's—all on the instructions of Liberal ministers. Those submissions are basically saying to the Productivity Commission—and the inquiry is about how you deal with disasters—that they want out: 'We don't want to do this anymore. The states have to take responsibility for disaster funding and individuals have to take responsibility through their insurance premiums.' The argument that you have small government so you cannot deal with climate change, you cannot deal with natural disasters, you cannot deal with the health of the Australian community, you cannot deal with the education of the Australian community and you have to cripple the university system on the basis of a lie is just unacceptable to me and unacceptable to the Labor Party.

You have to be called out on your lies. You have to be called out on the fear campaigns you have been running. We will continue to call you out on these issues because I want a future for my grandkids. I want a future for all the kids in this country. That future is only guaranteed if there is an approach by this country to deal with climate change and show leadership. Even John Howard recognised that he had to show leadership, because John Howard was going to the election with a climate change policy based on a market price for pollution.

So these are the issues we have before us here. I know this is a procedural motion and we will deal with all these issues again, but this procedural motion is based on the lie that the coalition went to the last election on. They lied to the community on pensions. They lied to the community on welfare. They lied to them on education. They lied to them on health. Do not come here claiming a mandate based on lies, because we will not wear it. We have to deal with climate change. It is about time you woke up to yourselves because you are the modern-day Luddites. (Time expired)

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

I rise tonight to address the motion that is before the Senate—and I remind the Senate that the motion is:

That—

(a) the orders of the day for the second reading of the following bills be called on immediately, may be taken together through their remaining stages and have precedence over all government business until determined …

And the list of bills is the entire clean energy package. I rise today to make that point because—

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Milne, I remind the chamber and you that we are dealing with a procedural motion; we are not dealing with the substantial motion.

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

Yes, I understand.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I would like to discuss your intervention for a second. This has been a very wide ranging debate on both sides—

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Cameron. I accept what you are telling me. At the same time we are dealing with the procedural motion. Senator Milne, direct your comments to the procedural motion, thank you.

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

That was what I was about to do, Mr Acting Deputy President. Earlier today when the motion to give precedence and have the bills taken together was put to the chamber it was defeated—it was defeated on both counts. In fact, the decision of the Senate was that they not be dealt with together and that they not be given precedence. At that point the Palmer United Party agreed that they ought not to be given precedence and they ought not to be dealt with together. Now we have had a change of heart and no explanation at all as to why, within a matter of hours, that change occurred. According to the media reports, it is because the government has now agreed to bring the Climate Change Authority (Abolition) Bill into the Senate. As a result of a deal that has been done on that there has been a change of heart.

We deserve to know exactly what this deal, or this arrangement, has been. The reason I say that is that this is a hugely significant moment in Australian political history. What we are dealing with here, with this substantive package of bills, will determine the life chances of every generation that comes after us. Why would you, at one point during the day, say you wanted more time to consider these bills and then, at a later point in the day, say that you are prepared to abandon the 17 July reporting date and bring on the debate tonight? What has occurred or been negotiated in the last few hours that would lead to that change of heart? The Senate and the Australian people deserve some kind of explanation.

Senators need an explanation because what we are being asked to do with this package of bills is repeal an emissions trading scheme which is working. It is currently operating with a fixed price and due to go to a flexible price on 1 July next year. This Senate will be asked to repeal those bills, and we are told there is going to be an amendment to the Climate Change Authority bill from the Palmer United Party which inserts some kind of emissions trading scheme—but those amendments have not been circulated, so nobody knows what it is that is being proposed for the future.

The thing is: we have a scheme now. That is the important thing. It is working. It is bringing down emissions, particularly in the electricity sector; it is bringing down emissions as we speak. We need to know if we are being asked to exchange the scheme we have now which is working, which is bringing down emissions and which has an 18 per cent emission reduction target attached to it, because that is the default setting. That is what is currently in place as of 31 May. Are we being asked to exchange that for something which may or may not come into effect at some point in the future? That is all we have to go on at this point because we have not seen the specifics of the legislation. If that amendment is contingent upon all of our trading partners being involved in a global emissions trading scheme, then we are talking about the never-never. We are talking about a period so far away there would be a megagap between what we now have, which is bringing down emissions, and what may or may not happen at some point in the future.

If you are determined to bring on a debate on the abolition of a scheme which is working and legislated now, then it is incumbent on you to know exactly what is being proposed as an alternative. If you say you are supportive of emissions trading, then why would you not maintain the emissions trading scheme you have? I make these points because we have heard a lot of debate about what is, or may be, going to be proposed, but none of it has been circulated. No-one in the Senate has been able to make a judgement or have a look at it.

I, for one, will not be supporting in any shape or form the abolition of the clean energy package, because climate change is not only real; it is an emergency. We are living in the emergency now. That is the fact. You only have to look at the science.

We have heard some discussion of the science. Senator Macdonald cites Bob Carter. I cite the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. One is a scientist whose field is not climate science; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the overwhelming consensus of the world's leading scientists—and there are thousands of them, from one end of the planet to the other. I can tell you: most of them live in a state of despair about how rapidly global warming is occurring. The question for them is not whether climate change is real or not; the question for them is whether we have already gone beyond the tipping point from which there is no return.

One of the big questions they are thinking about and asking themselves at the moment relates to a potential huge release of methane long-frozen in the Arctic permafrost. There is a 50-gigaton reservoir of methane stored in the form of hydrates in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. That could be emitted gradually or it could be emitted suddenly. If there were such a melt of the permafrost that it was emitted suddenly, it would be a megacatastrophe on the climate front. It would tip us over. That is the problem here.

The same goes for ocean acidification. Research at my own university, the University of Tasmania, has demonstrated that ocean acidification is such that it is already thinning the shells of creatures in the marine food chain. Once they lose their shells, they lose their reproductive ability and that is going to lead to a simplification of the marine environment. Newsweek have a fantastic series of articles this week about the oceans. They make it clear that, when scientists look at the fish in the Barcelona fish market, they do not just see a fish market like most people see and think, 'How fantastic!' They look at it and see it as a museum—something that will not be there for very much longer—because what we are seeing is a loss of the complexity of marine life and a growing number of dead zones in the ocean, with jellyfish in much more prolific numbers and a loss of complexity. We saw, only a few weeks ago, 10 million scallops die off Vancouver Island because of ocean acidification—because in low pH waters they cannot form shells. You get to the point where you have wipe-out. Consider microscopic creatures, down to krill. Imagine what would happen if krill could not reproduce. You would see a collapse in the marine food chain and starvation—not only in the food chain but for millions, if not billions, of people around the world who depend on protein from the oceans. That is one thing in itself.

Who is to benefit from abandoning carbon pricing? I can tell you: it is the big polluters; it is the people who run coalmines and who want to develop coalmines; it is the coal seam gas industry; it is the big polluters, the coal fired generators. They are the ones who will benefit, but it is $18 billion that Australia will forgo. The Abbott government will forgo $18 billion in the next four years to allow the big polluters to keep that money. They will then stand up and say to the community, 'There is a budget emergency and, as a result, we need to take all this money out of the pockets of the community'. They stand up and say, 'We are going to return money to you in your power prices,' but at the same time they say, 'But we're going to take it out again as an even larger amount because we're going to take away from you universal health care, we're going to charge you co-payments, we're going to deregulate universities, we're going to have the HELP loans increase in cost and we're going to have insurance premiums go through the roof.' These are the kinds of costs that will happen.

People are going to recognise they are being incredibly short-changed and they are going to get especially angry when they discover that in fact the overwhelming drivers of increased power prices have been the poles and the wires and the complete failure of the national electricity market. What we have seen is disgraceful behaviour in the electricity market, with state governments in particular benefiting from more energy being transferred over massive networks. The result has been that communities have to pay for infrastructure they do not need because demand has fallen and renewable energy is coming on. We did not need this infrastructure that they have spent billions on, and now they are increasing power prices in order to pay for it.

Communities are going to come to realise all of this and they will get pretty upset. I asked the minister today about his response to extreme weather events, and I can tell the Senate that since this government has been in office it has changed the information on the Department of the Environment's website. It used to say that the intensity of extreme weather events was linked to climate change. Since the change of government, that has now gone. It has changed that; it has delinked it. There is now no reference to extreme and intense weather and intensity of weather events and climate change. It is as if we are living in a parallel universe from the real world that we actually inhabit.

As the old proverb says: time and tide wait for no man. It is true: time and tide are not going to wait for the coalition to catch up to the realities of global warming. It is happening now; we are living it now. This coming summer around Australia, and who knows where else, people are going to suffer from the extremes. They are going to suffer from more fires because we are going to have more hot days and more fire danger days. We are going to see areas that have dried out, and they are going to be subject to those fires. We are going to see people die in heatwaves; we have seen that already and we are going to see more of it. We are going to see intense cyclones. We are going to see all of the floods that we have seen before, and they are going to come more frequently, but we are not going to be in a position to rebuild that infrastructure.

And who is going to foot the bill when that happens? Do you think that we are going to listen to a Prime Minister who says: 'Yes, you lost your entire infrastructure in this town and you can all pay for it, but, hey, I gave you $100 back on your power bill. You should be grateful.' I do not think so. People are actually changing their minds on this. People are now saying they want Australia to take a leadership role. They are saying that they want serious action on global warming. They are embarrassed that Australia is not doing what it needs to do in the international community, in a global context. We are going into September with Ban Ki Moon's summit and into November and the G20. Then there are the Lima talks for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December. We will roll into 2015, the year that a global treaty is meant to be negotiated. How do you think Australians are going to feel when our Prime Minister will not even turn up to Secretary-General of the UN Ban Ki Moon's summit; that we sent officials to the climate talks last year; that we are trying to stop climate change being on the agenda of G20; and that we have already tried to stop Commonwealth heads of government from putting money into climate packages for the developing countries? Now we are going to Lima at the end of the year and will no doubt reject putting money into trying to help the small island states like Kiribati, which I mentioned today, adapt to climate change.

What is going on in this parliament is shocking. When I think about it I think: this is the first time in human history when one generation will impact what life is like for every single generation that comes after it. What sort of a responsibility is that? We have had it before in relation to individual regions or individual cultures. We have lost cultures before—we lost the Fertile Crescent, we have lost cultures in South America—but we have never lost on a planetary scale, and that is what we are doing. Can you imagine how future generations are going to look back and think that more than one-third of all species on the planet will be extinct by 2050—by 2050—because of global warming? That is what the prediction is, and we are already seeing it. Koalas are going locally extinct in Western Queensland. We have seen it with the white lemuroid possum in North Queensland. It will possibly be the first Australian animal to go extinct because of global warming—if indeed that is allowed to happen. But we are also seeing it all over the planet. There are species of plants and animals heading for extinction. Emperor penguins are set to be one-third of their number by 2050. We have polar bears drowning because they cannot get between the ice flows. We are seeing it everywhere, and we are going to end up with a genetically poor group of animals stuck in zoos around the world. That is the best we are going to be able to offer future generations, who are going to look back and say, 'How bad was that?'

And I know that, because in Tasmania we lost the thylacine. People now look back and say, 'How on earth did we let that happen?' People could have excused that then because people did not know any better. People did not know the extent of the thylacine's trouble; they did not understand what would actually happen. But we do know that now; we know it absolutely right now. And yet it seems we are, as a parliament, set to allow it to happen because Australia will not take its fair share of responsibility for constraining global warming to less than two degrees. It is as simple as that. It is an issue of intergenerational justice and of intergenerational equity. It is stealing from the future to repeal the clean energy package and leave Australia without a climate strategy to reduce emissions.

Five per cent is a joke. We have to get to 40 to 50 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 and zero net carbon by 2050. That is the extent of the challenge. To do that you are so much better off starting early. We have already missed the early years, but we need to do it in a steady way rather than leave it to the point where you have massive dislocation. That is why economists are out today with their open letter, saying that the economy requires certainty for climate policy—innovation, research, investment, and new jobs need that certainty. That has been backed up tonight in the United Kingdom, where the latest research there says that climate action, far from damaging the economy, actually sets them up well. We recognise that President Obama, China, UK and Europe are all entering into bilateral deals on climate finance, on green finance, on green investment and on green technology and that Australia will be bypassed. The revolution has occurred. Clean energy is happening. The world is moving. But the opportunity cost will be huge if Australia ties itself to the old fossil fuel past. And that is what is happening.

If you vote to lose the clean energy package you are voting for the old fossil fuel economy and to return massive profits to the coal fired generators, to the big polluters and to the coalminers. You are actually saying that you think the community should pay for the externalities of those activities rather than the people who caused the problem in the first place. You are shifting responsibility. That is wrong. It is wrong for coal billionaires to be benefiting from abandoning carbon pricing, because it is our children and every other generation henceforth who will pay. That is why people will be observing this debate. It is a tragedy that we have empty seats everywhere in this chamber. But I can tell you that in years to come people will look back at who was responsible for this and will ask the question: why did they do it when they knew? They cannot pretend they did not know. They absolutely went into it with their eyes open and that is what they voted for. But I do think that this Senate deserves an explanation as to why there has been a change of heart in the last few hours from the Palmer United Party.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the question be now put.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion be now put.

The question now is that the motion relating to the consideration of the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No. 2] and related bills and the Climate Change Authority (Abolition) Bill 2013 [No. 2] may be moved immediately and have precedence over all other business until determined.