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

I am pleased, in continuation, to oppose the environmental and economic vandalism by the Abbott government of the climate change infrastructure that has been put in place in this country. We heard some debate last night from Senator Macdonald—and I will come to Senator Macdonald's speech, which I thought was actually fascinating and quite hilarious.

We hear about the mandate that the coalition have on climate change. I do not believe that you have a mandate when you lie to the Australian public. I do not think you have a mandate when you come here and, year after year, week after week, day after day, talk absolute nonsense and lies about the effects of climate change on this country and the environmental implications and economic implications of climate change. You just cannot claim a mandate when you have lied to the Australian public. Not only have the coalition lied to the Australian public on climate change; they have lied on pensions, they have lied to students, they have lied to schools and they have lied to people on social services in this country. They are a government who came to power based on lies and misrepresentation. I just do not believe the Australian public will not exact a huge price from the coalition at the next election because of their deceitful approach to a range of issues that are so important for the Australian public in this country.

Sure, among the most important issues is having a good economy, but I was the chair of the environment committee for some years and we debated the issue. We had hearing after hearing on the effects of climate change in this country, and the environmental effects are clear—the environmental effects are clear but, in my view, the economic effects, which were contested, are also clear. You can look after the environment and the Australian government can play its part in ensuring that we are at the forefront of decarbonising the economy, creating new jobs in manufacturing, creating new jobs in industry and cleaning industry up. We can do all that at very little cost to the economy. Jobs will still grow, wages will still increase and we will have industries that are better and cleaner. We will have a situation where my grandkids, when they grow up, can be confident that we have played our part in trying to achieve a world consensus to do something about carbon pollution.

The physics of carbon pollution is quite clear—that is, if you keep pumping carbon into the atmosphere, physics tells you that the atmosphere will warm. What is happening at the moment is that a lot of that global warming is taking place in our oceans. That is why the CO2 has gone into the ocean—so the scientists tell me. I am not a scientist, but that is what the scientists tell me. Yes, Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi, you can nod your head. I know that you are a climate change denier. You are proud of that, but I do not think that does this parliament much good. I do not think it does Australia any good and it certainly does not help the kids who are going to be growing up in decades to come. It does not help them.

I take the view that I want my grandkids to have the same opportunities I had—to get out and have a decent life in a decent environment. What is wrong with that? Even if you do not believe it, Mr Acting Deputy President, as you do not, you still have to give the benefit of the doubt to future generations. You still have to give the benefit of the doubt to the environment. That is what the scientists are telling us. They do not believe there is much doubt in this. All the scientists are saying that you have to deal with this issue—or not all of them; there are some scientists who are in it for their own benefit arguing something different. The overwhelming view from scientists around the world who specialise in this area is that the earth is warming, it is man-made warming and it is a problem for the ecology and for economies.

You see, it is not just an environmental issue. I would have thought the party who claim that they are great economic managers would see this—though I do not believe for one minute that the coalition are great economic managers. How can you be a great economic manager when you had John Howard and Peter Costello spending every bit of money that came into the coffers on handing back tax breaks? Peter Costello was the worst Treasurer this country has ever had. He was the weakest Treasurer. He could not stand up to the Prime Minister on economic issues; he gave in to the Prime Minister. He did not build; he did not invest; he did not do anything we needed to do for this economy. Peter Costello was an absolute disgrace. I know you guys all think he was so great but, quite frankly, he was an absolute disaster. John Howard, in combination with Peter Costello, was a disaster for this country. They did not think of the future. They did not build for the future, and that is the problem.

Did anyone watch Q&A last night? If you watched Q&A you would have heard the economists debating what the issues are. What the economists were saying last night was that one of the big problems was the Howard government were economic vandals in terms of how they dealt with the economy. So, when you hear the coalition stand up here telling us how great they were for the economy, understand that is a nonsense. It is another Liberal lie. It is something they tried to build up to justify cutting away at decent rights in this country—to justify cutting away at getting a decent welfare system and a decent health system in this country. They are pulling $80 billion out of the health and education systems of this country. They are abandoning the Gonski approach that says, if a school needs more money, it should get decent finance. If you have kids at a disadvantage in school, they should be supported to get the same opportunities as all the schoolkids whose parents can afford to send them to a private school. Why shouldn't working-class kids get a fair go? The coalition have never explained that, and they will not give working-class kids a fair go in this country.

When you add up the budget this coalition has brought in, their vandal's approach to the economy and their vandal's approach to the environment, we have big issues. As I said before, they came to power based on lies. They lied to the Australian community, and the Australian community is aware of this. The Australian community is telling every politician in this place that their lies will not go unaccounted for. Labor learnt a lesson before the last election, when there was misunderstanding about what we were doing. But I tell you what there was with this mob: there were clear lies before they went to the election. There was a lie after lie after lie. But the public are onto you lot. They know that you lied. You lied about health, you lied about education and you lied about the university system; it was lie after lie.

Sticking a little yellow high-vis vest on and saying you are the friend of the worker is not much good when you then say to GM and Toyota: 'We do not want you anymore. You can go to Thailand; we'll do a free trade agreement with Thailand and all the jobs can go there.' Then they say: 'Oh, but it is the carbon price that is doing this. The carbon price is chasing jobs overseas.' The Treasurer stood up in the lower house and basically defied Toyota and GM to leave the country, and they did. They are leaving the country and that is the sort of economic nonsense we get from this mob over there.

Why would they be doing this? Why would they be supporting the dismantling of what is a good economic policy—that is, that the market determines the price of carbon? Why would they do that? Why would they be putting the economy and the environment in jeopardy? There is one clear reason for it: they are paid millions of dollars by the mining companies. The mining companies are some of their main financial supporters, so they do the bidding of the mining billionaires. They do the bidding of the Gina Rineharts. They do the bidding of the Twiggy Forrests. They do the bidding of Rio Tinto. They do the bidding of BHP. That bidding is: 'You will not charge us for our environmental pollution.' That is what they say, and the coalition says: 'Yes, we will support your position.' They say to the mining companies: 'How high should we jump?' The mining companies tell them how high they should jump, and they jump that high. That is what is going on over here and it is not good for the environment or the economy. You should be taxing things that are bad for the environment. You should be taxing things that are bad for the economy, and that is why you tax pollution. That is why you put a price on pollution.

All over the world, prices are being put on pollution, but what we have in this country are these troglodytes in the coalition, these Luddites who do not accept what is happening around the world, who say to the mining industry: 'We will protect you from paying a cent on pollution. We will protect you from paying any money in tax.' They are completely in the thrall of the mining companies. They are run—lock, stock and barrel—by big business, this mob, and that is why they are doing what they are doing.

They do not care about the national interest. They do not care about pensioners. They do not care about the education system. They do not care about the health system. They lied their way to power and they have been caught out, because the Australian public is onto them. The Australian public's view on climate change is changing. They now understand that the price on carbon has not destroyed the economy. It will not destroy the economy or chase jobs overseas; it can be done at a reasonable price and it can actually create jobs. That is why what the coalition is doing is absolute vandalism of our economy and our ecology in this country.

They are lying to the public. They lie constantly about issues that are before the public debate in this country. They will pay a price, and we should oppose what they are doing in this Senate.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Palmer United Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, this is not my official first speech, which will be delivered at a time in the future when my family is present. However, in rising to speak I would firstly like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the traditional Indigenous owners of Australia and Tasmania both past and present. I would also like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the serving and former members of our military and their families for protecting us and sacrificing all to keep democracy and freedom alive in Australia. In recent times they have protected us from violent, murderous extremists and kept Australia sharia law free.

Before I speak directly to the carbon tax repeal legislation before the chamber, I seek your indulgence, Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi, to note the sad passing of a great Tasmanian, His Excellency the Hon. Peter Underwood AC, the Governor of Tasmania. Apart from serving as Tasmania's 27th governor, I note His Excellency also served his nation and state magnificently as a judge of the Supreme Court in Tasmania and also as Chief Justice. His Excellency was involved in many community organisations and had a passion for the arts. On behalf of all Tasmanians, I send my sincere condolences to Mr Underwood's wife, Frances, and their family.

Mr Acting Deputy President, I thank you for your indulgence, and I now turn to the debate at hand and the package of government bills before the Australian federal parliament designed to remove the national carbon policy mechanism for Australia. The repeal of the Labor-Green carbon tax is vital for the future prosperity and economic survival of our nation and of my beautiful state of Tasmania. Palmer United members have met and resolved to support the repeal of the legislation that has imposed the job-killing Labor-Green carbon tax. In addition, an amendment that guarantees a power price decrease has been circulated by Queensland Palmer United senator, Glenn Lazarus. The simple legislative change, negotiated by Palmer United members and the government, will ensure that the carbon tax repeal savings will flow through to all ordinary Australians and not stay with the power companies.

Palmer United members will hold the Abbott government to account on behalf of our pensioners, families, workers and businesses and give them a legislative guarantee of lower electricity and power prices. Because of the Palmer United Party members in this place—as well as our good friend Victorian senator Ricky Muir and our friends in the motorists party—Australians will not have to rely on just a nod and a wink from our Prime Minister to receive up to an extra $500 a year. Because we have listened to ordinary Australians and finally given them a real voice in this parliament, they will have a guarantee in black and white that they will receive the money that is rightfully theirs.

Australians have been deceived by the Labor-Greens members of this place, who allowed their unfair carbon tax to be imposed on our nation while the rest of the world remained carbon tax free. Tasmanian pensioners, families, workers and businesses were told the fib that if they paid more for their energy and power then they could stop world climate change. This proposition is obviously wrong, ridiculous and absolutely absurd. Pensioners in my Burnie, who are freezing this winter because they cannot afford to turn on their heaters, are the victims of those in this chamber who support a carbon tax. Tasmanian workers who lost their jobs in manufacturing industries that could not afford record energy prices are the victims of those in this chamber who support a carbon tax. The Labor-Greens carbon tax has failed to deliver any global environmental benefits; however, it has caused the loss of tens of thousands of Australian jobs and in Tasmania we have record unemployment—unemployment that the Labor-Greens carbon tax has contributed to in a significant manner.

Every industrialised, advanced nation in the world knows that the only way that jobs will be guarded, sustainable new jobs created and standards of living protected is to ensure that world competitive, cheap, reliable energy is delivered to their businesses and their families. So at a time when our businesses are forced to pay up to three times more for their energy than their overseas competitors in America, the UK, Canada and Europe, I am proud—I am really proud—to be part of a political party which will take a small step in the right direction and vote for legislation that will lower the cost of energy for Tasmanian and Australian businesses and bring our nation more into line with our international competitors.

As part of the carbon tax repeal debate, the Palmer United Party will also, through Western Australian senator Dio Wang, move amendments to the Climate Change Authority (Abolition) Bill, which will establish the legislative framework for a future emissions trading scheme. This is an historic, practical and world-first climate change solution created by the Palmer United Party and its parliamentary leader, Clive Palmer, and endorsed by the former US Vice-President, Nobel Peace Prize winner and climate change warrior, Al Gore. Provisions of this ETS will only be made legal and come into effect once Australia's main trading partners like the US, China, South Korea and Japan establish similar legislative mechanisms and emissions trading schemes. This ensures that Australian jobs and businesses will not be placed in jeopardy, and that our energy prices have a chance of becoming world competitive, while the industrialised nations of our world collectively address the challenge of climate change.

The Palmer United's ETS amendment also provides the Australian business community with a practical economic plan to address world climate change. I urge all members of this place to vote in favour of the Palmer United ETS amendment. This will send a powerful signal, a message of unity, to the rest of the world and boost Australian business confidence at a time when confidence has taken a hit due to a poorly constructed and poorly sold Liberal-National Party Australian budget.

The Clean Energy (Income Tax Rates and Other Amendments) Bill 2013 [No. 2] is part of the package of bills before the Australian federal parliament designed to remove the national carbon pricing mechanism for Australia. The Palmer United Party will oppose this bill because this bill will stop the rise in the tax-free threshold for low-income Australian workers from $18,200 to $19,400. If the Prime Minister and the Liberal and National parties have their way and this particular bill passes this Senate chamber, effectively it will mean that a household with two workers will have $460 per year stolen from them by the government.

Palmer United Party members will not support government measures which take away from the poor while the government protects their wealthy, rich mates. We will not do that. $465 a year or $8.90 a week may not be a lot of money for Liberal and National Party politicians and their supporters, but for the people of my Tasmania—the sick, the elderly, the disabled—who are forced to rely on low incomes, $8.90 is the difference between eating properly, keeping your phone or electricity on or being able to afford pain medication or antibiotics to become well. Shame on any member of this place who votes to support this bill and cruel budget measure.

Strong legislative support for the repeal of the Labor-Greens carbon tax by Palmer United Party members also honours a commitment and a promise we made to the people of Australia. In voting with my fellow PUP senators to repeal the Labor-Greens carbon tax I will have kept my word. I will have honoured my promise to the people of my Tasmania. I will be able to look my father, my mother and my sons in the eyes and know that I have not let them down. I know that, by repealing the Labor-Greens carbon tax, my vote will ensure the full savings power companies receive under repeal are handed to everyday Australians—every last cent.

Noting our opposition to the Clean Energy (Income Tax Rates and Other Amendments) Bill 2013 [No. 2], I commend the remaining carbon tax repeal bills to the Senate along with the Palmer United Party's amendments. I know that this course of action will provide hope for my beautiful Tasmanian community, which is facing an extraordinary economic and social crisis after many decades of mismanagement and neglect by the Labor, Greens and Liberal parties.

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

I congratulate Senator Lambie on her initial comments, realising they were not her first speech. Acting Deputy President Bernardi, as you would know, I had a business in Tasmania from the mid-1990s through until the early part of the last decade. In fact, it coincided with the then Rundle Liberal coalition government losing power. In my first years in Tasmania I watched with dismay as the Labor government, lead then by Mr Bacon, gradually dismantled what was in fact a very proud and a relatively wealthy island state. I have seen the extent today of unemployment, the extent of underemployment, the extent of movement of people away from Tasmania and, as I hope Senator Dio Wang is able to realise, the extent to which now other states of Australia, particularly our state of Western Australia, have had to support Tasmania, so I applaud any effort at all that actually will see a return to economic wellbeing of that state. I congratulate the new senators. I congratulate Senator Lazarus on his contribution earlier this afternoon and I congratulate Senator Lambie on the position that she has taken with regard to supporting the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No. 2], and it is on that that I wish to speak this afternoon.

It is always delightful to follow Senator Cameron, because Senator Cameron has a way of twisting the truth. In fact, I do not think Senator Cameron and certainly my side are on the same page. You hear Senator Cameron talking about lies again and again and again. You have cause to reflect and to wonder: who was it who said in 2010, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead'? Was it not, in fact, Ms Gillard? Indeed, it was Ms Gillard. I will make the observation now and I will make it again in contributions as I have the opportunity over time, and I make this distinction: when Ms Gillard told us that lie, as indeed it was, and then she reversed it, it was for her own personal interest and it was for the interest of the then Labor and Greens government. Any action that has been taken by Prime Minister Abbott and his cabinet and our side of politics since we came into government in September last year has been directed at the wellbeing of the people of Australia.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!

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

And, indeed, as Senator Collins herself knows, there is some electoral pain for us at the moment. I sat and listened to Senator Cameron talking about Peter Costello's contribution as the Treasurer of this country. He paid back $96 billion of Paul Keating's debt, he then was able to free up $5 billion to $6 billion a year in interest no longer being paid out and the Rudd followed by Gillard governments then had access to some $20 billion in the bank. The Howard government had no net debt—a government that had a surplus rather than a deficit—so even for Senator Cameron it is very, very difficult to stretch that truth that far.

Whilst I refer to Senator Cameron, if I may, I seek to table as part of my contribution the record of a meeting that I had with the Hon. Tomas Christensen of the Climate Change Support Team of the United Nations last year. I seek leave to table that document.

Leave granted.

I thank my colleagues around the chamber for allowing me to do that. The catalyst for doing that was a contribution that Senator Cameron made yesterday about the impact of bushfires in the Blue Mountains. The document I just tabled is a statement made by a senior UN officer at the time—Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change—in which she referred to the New South Wales fires at the time being due to climate change. I had the pleasure for some years of being the chief executive officer of the bushfires board of Western Australia. My reason for tabling this document is to inform Senator Cameron and advise the chamber, as indeed I did the United Nations when I was there last year, that the bushfires in New South Wales, far from being due to climate change, were due to an absolute abrogation of the responsibility of fire managers, land managers and others, and that was to undertake fuel reduction activities in the Blue Mountains.

I have made many speeches in this place predicting the day when the Blue Mountains would go up. Why? Because, where they should have been attending to five to 10 per cent reduction in fuel levels in those Mediterranean forests, they were down to less than one per cent. Far from Senator Cameron's assertion that those bushfires were due to climate change: if they were due to climate change, they would also have been due to climate change from the 1820s and 1830s, when fires were first recorded in those areas—long before this apparent involvement of human beings in the Industrial Age. They were due to manageable deficiencies that should have been addressed at that time.

It allows me to make the point in this contribution that we have already endured incredible cost under the carbon tax, which of course only went up again on the first day of this month. There has been and there will be no decrease in carbon dioxide emissions levels as a result of that action. As a result of the $500-plus a year that it has cost residences, there has been and will be no loss of carbon dioxide emissions. We know what has happened. We know that Australian manufacturing, often carbon-intensive, has moved offshore to countries where there are far fewer restrictions than we have in Australia, so it is probable that, despite any other action than that of introducing a carbon tax in Australia, the carbon dioxide emissions levels around the globe have actually increased.

And it is a very significant shame that Senator Cameron this afternoon would have made the observation in his belief that the people of Australia are fools. I say to Senator Cameron that they are not fools. I will quote what I believe to have been his words in his contribution this afternoon: 'Australian people misunderstood what we are doing leading up to the last election.' If he goes and has a look at the poll results, he will certainly be assured that the Australian people completely understood the position of the coalition as opposed to that of the Labor Party and the Greens. In my own state of Western Australia there was an increase in our primary and two-party-preferred vote. It is a state in which we now hold 12 of the 15 lower house seats and six of the 12 Senate positions. I think the people of my state understood very well what impact the carbon tax has had. When I have the opportunity to comment on the repeal of the mining tax I will be able to share with the chamber the impact of those two dastardly taxes on the community of Kalgoorlie, where I was the other day and where employment levels have dropped. Unemployment has increased significantly, and people have left the area. I could comment—and I will—in more detail on the town of Karratha, in the Pilbara, where there are now 400 vacant homes. I understand one real estate agent alone in Port Hedland further north in the Pilbara has 400 homes on the market apart from those that are vacant.

So we know what the impact of the carbon tax has been. We know the impact of carbon leakage, where emissions-intensive businesses move overseas. We know what has already happened and we know what will happen again in the future. We hear mention of emissions trading schemes. Having studied this closely, I say don't for any one moment hold your breath if you think that countries around the world are likely to introduce an emissions trading scheme any time soon. The Chinese may be paying lip service to it but have absolutely no intention of introducing an ETS. In the United States, we know, the Chicago market for carbon collapsed for two reasons. First, there was no interest in it. Second, there were already the early signs of corruption, so it was completely wiped off the Chicago markets. We know what has happened to the price of carbon in Europe: as European economies have declined, so the price of carbon has declined to ridiculous levels. For us now to be paying $25.40 per tonne makes a total mockery of any action Australia ought or should take in the absence of a global solution. Others from the other side have mentioned then Prime Minister Howard's comments with regard to an emissions trading scheme, but he always prefaced this with the comments, of course, that we would not move alone; we would move in concert with our trading partners and, indeed, with our trading competitors.

We look at some of the comments that were made in the chamber yesterday by Senator Cameron and Senator Milne with absolute despair at what will, should, could or may be happening dynamically. As a person with some experience in the biological sciences and as a person with some degree of optimism, what I can tell you is that organisms on this planet have always, still are and will always adapt. For example, there has been great dialogue and discussion about the polar bear populations in the Arctic. I recently made it my business to go examine what is happening. I came upon a paper presented only about a month ago—on 11 June in the United Kingdom—by Professor Susan Crockford, herself 35 years an expert in the biology and zoology of polar bears and their evolution. Her conclusion is that there has been no adverse effect as a result of changes in the Arctic Circle.

So I went to the other end of the planet to learn from a paper of May 2014 that the Antarctic sea ice is at its highest levels since measurements were first taken: some 12.965 million square kilometres, which has gone up from 12.7 million since 2010. Those are facts. You can dispute them but they are the facts.

Senator Di Natale interjecting—

The moral superiority of this gentleman, Senator Di Natale, is interesting. If you happen to agree with him on something, that is fine. If you happen to disagree with him, he attacks you personally. Senator Di Natale, yes I do have a scientific background.

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

Address your comments to the chair, Senator Back.

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

Through you Acting Deputy President: yes, I am capable of disagreeing with you, Senator Di Natale, and that I will. It is amazing how, if the science supports one side of an argument, they are put on a pedestal. As we all know—those of us with a scientific background, and medicine is a prime example of the fact—over history, we have always had vigorous disagreements. We know the first people who looked at the presence of micro-organisms—as Senator Di Natale would know—were roundly criticised by the members of the medical profession when they stood up and said, 'Where are these organisms?' Of course, they were only evident through microscopy. This is the difficulty that we have in a circumstance like this where the opinions of others must always be derided, and I will simply not accept that I can have a different view which you, Senator Di Natale, do not agree with.

The climate is of course changing—the climate has always changed. Where are the challenges for the world? They are in the future provision of energy. Ask yourself the question: 'How is it that a country in the landmass of the United States, with a population of only 23 million people, is as wealthy as we are?' I have put this question to young people and they have said, 'Its iron ore—iron ore is relatively recent.' One even told me it was wool. Well, it is a long time since Australia rode on the sheep's back. The answer has always been cheap energy. What have we lost as a result of this legislation coming in from the Labor and the Greens parties? What we have lost his cheap energy.

Let me go now to the other end of the spectrum, if I can. The United States has created a new record with their employment levels going up consecutively each month for the last five months. Would you like to answer the question why, Acting Deputy President? It has been because of their capacity to extract shale gas. Shale gas has now become so available and so cheap that—and I learnt this when I was in New York last year—American manufacturers are bringing manufacturing back into the United States from Asia, Europe and elsewhere, and the cost of energy to an American manufacturer is now less than 50 per cent compared to that of a competing German manufacturer. That is where the benefit has been. As a result of this, what are we seeing? We are seeing jobs throughout the American economy and we are seeing jobs in areas that have traditionally been areas of high unemployment—because, once again, they have access to cheap energy.

We also are blessed with cheap energy. I would hope the day comes when we would see support for, for example, further exploration of the use of thorium if, indeed, it is an energy source that we can use globally. The Chinese are working actively in this field. They are working actively in the coal to liquids transition with liquid fuels. They are doing far more than other countries, and I can assure you that, regardless of any lip-service from them about an emissions trading scheme, it is a very long way off on their agenda.

We now have the circumstance where we have new participants in the Senate. The Labor Party, the coalition and the Greens have argued this backwards and forwards for five years. We now have duly elected new senators—one would hope that the Australian people knew what they were doing—and their voices should be heard and their opinions need to be taken into account.

In the few minutes left to me, I want to again address some of these questions that were thrown at us in this litany of lies as proposed by Senator Cameron. He goes on about the Australian economy. He goes on about the fact that Costello and Howard left this nation in such a poor state. He goes on about a AAA rating. The one statistic that people must remember is that, because of the deficit and debt that we inherited, every Australian today is contributing $1 billion of borrowed money every month just to be repay the interest. That works out to be $100 per working person per month.

Let me put that $1 billion into perspective. Senator Cameron goes on about education. A new primary school opened near my electorate office only last week. That which cost $15 million. Given the fact that we are paying $30 million a day interest on a debt, we are forgoing a new primary school somewhere in this country every 12 hours. What would that be doing for primary education? Senator Cameron goes on about the lies associated with higher education. I say to him that what this coalition has proposed in terms of opening up opportunities for young apprentices to take financial advantage interest-free to get their apprenticeships and not pay any money back until $50,000 of income is earned is, I think, excellent. As an academic of a regional university in the past, I am familiar with the HELP scheme. The HELP scheme has been extended to pre-university bachelor degrees so that people who may not have been confident enough or had sufficient grades to get into university initially can enjoy the same financial support. Both lower socioeconomic people and higher socioeconomic people can get that financial support. Again, there is a scholarship scheme. Many of us funded our own tertiary education training. There are tremendous initiatives being undertaken by this government. It is now time for the Labor Party and the Greens to accept the will of the Australian people of September last year and get out of the way, allow us to repeal the carbon tax and put that $550 per annum back in people's pockets where they can spend it more useably.

Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in the debate on the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 and related bills. Labor will not be supporting this legislation. Yesterday morning, a large number of young activists participated in an event on Parliament lawns. Members of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition braved the Canberra cold to say, 'Your Choice = Our Future'. It is your choice, Senators, to stand up for the future these young Australians so desperately want: a future where their country, where our country, is a global leader in clean energy; a future where Australia has a strong, robust emissions reduction mechanism, a legislated emissions reduction target, and where Australia is seeking to advance a pathway to a global agreement. It is up to us—76 Australians from some of the most diverse backgrounds—to put our differences aside and find a way forward on this issue.

No one party was given a mandate at the Senate election last September. It has been four months since the government's first failed attempt to repeal the carbon emissions reduction mechanism and replace it with nothing. It has been seven months since the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee reported on this suite of bills. The committee's first inquiry into these bills was quicker than Labor senators would have liked, but the committee undertook the full process of calling for submissions and allowing for public hearings. As was canvassed earlier today, the government did not allow the full process to be undertaken.

Despite the Senate listing the reporting date for the second inquiry as next Monday, 14 July, in quite a desperate act government senators on the committee used their majority to refuse requests from opposition senators to call for submissions and hold public hearings. This is despite there being ample time last week and, with the leave of the Senate, this week to hear from witnesses who could provide the committee with an update on the effectiveness of the carbon price, and to hear from witnesses about similar mechanisms around the world.

The government's report on this inquiry is barely a page long. It is so short that I am going to read most of it into Hansardso that those at home listening can hear how farcical this government is in the first week of this new Senate. The report states:

On 26 June 2014, the Senate, on the recommendation of the Selection of Bills Committee, referred the provisions of the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No. 2] and associated bills to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 14 July.

It says 'for inquiry and report', yet no inquiry was undertaken. Why? Because the government senators could not be bothered. They did not want to hear new evidence. They did not want to examine how the carbon price is working to cut emissions. And, today is just 8 July; not 14 July. The report does not detail why these bills need to be brought on today. The report goes on:

The committee notes that these bills contain identical provisions to those referred to the committee by the Senate on 14 November 2013.

Following a full inquiry, the committee tabled its report on this inquiry on 2 December 2013.

Therefore, the committee has resolved to reiterate the previous report of the committee on bills with identical provisions.

The committee reports accordingly.

That is it—3½ paragraphs, and not a mention that opposition senators sought only a one-day hearing, not a mention that opposition senators wanted only one day of government senators' time to enable examination of the new information on the bills. No, the government just wanted to rush these bills through, to fulfil one of their three-word slogans and rid this place of any action on climate change.

While the coalition are desperate for the parliament to pass this bill and associated bills, they refuse to bring the Carbon Farming Initiative Amendment Bill 2014 into this place this week. In fact, looking at the schedule of work for the Senate, the bill is not due until late August! Those opposite would have this place repeal the carbon price mechanism and leave the country with nothing in its place potentially for months.

The coalition announced its direct action policy in 2010. There has been limited information provided about the policy since this announcement and very little support for the policy from within the science and economic communities. The direct action policy includes a number of elements, all asserting to contribute to Australia's emissions reduction target of five per cent on 2000 emissions levels by 2020. The elements of direct action include extending the carbon farming initiative, planting 20 million trees, establishing the Green Army and the so-called centrepiece, the Emissions Reduction Fund. The Emissions Reduction Fund is based on a reverse auction to purchase carbon pollution abatement. The 2014-15 budget allocated $1.14 billion across the forward estimates for the ERF. The government insists up to $2.5 billion is available for purchasing abatement; however, it has been unclear how this money is appropriated, as it is not allocated in the budget papers.

As Senator Cameron outlined yesterday, this suite of bills sets Australia up to fail on our climate change obligations, to fail our children and grandchildren and to fail millions of people facing displacement from the effects of climate change. These repeal bills seek to set Australia up to do less to combat climate change. These bills seek to leave the burden, leave the heavy lifting of decarbonising our economy, to future generations.

There is a strong foundation of scientific fact underpinning the need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the risk of global warming above two degrees—so certain in fact, that doubt has crept in. With 95 per cent certainty that greenhouse gas emissions from humans are the cause of global warming, some cast doubt and say, 'What about the five per cent?' If you were 95 per cent certain that something bad or something nasty was going to happen to you or your family, would you sit by and say, 'What about the five per cent?' or would you find out what was causing the problem and go about fixing it? It is not too late to fix the problem of climate change, but time is running out fast.

Labor's approach to reducing emissions is to repeal the carbon tax and keep in place the already legislated emissions trading scheme, which puts a legal cap on carbon pollution. This lets business work out the cheapest and most effective way to operate within that cap. Cap and trade is overwhelmingly endorsed by economists as the most cost-effective and efficient emissions reduction method.

A number of international organisations, including the OECD, have confirmed that higher levels of emissions reduction can be achieved at much lower cost through a carbon market mechanism. Carbon pricing is cheaper and more efficient than direct subsidies without a pricing signal. The first two years of the carbon price has seen emissions from electricity fall, with coal powered generation down and renewable energy generation up. Meanwhile, national unemployment and inflation remain under control and solar and wind energy use has soared. The carbon laws have worked with the renewable energy target and economic changes to achieve these results. As such, the carbon price has been effective in increasing the competitiveness of renewable energy generation. Meanwhile, Australia's economy has grown and additional government assistance to households has more than offset any price rises caused by the carbon price.

Total emissions from electricity consumption in the national electricity market are down by over five million tonnes in the 12 months to May 2014. This means emissions from electricity generation have fallen by over 17 million tonnes, or over 10 per cent, since carbon pricing was introduced. The latest Australian greenhouse gas inventory shows that national emissions continue to drop. Emissions from all sectors, including land use and forestry, fell by over four million tonnes in the year to December 2013. The government's own assessments estimate the carbon laws will decrease national pollution by 40 million tonnes compared with business as usual. Current policies are also driving an uptake of renewable energy, with electricity from renewables rising by almost 40 per cent since June 2012 in the national electricity market. Brown coal consumption has fallen by nine per cent and black coal by almost 10 per cent.

Despite all of the ridiculous rhetoric from Prime Minister Abbott and the coalition government, the Australian economy remains strong. Annual growth is over three per cent and unemployment remains below six per cent. At present, jobs in the renewable energy sector continue to grow—jobs that are at risk if these bills are passed. Price impacts from the carbon pricing mechanism have been as expected or less and have had minimal impact on the Consumer Price Index. Latest figures show a 2.9 per cent rise in the year to March 2014—a rate that is within the Reserve Bank of Australia's target range. There was no tremendous spike in prices as incorrectly predicted by those opposite. Nine out of 10 households are being compensated for these price impacts, with a majority of households receiving more than enough to cover the price rises. In fact, the coalition government's own budget highlighted the small inflationary impact of carbon pricing. The budget stated that CPI would reduce by less than a percentage point in the next financial year, with underlining CPI barely changing. Keeping binding caps on pollution in our laws will ensure Australia meets its international emissions reduction targets under the second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol and under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—targets with which 99 countries, covering 80 per cent of global emissions and including all of the major emitters, have pledged to reduce or limit emissions by 2020.

What of China? China has committed to reducing its carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 40 to 45 per cent by 2020. China is moving to establish a national carbon market by 2020. China is also ramping up efforts to clean up its energy supply and improve energy efficiency. Over the past year, China launched seven regional carbon markets, invested over $50 billion in renewable energy and set limits on coal use. The seventh regional carbon market, in the south-west city of Chongqing, opened just two weeks ago. Chongqing has a population of almost 30 million people and the scheme covers over 250 companies, with carbon dioxide emissions exceeding 20,000 tonnes each per year. Unlike the other pilots in China, Chongqing's program covers six other greenhouse gases apart from carbon dioxide, including methane, nitrous oxide and manmade fluorinated gases. While we debate this ridiculous notion to rid our nation of an emissions trading scheme—which, with no action from this place, will come into effect on 1 July next year, or with support for Labor's amendment could come into effect sooner—China has seven regional emissions trading schemes and is moving to a nationwide scheme by 2020.

What of the United States of America? What action is our friend from across the Pacific taking to control emissions? The US has committed to reduce national emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020. This equals 21 per cent below their 2000 levels by 2020. If Australia were to keep pace with the US commitment of 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020, this would equal a 12 per cent reduction off our 2000 levels. President Obama has just announced new rules to reduce carbon pollution from American coal and gas power plants. The new rules add to existing federal regulations, state based carbon markets and renewable energy target schemes which are in place in 29 American states. It is clear that both the United States of America and China have clear plans to control pollution, invest in clean energy and to help negotiations on a global framework agreement in 2015.

Meanwhile, our Prime Minister is seeking to create an alliance with the Canadians to stop the global agreement. These bills and this alliance have left many across the world wondering: is the new Australian government serious about reducing emissions? After all, it was just a few years ago that the new Prime Minister famously dismissed climate change science as 'absolute crap to a small crowd in rural Victoria. In fact, based on the coalition government's policies, Australia's rating on the Climate Change Performance Index has dropped to 57th out of 61 countries. Embarrassingly, at last year's Warsaw Climate Change Conference, Australia received four of five 'Fossil of the Day' awards. These awards recognised the coalition government's backward proposal to wind back the carbon price mechanism and abandon support for research and clean energy. The coalition government has sought to frame this debate about the utility bills paid by households and businesses. In seeking to repeal the carbon price, the main purpose seems to be the miraculous reduction in utility bills and overall costs on households and business. Never mind that the rise in electricity has overwhelmingly been the fault of infrastructure upgrades to our distribution networks. Never mind that there are different prices and usages in every state.

The Prime Minister was unambiguous in stating the reductions Australians can expect if these repeal bills pass. He said:

Thanks to this bill, household electricity bills will be $200 lower next financial year without the carbon tax. Household gas bills will be $70 lower next financial year without the carbon tax.

There is evidence to suggest the coalition government have overestimated the impact of removing the carbon price on household expenses. The committee heard that households in some states could expect a greater than quoted reduction, while in others where rates or usage are not so high the reduction will be less. While Mr Graeme Wood, energy director at the Grattan Institute, told the committee that the savings that will be generated from removing the carbon price will be less than the increases when the carbon price was first imposed, other prices have risen over time and the carbon price has been internalised by business.

Unpicking it in exact terms is nigh on impossible. All of this would be fine in normal debate. People would understand that the Prime Minister is debating prices in average terms and would expect some reduction. However, given this Prime Minister's penchant for absolute honesty in this debate, if the repeal bills do one day pass this place, I will be eager to learn of any research into changes in electricity and gas costs, and hold him to account if his absolute guarantees are not met. If he is off, it will be another broken promise from this new coalition government—a record of broken promises that is getting longer and longer by the day.

The delays, the poor legislation and the RET review are clear impediments to long-term investment in the Australian renewable energy sector. The Investor Group on Climate Change suggests that it is easier and more secure to invest in countries such as Ireland, the UK and USA because of policy certainty than it is to invest in Australia now. Investors like long-term certainty with the lowest possible risk and reasonable returns. And it is not just big institutional investors that are being hit by the investment uncertainty created by the coalition government's delays and poor policy. The 2,000 investors in the Hepburn Wind cooperative in Victoria have had their projected returns slashed. The families who invested in the cooperative made their investment decision around 2008-09 and, of course, at that time there was bipartisan support for a carbon price mechanism. Their earnings are expected to reduce from 4.1c per share in 2012-13 to 1.1c per share without a carbon price. So much for the 'open for business' mantra declared by the new Prime Minister. The coalition government in fact are 'eyes wide shut' in their approach to providing certainty to business.

A flexible price would bring the Australian carbon price into line with the carbon price prevailing under the European Union emission trading system, which is currently expected to be around $6 per tonne of emissions. Moving to flexible price emissions trading would ensure Australia meets its international emissions reduction commitments, while we also reduce compliance and transaction costs for businesses and increase flexibility and improve risk management. Importantly, embedding a carbon price in our economy sets Australia up on a long-term trajectory for emissions reductions. Slow decreases in the cap on pollution over a long period of time gives business and households certainty and limits risk of a carbon shock in future years—a carbon shock that will hit households and business far harder than a responsibly introduced carbon price. Direct action subsidies with a finite duration do no such thing—and the coalition government is fully aware of this.

The necessity to act on climate change only grows stronger each year. The immediate and long-term costs of allowing warming greater than two degrees is the core reason for acting now with a policy suite designed to scale up over time. Removing this policy suite for the sake of a reduction in utilities costs in one financial year, which may not actually eventuate, is reckless and irresponsible. Despite the shallow rhetoric of the coalition government that they believe in climate change and support action, it is clear from these repeal bills that nothing could be further from the truth. If these repeal bills pass, we, the parliament, will leave Australia with no credible emissions reductions policy. We will leave future parliaments of Australia with much harder decisions.

I thank those young Australians from the AYCC who braved the Canberra cold yesterday to say, 'Your choice, our future.' Their message to this chamber is that senators must stand up for a future that these young Australians so desperately want; a future where their country, our country, is a global leader in clean energy; a future where Australia has a strong, robust emissions reduction mechanism, a legislated emissions reduction target, and is advancing a pathway to a global agreement. I urge senators to vote no to these bills.

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

It gives me no pleasure to rise to speak on the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No.2] and related repeal bills tonight. In fact, what is being put once again to this chamber is a proposal to swing a wrecking ball through the Clean Energy Act and quite deliberately and systematically bankrupt the renewable energy industry. A short time ago there was a brief altercation in the chamber when Senator Back was speaking. I have a lot of time for Senator Back. I do not assume him to be a stupid person and I also do not assume that he wants his kids or grandkids to inherit the kind of world that we seem to be plunging towards. Nonetheless, we did see in brief debate and interjections in the chamber a really important microcosm of the way that the climate change debate has been conducted in this country.

Senator Back pointed out just one small example of the way that this argument gets conducted. He pointed out, quite correctly, that the sea ice around Antarctica is increasing and has been increasing for some time, as though that then gives us carte blanche to either disregard the work of the majority of the world's climate scientists or throw some confusion—and I suspect it is actually genuine confusion on the part of Senator Back—as to the fact that, if the planet is warming on average, how on earth could sea ice be expanding around Antarctica? For me, some very, very basic research shows exactly why this argument has become so confused and why the work of climate scientists is so easy to abuse for political ends or on the basis of genuine confusion. Yes, sea ice around Antarctica is expanding. One of the reasons for that is that the land ice, the perched ice, the huge volumes of ice perched above sea level, is sliding into the sea at an extraordinary rate and that is changing the salinity balance of the Southern Ocean, which is causing more winter sea ice. The fact is the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet is coming apart at the seams. As far as I am aware, it is not disputed in the climate sceptic or denier literature but is a straightforward fact that, since 1992, the Antarctic continent has lost 1,350 billion tonnes of ice. To put that into perspective, that is 1,350 cubic kilometres of ice that has slid into the sea—an average of about 70 cubic kilometres of ice a year.

What is happening in Antarctica is unambiguously a sign of a warming planet. The poles are obviously warming much more rapidly than the tropics. The Greenland ice mass is coming apart at the seams, and the fingerprints there are actually much stronger and more easy to read. There is in effect a runaway feedback loop occurring around the north poler ice cap, because the retreat of the sea ice and the break-up of Greenland is leading to, effectively, a reduced albedo effect along the North Pole, which is effectively now a mass of dark water soaking up incoming sunlight like a sponge.

What is happening in Antarctica appears, at first reading, to be more ambiguous—which is evidently what has confused Senator Back and many others. You have an expansion of winter sea ice which disappears as soon as the summer sun hits it. It is in part because Antarctica is coming apart at the seams. Right there in microcosm is, I think, a way that these arguments can be thrown into public debate for political effect to create an impression or a genuine sense of confusion on those who maybe should have just kept reading the next paragraph of whatever report was put in front of them. Seventy cubic kilometres of ice every single year amounts effectively to a sea level increase, just from that part of Antarctica, of about 0.19 millimetres per year. It does not sound like a lot and yet it is leading irrevocably to, at first, retreat or defence and eventually evacuation of most of the coastal settlements on this planet within the next 100 or 200 years.

The legislation that the bills we are debating tonight seek to repeal were written over a period of years—at the behest of Senator Milne; Senator Bob Brown; Adam Bandt; the country independents, Mr Windsor and Mr Oakeshott; Prime Minister Gillard and Minister Greg Combet—in a room with economists, experts in social and tax policy, experts in climate science and those with an interest in the business community. The bills that came through were not perfect but they were hammered together through a process of negotiation. They are what we see tonight, and the fact that we have to stand here and contemplate the unravelling of a functioning carbon price instrument—the only industrialised country in the world to do so—is almost beyond belief.

The permanent record will show, for as long as the Hansard records of this building stand, those who cast their votes, eventually unwinding this price instrument that transferred money directly from the heaviest carbon polluters in the country across to those who could least afford the increases in electricity prices, such as the pensioners and the people on low incomes who were compensated either directly or by way of changes to the tax scales. It is an instrument that transferred money into energy efficiency for business, transferred money into biodiversity protection and, perhaps most importantly, transferred money via entities like ARENA and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation into the industries that we desperately need to pick up the slack. That is what you are seriously proposing to unravel tonight, and I think you will stand condemned for that vote.

I kind of gag every time I hear Minister Hunt put the proposition that the carbon price is not working and that greenhouse gas emissions in Australia have basically remained flat during the period of time that the carbon price was in place. The fact is that it is trivially easy to explain exactly how deceptive Minister Hunt is being. The fact is that a large part of the Australian economy is not covered by the carbon price: partly agriculture, partly transport, partly other sectors, and emissions in those sectors are rising very steeply and have almost completely cancelled out the spectacular gains that have been made in the electricity sector, which is covered by the carbon price. Do you not understand that, or are you deliberately misrepresenting what is occurring? The electricity market is changing, the structure of it is changing, baseload coal-fired power stations—particularly the older ones—are being phased out and decommissioned or are on the drawing board for that, and new generators are stepping up.

As far as short-term peaking gas supplies—which we might come back to in a moment—wind energy is the cheapest and most abundant large-scale source of renewable energy. Then there is rooftop solar. There has been a massive and almost unprecedented expansion of rooftop solar PV. And now we are finally seeing the next generations of large-scale solar PV farms and, perhaps, most excitingly, new technological innovations like the Carnegie Wave Energy farm based out of North Fremantle, which has just signed its first power purchase agreement with the naval base in Cockburn Sound. There are large-scale plants like that proposed by SolarReserve, a company based in Santa Monica in California, which set up a small Perth office last year and were proposing to enter the Australian retail market. They have held very productive discussions with off-grid miners in Western Australia and elsewhere, and I suspect they are not going there to talk about parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere.

I do not imagine solar reserves negotiations have taken into account the 1,350 cubic kilometres of ice that have been lost from Antarctica in recent times. I suspect what they are talking to the off-grid miners about is whether they are interested in eliminating their fuel bills and completely changing their input costs. I repeat: eliminating their fuel bill. You can run off-grid mines on sunlight these days, colleagues. It changes everything. So, a big slow clap to the mining lobbyists who chased this company out of Australia—unbelievable! These are the mining lobbyists who are effectively attempting, through legislative initiatives such as the one we are debating tonight, to drive these investors out of Australia—the very people who are negotiating with some of their member corporations about eliminating their fuel bills and effectively taking their fuel costs off the budget and off the balance sheet. In exchange you get a solar asset, which is worth something. That is the scale of the stupidity in play around these bills. The penny has finally dropped, even in the mining community, that the solar industry can help eliminate one of the largest input costs.

So guess what is happening to solar reserve? No doubt many on this side of the chamber and on the crossbenches would be aware that Four Corners recently featured SolarReserve. They have just commissioned a plant in Nevada—a 110-megawatt baseload, or better than baseload, solar thermal plant in the high country of Nevada. That is being designed and built to cater for the peak energy electricity demand of Las Vegas. The peak demand of Las Vegas occurs at eight o'clock at night, and so they have done something slightly counterintuitive—they have built a 110 megawatt solar thermal plant.

That company recently established in Australia. Yes, they are talking to the off-grid miners about eliminating some of the most expensive distillate and gas prices anywhere in the world, because they are trucking fuel sources for large-scale mines and mills out to these remote sites, and they are also talking to Western Australian electricity market operators about on-grid plants. Here is what they have to say about the Australian government's renewable energy policy. Solar Reserve's chief executive Kevin Smith told Four Corners the company had been deterred by a drift in policy and the planned scrapping of the carbon tax. He said that that policy change 'pretty much took the life out of the renewable energy sector as far as large-scale projects for utility applications' were concerned. He said:

… other markets around the world are advancing. Australia is going to be left behind.

On the appointment of climate change denier Dick Warburton to chair Prime Minister Abbott's completely unnecessary attack on the renewable energy target, Mr Smith said:

… clearly … that appointment was made because they want to move back towards conventional fuels, coal and oil.

It is pretty clear that the policy in Australia is now being centred around big coal. The coal industry clearly have rallied to move policy away from renewable energies because they view renewable energy as a threat and want to move back to conventional coal, and that is why those opposite stand condemned tonight.

The coalition side of this chamber, acting on behalf of their financial backers and donors in the coal and gas industries, are unwinding the carbon price and bankrupting the renewable energy sector. I cannot put in language strong enough the contempt that I feel for those on that side of the chamber. The legacy they are leaving for their own families and for ours is that the coal and gas industries, in their attempt to maintain their incumbency in electricity markets that no longer need them, will take everything else and everyone else down with them—70 cubic kilometres of ice from Antarctica every year; try to keep that figure in mind.

An Australian businessman, Danny Kennedy, founded the rooftop solar company Sungevity in 2006. He could not make it work here and he ended up in California, not that far from Silicon Valley. Because of the availability of venture capital—obviously it is a larger electricity market and maybe there is also a more imaginative investment community; certainly in California at the time there was much more systematic policy support—they now employ 500 people and they have offices all over the world. Mr Kennedy says that Australia risks 'going the way of the dodo' and missing out on 'the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century'. Is there anyone out there listening?

If anybody out there seriously believes that we are doing this to reduce the energy bills of low-income Australians, then obviously they do not understand the compensation paid to people. In fact, people on low incomes are overcompensated. If anybody seriously believed that those opposite cared about people's cost of living, particularly those on low incomes, the budget destroyed that myth. The deliberate damage they have done, quite carelessly, to people's cost of living shatters that shallow line of argument that they ran so successfully last September in the federal election and so spectacularly unsuccessfully in the Western Australian by-election in April. Mr Kennedy says:

We get stuck in quarry Australia mentality from the 20th century while the rest of the world is phasing out coal and trying to move towards these new industries and creating whole new ways of doing business and jobs which Australians may never benefit from.

This is because they are being driven offshore—not accidentally, not through careless policies, not incidentally on the way to some greater or more noble cause; it is deliberately. The government is bankrupting them because they are threatening the business model of the coal and gas generators. It is nothing more or less complicated or sophisticated than that.

Why would the government do such a thing? It is hard to believe, given the scale of what is occurring, but you might be either confused or ignorant or in basic denial, which I guess is understandable from a certain point of view, about what is happening to our climate all around us. You might be able to sustain the argument that it is on a sheer commercial basis and not through the application of ideology at all—and I am not one who thinks that those on the other side of the chamber are ideologically motivated, although it does amuse me when I am told that the implementation of a carbon price, a floating market instrument, was some sort of Marxist conspiracy. That is pretty funny, but I do not think it is ideological at all. I think what is happening here is as a result of a hard-headed business case. It is a basic investment decision.

If we look at who pays the carbon price—about 370 of the largest polluters in Australia—18 of the largest 60 emitters, about 30 per cent, are donors to the coalition. They paid for the coalition's election campaigns, they bought their TV ads, they wrote their damn slogans. That has come to about 2½ million bucks since 1998—including $305,000 from Woodside, a pretty big business in my home state of WA. They also had the highest liability outside the electricity sector to the carbon price—just under $172 million. BHP donated $135,000 and Rio Tinto $20,000 since 1998—both companies with substantial carbon price liabilities. They made a sensible business decision with an extraordinary return on investment. You are a disgrace. There was $878,000 from Santos, a quarter of a million bucks from Adelaide Brighton and $10,000 from OneSteel. Should I go on? I have probably made the point abundantly clear. That is why I do not think ideology is in play at all here.

The government's financial backers and those who write their slogans and pay for their TV ads see a threat to their business model, see how radically their assets have been stranded by an electricity network that simply cannot afford them any more. They have seen a threat coming and have taken control of the political executive—not this parliament, thankfully, but the Abbott executive—and written the government's energy policy for them: scrap the toxic carbon tax; the one that was going to wipe Whyalla off the map and the one that was going to be such a catastrophe for the economy. They continued growing on trend, or slightly above, after the carbon price was introduced.

The government made it up and that is why the line started ringing very hollow and completely and spectacularly failed the Liberal and National parties. In the WA by-election, the first electoral opportunity to test the lies and the claims the government made in the run up to the September election last year, the coalition's vote collapsed by another five per cent and the Greens recorded the highest vote in the history of our party in WA. The coalition should be a little nervous. I am not surprised that none of you can make eye contact here tonight—by your votes you will stand condemned. I am glad that Hansard are in here tonight recording—

Senator Edwards interjecting—

who will place a vote and who will be sitting on what—

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

Order! Senator Ludlam is speaking.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've had to sit and listen to him for 20 minutes.

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

I am going to use my entire 20 minutes just for your benefit, Senator Edwards—every second. A quick word about the Palmer United Party, who we welcomed to this chamber after a long election campaign and, in the case of my colleague Senator Wang, two goes—with the Western Australia Senate election re-run. It seems to me that Mr Palmer has played a very clever game, in essence neutralising the parts of the Clean Energy Act that would cost his mining interests money and potentially—we still do not know—saving those parts of the package that could keep a viable renewable energy industry alive in this country while we run the clock down on this one-term, failed government.

I also acknowledge Senator Muir, who is on the record this afternoon proposing that ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, be saved, that it be given a stay of execution so that it can continue to invest in start-ups and the innovators and those who are not yet a commercial proposition but who, with a bit of care and attention and a few well-targeted dollars, might be able to make a go of it. The cross-benchers are seeing more sense than the government. The ALP, despite some of the strange arguments that it ran during the election campaign, stuck to its guns.

This policy is one of the reasons that the Australian Greens exist. It is one of the reasons we are here. The coalition, whenever this bill is committed to a vote, will stand condemned by not just those who will be sitting on the opposite side of the chamber from them but their kids, their grandkids and those who will never know our names. The coalition will stand condemned.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am disappointed that Senator Ludlam did not take that last 20 seconds so he could give us a little bit more bile and a little bit more lecturing. He did promise Senator Edwards that he would take the whole time so he could finish. I will respond briefly to Senator Ludlam. The Greens always project their worst failings onto others. After receiving the biggest political donation in Australian history, the $1.6 million from the Wotif founder, they immediately started to do his bidding after receiving about donation.

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

Is this all you've got?

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I have much more and I am coming to it. We also heard from Senator Ludlam how their campaign against the carbon tax was so well demonstrated by the WA by-election. Let us remind Senator Ludlam of the results in WA. Five out of the six senators—that is right, five out of the six senators—elected at the WA by-election promised to repeal the carbon tax. Senator Ludlam, you are right. You were the one out of six and you got one Senate seat. There were three Liberals promising to repeal the carbon tax, there was the Palmer United Party promising to repeal the carbon tax, and there was the Labor Party at that time promising to repeal the carbon tax. The ALP have subsequently reneged on their promise, but they were promising it at the election. If you were voting at the WA Senate re-run and you were taking the parties at their word, you would have voted for the five senators who said they wanted to repeal the carbon tax and who were subsequently elected. Not only did people vote for it at the election last year, they had a chance to do it again in WA—and they voted for it again. They gave the pro-carbon-tax position one Senate seat and they gave the anti-carbon-tax position five Senate seats. This is the kind of ridiculous logic we often hear from the Greens. Because they got elected we can forget about all the other votes. We can forget about the other 85 per cent of people who voted against the Greens in WA and take it that those 15 per cent must represent the will of the people. They do not; they represent 15 per cent. The rest voted for something quite different.

We are on the cusp of a very important moment for our nation—the repeal of the carbon tax. That is a wonderful thing. But we are also seeing another, important, shift in our political life. Senator Ludlam's tantrum was about the fact that the Greens are no longer in charge. We saw over the last six years under the Labor-Greens government that the Greens were in charge. We saw that the Greens position on things such as climate change became the government's position—it became the legislated position. That is what we are seeking to undo with the legislation we are debating tonight.

There is the Greens view, which is supported normally by around eight per cent, sometimes a little more. I accept that there are around eight to 10 per cent of people who support the Greens view of the world. You cannot fault the fact that they are fairly consistent on these things, although they have a mixed record. They are fairly consistent in taking a fairly extreme view when it comes to the issue of climate change: we are all going to be ruined tomorrow; every cyclone, every flood, every heatwave, every cold snap is a result of climate change; and, further, if only we had a carbon tax none of those things would ever have happened. That is one view of the world. Then there is the mainstream Australian view, which is that people see that the climate is changing. They see that mankind makes a contribution to that and that we should do something to try and mitigate that. I think that is the mainstream view in Australia. They do not buy the doomsday scenario that we are about to be inundated, to be flooded out of our homes, and that every weather event is the result of carbon emissions and could be fixed if only we had a carbon tax, if only we had a bigger carbon tax, if only we took that prescription. That is not the mainstream view and that is not what people have voted for. The overwhelming majority of Australians do not believe that. They do believe climate change is happening, they do believe we are making a contribution, they do believe we need to act—and the coalition agrees with that position.

So we have the Greens on the one hand who unfortunately have been in charge when it comes to the Labor Party's position on this for a long time. And it is shameful that the Labor Party are still voting to keep the carbon tax today. We have heard from various Labor senators claiming something different, that they are actually voting against the carbon tax. Well, let the record reflect very clearly that Labor senators, as their House of Representatives colleagues did, as Bill Shorten did, are voting to keep the carbon tax. That is their position. That is how they are intending to vote. That is what they have signalled in the debate. If this legislation passes, as we certainly hope it will, that will be despite the opposition of the Labor Party and despite the opposition of the Greens.

I want to go to where the Labor Party has lost its way when it comes to dealing with climate change and issues around the carbon tax. We talked about the Greens being in charge, and nothing could be clearer than what we saw in the period between 2010 and 2013. At the 2010 election, 149 of the 150 members who were elected to the House of Representatives had a position going into that election of no carbon tax. I heard Senator Di Natale earlier saying, 'You don't have a mandate for this and that and we've got a mandate to do this.' Well, we have had an election. Going back to the 2010 election, the coalition has a position opposing a carbon tax, the Labor Party had an explicit position opposing a carbon tax and most of the crossbench had a position opposing the carbon tax. In the Senate an overwhelming majority went to the election promising no carbon tax and opposing a carbon tax. Yet, because there was one Green in the House of Representatives, the Labor Party allowed their policy position to be determined by that one Green. This is where they lost their way.

Former Prime Minister Gillard often said, 'Yes, I did promise no carbon tax but I've always supported a price on carbon.' Well, that is not true either. Going into that election, Prime Minister Gillard not only promised unequivocally no carbon tax; she also said when it came to action on climate change she would seek a deep and lasting consensus through a citizens' assembly and through other measures. That was the Labor Party position. It was not: 'We will put a price on carbon but not a carbon tax.' It was: 'There will be no carbon tax and any action we take is going to come after deep consultation with the community through a citizens' assembly.' That was then scrapped. And what did they do? One Green says to them: 'I want a carbon tax. If you want my vote you need to give me a carbon tax.' Of course, the Greens were always going to back the Labor Party into office. There was never a question that Adam Bandt was going to do anything other than support the Labor Party into office in 2010, but they prostituted themselves politically and gave away their policy position to a minority party. That is how they have got into this position and that is fundamentally what we are seeking to reverse here tonight.

We are seeking to reverse the position where a party which gets about eight to 10 per cent of the vote is able to dictate terms and go against the will of parties who, between them, have received between 80 and 90 per cent of the vote. So 80 to 90 per cent of voters have voted for one thing but the Greens have dictated to the Labor Party the opposite. This is the fundamental problem with the position of the Labor Party.

The Labor Party of course did say they were going to abolish the carbon tax, but now they are voting not to do that. They went not only to the 2010 election but also to the 2013 election promising to abolish it. Today or tomorrow, when it comes to a vote, they are again going to vote for higher prices, for higher electricity prices, for higher gas prices. The Labor Party will side with the Greens again—the Greens who politically have done them so much damage, who have dragged them away from the mainstream on the issue of climate change towards the highest and most aggressive carbon tax across the world. They are going to do it again, to vote in the Senate to keep that carbon tax.

What are the Labor Party and the Greens voting for? What are they voting to protect? They are voting to keep higher prices. We have heard it said that 'well, prices may not come down', but the evidence is in: when the carbon tax repeal goes through, we will see electricity prices come down, we will see gas prices come down and we will see that with some of the costs that flow from higher electricity and gas prices. So not only will we see a great impact when it comes to supporting business; we will see a great impact when it comes to supporting households. A number of pieces of evidence are already coming in to suggest that we will see reductions as a result of this repeal. This is what those opposite will be voting against. In New South Wales, IPART has said gas prices would be about 9.2 per cent lower. Queensland senators will be voting against an 8½ per cent fall in typical household electricity bills, and that comes from the Queensland Competition Authority's media release. Tasmanian senators will be voting against a 7.8 per cent real fall in electricity prices, and that comes from the Office of the Tasmanian Economic Regulator.

In the ACT—and I think that Senator Lundy may be speaking next—they will be voting against an 11.6 per cent fall in electricity prices. The source of that is the ICRC, the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission in the ACT. So ACT senators will be voting against that.

Across the country we will see those kinds of reductions in household costs. We read today in The Canberra Times that repealing the carbon tax will save the average Canberra household $228 a year just in electricity costs. I heard the comments from Senator Lazarus earlier about the Canberra family forced to house-sit in Queanbeyan because they could not afford the electricity prices in winter. Hopefully, we can give them some relief. We can give families like them some relief from this tax which has had such a negative impact on our economy and on households.

Business does not need convincing. I know that the Greens position in the world is that business cannot be trusted and that we should not listen to it. We do respect the contribution that business makes to our economy and to our community through creating jobs. We have it here from the Australian Aluminium Council: it supports the government's intention. ACCI has long called for the abolition of the carbon tax. AMEC—the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies—said:

… the implementation of the repeal of the MRRT combined with other initiatives contained in the Coalition Government’s various policy documents will provide much needed stimulus to the Australian mining industry.

The Cement Industry Federation, the BCA—the Business Council of Australia—the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries and the Master Builders of Australia all welcome the announcement by the Abbott government that it will repeal the carbon tax and associated laws and regulations.

The decision by the previous Rudd and Gillard governments to impose a carbon tax on Australian businesses and householders only served to add to the cost of living and home building, having little, if any, impact on global greenhouse gas emissions. The carbon tax also served to exacerbate difficult trading conditions in the building and construction industry. The carbon tax added further to the cost of living for households and to house affordability pressures, which were already acute.

It goes on and on. Business understands that, if you get rid of this multibillion dollar handbrake on the Australian economy, it will be good for households, it will be good for job creation and it will be good for business.

I must say that the gullibility of some of those who still argue in favour of this carbon tax is extraordinary. They tell us about the actions that are going on around the world; they tell us we are falling behind. But let us just put some facts on the table. The Productivity Commission report says:

… no country currently imposes an economy-wide tax on greenhouse gas emissions or has in place an economy-wide ETS.

So we have Australia's carbon tax of $25.40 per tonne covering around 370 liable entities across 60 per cent of total emissions. And yet the European Union's ETS, which is often put up as the model, covers 45 per cent of emissions—but not at $25 a tonne. It is around $8 a tonne. The New Zealand ETS covers 50 per cent of total emissions at around $4 per tonne. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, in which nine states on the US East Coast take part, covers the electricity sector only at around $5 per tonne.

The coalition wants to see this tax repealed not because of any blind ideology but because it is good for Australian households, because it is good for Australian business and because the people of Australia have consistently expressed a desire to get rid of this tax. They have expressed it in their vote, they have expressed it in numerous opinion polls and, most importantly, they have expressed it at the ballot box. When it has been clearly put to them, 'Do you want to support a party that is going to repeal the carbon tax?' they supported that party. Even in the Senate rerun in WA, five of the six senators had a position of getting rid of the carbon tax.

We want to move away from a situation where the Greens run the show. Hopefully, that is what is starting to happen through the passage of this bill. The situation where a party that gets only eight to 10 per cent of the vote is able to dictate terms to the community and to the parliament is undemocratic. It has led to poor policy. It has not been good for our economy and it has not been good for our households. We see the absurd— (Time expired)