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

I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.'

I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows—

CLEAN ENERGY LEGISLATION (CARBON TAX REPEAL) BILL 2013 [No.2]

Today the government reintroduces the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013.

As I said on 12 November 2013, when I introduced this bill for the first time, the Australian people have already voted on this bill.

Now the parliament again gets its chance. The people have spoken.

Now, it's up to this Parliament to show that it's listened.

The Australian people pronounced their judgment against the Carbon Tax: they want it gone and this bill delivers.

It delivers on the Coalition's commitment to the Australian people to scrap this toxic tax.

Madam Speaker, the Budget we delivered recently was tough but visionary. It was about setting the country on a path to long-term structural change.

But, a cornerstone of the Government's plan for a stronger economy built on lower taxes, less regulation and stronger businesses is the repeal of the carbon tax.

The first impact of this bill will be on households whose overall costs will fall around $550 a year on average.

Because of this bill, household electricity bills will be around $200 lower next financial year without the Carbon Tax.

Household gas bills will be around $70 lower next financial year without the Carbon Tax.

Prices for groceries, for household items and for services will also fall because the price of power is embedded in every price in our economy.

This is a bill to reduce the bills of the people of Australia.

When the price of power comes down, Madam Speaker, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will be ready to ensure these price reductions are passed on to households and businesses.

But families and pensioners will keep the tax cuts and benefit increases already provided.

The Carbon Tax will go, but the carbon tax compensation will stay so that every Australian should be better off.

Repealing the Carbon Tax will reduce costs for all Australian businesses, every single one of them.

Madam Speaker the previous Government said and argued that only big business paid the Carbon Tax.

That simply wasn't true. Every small business paid the Carbon Tax through higher electricity and gas bills and higher costs for supplies.

As well, Madam Speaker, the Carbon Tax acts as a reverse tariff.

Not only does the Carbon Tax make it more difficult for Australian businesses to compete abroad, it makes it more difficult for domestic businesses to compete at home – because there is no Carbon Tax on imports.

Madam Speaker, repealing the Carbon Tax removes over 1,000 pages of primary and subordinate legislation.

Repealing the Carbon Tax cuts the size of the climate change bureaucracy.

So, repealing the Carbon Tax will reduce the cost of living, make jobs more secure and improve the competitive position of our country.

That's what it does: it reduces the cost of living, it makes jobs more secure and improves the competitive position of our country.

Why would anyone be against that, particularly when it's what the Australian people have voted for?

Madam Speaker, repealing the Carbon Tax is what the employers and what the jobs providers of our country want now.

The Business Council of Australia ―supports the wind-up of the current carbon pricing mechanism because it places excessive costs on business and households and because (our) carbon charge...is now one of the highest in the world.

The carbon tax has ripped through the economy, hitting schools, hospitals, nursing homes, charities, churches, council swimming pools and community centres.

It has hit each and every group and each and every individual that uses power – and that was always its goal: to make electricity more expensive.

That was the intention of the previous government, to put power prices up because that was their way of reducing carbon emissions.

The intention of the new government is to put power prices down by axing this toxic tax and by using other means to reduce emissions.

By reducing the cost of electricity and gas, we will help to make households better off, workers more secure and our economy stronger.

No one should be in any doubt – the Government is repealing the Carbon Tax in full.

We are doing what we were elected to do.

Others have said they would terminate the Carbon Tax, but they were only renaming it.

Well, Madam Speaker, we are not renaming it. We are abolishing the Carbon Tax in full.

Madam Speaker, repealing the Carbon Tax at the end of the financial year provides certainty for business and it simplifies the transition.

It means that this Government will not be proceeding with the previous Government's legislated Carbon Tax increase that would have taken effect from the 1 July.

Madam Speaker, unfortunately, the new Government cannot undo the past, we can only make the future better – and that is what we intend to do.

Madam Speaker, under this Government, the Carbon Tax will not apply from 1 July so there will be no need for further compensation packages.

We will end the merry-go-round of Carbon Tax industry assistance that takes from one pocket and puts less back in the other.

Madam Speaker, we will ensure that the benefits of repealing the Carbon Tax are passed on to consumers.

The ACCC will have further powers to take action against any business that engages in price exploitation in relation to the Carbon Tax repeal.

Penalties of up to $1.1 million for corporations and $220,000 for individuals will apply.

Madam Speaker, it is prudent to do what we reasonably can to reduce carbon emissions.

But we don't believe in ostracising any particular fuel and we don't believe in harming economic growth.

Madam Speaker, climate change is a serious issue and we have strong policies to come into place so that we rest lightly on the planet.

The Government is repealing the Carbon Tax because there is a less complicated and less costly way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—a way that will actually reduce emissions and won't damage the economy.

The Government will scrap the Carbon Tax and then proceed with its Direct Action Plan.

The centrepiece of the Direct Action Plan will be the Emissions Reduction Fund – a market-based mechanism for reducing carbon dioxide emissions; a Fund which provides a powerful and direct additional incentive for businesses to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

The $2.55 billion Fund will use positive incentives to reduce Australia's emissions and prioritise cost-effective, targeted means to reduce emissions.

It's an incentive-based approach which will support Australian businesses and households to lower their energy costs at the same time as reducing Australia's emissions.

It will see us plant more trees, get more carbon captured in soils, clean up power stations and use smarter technology.

We believe that by the time the 5 per cent reduction kicks in in 2020 we'll have an overall reduction in our emissions of some 22 per cent of 2000 levels off a business as usual model—serious action about a significant problem.

Madam Speaker, the carbon tax is a $9 billion hit on the economy this year alone.

It is a $9 billion hit on jobs, a $9 billion burden on investment and a $9 billion burden on Australia that we just don't need.

This bill gets rid of it.

This bill, Madam Speaker, is the Government's bill to reduce the Australian people's bills and so I commend this bill to the Senate.

TRUE-UP SHORTFALL LEVY (GENERAL) (CARBON TAX REPEAL) BILL 2013 [No.2]

Together, this bill, the True-up Shortfall Levy (Excise) (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013, and the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 ensure that final assistance allocations under the Jobs and Competitiveness Program are accurate so that businesses are not over- or under-allocated assistance in 2013-14.

This bill imposes a levy which recovers the value of over allocated free carbon units received under the Jobs and Competitiveness Program for the 2013-14 financial year.

For constitutional reasons, this bill imposes the levy to the extent that it is not a duty of customs or excise.

TRUE-UP SHORTFALL LEVY (EXCISE) (CARBON TAX REPEAL) BILL 2013[No.2]

Together, this bill, the True-up Shortfall Levy (General) (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013, and the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 will ensure that final assistance allocations under the Jobs and Competitiveness Program are accurate, so that businesses are not over- or under-allocated assistance in 2013-14.

For constitutional reasons, this bill imposes the levy to recover over allocations to the extent that it is a duty of excise.

CUSTOMS TARIFF AMENDMENT (CARBON TAX REPEAL) BILL 2013 [No.2]

The Customs Tariff Amendment (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 amends the Customs Tariff Act 1995 to remove the elements of this act that were legislated by the former government to apply the carbon tax through the fuel tax and excise system.

Importantly, this will reduce the increase in excise-equivalent customs duty on aviation gasoline and aviation jet fuel that represents an equivalent to the carbon tax applied to Australian imports.

Currently, Qantas imposes a carbon price surcharge of between $1.93 and $7.25 per passenger on all domestic flights, depending on the distance travelled. Virgin Australia imposes similar surcharges.

The repeal of the carbon tax will reduce one of the major components of airline costs and enable airlines to pass on a significant saving to travellers.

EXCISE TARIFF AMENDMENT (CARBON TAX REPEAL) BILL 2013[No.2]

This bill, which amends the Excise Tariff Act 1921, reduces the increase in excise on aviation gasoline and aviation jet fuel that is applied when an equivalent carbon tax is applied to Australian manufactured fuels.

Around $200 million was raised in 2012-13 by applying the carbon charge to aviation fuel.

This bill will reduce one of the major components of airline costs, which can be passed on to travellers and consumers.

The bill also reduces the act's complexity by removing references and notes associated with the imposition of the carbon tax.

OZONE PROTECTION AND SYNTHETIC GREENHOUSE GAS (IMPORT LEVY) AMENDMENT (CARBON TAX REPEAL) BILL 2013 [No.2]

The Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Import Levy) Amendment (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 is one of two bills to repeal the equivalent carbon tax on synthetic greenhouse gases.

These bills are part of the broader legislative package to abolish the carbon tax. This bill amends the Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Import Levy) Act 1995 so that importers of synthetic greenhouse gases and products containing those gases will not incur a liability to pay the equivalent carbon tax for synthetic greenhouse gas and equipment imported after 1 July 2014. This will reduce costs for businesses using these gases, including for refrigeration and air conditioning.

OZONE PROTECTION AND SYNTHETIC GREENHOUSE GAS (IMPORT LEVY) (TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS) BILL 2013 [No.2]

The Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Import Levy) (Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013 provides for an exemption from the equivalent carbon price for the import of bulk synthetic greenhouse gases between 1 April and 30 June 2014 if certain conditions are met.

OZONE PROTECTION AND SYNTHETIC GREENHOUSE GAS (MANUFACTURE LEVY) AMENDMENT(CARBON TAX REPEAL) BILL 2013 [No.2]

The Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Manufacture Levy) Amendment (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 is one of two bills to repeal the equivalent carbon tax on synthetic greenhouse gases. These bills are part of the broader legislative package to abolish the carbon tax.

This bill amends the Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Manufacture Levy) Act 1995 so that manufacturers of synthetic greenhouse gases will not incur a liability to pay the equivalent carbon tax for synthetic greenhouse gas manufactured after 1 July 2014. This will reduce costs for businesses using these greenhouse gases, including for refrigeration and air conditioning.

CLEAN ENERGY (INCOME TAX RATES AND OTHER AMENDMENTS) BILL 2013 [No.2]

The Clean Energy (Income Tax Rates and Other Amendments) Bill 2013 is part of a package of bills to remove the carbon tax.

This bill amends elements of the Clean Energy (Income Tax Rates Amendments) Act 2011 to repeal the second round of personal income tax cuts due to start on 1 July 2015.

The government understands households will continue to face cost-of-living pressures.

That is why the government is keeping the current carbon tax related personal income tax thresholds and the fortnightly pension and benefit increases.

In its final budget handed down on 14 May 2013, the former government deferred a second round of personal income tax cuts and booked a $1.5 billion saving over the forward estimates.

But the former government never followed through by legislating this change.

This bill repeals legislated amendments to the Income Tax Rates Act 1986 so that the statutory personal income tax rates and thresholds do not change on 1 July 2015.

This bill also amends the Clean Energy (Tax Laws Amendments) Act 2011 to repeal related amendments to the low-income tax offset.

This bill also repeals legislated amendments to the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 so that the related amendments to the low-income tax offset do not take effect on 1 July 2015.

Overall, the repeal of these amendments means that the tax-free threshold will remain at $18,200.

The second personal marginal tax rate will remain at 32.5 per cent. And the maximum value of the low-income tax offset will remain at $445.

This bill legislates the $1.5 billion saving that the former government announced during the 2013-14 budget but never legislated.

A first round of tax cuts to compensate for the introduction of the carbon tax has already been delivered. We will deliver further savings to Australian households of $550 next year with the removal of the carbon tax. In short this is our saving for the Australian people.

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

I rise to contribute to this debate on the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No.2] and related bills that are before the Senate. These bills are presented by the government as bills to abolish the carbon tax. However, these bills do much more than terminate the carbon tax. These bills destroy Australia's entire legislative framework for tackling climate change. These bills remove the legislative cap on carbon pollution, an essential principle in ensuring that we meet our 2020 target to reduce Australia's emissions. The bills abolish the entire framework for an emissions trading scheme. It is hard to imagine a more complex national risk management issue than that posed by global warming, yet this government is removing from Australia's climate policy any trace of that world-leading model and replacing it with a token gesture, direct action, a widely criticised, underdeveloped and extremely expensive policy that is doomed to fail. This government cannot or will not deliver the policy solution required for the effective management of climate change. Direct action is a profoundly embarrassing and inadequate alternative to the economic common sense of an emissions trading scheme.

Labor will not support the government's carbon tax repeal bills. Labor's position on these bills is no surprise. It is the position we made clear to the electorate in September and which we have been advocating ever since. That position is to terminate the carbon tax now and move to an emissions trading scheme with a legal cap on carbon pollution, a cap that reduces over time and enables Australia's business community to work out the cheapest, most effective way to operate. At this point I foreshadow that I will be moving an amendment along those lines.

The most effective long-term response to climate change is an emissions trading scheme. It is the model in place or being introduced in Germany, the UK, California, South Africa, China, South Korea. This truth is self-evident and recognised right around the globe, except, it seems, on the Abbott government benches. Labor's amendment to these bills will remove the carbon tax and shift to an emissions trading scheme.

A carbon tax seeks to change behaviour by imposing a price signal that discourages polluters from carbon dioxide pollution without any legal discipline on that behaviour. An emissions trading scheme, however, changes behaviour through the discipline of a legislative cap on pollution. It gives business the ability to trade pollution permits and lets business work out the cheapest way to operate within that national pollution cap. An emissions trading scheme is the cheapest way to achieve this nation's emissions reductions objective because it creates a genuine market. That is why it is so surprising that the Liberal Party does not support a market based mechanism to address carbon pollution.

Labor is committed to putting a cap on pollution via this mechanism of an emissions trading scheme. This emissions trading scheme was what both major parties actually committed to back in 2007 when the Liberals accepted the science of climate change. But if these bills are passed unamended, an emissions trading scheme for Australia will disappear. The Prime Minister will truly get his way in throwing the baby out with the bathwater, with no legislated cap on carbon pollution and no market based mechanism for business to tap into.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, issued its latest report—its fifth report—in September last year. In that report the 209 lead authors, supported by more than 600 contributing authors, lifted their level of certainty about the existence of climate change, and its cause by human activity, to 95 per cent. Maurice Newman, the Prime Minister's senior business adviser, tells us in regular opinion pieces in The Australian newspaper that the IPCC—those are several hundred leading climate scientists who authored the fifth report—are a fringe group who do not represent the mainstream of scientific opinion.

This government's suggestion that we should proceed to removing the carbon tax without any substantive policy beyond that is not only irresponsible but dangerous. It is dangerous not only for Australia's economy but also for our international reputation because of the fact that we will not be acting on reducing our carbon pollution.

But let's look at some of the history. The member for Sturt, Christopher Pyne, once stated:

The idea that somehow the Liberal Party is opposed to an emissions trading scheme is quite frankly ludicrous.

This highlights how ludicrous some of this debate is right now. The backflips that have occurred in the positions of coalition members are ludicrous. Those opposite have done an about-face for political reasons, but the emissions trading scheme model is still recognised as the cheapest and most effective way to tackle climate change, despite the about-face by government members and senators. The Liberal government is trashing Australia's effort to tackle climate change at exactly the same time as the scientific community is warning that climate change poses a real and serious risk to our precious Australian environment. Labor is committed to putting a cap on pollution through an emissions trading scheme. An emissions trading scheme was what both the major parties committed to, as I mentioned, when the Liberals accepted the science of climate change in 2007.

So, how swiftly things have changed. In July 2009 the now Prime Minister said, 'I am hugely unconvinced by the so-called settled science of climate change.' In October 2009 he famously described the science as 'absolute crap'—excuse my language, Mr Acting Deputy President Edwards! And in March 2010 he said:

Now, I don't believe that the science is settled.

In March 2011 he suggested, 'Whether carbon dioxide is quite the environmental villain that some people make it out to be is not yet proven.'

To suggest that climate scientists have not reached a settled view about global warming is simply misleading. The science is settled. It was settled years ago. There is no debate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's most positive assessment of global warming expects the average temperature of the earth to be between 1.1 and 2.9 degrees hotter by the end of this century. A more realistic prediction in line with current levels of consumption is that the weather will be 2.4 to 6.4 degrees hotter, higher than at any time in recorded history.

Even a two-degree climb in average global temperatures could cause crop failures in parts of the world that can least afford to lose their nourishment. The size of deserts will increase, along with the frequency and intensity of wildfires. On average, in the past decade fossil fuel emissions grew at about three times the rate of growth in the 1990s. There is twice as much carbon dioxide trapped in the melting Arctic permafrost as there is already in the earth's atmosphere. It is being released, and its release is speeding up. The melting permafrost is also releasing enormous stores of methane, a greenhouse gas nearly 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

So we need to listen. We need to listen to these scientists. We need to look at their evidence based findings. We need to listen now not only to the scientists but to the economists who today united in support of a price and a limit on carbon pollution with the release of their open letter. Those economists included Dr Hewson, who said, 'The failure of our generation to act will cost future generations dearly.'

Economist and carbon price pioneer Ross Garnaut has also added his voice to the growing concern of Australia's position on an emissions trading scheme, stating:

Unless Australia moves from this place, it risks damaging the international effort to reduce the risks of dangerous climate change …

These economists stand in good company with President Obama, who stated that climate change is 'one of the most significant, long-term challenges that the United States and the planet face.' We must understand and then act on this scientific data: the overwhelming global evidence demonstrating that an emissions trading scheme is the cheapest and most effective way of achieving the outcomes we desire for our nation.

So, has Labor's carbon price mechanism been the wrecking ball through the Australian economy that the Prime Minister claimed it would be? Was it the cobra strike at the economy? Did the South Australian town of Whyalla disappear off the map? No, no! The truth is entirely different. The truth of the impact was exactly as Labor predicted. The economy did keep growing. More than 160,000 additional jobs were created in the first 12 months of the carbon price mechanism that, according to the now Prime Minister, was going to have a wrecking-ball impact on the national economy. Also, what Labor's comprehensive policy approach started to do, along with our renewable energy policies, was to drive down carbon pollution, particularly in the electricity market, which is the largest source of carbon pollution in Australia.

We saw a reduction in carbon pollution of around seven per cent in the National Electricity Market in the first 12 months alone. And, as we predicted, there was simply a modest impact on prices. That impact was more than covered through the household assistance package, particularly for low-income and fixed-income households like pensioners and middle-income households. The impact on power prices, again, was exactly as we predicted and, again, was covered by our household assistance package. It also achieved the trebling of Australia's wind capacity and saw solar panels being installed in more than a million households, up from fewer than 7,500 under the Howard years. Employment in the renewable energy industry more than doubled to over 24,000 people and around 150,000 jobs were created. In fact, the economy continues to grow at 2.5 per cent as inflation remains low and pollution in the National Electricity Market is decreasing by seven per cent. Renewable energy technologies are doing well, not only as a new innovative form of industry but also in providing a benefit to the environment, to the community, to our children and to future generations.

I understand that Kirsten Rose, the CEO of the Sustainable Energy Association of Australia, stated, 'We and many of our members believe that an emissions trading scheme—that market mechanism—gives them choices and flexibility in a different way to a direct action plan, which is, effectively, bidding for money to support specific projects.'

The bills also abolish the Climate Change Authority, an independent, strong voice set up to advise the parliament, the government and, perhaps most importantly, the Australian community about the very difficult and highly-contested issues associated with climate change. It is also on the chopping block through this government's approach to climate change. Also on the hit list is ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, an independent agency funded to invest in projects that actually improve the competitiveness of renewable technologies and increase the supply of renewable energy in Australia. This continues as an emerging theme of this government: abolishing strong, independent voices and making sure that all advice to the Australian community and to the parliament is filtered, sanitized for political purposes, and fundamentally controlled by the Prime Minister.

As a rich country with a high level of carbon emissions we have a responsibility to reduce our pollution output. Labor has already demonstrated that the balance of sensible, positive actions necessary to reduce carbon pollution, tackle climate change and protect our environmental resources is such an important one. The case that has not been made is one for dismantling many of those measures that we know from the debates in the Senate and other sources have been working well.

This morning I joined my Labor Senate colleagues at the Australian Youth Climate Coalition event outside the front of parliament. There I was reminded about future generations and about the importance of these bills in creating a sustainable future for our young people and for their children to come. Their passion should be echoed right now in this chamber. They want action on climate change. Labor has been and continues to be dedicated to achieving the best possible policy to tackle one of the key challenges of this century. That policy is an emissions trading scheme. By tackling climate change in the most cost-effective way we can support the environment and we can support the renewable industry in Australia; we can see jobs grow; and we can, most importantly, continue to reduce our carbon dioxide pollution and play our part in this global problem that is facing our planet. I move:

  At the end of the motion, add:

     but the Senate notes

(a) the scientific and expert consensus regarding Climate Change;

(b) that in its first year, the Clean Energy Future Package:

     (i) drove a 7% reduction in carbon pollution from electricity generation in the National Electricity Market;

     (ii) saw renewable energy increase its share of the National Electricity Market by 25%;

     (iii) delivered the household assistance package to compensate families and individuals for any impact of carbon pricing; and

     (iv) supported continued economic growth, with over 160,000 jobs created in 2012-13 across the economy, including clean energy jobs;

(c) that since the 2013 election Australia's international reputation on climate change action has been damaged by becoming the first nation to move backwards on climate change while the rest of the world, including China and the US, is moving forward; and

(d) the need for the Government to pass an Emissions Trading Scheme to place a cap on carbon pollution and drive a clean energy future for Australia.

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

I rise to oppose the repeal of the clean energy legislation package that is currently the law in Australia. As I stand here I am reminded of TS Eliot's poem The Hollow Men, where he says:

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

He was asked some years later whether that was still his view. He said that he would not write that again because he was not sure that it would end in either way. As a result of the H-bomb, he said there were people whose houses were bombed who 'don't remember hearing anything'.

That is where we are in this debate. There is such denial of reality going on in this parliament, but that is not shared outside the parliament. The people actually get it. They know that we are living in a world of accelerating global warming and they know that we have to act on it. There is a level of anxiety in the back of the minds of most people, but the people I particularly want to talk about tonight, and speak on behalf of, are our future generations—of those who are yet to be born. I want to speak on behalf of the voiceless, young people like those that I met outside the parliament today with the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, and others—young people around Australia who are marshalling and marching and wanting action on climate change because they know it is about the future. I also want to speak on behalf of the ecosystems of the planet, which do not have a voice in this parliament. All we have heard are superficial and trite three-word slogans about axing the tax and about power prices, but nothing about the real impacts of what we are currently living through.

Many, many years ago I went to the Barrier Reef for the first time. Going back there in recent years, I have seen that it is much deteriorated from what it used to be. That is a result of many things, but global warming is accelerating the degradation of coral reefs around the planet—not only our own Great Barrier Reef but reefs elsewhere in the world.

Some years ago, I campaigned hard for a long time to have the coral reefs of New Caledonia listed as World Heritage areas. It was an eight-year campaign and a huge amount of work went into it. I am very pleased to say that they are now listed as World Heritage areas. But it is a pyrrhic victory, because you cannot protect the coral reefs of the planet—here in Australia, in New Caledonia or anywhere else in the world—unless you act on global warming. Acidification is weakening the structures of the corals. Warming is leading to the bleaching of corals, and cyclones around the world are leading to the destruction of those reefs. We have been seeing the melting around the West Antarctic ice sheet; we have been seeing the melting of the Arctic; and now we are seeing the ongoing release of methane from the permafrost.

We are seeing extreme weather events around the world. Those extreme weather events are already displacing people and destroying culture. On many of our Pacific Island neighbours' countries, burial grounds are next to the lagoon, next to the sea. Now, with sea-level rise and intensified storms, our neighbours are losing some of the fundamental parts of their culture, and they are being forced to move internally onto higher ground. The nation of Kiribati is buying land in Fiji, where ultimately it will move 100,000 people if it has to. The people of Tuvalu are saying that they are not going anywhere. I hate to think about the fear in the hearts of people in Tuvalu in the storms that come through there, the storm surges and the over wash of those very low-lying islands. Funafuti is already severely adversely impacted, and only a month or so ago in this parliament I had young people here from Kiribati and Tuvalu begging us to respond to the climate crisis because, as they see it, they are going to lose their homes, their country and their culture.

With extreme weather events around the world, we are going to see a loss of food security. That is why the Greens have campaigned so hard to look after agricultural land and water. We have already seen, with the global food crisis in 2008—which was caused by extreme weather events wiping out crops around the world through fire and drought—an incredible rise in prices for grains. Ultimately, that led to the Arab spring. The first marches in the Arab spring were in Tunisia and were because of the increase in the price of bread. People were marching in the streets with baguettes, protesting about the increase in the price of grain. That is the reality. It is why the Pentagon has recognised global warming as a major security risk. The Pentagon says that future wars are not going to be planetary wars or global wars, they are going to be regional conflicts as a result of the displacement of people.

As I have said many times in this Senate over the years, if we think that the current issues that are driving the displacement of people are as far as it goes, we are wrong. We are going to see millions of people displaced in the coming years because of climate conflict, internal and external to various countries. This is the situation we find ourselves in: a four to six degrees trajectory of global warming and a loss of between a third and a quarter of all species on the planet by 2050. That is heartbreaking when you think about, in particular, alpine species that cannot go any higher—that is it for them. In Tasmania there is a cider gum which is heading for extinction because it is on the central plateau and it cannot go any higher. I mentioned earlier the white lemuroid possum in North Queensland: it cannot go any higher and it is likely to become extinct because of global warming. It is the same around the world. But it is not just global warming on its own; if you put that together with habitat loss and invasive species you will see an accelerated loss.

Just last week I heard the anguish from scientists who are talking about, for example, the Ebola virus. They are saying that they now have to consider trying experimental drugs et cetera on chimps and apes in zoos around the planet in order to try to save species in the wild. This is whey we are going to hear increasingly asked: what do we do when we have reduced habitats so much that animals are in contact with humans and equally humans are spreading measles and the like into those ape populations in Africa?

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

Dear me!

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

Senator Macdonald can ridicule this, but the reality is that—

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

I am ridiculing, Senator Milne.

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

respiratory illness is being brought to the gorilla populations by humans and not the other way around. We are seeing planetary disaster because of global warming.

Australia had a framework to deal with this. When I came into the Senate, I came to address global warming. As an environmentalist I have campaigned all my life for the protection of the environment. But I realised that no amount of areas saved can survive global warning. Unless you deal with that, you will ultimately lose everything, from marine ecosystems through to terrestrial ecosystems, and you will also see impacts on people. That is exactly what we are seeing and that is why we developed a clean energy package.

We worked very hard. It was a condition that the Greens made with former Prime Minister Gillard, before she became Prime Minister, that we would have a legislated carbon price and that it would come into effect by 1 July, 2012. And that is exactly what happened. It was an incredibly well designed package that was recognised by the International Energy Agency as template legislation for developed countries. We should be really proud of that. Australia took a leading role in the development of legislation that other countries could look to, together with complementary measures—things like the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

It is an emissions trading scheme. The only reason it has a fixed price for three years—and I remind people that former Prime Minister Rudd's scheme also had a fixed price for one year—was that Labor and the Greens could not agree on the level of ambition that was required, and we still do not. The Greens are the only party in this parliament who are prepared to say we have to get to a 40 to 60 per cent reduction by 2030 and zero net carbon by 2050 to give ourselves even a 50 per cent chance of avoiding two degrees. That is the reality of the level of ambition. Five per cent is so far from where it needs to be it is laughable. It was laughable in 2007 and it cannot be taken seriously as a target now, either to address the science or to address the global equity.

If you are trying to get to a 2015 treaty, it has to have a level of ambition that gives us a chance. That is absolutely the commitment the Greens will be making, from one end of the planet to the other—we are represented in parliaments of 70 countries around the world. We want a global treaty on global warming. As part of it, money needs to go to developing countries that, through no fault of their own, are now suffering the consequences of global warming. That is why we have to do that. It is immoral for Australia to stand up in a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and block finance for developing countries to adapt to global warming.

It is not just the fact that we cannot agree on a level of ambition. The idea of setting up the Climate Change Authority came from the United Kingdom, where they have a high-level scientific panel that advises the British House of Commons on what the level of ambition should be. Climate policy has been depoliticised through that process, and that is as it should be. The Climate Change Authority should make recommendations to the parliament. To its credit, the Climate Change Authority here has made some very important reports and recommendations to the parliament, including the recommendation that we get to the 40 to 60 per cent trajectory of reductions by 2030. That is exactly what we should be doing. If you think about that, you know that we have to get on—now.

The other point I want to make is that the rest of the world is already moving. In many ways, the revolution has been won. Renewable energy around the world is expanding at a fast rate. The greatest level of investment in new electricity generation, around the planet, is in renewables. We are hearing that every progressive economy around the world is investing in education and training and decarbonising their electricity system, because they recognise that that is where the jobs, investment and growth are in this century. This is the century of transitioning to a low-carbon economy.

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

People should be made to listen to this!

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

If you do not get on board with it, you will be a left-behind rust bucket. I know that is where Senator Macdonald wants to be. That is where his comfort zone is—as a left-behind rust bucket. But the rest of us would like to see investment in education, innovation and cleverness.

Today, we heard the government trying to argue that companies had been driven offshore. That is wrong. There are big solar companies not making investments in Australia, because of the uncertainty the Abbott government has created about carbon policy. We are losing mega-investment, because there is no certainty that Australia is on the right track with climate change. If it were, we would be attracting more investment. Trillions of dollars are in the sidelines. The Investor Group on Climate Change has given evidence to that effect. That is why we need to keep our renewable energy target—and keep it at 41 gigawatt hours—but it needs to go beyond 2016. That is why the Greens are committed to 100 per cent renewable energy as quickly as possible and to at least 90 per cent by 2030.

If you put together 100 per cent renewable energy and a 40 to 60 per cent trajectory, you are putting together a really exciting plan for Australia. You are talking about redesigning our cities, thinking about the way we live—a huge investment in, retrospectively, looking at building renovations, the built environment, the urban environment, changing the way we do agriculture and looking at research and development, to see how we need to change in order to sustain ourselves into the future.

They are the kinds of exciting things that young people want to be involved in. And they are the one group—the best and brightest—we will drive out of this country, because you want to abandon carbon pricing. They will go overseas, as they did during the Howard years. We lost some of our best and brightest in solar technology at that time, because they realised that there was no hope in Australia. They went overseas. They have come home to Australia and are working in these fields. But they will go again. They want to be part of the future.

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

They do not want to be stuck in a rust-bucket economy like Senator Macdonald does. They do not want to be in that place. They want to be where innovation takes place. I feel incredibly disappointed that this Senate appears to want to destroy an emissions trading scheme that is in place right now, and that the Senate wants to abandon carbon pricing and leave us with nothing in terms of a market mechanism that provides the cheapest and most effective abatement of greenhouse gas emissions.

To give hope to those young people who were outside today, who are no doubt despairing at the thought of this government abandoning carbon pricing and serious efforts on climate change, I say: 'This will galvanise a whole generation. You are not alone.' Around the world people are moving, and they want a 2015 treaty. That means people under the leadership of Present Obama, in the United States, are moving. People are moving in the United Kingdom, Europe and China—everywhere you look around the planet, except for Canada and Australia, which are in the rust-bucket category. They are over there in the umbrella group and they will do everything they can to rip down action on global warming at Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's summit, in Lima, at the end of the year and into next year.

By imagining you are getting the climate-change issue off the agenda now, you are making it front and centre for the 2016 federal election campaign. Australians will not tolerate that kind of climate denial. That is why I am moving a second reading amendment in this debate. I want to make sure that we recognise the world is on track for four degrees of warming.

We are calling on the government to adopt 40 to 60 per cent below 2000 levels by 2030. I will move a second reading amendment because I want young people, future generations, to know that in this parliament every single one of us knew what was at stake, every single one of us knew we were on track for four to six degrees of warming and every single one of us knew what the consequences were, but only a few of us were prepared to act on it, including the Greens, who took a leadership role at that time and continued to do so. When the votes are taken, future generations will have the names to look back at of the people who sold out Australia—because they are selling us out in a global context. It is the opportunity cost to this nation, not only the physical cost of global warming and not only the trauma of global warming— (Time expired)

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Milne, you may, of course, only foreshadow your amendment, because there is an amendment already before the chair.

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

The most exciting thing I heard in Senator Milne's speech is the guarantee that the election in 2016 will be on a carbon tax. Nothing has been sweeter music to my ears than to hear that. I hope the Labor Party will again follow their Greens colleagues in making this the issue in the 2016 election. I can assure senators that the Australian people will give it the same result as they gave it in the 2013 election.

I want to start, while Senator Milne is here, by talking about the global warming that we have heard about so often in her speeches and in this parliament from the Greens and the Labor Party over the years. I quote from an article:

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.

That was in 2012.

This means that the 'plateau' or 'pause' in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

Is this Ian Macdonald saying this or some ratbag scientist that is vilified by the Greens? No, sorry. This is the United Kingdom Met Office. They say:

The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.

I suppose Professor Judith Curry, who is the head of the climate science department at America's prestigious Georgia tech university, will be one that the Greens and the Labor Party will say is not a real scientist, but from all research she seems to be a very real scientist to me. She told this newspaper that it was clear:

… computer models used to predict future warming were 'deeply flawed'.

Senator Milne quoted the United Kingdom government. I understand that the new energy minister—or not quite so new now—promised:

The high-flown theories of bourgeois left-wing academics will not override the interests of ordinary people who need fuel for heat, light and transport—energy policies, you might say, for many, not the few.

Of course, that statement by the UK government bought fury from all those fearing reductions in huge subsidies given to wind farms.

I spoke earlier tonight on a related matter before the Senate. I quoted from an article in The Weekend Australian entitled 'Coral comes back from the dead'. It is an interesting article. I recommend that Senator Milne and her colleagues in the Greens have a read of it. I will quote one passage from this article and invite senators to have a look at the rest. The research was done by a Dr Gilmour. The report says:

Gilmour's boss at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, research director Jamie Oliver, concedes there's still no way of knowing whether powerful cyclones have struck before in clusters. 'I think all we can do at this point is say we are seeing a decline in the reef, and we are seeing that cyclones are playing a major role in that decline but we don't know for sure whether it has been as a result of human activities.'

If you listen to the Greens and the Labor Party, Dr Oliver would be pilloried as a climate change sceptic, simply because he says, as I say and as most sensible people say, the science is not settled. I do not know what Senator Milne thinks of the Australian Institute of Marine Science. I think it is a pretty good organisation. It is just one of many organisations, like the United Kingdom Meteorological Office, who say it is not quite as settled as some would have you believe. I said earlier that there is so much research done into trying to justify the Greens and Labor Party's view on climate change and, if you did not have that view—if you happened to be a scientist that had a different view—you would be pilloried. I mentioned many times Professor Bob Carter as being one that the Greens also pillory, but he is as well qualified as others who have a different view. I know, and I do not think I am giving away any confidences by saying, that he knows that he will never, under a Labor government, get any money for any research that is different to what the Labor government wants the results to be.

I mentioned an answer to a question on notice way back in 2009. I will have to get it updated. Over pages and pages it lists hundreds and hundreds of grants—grants of $250,000, $563,000, $255,000. There are pages and pages of them. All the grant money, all the research money, was going to those who would promote the Labor and Greens view on climate change. If you did not have that view, you got no research money. That is the way this whole debate has occurred in Australia.

I want those in the Labor Party to answer this one question: if the carbon tax is such a good thing, why is it that your leader, prior to the 2010 election, promised that there would never be a carbon tax under a government she led?

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because an ETS is better, Senator Macdonald.

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

I see. She promised it would not be there and then she introduced it. Tell me: why did she make that promise and then introduce it? It is a simple question. I am just waiting for the answer. Nobody has ever been able to tell me why, if it is such a good thing, the Labor leader promised not to introduce it. It just shows the hypocrisy, the absolute humbug, of the Labor Party and the Greens political party.

I thought the Labor Party would have learnt their lesson. I cannot talk about other states, but I can talk about Queensland. The Labor Party should have a look at the results of the last election in the seats that used to be traditionally Labor. Capricornia, which is based in Central Queensland and in the Bowen Basin coalfield, is as Labor a seat as you will get. I think we have held it a couple of times in the recorded political history of Australia. Who won it last time? Michelle Landry for the Liberal-National Party. Why? Because she opposed the carbon tax. Why? Because she knew that all of those workers the CFMEU is supposed to be representing understood that they would be losing their jobs. In fact, thousands of people in the Bowen Basin mining industry lost their jobs because of Labor and Green policies. And the Labor Party wonder why they did so poorly in the last election! Australians spoke. Nobody could deny the assertion by Tony Abbott before the last election that the last election would be a referendum on the carbon tax. Everybody knew that. What was the result? I do not need to tell the reduced Labor numbers in the Senate what the result was.

The duplicity and dishonesty of the Labor Party over the carbon tax is symptomatic of their approach to this whole question. The Labor scheme had carbon emissions going up by 2020. Those are their figures, not mine. They were all out there and published by the then department. They showed that Labor's carbon tax would actually increase the emission of carbon. They also showed that the cost of living went up for all Australians. They also showed—and this is beyond doubt—that electricity costs went up and would continue to go up. The only thing that went down was the number of Australian jobs. You have seen a rush of manufacturing jobs from our country to overseas countries. We have all given examples of this before. Just recently the Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia was in Weipa—and I am pleased that Senator Waters was there. We heard firsthand how the aluminium industry in Australia is faltering because the bauxite now goes as a raw material straight across to China where they smelt it and make aluminium in far less conducive situations than we do in Australia. There are more carbon emissions when they do it in China than when we do it in Gladstone. This is the Labor Party's view on carbon reduction.

I think we have to keep in mind that Labor's promise with its carbon tax was to reduce Australia's emissions by five per cent. Do I need to remind senators that Australia's emissions of carbon in the world are less than 1.4 per cent? What Labor was going to do with this huge job-destroying carbon tax was reduce Australia's 1.4 per cent of world emissions by five per cent and that was going to save the world. All the biodiversity that Senator Milne talked about, all the forests and all the coral that are disappearing were going to stop if Australia reduced its 1.4 per cent of world carbon emissions by five per cent. How ludicrous! How absolutely ridiculous! How desperately defying logic is the argument of the Greens political party?

I have made my comments about the five per cent, but if that is what is good policy in Australia then I refer to the coalition's policy, which also had a five per cent reduction in carbon emissions but by direct action, things that encouraged people to reduce whatever it was that was causing pollution and particulates. Direct action would work. It is funding things like the wonderful algae project at James Cook University that will help in cleaning emissions from coalmines. They are the sorts of things that the Abbott government's Direct Action Plan would do.

The Labor Party particularly are quoting all of these economists. Have a look at what all the economists in business say about the carbon tax. The Labor Party have got 50 'economists' to sign a bit of paper. What about the thousands of economists in Australia who deal with real life and who demand that the carbon tax go? The Labor Party are quoting President Obama—and I am not quite sure they are quoting him correctly—but I am afraid they did not quote Al Gore, the white knight of the climate change industry. I wonder what the Greens, who used to worship Al Gore, might have thought when Mr Gore turned up with Mr Palmer as he announced he would be voting to remove the carbon tax. I have not heard too much about that at all. I am waiting for someone to give those glowing endorsements of Mr Gore they used to give. To my mind, Mr Gore's actions in relation to the whole climate change debate are circumspect at best, and other people have mentioned that far more relevantly.

They do not talk too much about global warming now because the UK Met Office has said, 'Sorry, it's not warming.' We hear that all of these events are happening more regularly. Remember Cyclone Yasi, up my way? That was the biggest cyclone that ever hit Queensland—since 1917, when there was a bigger one. We do not worry about that. We just think the original Australians must have been responsible for the carbon emissions, when they burnt off large tracts of land before 1917, that caused that much bigger cyclone. But we just forget that; we put it aside; we only talk about Cyclone Yasi. We talk about those huge, destructive, life-taking floods in South-East Queensland a few years ago. They were the biggest floods ever to hit Queensland—that is, the biggest since the early 1950s. We have all of these outrageous claims by those who would have us believe that the science is settled.

I repeat: I am not a scientist. I retain an open mind. I know the climate is changing because, as I mentioned earlier, the world was covered in ice once. It is no longer, so clearly the climate has changed. There used to be a rainforest in the centre of Australia; it is not there anymore. Clearly, the climate has changed. I think every Australian accepts that the climate has changed. But is it man's emissions of carbon that have done that? I do not know. There are respectable scientists who say no, as there are respectable scientists who say yes.

That is why I think Australia has been very foolish in leading the world. Senator Milne would have us believe that China is suddenly going to impose a carbon tax, or that America is going to impose a carbon tax, or that Germany is going to do something serious; but we have all seen the carbon prices and the carbon market, which is fraudulent and subject to manipulation. And this is what the Greens and the Labor Party want us to adopt.

We do have a responsibility to look after our environment. Our Direct Action Plan will help in that regard, and I certainly hope that other parties in the Senate will support it. But we do not need a job-destroying tax to do that. I say that and I know many senators say that, but, more importantly—forget about me and forget about what people will say in this debate about getting rid of the carbon tax—we are a democracy and there could not be a clearer message from the people of Australia to the legislators in this building about what they think of a carbon tax. They want to get rid of it. They understand it destroys jobs. They understand it puts up their cost of living. That is why we must move as quickly as possible to get rid of that soul-destroying tax and all of the paraphernalia that grew up around it, which is the subject of the other bills in the package of bills before the Senate. I certainly urge the Senate to support the bills introduced in this chamber, which reflect the decision made in the lower house to rid Australia of this job-destroying carbon tax.