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

I have listened to the committee debate to date. I note with interest that, in spite of all the time that has passed since mid-July, when the exposure drafts of the bills came out and then the bills themselves—in spite of the hours and hours of the second reading debate, we have one amendment here from the coalition requiring a change of date, which just gives effect to their political strategy.

As a result of that, the Leader of the Opposition has encouraged laziness that is off the scale in terms of policy analysis. If you go out there and say to a political party: 'You actually don't need to grapple with the detail, you don't have to put your mind to the policy process—just go out there with the 30-second grab and make up anything you like, tell anybody anything you like at all and that will do.' That has allowed all of you on that side to engage in the biggest bout of laziness and drivel I have ever heard in the Senate. But now it has come back to bite you, because we are in the committee stage of this bill where you need to understand what this legislation is about.

I would like to take Senator Joyce back through this legislation, because he has not read it. The first thing is whether you accept the premise that the coalition leader sets out is the premise which the opposition holds—clearly, Senator Joyce does not, but some others over there might—and that is that climate change is real and that action will be taken on climate change. That is what the Leader of the Opposition says, when he is not saying that it is crap—that is what he says on the other days. Then he says that the coalition will take action on climate change to reduce emissions by five per cent by 2020.

And so the way this legislation is structured is to accept that as it passes, as of this time, Australia will always take action to reduce emissions consistent with the latest science, the evidence base that is coming out from around the world, consistent with the recommendations of the Climate Change Authority, which is going to be an independent authority which takes into account the latest science, which takes into account the targets of the government of the day—and in this case the target that the government has set is 80 per cent reduction by 2050. The climate authority will set out the trajectory by which we meet that target by setting out the first five years of emissions reductions and, thereafter, every year. After the climate authority has given that advice to the government of the day and the government of the day then moves by regulation to give effect to those trajectories, if the parliament disallows that, then, recognising the coalition's commitment to a reduction of five per cent by 2020 as an absolute minimum, that will apply and the cuts will be consistent with that until such time as the parliament gets back on track with recommendations, which are likely to be greater than that because it will be consistent with an 80 per cent reduction trajectory and, indeed, even more than that over time because the science will become clear to everyone, and also international action will be clear to everyone.

So for Senator Joyce to stand here this afternoon and show that he does not understand even the basics of this shows that he has just engaged in wallowing in laziness. It is a disgrace, actually. People listening to this debate will be horrified to think that this is the best the coalition can do—just wallow in ignorance. If you are serious about a five per cent reduction by 2020, you would know that we are already struggling in Australia to get the policies in place to meet even that, let alone what the Bali process sets out, which was that developed countries like ours should be cutting emissions to somewhere between 25 per cent and 40 per cent by 2020. So we are far off the baseline as it is. The logical consequence of what Senator Joyce was just saying is that he wants a guarantee that the default position is phased out at some point in the future when a five per cent reduction is achieved—that is, some time after 2020 presumably since, at this point, it is unlikely we will even get to the five per cent by 2020.

What we have had this afternoon is a complete insult to the parliament, and every minute that goes on from here will be a further insult to the parliament and to the people of Australia because what is on show here is total ignorance and total laziness; it is a total failure to engage the detail of the legislation and actually get into the scenario space. I think the people of Australia need to know that, after all this time, the best the coalition can do is bring in an amendment that says, 'You can have this after the next election; set a new date.' That is simply the rhetoric of the 30-second grab.

This is where it will be very interesting in the future. We all know that the great big new lie of Australian politics is that the coalition, if they ever do get into government, will repeal this legislation. We know that is a great big lie of Australian politics.