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

I will continue where I was before I was cut off last night. As I was saying last night, the reason this legislation needs to go through is that the carbon tax has not only been about destroying jobs. The carbon tax has also been about pushing up the cost of living for ordinary Australian families—all the while doing nothing for our environment other than shifting emissions offshore. As I said yesterday, this vote will mark a shift. It will mark a shift from the Greens being able to dictate the policy of this nation, as they did under the former Labor government. It will mark a shift from the Greens dictating terms to the Labor Party, telling them what their policy will be on climate change, to a position where the Australian people regain control of the debate on climate change. Australians want to see action but they do not want to see this carbon tax. It was put to them at the election. It was put to them again at the WA Senate election, where we saw five out of six senators who were elected running against the carbon tax.

The Labor Party may have reneged on their commitment to repeal the carbon tax, but we will not. So I welcome the support of crossbench senators to get this legislation through, because when we pass this bill we will see pressure taken off families as their electricity costs, gas costs and other costs come down. We will see businesses able to thrive without this toxic tax on their businesses, and we will see the Australian people back in control of our response to climate change. I commend these bills to the Senate.

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, congratulations on your appointment. As a senator for the Australian Capital Territory, I have spoken many times in this chamber about the importance of Australia taking meaningful action to combat climate change. I am in the strange position this morning of being grateful that I have been able to speak because of the failed motion on behalf of the government to gag the debate—a pathetic attempt to try to manipulate the operation and function of this chamber to suit the Prime Minister's agenda. I am glad it was defeated, because now we have an opportunity to say a few words about this extremely important matter.

I believe Australia and the world have come to terms with the issue of climate change and the vast majority of Australians understand that action needs to be taken. The debate over whether climate change is a natural or man-made phenomenon has been unequivocally resolved by the scientific community and, as I said, the vast majority of Australians have come to accept the verdict that it is real, it is anthropogenic, or man-made, and we need to do something about it. Policymakers, scientists, economists and community leaders around the world have taken up this challenge by finding ways to reduce global carbon emissions while making our way of living more sustainable. In recent years we have seen the global community rallying to take meaningful action on climate change, with 99 countries, including Australia, having made formal pledges to the United Nations to reduce carbon pollution. Thirty-five countries, including Australia, have a national emissions trading scheme and, collectively, they have a population of some 560 million people. By 2015 that number is expected to grow to two billion people. Just in the last few weeks we have seen the President of the United States, Mr Barack Obama, make a series of announcements demonstrating his administration's commitment to tackling climate change, including his desire for a price on carbon in the United States.

Under the previous Labor government, Australia took some significant steps forward. We implemented an integrated set of policies to drive down Australia's carbon pollution while enabling us to achieve more ambitious targets in the long term. We introduced an emissions trading scheme which put a legal limit on pollution for Australia's 370 largest polluters. This ETS was specifically formulated to cut pollution in the cheapest and most effective way. It was a market solution. It was a solution designed to have the least impact on our economy. In line with this policy, we also gave unprecedented support to the renewable energy sector. Our renewable energy target guaranteed that at least 20 per cent of Australia's electricity would come from renewable sources by the year 2020. We established the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which this government has repeatedly tried to destroy. We implemented these policies on the advice of Australia's leading economists who still say that a market based mechanism would be the most effective means of reducing emissions without damaging the national economy. We implemented these policies because Labor respects the scientific consensus that climate change is real, that it is anthropogenic and that its poses a serious threat to our way of life, and these policies have been working.

During our time in office, Australia's capacity to derive energy from wind trebled. More than one million solar panels were installed, compared to only 7,500 under the previous government, and employment doubled in the renewable energy sector. This is an important point: 150,000 jobs were created with the carbon price in place and our economy grew by 2½ per cent, while inflation remained at record lows. Crucially, Australia's pollution in the national electricity market decreased by seven per cent while our renewable energy generation grew by 25 per cent. By any measure, the carbon pricing mechanism was a success. An economic measure, a jobs measure, a reduction-in-pollution measure—a success. Emissions declined in industries targeted by the price, the renewable energy sector grew and the economy remains strong—irrefutable evidence of success of our policies.

When I consider where this debate was in the late 1990s, it is impressive how far forward Australia and the rest of the world have come, with a decade and a half gone from debating the existence of climate change to setting a great example of a Western developed country in our attempt under the previous Labor government to combat the phenomenon. And yet today we have in front of us a package of legislation that, instead of furthering Australia's fight against climate change, intends to take us all and Australia backwards. It not only repeals a piece of legislation that, as I have explained, is working but replaces it with something that even proponents of the coalition's package know will not work. This raises serious doubts over the government's commitment to address the problem of climate change through their flawed package and leaves Australian people questioning whether the coalition even take this issue seriously. We know that some members of the coalition clearly do not and we know some members of the coalition do, but in the wash-up through their party room we have flawed policies that will not be able to address this issue seriously. As we have heard from the proponents, they will not work.

As we move forward through this period of political debate with the changed Senate, we have a situation where the crossbench have determined, at least in part, as far as we can tell, to support the repeal bill. They do so on the basis that we have unfinished business. We have a population—I believe, a community—that is committed to tackling climate change. We have a market mechanism available and functioning well that is about to be repealed. I certainly represent a community that is both passionate and committed to tackling climate change in the most effective way. It would be a great shame for these bills to pass and I implore my Senate colleagues to reconsider their vote and oppose this package.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is not my first speech. I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak on the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No.2] and related bills today. I have been in the Senate for three days, and I feel like Alice in Wonderland—in a different world where everything is just turned upside down. I have been listening to the coalition arguing that white is black—that climate change is not happening. I have been listening to the PUP senators arguing that getting rid of the price on carbon will be good for low-income people. And I have been listening to all of them arguing that repealing the price on carbon will solve all of the problems of the Australian economy and usher in a new era of prosperity and wellbeing.

I think it is very appropriate that, in my first week here in the Senate, climate has been the issue that we have been debating, because it was climate change that politicised me. I studied science at Melbourne university, and I learnt about climate change when I was 20, in 1980, and I distinctly remember coming out of a lecture thinking: 'This is really serious. The world needs to be doing something about this.' It motivated me not to go on to a career as a research scientist but, instead, to become a campaigner, working to protect our world against the impacts of climate change.

In 1980 the science of modelling the likely impacts of global warming was in its infancy. It has developed massively since then, but the overall message has stayed the same: that continuing to pump carbon dioxide into our atmosphere will have major, irreversible and extremely damaging impacts on our climate, our oceans and our whole way of life. The impressive thing about the science is how consistent it has been. If you look at the projections made in the 1990s, they are remarkably consistent with the projections prepared by the IPCC last year. They have become more detailed and more specific and there have been some minor changes, but the overall projected impacts are the same: overall increasing global temperatures, increasing climate variability, increasing rainfall variability, increasing extreme weather events, increasing sea surface temperatures, sea level rise, increasing acidification of our oceans, and the melting of glaciers and the ice caps.

The other sobering reflection I have from thinking back to learning about climate change in 1980 is that, at that stage, carbon dioxide was only at 340 parts per million. It is now 400. That means that, in the intervening years of my adult life, carbon levels have increased as much as they had in the previous thousand years. Carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere are now the highest they have been for the last million years.

The full impact of the consequences of our carbon pollution does not seem to have hit home for many people in this place, and I do not understand how they cannot understand. For example, the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is in the news this week. And babies born today—your child or grandchild or a friend's child born today—will be alive when the impacts occur. Do we really want to bequeath this to them?

Melting ice sheets are just one of the impacts of climate change, as those of us who understand the science know. The reality of climate change is a story of big and evolving impacts on people today, and massive impacts on people in the future—and one only needs to start looking at and thinking about the potential impacts that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is projecting for Australia.

We can start with bushfires—their increased frequency and severity, and their increased spread across the country and across the year, beginning earlier and continuing later. Think of the likely loss of life that will occur, and the personal losses, the personal costs, and the public costs of dealing with increased bushfires. Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires of February 2009 cost the community more than $4 billion, according to the subsequent royal commission, and this does not include the health and social costs and the flow-on costs to business.

The costs around the world of the extreme weather events that climate change is going to result in will be massive. The global reinsurer Munich Re recently predicted that the cost of all the extreme weather events in Australia is set to soar, from $6.3 billion a year today to about $23 billion a year in 2050. And the frequency and intensity of severe events like bushfires will rise together with our rising population. So I want to do everything in my power—and I feel it is our responsibility to do everything in our power—to stop this awful scenario happening.

There are other impacts. Think of the increased frequency of heatwaves. Those in this chamber who share my concern, and the Greens' concern, for people on limited incomes and people living in poorly insulated public housing that are heat-boxes in summer, will care about what happens to them in heatwaves. Three hundred and seventy-four people died from the heatwave in Victoria in 2009, in the two weeks prior to Black Saturday—almost twice as many as the 174 people who died in those horrific fires. There are things that we can do to reduce this loss of life: make better insulated housing, more energy-efficient housing and better quality housing. These are exactly the sorts of measures that can be funded through revenue from a price on carbon.

I think of the impact on agriculture. I spoke this week to a young woman whose family has a vineyard in South Australia. Her father is despairing. He does not have any superannuation. His whole wealth is based on his vineyard. He can see the value of his vineyard evaporating before his eyes, every year, when the quality of his grape crop crashes because of extreme summer heat or when it is affected by smoke taint from bushfires occurring where bushfires just have not occurred before. She is advising him to sell up now, before it is worth absolutely nothing. He is reluctant, but he is depressed and despairing. This is the cost of climate change.

Think of what a one-metre sea level rise is going to mean to Australian cities. Think of your favourite beach—think of it no longer there; think of a two-metre high seawall instead. Think of suburbs like Altona in Melbourne, where I grew up; it already has a one-metre high seawall. My mother's house, where she has lived all her life, is a kilometre inland; it is less than half a metre above sea level. Yes, we can build that seawall another two metres higher—but at what cost? At financial cost, at cultural cost, and at cost to our connection with the coast, with the sea, with nature—with our treasured Australian way of life.

It is these impacts and more—many more—that are why the young people of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition were out there on the Parliament House lawns on Monday. These issues are why there are so many people around the world who are passionate about the need for real, urgent action to be reducing our carbon pollution—not just reducing it by five per cent, but getting rid of our carbon pollution so that we will have a future.

What I want to achieve in my time in the Senate is to help us shift towards a 21st-century economy that is based on renewable energy, which all of the mainstream economic institutions in the world are now saying is not only possible but makes economic sense. We have the solutions. All we need is the political will to implement those solutions, to challenge the vested interests of the fossil fuel industries and to shift our economy to the bright future that is there with the renewable energy industries—a really caring, sustainable future for us all.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too stand to speak on the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No. 2] and related bills. Having had the opportunity to listen to 33 hours of debate on this suite of bills and all the things that have been said by those opposite—the Greens and the Labor Party—I am really quite astounded by the contributions we have heard. I did not include the Palmer United Party there because they have only just arrived—and they made a rather sensible and rational contribution to this debate yesterday, so I feel very confident that they get what we are trying to do here.

We seem to be having a debate about whether climate change is real but not about the real issue, which is: how are we as legislators going to deal with the climate challenges that face this country and this world and our place as a player in this world? I would suggest that what we should really be doing today is debating how we deal with climate change. Senator Wong commented this morning that she did not necessarily agree with the comments of Senator Lazarus yesterday in relation to this bill but did respect that he had a position to put—and that is exactly what he did. So I would say to Labor and the Greens: let's just accept the fact that we all believe in the science of climate change and we also believe that we need to do something about it. However, what we do have here is disagreement about how we should address this issue. I can say for myself that I believe we have some climate challenges ahead of us, and I am prepared to play my part and do what I can in supporting the necessary changes and implementing the necessary legislation and associated instruments so that we deal with the issue of climate change.

Senator Ludlam stood here yesterday and said, 'Minister Hunt is deceptive.' I cannot think of anything Minister Hunt has said that is deceptive. He has been quite clear that he believes the best way for us to address the climate challenges we have ahead of us is through his package, of which the Emissions Reduction Fund is the centrepiece. Last week we heard from a number of people in relation to the Carbon Farming Initiative, which has been successfully implemented over the last two years—though some changes need to be made to it to make it more streamlined and obviously to allow there to be a market for carbon. This is an initiative that was put into this place by the Labor Party and the Greens but it seems that, just because the coalition think it is a great idea and would like to continue it, it automatically has to be opposed.

Senator Ludlam said: 'I have nothing but contempt for those opposite.' I am not sure that throwing around comments like that is the best way to get a debate going about something as important as this. Another comment from those at the other end of the chamber yesterday was that the whole process of repealing the carbon tax was because we have an overt desire to bankrupt the clean energy sector. Nothing could be further from the truth, and nothing could be more ridiculous than making those sorts of comments. We really need to get back to the facts of the matter and the basis of the bill.

We universally agree in this place that we have to achieve a five per cent reduction in emissions by 2020 based on 2000 emissions. It has been said in this place that this is pathetic, that Australia is not playing its part and will be left behind by the rest of the world because this is just tokenism.

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

Mr Acting Deputy President, on a point of order: I am certain that Senator Ruston is not intending to mislead the Senate, but I would just ask you to correct the record. There is not universal agreement that a five per cent target is sufficient by any means.

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ludlam, that is a debating point.

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

I would just ask Senator Ruston to correct the record.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to take the interjection. The vote in this place, supported by both the coalition and the Labor Party, was to try to achieve a reduction of five per cent by 2020. I acknowledge that the Greens have always sought to have a much higher target, but I am sure that the Greens would not like to see a target lower than five per cent. So let's just say that we all agree it would be unacceptable to have a target lower than five per cent. I hope that satisfies Senator Ludlam's concerns about what I have just said.

In the context of a balanced economy and ensuring that Australian businesses are not detrimentally impacted, we have to realise that we live in a global economy. I believe the carbon tax did extraordinary damage to Australian businesses, and obviously to the Australian public as well, by increasing the costs of doing business. We need to take those sorts of things into account. I have no problem with moving to a clean energy future and I do not think anybody in Australia would be uncomfortable with us moving to a clean energy future, but we should not move to that future at a more accelerated rate than our competitors around the world. If Australia moves at a far greater rate, all we will do is to make our businesses in Australia non-competitive. The ultimate result of that is obviously that we will offshore these businesses to countries that have a much worse record for emissions and that produce products per unit at a far higher rate of emission than we do, because we are actually quite efficient in Australia, despite the information that is being put into this debate.

I draw the chamber's attention to a recent article in relation to our place in the rest of the world. It was written by The Australian's Greg Sheridan, and it says:

If the Abbott government is successful in reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 5 per cent based on 2000 levels then Australia will have done more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than almost any other advanced nation.

I do not believe that that particular sentiment has been expressed at all. Whether it is exactly right or exactly wrong, there is evidence, which he goes on to quote in his article, that Australia is playing its part. There are a number of measures by which this 5 per cent by 2020 would actually make Australia quite a significant contributor to the reduction. The article stated:

Our per-capita emissions by 2020 will reduce by 32 per cent, a bigger decrease than any of the others considered, which shows Canada with a 29 per cent reduction, the EU less than 26 per cent, the US 27 per cent. Our emissions intensity decreases by 45 per cent, more than any other nation analysed except South Korea.

And compared with business as usual — that is, if we didn’t have a target — calculated from last year, our decrease is 19 per cent, significantly bettered only by South Korea.

There are those in this place who have a different agenda and those who think that carbon tax was a great thing. I for one—from the evidence that is being put before me by myriad sources—do not believe that the carbon tax has achieved very much at all, and that cost has been at huge cost to Australian businesses. The $7 billion taken out of Australians businesses for a 0.1 per cent decrease in carbon emissions strikes me as not very well spent money.

We can talk about the compensation that was attached to the increase in household costs and the burden of cost increases by the introduction of the carbon tax. But the cold hard reality is that the money that we used to compensate these people still had to come from somewhere. So it goes around and around in a circle. If you just keep on taking money away in some vain attempt to compensate somebody, thinking that it is all going to be okay, there will be consequential impacts on our economy, which need to be considered in this space.

I will not go on, because I am sure that there are a number of other people who would like to make a contribution to this debate, but I would like to put on the record that I support the abolition of the carbon tax because I think it has been an abject failure. I look forward to the introduction of the Emissions Reduction Fund and the associated Carbon Farming Initiative. I do not think that we have given the opportunity to either of those particular instruments to be properly debated because we continue to debate whether climate change is real or it is not real.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You won't put the details up. What a joke of a contribution! You won't put the details up—that is why it is not being debated.

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Ruston is entitled to be heard in silence.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the interest of other people having the opportunity, one would hope that the interjections would cease. However, I will just put on the record that I support the abolition of the carbon tax because I think it has been unsuccessful and has not achieved anything. I put on the record that I am looking forward to seeing the new suite of measures that the coalition is proposing to put forward. I hope that those in the chamber who have got any common sense will actually see the benefits and will try to implement a scheme that is a carrot and not a stick. We look forward to, maybe, moving forward. All of us agree that the best outcome for Australia is to deal with the issue of the climate challenges that we have ahead of us and stop making politics about it just because the carbon tax of those opposite has failed.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the carbon repeal bills. Before I commence my speech, I just want to respond to two points that the previous speaker made. The first point is that, halfway through her 20 minute allocation, she said she would sit down because others wanted to speak and because it was important that we have a debate. I invite her to vote against the guillotine motion that her government will no doubt bring forward again. My second point is that she said: 'We would like to get on to debating Direct Action.' Let us understand that this government has hidden as much detail of Direct Action as possible because it is a joke and it is embarrassing and because you know that it will not stand up to scrutiny.

But let me make my contribution. I think I will be the last speaker on the second reading debate for the Labor Party on these bills. We are keen to get in to committee to have a proper committee stage in spite of the government's intentions to try and guillotine this legislation. I think both the way in which this debate has been undertaken and the content of these bills confirm that this government is arrogant, this government is untruthful and this government is cruel. It is a government which is hurting Australians right now with cruel cuts and tax hikes, and it is a government which will hurt future generations of Australians by its refusal to tackle climate change. It is a government that wants to dismantle carbon pricing and emissions trading. I remind the chamber that putting a price on carbon through an ETS is the most environmentally effective and economically efficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This has been supported, not by radical left-wing organisations but by respected economic organisations such as the Australian Treasury, the Productivity Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the OECD. Let us get some rationality into this debate

I would hope that people in this Senate would stand up for rational and responsible policy rather than irrational, deceptive and destructive politics on this important issue for the future.

This government talks a lot about the future. But with these bills it is a government that is abdicating its responsibility to take action on climate change. This will hurt future generations of Australians, just as the government's cruel budget cuts are hurting Australians today. We have a Prime Minister who is out of touch; he does not understand how his cuts will hurt ordinary people. We have a Prime Minister who does not tell the truth; he came to office on lies and deception. And we have a Prime Minister who does not care about the future; doing nothing about climate change is both irresponsible and irrational. The scientific evidence is clear. We know that we are on a path that will see substantial increases in temperatures by the middle of this century, which will have significant environmental, economic, social and human impacts.

Those opposite like to talk about future generations. They like to talk about intergenerational equity. That is part of their core argument when it comes to the cuts that they are seeking to impose on Australians, the cuts that they did not tell Australians they would put in place—they, in fact, lied to Australians and told them that they would not put them in place. Yet they seem to forget about intergenerational equity and about future generations when it comes to climate change because our failure to act now will only increase the risks and costs for future generations. If we do not act, we will bequeath to our children a world of rising temperatures, high sea levels, acidified ocean salinity, land degradation, and more frequent and extreme weather events.

Labor introduced a comprehensive package of reforms to clean up our economy. Contrary to some of the mistruths which have been put to this chamber, including by the previous speaker, these reforms are already working to reduce emissions and transform Australia's economy to the clean energy sources of the future, and carbon pricing is an essential element of these reforms. I remind the chamber that carbon pricing through an ETS is mainstream economic environmental policy. It is a policy that every living former Liberal leader has supported—Malcolm Fraser, John Hewson, John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull. Even Mr Abbott supported this policy until he decided that throwing in his lot with those who are climate sceptics was his path to the Liberal leadership. He supported this policy until he decided that running an untruthful scare campaign was also his path to the prime ministership.

Our Clean Energy Act, which is sought to be repealed, established an emissions trading scheme starting with a fixed price and then moving to a price determined by the market. The scheme imposes a cap on our pollution. That is so Australia can ensure it meets its targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, the carbon price creates an economic incentive for large polluters to clean up their act. There is a range of additional policies over and above the carbon price which include investments in renewable energy, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and the independent Climate Change Authority.

Those who say these policies are not working are wrong. In the first year of carbon pricing, emissions from our electricity market fell by almost 12 million tonnes. We are using electricity more efficiently and we have a larger share of generation coming from natural gas, hydroelectricity and wind power. Wind power capacity trebled under Labor's policies and more than a million households have installed solar panels.

The carbon price has been in place for two years, during that time we have not seen a single one of Mr Abbott's prophecies of doom come true. Yet the government remains addicted to this doomsaying. Just this week—yesterday or the day before—the Leader of the Government in the Senate actually claimed that the carbon price had destroyed jobs and was destroying the Australian economy. It is completely absurd. Since the carbon price started, GDP has grown, more jobs have been recreated, the share market has risen and market capitalisation of our share market has risen. That is not an economy that has been destroyed.

Labor, when it comes to climate change, has a long history of working to address it. We first included climate change in our platform in 1988. The Keating government ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. The Rudd government ratified the Kyoto protocol in 2007. We adopted an enhanced renewable energy target to ensure that 20 per cent of Australia's electricity comes from renewable sources by 2020. We introduced legislation for a carbon price very similar to what the Greens eventually voted for, with less assistance to electricity polluters than the current scheme. We introduced that legislation in 2009 but, regrettably, it was blocked by the coalition and the Greens. But we did not give up and we successfully introduced a carbon price into our economy from July 2012 along with the other measures I have referenced.

We do stand by our principles and those principles are sound. These policies are in the national interest. I will pause to address one point that is made always. Those opposite say we cannot fix climate change ourselves; everybody has to act. That is true; it is a global problem. It is a global challenge that all nations have to meet. But you do not enable that to happen by not doing anything yourself. You do not enable international action by simply sitting back and saying we are not going to do anything. If every nation did that, if every nation sat back and said they would not do anything until others act, we can be sure that action would not occur. We can be sure that we will be bequeathing risks that we ought not bequeath to our children. It is not a responsible way to act. It is false to assert that no other nation is acting. I invite those who are interested to read what the Climate Change Authority has said—not what I have said but what independent scientists and analysts have said—about the extent of international action. Walking away is an abdication of responsibility, not only to the international community but to our children as well.

On the issue of climate change, Mr Abbott has been a self-confessed weather vane. He changed his position when he found it electorally expedient. He has treated climate change as an opportunity to maximise his own self-interest instead of pursuing policies in the interests of future generations. In fact, if you track through Mr Abbott's comments on climate change, he has really held pretty much every view at every point in the spectrum, from saying climate change is 'absolute crap' to saying that imposing a carbon tax is the best way to go.

Mr Abbott has nominated Margaret Thatcher as one of his political heroes. The late Baroness Thatcher was not only a political leader, she was in fact a scientist by training and background and she was one of the first world leaders to identify the risk and the threat posed by climate change. In 1989 in a speech to the UN, she talked about climate change. She said:

… the evidence is there. The damage is being done. What do we, the International Community, do about it?

Fast forward to this week and we heard an assessment of Mr Abbott's performance on climate change from one of Mrs Thatcher's former ministers, Lord Deben. He said on Lateline on Tuesday night:

Well, the fact is almost all the rest of the world is now fighting climate change. … Only Australia and to some extent Canada, but particularly Australia, is actually going backwards.

He went on to say:

… nobody outside [Mr Abbott's] party thinks that his policy is going to deliver and he will not listen to the rest of the world. That seems to me to be very sad, 'cause Australia is a great nation, an English-speaking nation that ought to be leading the world instead of going backwards.

This is the Right Honourable John Gummer, Lord Deben, who served 16 years as a minister in Margaret Thatcher's government and John Major's government and as a former chairman of the British Conservative Party.

The fact is: mainstream conservatives internationally and mainstream liberals in Australia know that carbon pricing is the lowest-cost way of reducing emissions. In fact, our environment minister, Mr Hunt, has known that since 1990. When he was at university, he wrote a research report, called 'A tax to make the polluter pay: the application of pollution taxes within the Australian legal system'. In that paper he argued that the best way of tackling the problem of industrial pollution was through a market mechanism. The intellectual journey—or, frankly, the craven political path—that Mr Hunt has walked is quite extraordinary. He started out advocating sensible, mature policies, but he grew up and became a crazy. A lot of people might say, 'We are a bit different at university, but we grow up and become more mainstream.' This environment minister has gone the other way.

Australia's political spectrum on climate change is now not dominated by mainstream liberals; the Liberal Party have gone to the extreme hard right on climate change. The political spectrum in this nation now comprises the Liberal Party which has moved to the hard right and does not care about the environment or the future of the planet.

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

That is not true.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take that interjection. He says, 'That's not true.' He advocates a policy that will cost taxpayers more and will do nothing to address Australia's pollution. The bizarre thing about this debate is that those on the other side are actually advocating a taxpayer funded bureaucracy, while those of us on this side of the chamber are advocating a market mechanism. The Labor Party is advocating a market mechanism, because—guess what?—it is efficient. You want a taxpayer funded series of rorts that will not do anything to ensure Australia reduces its emissions.

Climate change is real and, if not tackled, it will impose substantial economic and social costs on future generations. Ignoring this problem will not make it go away. Direct Action, as I have said, is a con. There is a reason that the government does not want to provide any real detail on how Direct Action will work before this repeal is voted on; and that is that Direct Action does not work and will not work. Labor remains committed to tackling climate change in the most cost-effective way. We support moving from a fixed price on carbon to an emissions trading scheme. That is the policy we took to the last election and that reflects our fundamental values, our determination to protect the natural environment, our commitment to create jobs and secure economic growth and our pursuit of a fair society—including fairness across the generations. That is why Labor will vote against these bills.

Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013. In 2011 I was extremely proud to stand in this parliament as a South Australian senator with the Australian Greens and vote in favour of a package of 18 clean energy bills. It was a visionary package; it was going to finally establish a framework to begin to tackle the urgent challenge of climate change in a comprehensive and coordinated way. I have been aware of the risks and predictions about climate change since the late 1980s. The issue gained understanding within the community in the early 1990s and it has become increasingly urgent since then. But here we stand in 2014 on the cusp of going backwards.

The clean energy package—which the Australian Greens, the Labor Party and, indeed, the multiparty climate change committee in the previous government was responsible for initiating and introducing—was, and still is, some of the world's best-practice legislation in this area. It was a sophisticated framework to bring about the transition of our Australian economy from an economy that historically has been reliant on an abundant supply of coal and fossil fuels to an economy based on the clean energy sources that are absolutely necessary for a safe climate and a healthy environment over the decades and centuries ahead.

Last year I was again proud to stand in this parliament to defend that framework and to vote against the Abbott government's first spiteful, bloody-minded, irresponsible attempts to tear down the framework. Here we go again. Again we are confronting legislation that will take us backwards, that will remove the structure which has delivered greater-than-expected reductions in carbon emissions and that has encouraged investment in renewable energy in Australia and investment in energy efficient industries. This time the Abbott government will probably succeed with the assistance of other senators in this place, notably Senator Xenophon and the Palmer United Party, some of whom, I believe, do not really understand the acts they are repealing or the true implications of what they are doing. How has it come to this sorry, sorry place? Purely and simply, this is about politics and protecting vested interests—their own and their mates'.

In opposition, Tony Abbott deliberately drummed up fear and confusion about climate change and actively encouraged the public to turn away from science, our scientists and knowledge, towards ignorance and prejudice. What sort of responsible leader does that? And why? Because he saw electoral advantage in it. He also deliberately drummed up confusion and fear about what he called 'a great big tax', making hysterical claims about its effect on electricity prices, predicting that cities like Whyalla in South Australia would be wiped off the map, all of which has come to naught. Why? Because he saw electoral advantage in it. What kind of responsible leader does that? So now we have a slash-and-burn rampage against the suite of climate change measures, not because the policies have no merit but because he staked his political ambition to get into power on opposing the policy.

We are dealing here with a government which is resolved to take our country backwards, even though the legislation that it wants to trash is effective, actually saves money and is demonstrably in the long-term national interest. This particularly offends me because it amounts to what I see as a fundamental breach of the compact that lies at the heart of our democratic system—that people elect governments to govern, in the end, overwhelmingly in the national interest, not in their own interests and not in the interests of their coalmining, big business mates. The national interest includes the future of our young people—the children, the teenagers and the young adults who will inherit a parched and dangerous future if we do not act to prevent it. I met some of them on Monday—200 young people from across Australia who converged on the parliament to remind us, their parliamentarians, that our decisions determine their future.

The national interest also includes the welfare and livelihood of farmers and people on the land. These are the people that the government, and especially the National Party, constantly claim to represent. It is farmers and rural Australians who will pay the biggest cost and pay soonest when it comes to climate change. Every year, we know, more records are being broken—droughts, more hot days for longer periods, variations in seasonal temperatures. Who does that affect the most and most immediately? Why is it then that the issues paper delivered to inform the Abbott government's white paper on agricultural competitiveness does not mention climate change? This is totally at odds with most experts in climate and its interaction with production, especially those who are working at the interface of climate and agriculture. It is totally at odds with the approach taken by one of our most important competitors in the global food market, the US. Their Department of Agriculture's 2014 proposed budget includes $98 million earmarked for programs researching interactions between climate change and agriculture. Clearly climate change will have severe and detrimental effects on food production and those who make their living from the land in Australia, so I repeat my question: why are the coalition—and particularly the National Party, which claims to be the party for farmers and rural Australians—not prepared to pay attention to one of the most significant threats coming down the line to their people? And why are their voters and constituents letting them get away with it?

There is a growing global movement for pricing pollution, ideally through an emissions trading scheme, as the most efficient and low-cost way to reduce emissions. It sends a price signal that polluters and polluting activities should pay more. Consumers will vote with their feet. Polluters will change their ways. The IMF and the World Bank are urging mechanisms to price pollution across the globe. While our biggest trading partners and our friends across the globe are jumping on board, we have Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Minister Greg Hunt wanting us to jump ship. If we continue on this way, when the global repugnance for polluting activities that affect everyone across the globe reaches its height, the change will come fast, without much warning, and the huge risk is that Australia will be left with a rust-bucket economy and stranded assets, a destroyed environment and towns without jobs, like we saw with the auto-manufacturing towns in the US that kept making dinosaur gas-guzzling vehicles when the rest of the world had moved on. We ignore these signals, we ignore what is coming, at our peril.

The Australian Greens are long-term advocates of a price on carbon. That is because we are guided by the scientists and we are guided by the economists. We stand for responsible and sensible policy and investment based on established science and established economics. The Australian Greens do not support this legislation, which will take us inexorably backwards at a time when other nations in the world are moving forwards. I know we are on the right side of history. I will finish on this question: when future Australians, potentially our descendants, look back at this government and this parliament and this period of Australia's history and ask, 'What were they thinking?' what will we tell them?

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No.2] and related bills. Can I start my contribution by looking at the hypocrisy of Senator Wong when she speaks about intergenerational burden. This is from a former finance minister whose legacy to this country would have been cumulative deficits of $123 billion and a debt of $667 billion unless remedial action had been taken by this government. So do not come into this place, Senator Wong, with your hypocrisy and tell us about intergenerational burden, when you left our children and our grandchildren with an enormous debt and deficit disaster. This government now has to fix up your mess.

Secondly, she obviously has amnesia because she is not familiar, despite what Senator Abetz pointed out to her the other day, with the pamphlet that the Labor Party went out with at the last federal election. They understood the electoral poison that the carbon tax was, because their pamphlet said Kevin Rudd and Labor removed the carbon tax. That was the lie that they perpetrated at the last federal election by publishing material that actually said 'Carbon tax abolished'. That is what it said—authorised by George Wright. At the last federal election he was their federal general secretary. This is what went out. Everybody did not know it was out there? They were not distributing it? Of course they were distributing it. They realised the electoral poison that the carbon tax was and they were getting on the bandwagon and lying to the Australian public, saying, 'Kevin Rudd and Labor have removed the carbon tax.' They did not remove the carbon tax; they are in here still fighting tooth and nail to retain it.

Can I just say to you, Senator Wright, how absolutely patronising it is of you to come into this chamber and denigrate the crossbenchers. I thought that was absolutely outrageous. This is from a political party that has some of the most wacko policies that we have ever seen in this country. They believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden—these are the Greens of Australian politics.

Let me go on—unless those opposite, the Greens and the Labor Party, did not realise there was an election last year. We went to the election and we said clearly—we said clearly—that we would be abolishing the carbon tax. It would be the first priority of the new government to abolish the carbon tax. That is what we are doing.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about the by-election in Western Australia?

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Whish-Wilson, it was as if the last federal election did not happen even though you stood as a candidate. It was as if it did not actually happen. The Australian public voted for this government. They voted for us to abolish the carbon tax, and here you are continuing your ALP-Greens alliance with schoolkid pranks by not providing a quorum to the Senate committee to consider these bills. What a childish act. What does that say about you and your Labor colleagues that you have to pull this sort of stunt? Typical ALP: when you cannot get your way, you pull a strike, and that is exactly what they did last week. What a crude and infantile act to try and block even consideration of this matter.

Can I just remind the Senate—and it is all very well for you to squeal, 'We don't have enough time'—as Senator Ruston and Senator Abetz correctly pointed out, we have had about 35 hours of debate on this already. This package of bills has already gone through the House of Representatives. It has already gone through the Senate. It has been considered and given scrutiny in this place. It has gone back to the House of Representatives and it is now back again. We have been up-front and said that we want to vote on this package of legislation.

Can I just remind those opposite that they are all standing here now holier than thou saying, 'Oh dear, we should retain this tax,' which we all know has not worked. But let me remind Senator Wong. Obviously, just as she forgot about the material that they took to the last federal election, she has forgotten what she has previously said on the record. On 23 February 2009, she said:

A carbon tax does not guarantee emissions reductions.

That was what she said in 2009. Then, of course, she reiterated that in an article in The Australian on 11 March 2011. She also say a carbon tax is 'not the silver bullet some people would think'. Then, of course, you have other members of the Labor Party and their views. For example, we have Nick Champion making comments to Chris Uhlmann on 11 September 2013. He said:

… I don't see why the Labor Party should necessarily stay wedded to this concept when everybody else has walked away from it in one form or another.

Then, of course, the thing that really is irritating is that anybody who dares to go against this and have a different point of view on the issue of the carbon tax is deemed an extremist—is labelled as an extremist. That would mean—it goes without saying—that all those people who then supported the coalition and our platform to abolish the carbon tax are also extremists, because they supported us.

Here we have on 23 March 2011—and we have had quite a number of these comments; I will just pick two that were made on that day—again, Nick Champion telling us that the protesters are extremists. This was backed up by Michelle Rowland also agreeing that some of these people are extreme. It reflects more on their own myopic prejudices than the views of the majority of the Australian public who voted for a repeal of the carbon tax. Can I just say that those opposite are completely out of touch and not in sync with the majority of the Australian public. Of course, the carbon tax did go up on 1 July.

Before closing, can I make some comments in relation to my own area of the Illawarra. I have spoken at length about this in the past: the impact that the carbon tax has had on an area that was dependent on steel manufacturing and on coal production. The impacts are being felt in the Illawarra due to the downturn of those industries in the Illawarra and the impact that it has had on unemployment. In the interests of allowing more people to speak, I will now conclude my remarks on this matter.

(Quorum formed)

John Madigan (Victoria, Democratic Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Earlier this morning we had a vote regarding the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 and related bills and I would like to explain some of my reasoning. I have never supported a guillotine in the Senate, whether put forward under the previous government or this government. Quite frankly, I am happy to sit here tonight for extra hours, tomorrow night, Friday and Saturday if need be, because I believe in the right of everybody to express their opinion.

I have heard some people say that we have discussed the carbon tax legislation ad nauseam, until some of our ears have bled, and I have heard people repeat, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' I acknowledge that. But we now have new crossbench senators who have come into this place who have a very deciding role in legislation in the Senate. I do not believe in bludgeoning the government and I do not believe in bludgeoning the opposition. As much as I may vehemently disagree with some people in this place on specific issues, I am not the person who is going to take away the right of people to have their say. The situation I have found myself in is that I will not be bludgeoned into a situation where I go away from my ethos of respecting everybody's right to express their opinion.

I believe the government has a right to organise business. I believe the government has a right to put forward and manage government business in the Senate. All I am asking is that you not justify the way you do it on the basis of the bad behaviour of the previous government in the way they did it. It is a matter of principle for me. You cannot justify your bad behaviour at any given time by the bad behaviour of somebody else. I want the Senate to work. My views and that of the DLP on the carbon tax are crystal clear. But I will not be part of a thing that takes away other people's right to express their opinion, because it sets a precedent that can be used against all of us, depending on which way the pendulum may swing.

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

I do not seek to close the debate at this time. I understand that Senator Xenophon would like to make a contribution in this debate, and I believe he is on his way. The newly sworn Senator Bilyk would, I think, love to make a one- or two-minute contribution. Congratulations on being re-sworn this morning, Senator Bilyk.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While we are waiting for Senator Xenophon, I would like to say a few words in this debate on the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 and related bills. I thank Senator Abetz for his congratulations on my swearing-in this morning. I am very pleased to be able to spend another six years in this place representing the people of Tasmania.

Labor's position on climate change is very clear. We accept the science of climate change—unlike those on the other side—and we believe we need to do something about it. Mr Abbott obviously does not and those on the other side do not. This is quite a problem. Mr Abbott's policy removes the legal cap on pollution and allows the big polluters absolute open slather. So, instead of polluters paying, Mr Abbott is happy to set up a slush fund worth billions of taxpayers' dollars to hand to the polluters. All the experts agree that this will cost households more while failing to lower the pollution level.

Last year the government defunded the Climate Commission and, in the context of the Australian government's overall spending, the government saved an absolutely paltry amount of money. This was a body to which each Australian was contributing about six cents a year. So why did they do it? It was the action of a government that resembles the flat earth society—a government that does not believe in science. Emissions trading schemes have already been adopted in many, many countries around world, including the UK, France, Germany, South Korea, Canada and parts of the US and China. Those on the other side really need to stop and think about what they are doing and take note of this.

I have had only a limited amount of time to speak, but I will be speaking later on in committee on this very important issue. I thank the Senate for the few minutes I have had so far today.

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

I propose to be concise because the time for debate and consideration of the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No.2] and related bills is truncated. I do appreciate very much my crossbench colleagues Senators Madigan and Muir for rejecting the proposed guillotine of this debate today. I acknowledge that the numbers are such that the bills will be dealt with by tomorrow, which at least gives more time for debate and for the essential scrutiny of the committee process.

I support the repeal of the carbon tax. I am obliged to do so because it is a position I took as a platform to the people of South Australia at the last election and I will be true to my word to my fellow South Australians. I also have an obligation to explain my position and the context of my decision. Firstly, I strongly support the concept and indeed the science of anthropogenic climate change. We should, as Rupert Murdoch once said, 'give the planet the benefit of the doubt' and tackle as effectively as possible the impact of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and their consequential effect on global warming. Secondly, anthropogenic climate change presents us with the most complex policy problem we have ever faced. I think it is more complex because of what has been named as the Gidddens paradox, after Lord Anthony Giddens, who said that often politicians will not take action on a problem when the impact is many years away but when the impact of the problem becomes apparent it is too late to do anything about it. That is the policy paradox we have here, which has so bedevilled the debate in relation to this matter. The Giddens paradox is echoed in the comments made just last week in the New York Times by Henry Paulson, a staunch Republican. As Secretary to the Treasury and the George W Bush administration, he said:

This is a crisis we can’t afford to ignore. I feel as if I’m watching as we fly in slow motion on a collision course toward a giant mountain. We can see the crash coming, and yet we’re sitting on our hands rather than altering course.

Sensibly, Paulson also talks about the need to manage risk. He goes on to say:

When I worry about risks, I worry about the biggest ones, particularly those that are difficult to predict—the ones I call small but deep holes. While odds are you will avoid them, if you do fall in one, it’s a long way down and nearly impossible to claw your way out.

Thirdly, in terms of an effective policy response, I believe the carbon tax has been a failure. It has involved enormous revenue churn, caused businesses to shift jobs overseas to countries with arguably greater emissions because of lower environmental standards. The tax was not high enough to change behaviour but it was high enough to damage jobs. It involved the worst of both worlds.

Back in 2009, then opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull and I jointly commissioned Frontier Economics to model and formulate an alternative intensity based emissions trading scheme. The Frontier scheme could have delivered deeper cuts to emissions at a lower cost than the CPRS and the carbon tax because it avoided the enormous economic costs associated with the revenue churn of the former government scheme. Frontier's modelling estimated that for every dollar invested in abatement, there is a churn of $5 to $6 through the economy. The Frontier scheme would have involved a much lower churn. Shortly I will talk about direct action which I believe will involve even less churn.

An intensity based scheme by contrast sets emissions targets for industries, particularly the stationary energy sector, and avoids that level of churn and with it distortions of loss of economic activity. Frontier also calculated that it would be relatively simple to amend the CPRS legislation at the time to make it one-third cheaper and twice as effective by introducing intensity based elements. Warnings were given at that time by Frontier of the potential for a budget black hole and they used the same economic modellers that the then government used, out of Monash. The Frontier scheme was dismissed by Senator Wong. At the time she called it, 'a mongrel scheme'. I think she said that more with hyperbole then with any malice. I have to say that every dog has its day because Frontier has been proved correct in terms of its economic analysis.

It warned the Rudd government back in 2009 of the budgetary black hole created by the decline in revenues from permit sales. The government ignored this and the black hole turned out to be about $5 billion a year. It also warned that one group that would see the upside of the abolition of the price floor announced in September a couple of years ago would be the private brown coal generators in Victoria and South Australia. These are important issues.

Something that Treasury has also ignored over the past years in the context of carbon policy, which must be tackled now, is a tax interaction effect associated with different mechanisms for producing emissions. Frontier's proposed amendments of CPRS would have substantially reduced the economic distortions that the proposed CPRS or carbon tax would create as a direct result of savings due to a reduction in the inefficiencies of this tax interaction effect on current policies.

As Frontier puts it, pre-existing taxes already create economic distortions that discourage investment, consumption and labour. When a carbon price tax is imposed in addition to these existing taxes, the resulting economic costs are multiplicative not additive. That means that the revenue churn of the CPRS and carbon tax has a disproportionate drag on the economy as well as leading to much higher abatement costs, but in the context of this vote to repeal the carbon tax there ought to be, at the very least, a bipartisan commitment that there needs to be a minimum five per cent reduction, which is very conservative, on 2000 levels by 2020. I hear what Senator Whish-Wilson is saying but its appears to be a bipartisan commitment of the major parties in respect of this. Although, on ABC's Lateline said last night, in a feisty interview between Emma Alberici and Lord Deben, the chairman of the UK Committee on Climate Change, the assertion made by Ms Alberici was that this target needs to be considered in the context of the 2005 baseline that other countries have adopted, so that a five per cent reaction in Australia comes up to 12 per cent on a 2005 baseline, which compares quite favourably to international comparisons, to the US with 17 per cent and even to the EU where there is a variable degree of between 13 per cent and 24 per cent.

I want to speak very briefly on some of the elements of this bill and to acknowledge Senator Muir's amendment to keep ARENA, the Renewable Energy Agency, something the Australian Greens have long campaigned for. I support this amendment. I believe if you want to wean yourself off carbon then you need to support those nascent emergent technologies such as baseload geothermal in my home state of South Australia where they just need to get to critical mass, where they need to overcome technical issues and difficulties so that there is real hope. I also support the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. If it is not costing money in the budget we should keep it.

I have an issue with an overreliance on wind energy because I believe we have put too many eggs in the wind farm basket for a range of other reasons. I support retention of the Climate Change Authority because it is important to have an independent watchdog to monitor what the government of the day is doing. We will have an opportunity to debate that next week.

I have had extensive discussions with the Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, on this matter. I actually believe he wants to do the right thing by the environment. He wants to achieve these targets. I believe that Direct Action must be modified and changed so that there is a base, there are adequate penalties and safeguard mechanisms, and adequate long-term contracts to deliver the best, lowest cost abatement possible. There needs to be modifications to the scheme and, with the best endeavours and in good faith, I am working with the environment minister in respect of that. I hope to be able to table and circulate amendments to that by the end of this week, if not early next week.

The point is that I believe there is, at least, a transitional alternative to deal with these issues. Not to have any form of carbon abatement would be wrong. I believe that there are some potential safeguards. I believe that having a reverse option scheme, as proposed by Direct Action, can actually work. When others are criticised for saying it will cost taxpayers money, the alternative is that consumers will end up paying much more by way of electricity prices. That brings me to my second reading amendment, which I now move, Mr Acting Deputy President—

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

Senator Xenophon, you just have to foreshadow it. There is already an amendment before the chair.

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

Mr Acting Deputy President, I foreshadow that I will be moving a second reading amendment. I would urge honourable senators on both sides of the chamber and also my crossbench colleagues to support the amendment for this reason. The carbon tax of course is a factor in electricity price rises. But with all the hyperbole of the debate you would think it was the only cause. We know from independent analysis that, for instance, in the past six years New South Wales households have seen a doubling of household electricity prices and that two-thirds of that increase has been due to network charges. Some of these power companies are making an absolute killing out of consumers and that is why my second reading amendment is simply asking the government to show a leadership role in the Council of Australian Governments to ensure that the national electricity rules are modified and that we give the Australian Energy Regulator sufficient teeth to tackle these network charges. That has been an unnecessary impost on consumers. If we can bring down those prices, it means that we will have more latitude in tackling greenhouse gases and any price effects of that. We should not be handing over windfall profits to power companies if we can have a more efficient mechanism operating in the market.

I have indicated my position. I hope that we can at least have a semblance of a decent committee stage in respect of these bills. I am quietly confident that we will, at least, be able to have a credible alternative that will deliver that conservative approach to greenhouse gases. But we need to have the mechanisms of the CEFC, ARENA and the Climate Change Authority in place to provide an effective bulwark for climate change policies.

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

This package of bills, the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No. 2] and related bills, which will repeal the carbon tax, is vitally important for the welfare of our nation. This package of bills will repeal the toxic carbon tax. This package of bills will reduce the cost-of-living pressure on all Australians, especially those on welfare and pensions, as they will see the cost of their power and energy bills reduced.

The Palmer United Party's amendments, to be moved by Senator Lazarus, will lock that in place and the government will be supporting those amendments. We believe that there was a mechanism in place, and I will describe it: we provided the belt but the PUP provided braces as well. So we have a belt-and-braces position to absolutely lock in the reduction of power prices for the Australian community, especially those on lower incomes.

This package of bills will not only reduce the cost of living for all Australians; it will also remove the blot from our economic landscape—a blot which has destroyed thousands of jobs. From closures to offshore investments and expansion plans being put on hold the carbon tax has, without doubt, been a job destroyer.

Australian-made motor vehicles, for example, had an impost of an extra $400 on each unit, courtesy of the carbon tax, which will be removed, unfortunately, too late. We have the example of smelters and sectors in the manufacturing arena closing because of energy costs. And we have the example of Coogee Chemicals, which wanted to establish in Australia but decided not to because of the cost of energy and the carbon tax. They went to China to establish and, as a result, denied the investment and the jobs in Australia and are now emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in China than they would have done in a pre carbon tax Australia. Just keep that in mind.

Dairy farmers have experienced an impost of an extra $10,000 or thereabouts per dairy farm. That $10,000 comes out of the pocket of the family that runs the dairy farm—a direct impost on their costs. So we will see the removal of this impost on jobs and on business which, of course, will assist in jobs. There are many other examples I could provide. But, most perversely of all, the carbon tax is destructive to the environment. With the highest carbon tax anywhere in the world, we have seen the export of production from Australia to countries whose regime of environmental protection is nowhere near the Australian pre carbon tax standard. We were therefore exporting jobs, wealth and emissions to elsewhere in the world.

Keep in mind that this carbon tax was so good that, in 2010, we were promised there would be no carbon tax. Labor then said they were forced into a deal with the Australian Greens to keep government. Well, I do not believe former senator Bob Brown of the Greens would have joined with the coalition to form government and I do not think it was a concession that was needed. Nevertheless, let us accept that to be the case, that they needed to do so. Might I add, Labor and the Greens then combined to guillotine that legislation, against their mandate, through this place. But now, regrettably, the Labor Party are still in lock step with the Australian Greens, keeping the carbon tax on life support day after day, despite having gone to the 2013 election with this brochure, amongst others, which reads, 'Kevin Rudd and Labor removed the carbon tax'. It was such a good idea that Labor went to the 2010 election promising there would be no carbon tax and then went to the 2013 election promising that they had removed the carbon tax. Nothing could be further from the truth and, as we sit here today, the carbon tax remains an impost on Australians' cost of living whilst destroying jobs. Might I add for those sitting opposite, especially those in the Australian Labor Party, that each one of those Labor senators, whether they were elected at the 2010 election or the 2013 election, were elected on a promise of no carbon tax. And yet we see the Labor senators continuing to vote with the Australian Greens.

Earlier today we heard a plea from Senator Wong—the architect of Labor's debacle of an emissions trading scheme and the budget blow-out—complaining about the proposed time management for this debate. I accept the principled positions of some senators but I cannot accept it as a principled position from Labor and Greens senators, when they voted together to gag 52 bills through this Senate when they had the majority. When I say 'gag', not one single syllable was able to be spoken by any senator on any of those 52 bills. They were just rammed through. And they have the audacity to say that this government sought this morning—and yes, we did try—to truncate the debate. But we tried to truncate the debate after 33 hours and 52 minutes of debate on these measures. By any standard, that is indicative of a very patient government that has allowed this debate—or, more correctly, suffered this debate—to go on for 33 hours and 52 minutes, and now we are being accused by Senator Wong and the Greens of gagging debate on this in circumstances where those parties combined to ensure that 52 bills were rammed through this place without a single syllable being spoken on any of those 52 bills.

I remind senators that these bills have been around for nine months. Why the urgency? We went to the last election, in opposition, promising—

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about the new senators? How long have they been around?

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

It is interesting that the new senators were, apart from one, the ones who voted with us to truncate the debate. It is senators like Senator Whish-Wilson and others, who have been around the track time and time again, repeating their arguments time and time again, who want to have even further time to debate. It confirms to me and the government that this is a Greens-Labor strategy to deliberately delay the demise of the carbon tax—a policy we went to the election on, promising that if we were elected it would be the first item of business to be considered by the new parliament. And it was. The House of Representatives had as its first item of business the repeal of the carbon tax. It then came to the Senate and, hour after tedious hour, this debate has kept on for nine months—over 33 hours. We believe it is time for the matter to come to a conclusion.

I invite the Senate to vote to support these bills. In doing so, I acknowledge the speeches of Senators Lazarus, Lambie and Fox and thank all other senators for their contributions. In short, removal of this tax will lift a millstone from the neck—

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

Mr Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. I do not know who Senator Fox is. I think he was referring to Senator Rice, perhaps.

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

My absolute apology and no offence meant at all. I do not know why I said 'Fox' instead of 'Rice' and I thank the leader of the Australian Greens for correcting me.

The removal of this tax will lift a millstone from the neck of Australians' cost of living pressures. These bills will remove the dead hand of an oppressive tax from Australian job providers in manufacturing, tourism and agriculture. These bills will help the environment by ensuring businesses are more viable in the Australian economy, with its more environmentally-friendly regime, rather than seeing production go offshore, where the carbon emissions will be so much greater. I commend the bills to the Senate.

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

The question before the Senate is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Singh be agreed to.

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

I move:

At the end of the motion, add:

but the Senate:

  (a) rejects this Bill and the related Bills;

  (b) recognises that:

     (i) the world is on track for 4 degrees of warming; and

     (ii) warming of less than 1 degree is already intensifying extreme weather events in Australia and around the world with enormous costs to life and property;

  (c) calls on the government to:

     (i) protect the Australian people and environment from climate change by approving no new coal mines or extensions of existing mines, or new coal export terminals; and

     (ii) adopt a trajectory of 40-60% below 2000 levels by 2030 and net carbon zero by 2050 emissions reduction target in global negotiations for a 2015 treaty.

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

The question is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Milne be agreed to.

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

I advise senators that there may be further divisions. Senator Xenophon, do you want to move your amendment?

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

I move:

At the end of the motion, add:

but the Senate:

  (a) notes that

     (i) over the past six year electricity prices have more than doubled for average households, with the carbon tax being one of the elements of that price increase;

     (ii) network charges have been responsible for approximately two thirds of this rise in power prices; and

  (b) calls on the Government to urgently review the National Electricity Rules governing the setting of network prices by taking a leadership role in COAG to ensure a review of the rules by the Australian Energy Market Commission.

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

The question is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Xenophon be agreed to.

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

The question now is that the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No. 2] and related bills be read a second time. Senators, could I just have your attention. Before I put this motion and ask you to divide, I understand that there may be a senator or senators who wish to have these bills put separately. Senator Leyonhjelm.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask that the bills be separated to enable me to vote against the Clean Energy (Income Tax Rates and Other Amendments) Bill 2013 [No. 2].

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

That certainly can be done. Ideally, it should have been done before the division was called for, but I am sure that, with the leave of the Senate, senators are very happy to deal with it in this way. Senator Leyonhjelm wishes to divide separately on that one bill. We will do the other eight bills together. I will put the question again so that people are very clear in their positions. The question is that the eight bills, excluding the Clean Energy (Income Tax Rates and Other Amendments) Bill 2013 [No. 2], be read a second time.

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

The question now is that the Clean Energy (Income Tax Rates and Other Amendments) Bill 2013 [No.2] be read a second time.