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

The Labor government wants to approach climate change in a smart, visionary way. We could have chosen the ignorant and myopic way—that is, to do little and allow our national economy to become the victim of global economic restructuring. But Australians have chosen the smart, visionary way and they made this decision at the last federal election by electing a Rudd Labor government. So when citizens observe the hardcore climate sceptics sitting opposite as they brandish increasingly outlandish denials about the established scientific evidence of climate change, what they are witnessing is the final desperate flare of the once leading lights of the ideological hard right of the Liberal Party. This flare will no doubt rapidly peter once this debate has occurred and I look forward to the final ember being ground out when we conclude what is the most significant parliamentary debate of this generation of elected representatives. We are debating the CPRS, but for many observers the nature of the discussion determines that we are debating whether or not climate change exists.

Labor’s plan is the smart, visionary way and we will see governments now and in the future managing a whole-economy program of restructuring that will continue well into the second half of this century. We are negotiating because we firmly believe we must start the transformation now. The Rudd Labor government is providing the leadership that citizens voted for and expect. We are taking responsible and decisive action to tackle climate change by introducing this Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The CPRS will reduce Australia’s carbon emissions and ensure we increase our investment in industries of the future like renewable energy—solar, wind and geothermal—creating thousand of new businesses and clean jobs in low-pollution industries.

The Rudd Labor government has produced a responsible and well-thought-through scheme that takes the first steps to reduce our carbon pollution while also protecting our economy and jobs during the global economic downturn. Schemes are already operating in 27 European countries and 27 states and provinces in the USA and Canada. Canada is introducing emissions trading to reduce carbon pollution as is New Zealand. Passing the CPRS legislation before the end of the year will give Australian businesses the certainty they need about the future. That is why business groups want it dealt with now.

The CPRS will help us tackle climate change to ensure our kids and future generations are not the ones left to clean up the mess. It is necessarily complemented by other government policies and the private sector responses to them. This determines whether or not we maximise jobs and employment outcomes from the economic transformation.

The Rudd government is committed to creating low-pollution jobs for the future as part of our comprehensive approach to combating climate change. Over $13 billion has been committed to programs that will increase the demand for low-pollution products and services and the associated employment opportunities. The government is helping business invest in energy efficiency and develop and commercialise new, low-carbon and renewable products in transport and energy generation. For example, there is the $90 million Green Building Fund, the $1.3 billion Green Car Innovation Fund and the $4.5 billion Clean Energy Initiative.

The CPRS and our renewable energy target will create the low-pollution jobs of the future in solar energy, on wind farms and in jobs using new technologies like clean coal and geothermal energy. The jobs that will be created will be in new industries and established industries alike. They will be in semi-skilled, skilled and professional occupations and will be spread throughout Australia. For example, the $1.5 billion Solar Flagships program will aim to create an additional 1,000 megawatts of solar generation capacity. This ambitious target is three times the size of the largest solar energy project currently operating anywhere in the world.

We expect to see a fourfold increase in the output of renewable energy other than hydro, and a doubling of total renewable energy output, by 2020. In other words, the government’s renewable energy target is that 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2020. This means that in 10 years time the amount of electricity coming from sources like wind, wave, solar and geothermal energy will be about equal to Australia’s current household electricity use.

I note with interest that there are already around 50 wind farms in operation around Australia. I was absolutely thrilled as a senator for the ACT that the Prime Minister, Minister Wong, Minister Garrett and New South Wales Premier Rees launched the Capital Wind Farm today in Bungendore, a wonderful town and community not too far from Canberra. Owners of the Capital Wind Farm, Infigen Energy, have built 67 wind turbines, almost five times the size of any other wind farm in NSW. The farm will increase the nation’s wind power capacity by more than 10 per cent, providing electricity to around 60,000 homes.

The project has already provided employment opportunities for over 120 people during the construction phase and will provide ongoing employment in the local community. It is also an excellent example of how clean energy industries create the high-skilled jobs of the future, with Australia’s first wind farm apprentices being employed at Capital Wind Farm, learning the work of electro-technology and wind turbines.

Treasury modelling released in October 2008 shows that our policy measures leading to projects like this will see the output of the non-hydro renewable energy sector grow to 30 times its current size by 2050, creating thousands of new jobs. The International Energy Agency estimates that additional investment of US $45 trillion will be required by 2050 to drive the uptake of renewable energy. Australia must be in a position to attract this investment.

As Minister Wong pointed out in question time yesterday, the Climate Institute has calculated there is already $31 billion dollars worth of clean energy projects underway or planned in response to our policies to promote renewable energy and reduce emissions. These projects are expected to create some 26,000 new jobs. I note the minister also did not miss the opportunity yesterday to point out to the National Party representatives in the Senate that most of these jobs would be in regional Australia.

It is also useful to mention at this juncture that the government’s biggest ever investment in energy efficiency, under the Nation Building and Jobs Plan, is already creating jobs as well as assisting millions of households in Australia to reduce their energy use through the installation of insulation, cut their power bills by up to $700 a year, and increase the comfort and value of their homes.

On 13 February, Dennis D’Arcy of the Insulation Council of Australia and New Zealand said the Nation Building and Jobs Plan would create around 4,000 jobs in the insulation industry. The council has now come back and said that, based on recent industry reports, new employment growth is likely to be higher than these initial expectations. On 3 February, an insulation fitter told ABC Radio:

Our own company... had to lay off a shift in one of our plants just before Christmas. We’ll be putting that shift back on.

On 5 February, Mr Ray Thompson from Bradford Insulation told the Australian that their new Brisbane plant would move to 24/7 production and that they would start employing people immediately.

The government is indicating to the Australian people that it is prepared to provide the leadership for the massive task of restructuring the energy sector. We all know government leadership and finance will indeed be necessary as the private sector is not able to respond quickly enough on it own. The last time the electricity sector was technologically transformed was back before World War II and back then it required nationalisation. It is a different form of intervention in the 21st century. The introduction of the CPRS and investing in renewable energy is a practical, sensible and timely approach for the times.

If we do not act now, Australia’s economy will be left behind. Treasury modelling released in October 2008 demonstrated that economies that defer action will face long-term costs around 15 per cent higher than those of economies that take action now. Not only would inaction leave us behind; it would cost us far more in the end anyway. How can the opposition justify shifting this burden onto the next generation?

If we do not act now, Australia will miss the surge in investment in clean jobs through renewable energy technology investment. What a tragedy this would be for us as a nation. We, correctly, pride ourselves on our collective capacity to contribute to the array of exciting new technology developments in renewable energy technologies. We were world leaders in photovoltaics in the past—before the Howard government—and we could be again if we build on the government’s timely investments. Support for our clever scientists and increased funding for research and development in our universities and research houses are part of this timely investment by the Labor government. The global market for environmental products and services is projected to double, from US$1.3 trillion per year, as it is at present, to US$2.74 trillion by 2020 according to the United Nations Environment Program report of last year. Surely the opposition is not motivated to stifle this potential by voting down these bills. Surely this opportunity for Australia to improve our economic security and at the same time contribute to solving one of the great moral challenges of our time—that of saving our planet—is too important to let slip in a moment of madness.

I do believe this moment of madness gripping the Liberal Party and the National Party will eventually pass. After all, the science is in. I wish the genuine negotiations that are taking place well. I think the Labor government has shown a great deal of goodwill in this regard. However, for the moment, the madness persists—at least with some. It makes me wonder if the dinosaurs who deny that human induced climate change exists at all will be around for long enough in this place to wear the political burden of the damage done if these bills fail. I suspect not. In the words of a dear friend who watches politics closely and often shares her astute insights with me, the 21st century dinosaurs of the Senate who vote to block these bills will no doubt meet the same fate as the dinosaurs did towards the end of the cretaceous period of the earth’s history, as a result of their inability to adapt or evolve in response to dramatic changes to their environment—extinction!

In closing, Labor is committed to pursuing the most ambitious outcome from Copenhagen. We concur with the statement by President Obama that any deal at Copenhagen must have ‘immediate operational effect’. It is essential that we go to Copenhagen with a strong hand, and that is why I join with my Labor colleagues, in particular Minister Penny Wong, in commending these bills to the Senate.

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate this opportunity to participate in this debate on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 [No. 2] and related bills. While every piece of legislation that passes through this place is important and in some way changes our behaviour—how we live our lives—this package of bills is one of the most important pieces of legislation ever to be debated. If it is passed, it will fundamentally alter our attitudes and begin to modify our behaviour and the outcomes of the social and economic activity that we undertake in this nation. It will begin to address the problems that are caused because we human beings, through our activities, pump pollutants into the atmosphere that absorb heat and increase the temperature of the air, the sea and the land. That increase in temperature causes our climate to change and unwanted climate change is arguably the most difficult problem of our generation and of future generations unless we act now and act decisively. If the temperature of the earth continues to rise it will result in an increase in extreme weather events like drought, bushfires and floods, sea level rises, failure of agriculture and failure of wanted organisms to survive or the creation of conditions where unwanted organisms thrive. Even a small, sustained temperature rise fundamentally changes the environment in which we live.

It is interesting that this debate is taking place when today and yesterday significant parts of my state of South Australia have been designated as being at a ‘catastrophic’ fire risk by the state’s emergency services. This is indeed a frightening and sobering acknowledgement of how vulnerable we are to extreme weather events. It is only November—still spring. We are not even in December yet and it is already 43 degrees. In South Australia it has barely dropped below 35 degrees for a week and a half.

Let me read from the Bureau of Meteorology’s media release of 17 September 2009:

Adelaide has experienced the first spring heatwave ever recorded across the entire Adelaide temperature record back to 1887 with 8 consecutive days in excess of 35°C from Sunday 8 November to Sunday 15 November.

The criteria for heatwaves in Adelaide is; ‘5 consecutive days with maximum temperatures of 35°C or more, or 3 days of 40°C or more’. Prior to this event the most days over 35°C consecutively in November for Adelaide had been 4 days in 1894.

The average maximum temperature for Adelaide over the first 15 days of November was 33.6°C. This is more than 8°C higher than the November maximum temperature average for Adelaide of 24.9°C.

The impact of extreme heat is both personal and economic. Vulnerable people die in heatwaves and bushfires, and houses and agricultural production are destroyed by fire and by heat. The cost to the Australian economy of bushfires between 1967 and 1999 was around $2.5 billion dollars. Such losses are unsustainable. Just ask the Insurance Council of Australia. What we are witnessing in South Australia are extreme, potentially disastrous weather events, and if this parliament does not do something about the global warming that makes our nation more susceptible to such events then we will have failed the Australian people.

So I ask how senators opposite—and in particular senators Bernardi and Minchin, being from South Australia—can continue to deny the facts about what is happening to our climate and continue to refuse to take any responsibility for their reckless disregard for the science that tells us the climate is changing and we are causing that change. I guess maybe Senator Minchin, sitting in his air conditioned office in Canberra, has lost touch with what is happening back home. Maybe he should ring home more often and find out what is really going on. In my electorate office, constituents are ringing and they are afraid that today’s extreme weather conditions in South Australia will cause more catastrophic bushfires. They are saying that they want the parliament to do something to stop the potential for more disastrous weather events. But, of course, Senator Bernardi and Senator Minchin are not interested in what their constituents back home are fearing today. They are more interested in destabilising their leader, Mr Turnbull, than they are about representing their constituents, who today will be wondering, ‘Will there be a fire near me?’ How extreme does it have to be before senators Minchin and Bernardi actually realise that South Australia will fry unless we do something about climate change.

Climate change is of course not just Australia’s problem. The whole world is grappling with the problem. Just how difficult a problem it is is plainly evident by the ongoing debates at the highest level of international governments, which began more than two decades ago. In 1988, in response to growing concern about the possible impact of human activity increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the World Meteorological Organisation and the United Nations Environment Program established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to provide independent scientific advice on the issue of climate change. The IPCC has released four major assessment reports, the latest one in 2007, which reported increases in global air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of ice and snow and rising global average sea levels. The IPCC reports, compiled from the work of 1,250 scientists in 130 countries, cannot be dismissed and are not being dismissed by the global community.

While we are right to be disappointed that there may not yet be global agreement on what countries need to do to set targets, achieve targets or help each other to reach targets in order to reduce greenhouse emissions, there is a consensus that action needs to be taken to reduce emissions. There is consensus amongst nations that there is too much at stake to just do nothing.

It is therefore always astonishing to hear that some members of the coalition are opposed not just to this package of bills but also to doing anything at all because they refuse to believe, despite all the scientific evidence, either that climate change is real or that human activity is causing it. They are not even prepared to give the benefit of the doubt to science—to concede that, while they might not agree with the science, they could at least support reducing carbon emissions because if they are wrong and science is right, precious time will have been lost due to their failure to act.

Most of the world’s nations and most of the world’s scientists accept the need to modify human behaviour to reduce emissions, and one would hope that this fact might encourage those opposite to develop a more rational response. But there is nothing rational in the response of the sceptics and deniers, who cannot wait to defeat this bill regardless of what amendments and concessions are agreed to in the ongoing negotiations between the government and the coalition.

It would not matter to them what was in the bill or how many more scientific reports landed on their desks telling them that climate change is real, it is happening, we are causing it and it is bad. They will continue to pretend that climate change is some massive global left-wing plot concocted by governments and scientists determined to destroy the world as we know it. But we know who the real destroyers are, and it is not the people on this side of the chamber; it is those few on the other side of the chamber who are determined to see these bills defeated.

Of course, the opposition has not always been hostage to the sceptics. As has been pointed out many times in this chamber, the former Prime Minister, Mr Howard, supported an emissions trading scheme and so did his party room. The current Leader of the Opposition, Mr Turnbull, also supports an emissions trading scheme. How that must rankle with the climate change sceptics. It is truly pathetic that the petty ongoing internal divisions in the opposition over Mr Turnbull’s leadership have spilled over into this most important of public policy debates. We can only hope that those more sensible, rational voices in the opposition prevail.

The Rudd Labor government accepts the science that says that climate change is real, dangerous and increasing but can be mitigated. The government has accepted that even though our own total emissions are not huge in comparison with some other nations, our per capita output is amongst the world’s highest and our reliance on non-renewable polluting fuel sources is neither environmentally nor economically sustainable in the longer term.

Prior to the last election, Rudd Labor made a commitment to protect Australians and to show international leadership in the global fight against climate change. We are enacting that commitment to the Australian people and we are doing it in a measured way that ensures our economy remains strong, particularly as we face the ongoing fallout of the global financial crisis. That is what these bills are all about—a rational, reasonable, measured, economically responsible but determined legislative response to the greatest issue of our generation.

Although the scheme has already been rejected by the Senate once, we are determined to continue negotiations with the opposition in order to reach agreement and pass this crucial legislation to protect our nation and our future generations. The government’s balanced approach to addressing climate change means that we have paid careful attention to the economic impacts of the CPRS.

The bills contain measures to mitigate the costs to emitters and to compensate low-income earners and businesses that would be adversely affected by the predicted cost increases associated with the transition to a low carbon future. The government has also announced a range of measures to support the development of renewable energy sources and to encourage the growth of new jobs in the renewable energy sector.

Unlike many of those opposite, we have not wholly and unquestioningly swallowed the overwrought claims of some emissions-intensive industries. Just because we have all been inundated with impressive publications from large emissions-intensive companies and industry representative organisations and just because the newspapers all this week have been filled with full-page adverts predicting doom and gloom, we have not just thrown up our hands and caved in. Nor have we accepted holus bolus the claims on the other side of the debate that we have not done enough and that our targets are too weak and should not be supported on the grounds that they do not go far enough.

In relation to the claims of the large emitters that the destruction of life as we know it will ensue if the CPRS goes ahead, the government anticipated that reaction. It is part of the robust debate about any significant legislation that will affect one or other sector of the economy. Tobacco companies, alcohol companies, telecommunications companies, agricultural companies—any organisation that feels government action will affect its bottom line will always attempt to portray the worst possible scenario so it can gain the maximum advantage and leverage in negotiations with government.

Good governments like ours weigh up the competing claims and predictions against the facts and weigh up the path of action that will deliver the best result for the whole Australian community in the long term. Treasury modelling shows that the price impact of the CPRS is modest. Household prices for power would rise by 0.4 per cent in 2011-12 and 0.7 per cent in 2012-13. As was noted earlier, the bill provides for compensation to assist householders to meet those modest cost rises.

I should note that in my discussions with constituents about this issue, overwhelmingly, even those who can least afford price increases are prepared to do what they can to support the introduction of any measures that will halt climate change. Unlike some of those in the coalition, those constituents understand the need for action, and for urgent action, and are prepared to wear some pain to get that action. Of course, it would be wonderful if we could introduce the CPRS at no cost to anyone at all, but that is not possible. The transition from a high-per-capita-emitting nation to a low-emitting nation weaning itself off non-renewable, polluting fuels is going to come at a cost, and the government believes that all sectors of the economy—including the EITE industries—need to be part of that transition.

Opposition members often claim that the CPRS will destroy jobs. The fact is that we can make the transition to a low-emission economy while continuing to prosper. Treasury economic modelling confirms that and also shows national employment continuing to grow to 2020 and national income increasing by at least $4,300 per person while the nation is reducing carbon pollution by up to 25 percent below year 2000 levels. Our proposed transitional assistance for EITE industries will also assist in protecting jobs, including jobs at risk from so-called ‘carbon leakage’.

The government has established the $2.75 billion Climate Change Action Fund to help provide targeted assistance to businesses, community sector organisations, workers, regions and communities, to help make the transition to a low-pollution economy. For small- to medium-sized businesses, the CCAF will provide funding to help in the adjustment to the CPRS. This funding—including funding for information, investments in energy efficiency, low-emissions technology, structural adjustment assistance and the coal sector adjustment fund—demonstrates that the government has listened to all sides of the argument and has devised a well thought out plan for implementing the CPRS. We have committed to helping businesses prepare for the CPRS, and its passage through the Senate will provide the certainty, the assurance and the assistance that all Australian businesses need and deserve to create a low-pollution future.

One constant in the debate about the CPRS has been the request by the business community for certainty so that it can adapt and invest knowing what the rules are. It is up to the opposition to make up their minds once and for all on their position on climate change and what Australia is going to do about it. They owe it to those in the business community they purport to represent.

Of course, the opponents of these bills will never talk about the opportunity that firm action on climate change gives us to invest in new jobs in the renewable energy sector. A 2009 Climate Institute study shows that $31 billion worth of clean energy projects are planned or have commenced. Those projects will generate approximately 26,000 jobs in mostly regional areas, and many more thousands of jobs will be created by the government’s $4 billion energy efficiency programs. This government is always conscious of the need to support jobs—that is, after all, why we introduced our economy-saving economic stimulus package. We are not afraid to make the hard decisions, and we are also conscious of the fact that if we defer action on climate change, the costs of eventually taking action will be higher and the job losses will be severe.

As I have said, Australia is not the only country grappling with how to address climate change. We are not going it alone and the CPRS is not some untested, far-out scheme concocted by tree huggers in isolation from what is going on in the rest of the world. The choice of a cap-and-trade scheme like the CPRS is consistent with the action being taken in comparable economies. The EU has had an ETS in place since 2005 and New Zealand, Canada and the United States are all at various stages of implementing a form of CPRS because it is seen as the most effective, responsible way to globally address the imperative to reduce emissions to acceptable levels. Surely the whole of the developed world is not the victim of some kooky, left-wing conspiracy—as the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and some of his acolytes would have us believe.

I mentioned earlier the fact that sea levels are rising. In Australia, where most of us live on the coast, we are extremely susceptible to economic loss caused by rising sea levels. Recently the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong, announced a new report, Climate change risks to Australia’s coasts, which shows that between 157,000 and 247,600 existing residential buildings across the country will be at risk from sea inundation by the year 2100. These are the kinds of devastating impacts of climate change that will come to fruition if those opposite do not finally accept that climate change is real, it is happening, we are causing it, it is bad, and we need to do something about it. The opportunity to do something about it is presented before us in these bills. I look forward to the rational people opposite gaining the upper hand in this debate so that Australia can move forward to be a low-emitting, clean, green energy economy.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to speak today on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 [No. 2] and related bills. Senator Lundy said during her contribution that, in her view, the ETS and the issue of climate change are now completely and utterly viewed by the community as one, and I do acknowledge that that is, in all likelihood, the situation. I do want to make some comments about that, but I want to start off by talking about what I thought was the least helpful intervention we have had in this debate in the last three months, and that was the intervention of the Prime Minister at the Lowy Institute. What possessed this nation’s leader to give the speech he did, which branded people in various categories in relation to their views on the ETS and on climate change and to use the inflammatory language that he used in the middle of a very, very substantial community and parliamentary debate is absolutely beyond me. The expression ‘sceptic’ is not, in my view, an expression that should be used to label someone, but it is an expression that should be allowed to be used to indicate where someone lies in relation to a debate. I thought it was an appalling intervention and one that I very, very much hope that he regrets.

There are people with different views in relation to climate change. I am not one of those who says there is no indication of climate change. I live in Ballarat. Lake Wendouree in Ballarat will dry up this year for the fifth year in a row. That has never before occurred since records have been kept. I have many friends on the land who used to harvest in February but will now harvest in late December-early January. Is there an indication of climate change? Most certainly. Is that all, some or no responsibility of man? I have absolutely no idea.

I have to say that I did not realise that there were so many scientists in the world until we started on this debate. There must be hundreds of thousands of scientists—and I must have got via email some response from nearly every single one of them. I do not know whether or not the climate change we are seeing is man-made. I have no idea, and I suspect the science cannot give a definitive argument about that either. But, conversely, it is imperative for all of us to ameliorate the risks if that indeed is occurring. That is where I think this debate should start and finish.

So can we have some sensible discussion from the Prime Minister? Can we not label people who have a different view to him? Can we respect those views and respect that they can be given passionately? Heaven help us in this country if we get to the stage where we have that sort of moral censorship—which is, in my view, totally inappropriate. This really is a government about censorship, as we have seen in relation to our printing and other entitlements.

As one of my staff members pointed out to me—and he would know far better than me, I have got to say—one of the greatest bands in the 1930s was the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra, and one of the greatest hits of the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra was a tune called T’ain’t what you do (It’s The Way That You Do It). I do not know the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra but I accept that that is indeed the words in one of their greatest hits. In some respect I think that fairly clearly captures the spirit of the coalition’s position on the Rudd government’s emissions trading scheme.

Can I make it absolutely clear that the coalition will not be supporting this legislation in its current form. Can I also make it very clear that my view—and, indeed, the coalition’s view—is that we should not be debating this legislation prior to Copenhagen. Clearly, the government is insisting and demanding that we do so. During estimates I asked Minister Wong: ‘Give me one good reason that we should be debating this prior to Copenhagen?’ There is no good reason for it to be debated prior to Copenhagen. I acknowledge that that is what the government intends doing. I acknowledge that the government wants this voted on next week. If the government is able to address the matters that we have very, very significant concerns about, and there is a reasonable level of acceptance of the amendments that we have put through, I make it clear that I will be supporting it.

I do accept the need for an emissions trading scheme—not with any enormous enthusiasm, I might say, but I do acknowledge that. In some respects, it would be churlish for me to say otherwise because, as has quite rightly been indicated, we went to the last election with an emissions trading scheme as part of the platform. But, having said that, this current package of bills before us now will, in my view, do nothing for the environment and will have a very, very dramatic impact on jobs and Australian families. Indeed, it will devastate the international competitiveness of Australian industry. It will trigger the widespread loss of jobs and loss of companies that would shift their operations overseas. This is not a comment of fearmongering or mere speculation. During the inquiry conducted by the Senate, a number of people appeared or put in submissions and it was quite clearly indicated by a number of companies that did appear that the potential outcome of the package of bills in its current form is a dramatic loss of jobs—and I will talk about my own state in relation to that shortly.

I will deviate briefly. When you look at the risk facing Australia at the moment and when you look at the risk facing Victoria and, I presume, Tasmania and New South Wales over the next couple of months, you have to ask why Senator McEwen does not force the state Labor government of South Australia and plead with her colleagues from Victoria to get the state Labor governments to start doing the things they should have been doing over the last 10 years—that is, to have controlled fuel burns—so we do not put the lives of people at risk through pandering to the worst excesses of the green movement, who will not allow controlled fuel reduction burns to minimise the risks that we are going to be facing in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales? It is a disgrace.

I want to turn briefly to the contribution of the Bureau of Steel Manufacturers of Australia to the Senate inquiry, and I quote:

We believe that the CPRS, as currently proposed, will disadvantage the competitiveness of the Australian iron and steel industry for a potentially worse environmental outcome.

Given the time that I have, I will only refer briefly to comments from the Minerals Council of Australia, the Australian Petroleum Protection and Exploration Association, Rio Tinto and the Reserve Bank director who said, ‘The Australian economy will survive the economic downturn, but it may not survive the CPRS.’ There was a significant discussion about potential job losses.

The Australian reported on an impact study by the premiers and chief ministers—all of them except one are Labor, of course—showing that an unamended Rudd government ETS would cost 126,000 jobs by 2020. Last month, the Age reported on a confidential report commissioned by Premier John Brumby warning of the catastrophe that the Rudd government’s unamended ETS would inflict on Victoria’s power industry. The report indicated that the Rudd government ETS could force the Hazelwood power station to close by 2013 and the neighbouring Yallourn plant to shut five years later. These two plants account for 40 per cent of Victoria’s electricity and the end result would be power disruptions and blackouts across the state. The economic consequences of that would be disastrous.

I am also extremely concerned about the effect of an unamended Rudd government ETS on the local economy of Geelong. As honourable senators know, or at least some know, I am the patron senator for Corangamite and Corio. Economic research indicates that key regional centres like Geelong could shrink by more than 20 per cent under the Rudd government’s emissions trading scheme. Analysis by the Council for the Australian Federation, which is a body of all state and territory governments, concluded that the unamended Labor ETS would cost 653 jobs in Geelong, the Surf Coast shire, Golden Plains shire, the borough of Queenscliffe and the Colac Otway shire. According to the same council report, the city of Greater Geelong alone would lose 570 jobs and over $119 million in economic output. Such an outcome would constitute an economic cataclysm for the entire region that I am referring to. That worries me greatly. It worries the Geelong City Council. Indeed, the council is so worried that they have a delegation in parliament, who I have seen and who are seeing a lot of other senators and members today. They will be lobbying for the protection of Geelong’s manufacturing sector. Mayor John Mitchell was quoted in the Geelong Advertiser as saying, ‘Geelong is probably the city most exposed to this carbon reduction scheme.’ Along with representatives from major Geelong based industries such as Alcoa, Shell and Blue Circle Cement, the city councillors are here to advocate the coalition’s proposals to compensate Australian industry more generously.

The Managing Director of Alcoa Australia, Alan Cransberg, recently laid out the view of his company on this issue. There should not be one person in this chamber or in the other place who is not acutely aware of the impact of this current scheme on a company such as Alcoa. It will be utterly disastrous, but more important than the company itself are the people the company employs, who will be losing their jobs. Mr Cransberg said:

For over a year Alcoa has supported the introduction of an emissions trading scheme in Australia that delivers reductions in greenhouse gases and does not compromise Australian jobs or the international competitiveness of our industry. Getting the detail right, within the CPRS, is critical to ensure Australia does not experience carbon and/or jobs leakage, particularly to countries where the emissions from production may be higher.

As part of our discussions with all stakeholders, including the Government and Opposition, we have consistently called for three key changes:

• at least 90% carbon permit allocations to each of our emissions-intensive trade-exposed (EITE) operations (refining, smelting and rolling businesses);
• no decay of EITE permit allocations until international competitors adopt a carbon price; and
• resolution of inequitable impacts on the Point Henry and Portland smelters from the CPRS Electricity Allocation Factor (the way emissions from power stations, that supply our electricity, are dealt with under the CPRS.

He goes on to say:

For many months we have also said we want the Government and the Opposition to agree these outcomes as part of the normal debate and negotiation processes that accompany the passage of significant pieces of legislation. Alcoa is very pleased to see that the Opposition has proposed amendments to the current CPRS framework that would address each of the three key issues above, by ensuring:

• Our refining, smelting and rolling operations start at 94.5% initial EITE permit allocations (our mining and transport operations would not be considered EITE);
• That the decay of EITE permits would not fall below 90% until most of our international competitors adopted a carbon price; and
• The Point Henry and Portland smelters would not be disadvantaged by an Electricity Allocation Factor that we cannot achieve in future Victorian power contracts.

These outcomes are absolutely essential to ensure emissions trading in Australia does not lead to the premature closure of any of our Australian facilities.

The business leaders of Geelong are deeply concerned about this matter. It would appear that the current member for Corangamite, the completely ineffectual Mr Darren Cheeseman, is not. On 16 November this year, Mr Cheeseman had an opinion piece published in the Geelong Advertiser spruiking the wholly imaginary virtues of the Rudd ETS. It was, he said, ‘a sensible, balanced and well calibrated policy response … for our region’. In the same Geelong Advertiser piece, Mr Cheeseman slammed the coalition proposal to exclude agriculture from the ETS. The Liberals, he claimed, had ‘sold out Alcoa and Shell workers in favour of farmers’. This attack came after Minister Wong had accepted our views in relation to agriculture, so he is completely and utterly out of touch. Remarkably, however, on the same day16 November—that he was attacking the ETS agriculture exclusion in the Geelong Advertiser, he expressed delight about it in the Colac Herald. So which one is it, Mr Cheeseman? Are agriculture exclusions a sell-out, as you claimed in the Geelong Advertiser, or ‘absolutely fantastic’, as claimed in the Colac Herald?

I want to finish on this note. I have given the chamber my views in relation to the climate change issue—what is, is not or may be man-made or otherwise. I repeat that we do not support the current bill. We are negotiating with the government in good faith. It was indicated in the party room several weeks ago that we would be negotiating in good faith to make this legislation better. At the moment it is nothing but a job-destroying proposal. We are negotiating in good faith, and we will continue to do so.

I now want to talk about what I consider to be the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room in my view is the question of nuclear power. I find it unbelievable that we are actually talking about programs for the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years without including some discussion of nuclear power. It beggars belief. In fact it is probably derelict of us not to include it. How you can talk about emissions and the danger of emissions without discussing nuclear power is absolutely beyond me, and it completely and utterly beggars belief. How big does this elephant need to get? How big are we going to let this elephant get before there are some sensible discussions about it?

One only has to look at what has been done internationally to see the stupidity of our position. If you look at Europe—particularly France—you will see the number of power stations that they have. France gets 75 per cent of its electricity from nuclear reactors, and there has not been an accident or incident. There are 19 nuclear reactors operating in Britain, without accident or incident. The UK government has recently approved the construction of 10 more. There is proven technology. I implore the government to go to Copenhagen and put this on the table. If we are looking for an international solution to this issue, if we are about minimising risk, then let us put nuclear power on the table. Let us have a world view in relation to nuclear power. Let the world, including us, look at the question of storage; but, if the elephant remains in the room, if the elephant is not addressed, then we will pay a significant penalty for our failure to address the issue.

Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 [No. 2] and related bills. In my opinion this is some of the most significant legislation to be debated in this place. Whenever I speak on legislation, I only do so after thoroughly researching and analysing the issue being debated. I always try to make the most informed decision I can, and I have certainly given this issue a great deal of thought.

As a Western Australian senator I am deeply concerned about the impact these bills will have on the Western Australian economy and employment. Jobs must not be sacrificed as a result of this legislation. I find it hard to understand that we are back here dealing with the same bills we debated three months ago. What has changed? We have had a great deal of time during this session to debate these bills, and now it is all being rushed through. We are having second readings on bills which have already been rejected, and we do not really know what the new bill will look like. It is a shambolic situation to be debating these bills now, while the content is still being negotiated outside this place.

I am not anti the environment and I am not a climate sceptic; I do, however, have a different opinion to others in this place. Having been farmers for most of our lives, my family and I have respected and worked closely with the environment to ensure good farming practices and ongoing viability of our farm business. Our family was one of the first in the district to reduce stubble burning and switch to no-till methods, which stores carbon in the soil rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. We have planned and used water wisely on our properties and protected and revegetated our waterways and more vulnerable areas of land.

We also kept good rainfall records. The records of our property go back just over 100 years, and they do not indicate that what is currently happening is abnormal when compared to the high and low average rainfall periods during the past century. I have heard the same story from farmers throughout Western Australia. One such farmer is Mr Geoff Bee from Jerramungup, which is just south of where I come from. Mr Bee has won numerous environmental awards for his leading environmental farm practices. Historical rainfall records show no current trends which are abnormal.

As people who work directly with the climate, because our livelihoods depend upon it, we farmers have, to date, not seen any firsthand evidence in our paddocks or rain gauges to back up what we are reading in the newspapers—which is, more or less, that the end will soon be here if we do not change our practices. We are scratching our heads, because what we are reading about this we are not seeing in evidence on our properties. As with rainfall, there is also real historic evidence about temperatures in Australian country areas—as opposed to cities where the temperature is affected by non-climatic factors or ‘big-city warming effects’ such as cars and air conditioning.

Bureau of Meteorology figures taken from weather observatories throughout Australia with data going back a hundred years or more indicate that the countryside has not been warming. In Deniliquin and Bathurst there has actually been a fall in temperatures over the last hundred years. Many regional areas show no trend at all, neither up nor down. These historic local records are all very inconvenient truths.

After careful analysis of the scientific opinion and many publications—minus the political spin—that have been presented to me, on balance I have tried to align them with my own experiences with the land and climate and the reliable data that has served our farming operations well. When farmers invest in a new property, as we did on a number of occasions, they make their decision based on sound historical data and trends. The less prudent might go to their local Blockbuster and rent an Al Gore movie. I will continue to consider very seriously the opinions of my peers, who are so much at one with nature and working with the changing seasons. I will lean towards these opinions before those formed by the much questioned data generated by supercomputers.

I can only base my opinion on an analysis of the information that has been presented to me. I am not a climate scientist. I have given careful regard to who is presenting opinion on this issue and taken note of whether the case is being presented by political operatives or people with vested interests. In the early stages of this debate I read much in the news media and other publications about the need to act on climate change quickly—that is, global warming is being significantly accelerated by human activity and if we do not immediately act it will be to the detriment of mankind. But as this issue has progressed I have seen more and more scientific opinion presented and more people and scientists speaking out against what is being presented in the media. It is almost like a sleeping giant awakening.

A range of opinions and arguments have been presented to me and I have received an overwhelming number of emails, letters and phone calls on this issue. What has surprised me greatly is that, for all the hype about the urgency of acting, I have received very little direct correspondence in support of this. I would say that 85 per cent of direct feedback I have received from throughout Western Australia and the rest of Australia has been against an ETS and even more vehemently opposed to the draft Copenhagen treaty. A delay at Copenhagen will, in my opinion, avert what could be a disaster.

Details of the draft Copenhagen treaty have finally come to the surface and they are very worrying. There are some deeply troubling elements of the draft Copenhagen treaty which Australians have not been informed about to an appropriate extent. There are a number of parts of this draft treaty so significant to the future of our country that a decision on Australia being a signatory should be put to a vote of the Australian people. The Prime Minister should only sign it after a referendum of the Australian people.

The Prime Minister has been mysteriously quiet on the draft treaty, which his government has played a part in formulating. I believe he has a lot of explaining to do to the Australian people. I am most concerned that a central tenet of the treaty is the creation of an unelected world government which will have the power to direct our domestic policies and overrule our sovereign rights. Developed countries such as Australia will also be required to pay a climate debt to developing nations at a suggested rate of 0.7 per cent of GDP. That would mean that Australia would have to pay $7 billion per year to this global government with no say on how it is to be spent. Mr Rudd must start explaining this treaty to us before he tries to sign anything in Copenhagen on our behalf.

All the people I have spoken to who have now seen extracts of the draft treaty are horrified. I too am horrified and left suspicious that the climate change platform is being used as a front for a deeper agenda. It also makes me suspicious when parts of Mr Rudd’s summer holiday essay, which effectively espouses a New Age global socialism, mirror so many tenets of the Copenhagen treaty.

Leading proponents of the global warming debate have made comments which warrant suspicion. Stephen Schneider, one of the original leading proponents of global warming, said:

We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.

Maurice Strong, architect of the Kyoto protocol, is quoted in Blue Planet in Green Shackles as saying:

Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our duty to bring that about?

And there is this remarkable statement by the former Canadian Minister of the Environment, Christine Stewart:

No matter if the science of global warming is all phoney … climate change [provides] the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.

I am very concerned when I look at the make-up of many of the so-called climate groups pushing for action—groups which have innocuous names, as climate representatives, that would sound safe to the general public but underneath are affiliations of hard green groups and unions. I have also noted too many vested interests associated with the arguments to ‘act on climate change’, such as people with interests or shareholdings in companies that will profit from carbon trading. What also makes me deeply suspicious is the sight of the same people who led the anarchistic antiglobalisation protests, which became increasingly out of control around the world before the September 11 terrorist attacks, re-emerging and protesting under the climate change banner.

The core of the climate change movement is deep green and hard left. Their principles are generally very hostile to strong, market based economies like Australia. Hardworking Australians, trying to create a safe and successful future for their families, should be very wary of the motives of some of the people in the climate change movement. During the past month, I could not help but become increasingly suspicious that the climate change debate is being used as a front for a deeper agenda. After learning more about the draft Copenhagen treaty, this really made me stop and think and, as the Prime Minister’s spin becomes more threatening and hysterical, I become even more suspicious. We should not be coerced into something as significant as this.

The coalition has a good, practical record on environmental issues, not policy based on media grabs. We are all about rolling up our sleeves and getting on with achieving real results and cuts in emissions, not spin, hype and pretence. As my colleague Senator Macdonald reminded this place, the Howard government set up the first greenhouse office in the world.

Whatever we do in Australia must take into account what is happening globally, or else our competitive position will be severely compromised. The government has not been upfront with the Australian people, by failing to tell us what the impact will be on jobs. Where is the detailed economic modelling for such a significant change as this? Why on earth would we allow Australian jobs, investment and CO2 emissions to be exported to countries which do not have a price imposed on carbon?

The cement industry is a glaring example of the effect this legislation will have on Australian business and on the Australian workforce. Cement Australia shut down its Rockhampton operations in August and said that the decision was partly taken because, with the introduction of a carbon pollution reduction scheme, the long-term prospects of the business had been undermined. Cement manufacturing in Australia emits approximately 0.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide for every tonne of cement which is produced. That sounds like a significant amount, but in reality Australia is one of the most efficient cement manufacturers in the world. Until we find an alternative to cement, we must keep manufacturing it. If we do not manufacture it locally, we will need to import it from elsewhere. Cement production in China emits 1.1 tonnes of carbon for every tonne of cement—0.3 tonnes more than if it had been made in Australia. So, if an ETS makes our cement industry unviable and shuts it down, hundreds of Australian jobs will be destroyed and additional carbon will be released into the atmosphere as we turn to countries like China for our cement supplies. Local jobs will be lost and global emissions will go up. How does that make sense?

We are now debating the emissions trading scheme legislation, to which the coalition will seek a number of significant amendments. It could more correctly be labelled an emissions tax scheme because quite simply it is a tax on everything and will have negligible impact on Australia’s emissions. To echo the words of my former colleague Dr Nelson:

Why introduce the biggest change to the economic architecture of this nation in my lifetime with a tax on everything … for no environmental gain?

I have attended numerous community forums and meetings and, at every one of them, the more participants learn more about what is being proposed and the workings of an ETS the more they are against the scheme. At one of these forums, held in Mount Barker in the Great Southern region of Western Australia, there were approximately 100 people and a balanced group of 12 speakers. It was amazing. Everyone stayed for the full day and participated intently. By the end of the day, attitudes towards an ETS appeared to me to be at best confusion with some dismay and distrust and, at worst, alarm—alarm especially at getting very little recognition for the extensive good environmental practices farmers are already undertaking and the prospect of significant interference by government bureaucracy.

I am seeing first hand that, as people come to understand what the ETS is about, they are realising it is nothing more than a bureaucratic utopia at the expense of Australian industry and jobs. An ETS bureaucracy will be a safe haven for green activists and extreme environmentalists. Australian resource industries and farmers should be very wary. I predict they would find very few friends in a Canberra based climate change bureaucracy. I have said on a number of occasions and I say again now that I will never support any emissions trading scheme that includes agriculture.

Why are we not considering significant infrastructure upgrades and projects that could alter the whole way we power our nation? For example, what serious consideration has the government given to harvesting the immense power of our unique tides in Northern Australia? What research and consideration is the government giving to high-voltage DC cabling, which would completely change the way we transport our electricity and open up significantly better access to the lower emitting energy sources we have in Australia, such as the giant natural gas reserves of our north-west?

Why is nuclear power not being properly analysed in Australia as an alternative energy source? We must compare the 320,000 tonnes per annum of toxic waste produced by a 500 megawatt coal fired power station with the 20 tonnes per annum produced by a comparable nuclear station. The coal fired station will release 4.38 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere compared with 87,600 tonnes by the nuclear station—98 per cent less. The waste from the coal station will include 2.6 tonnes of uranium and 6.4 tonnes of thorium. These figures alone warrant a proper analysis by the government of nuclear power as an alternative source if they are genuinely serious about reducing emissions.

To conclude, why is the government not opening up debate on better forestry management practices to ensure wildfires have less chance of occurring? These fires are predominantly started by arson, not climate change, and release incredible amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. If the government is genuinely serious about actual carbon emissions, why has it done nothing about forestry policy to ensure horrific, deadly events do not happen again? In my opinion, there has not been enough consideration given to some very practical measures we could be taking that could significantly reduce our levels of emissions, which I believe could negate the introduction of an emissions trading scheme. Not enough consideration has been given to changing the way we power our nation. I have given extensive and careful consideration to these matters and, upon thorough assessment of everything that has been presented to me, I have made an informed decision that I cannot support these bills.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Right through this debate on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 [No. 2] and related bills, and from listening to my colleagues speak, it has been quite clear to me that this is not an issue that divides the coalition. It is not a National Party-Liberal Party issue or a National Party-Liberal Party-Independents issue, or a National Party-Liberal Party-Greens issue. This is a debate about whether a policy can bring about the outcome that the government prescribe. What the government prescribe is that this is going to have an effect in changing global warming. That is the premise of their argument.

Let us just look at the clear premise of that argument. Will the emissions trading scheme, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, do anything to change the temperature of the globe? The answer is: categorically, no. I have to refer to the illustrious members of the fourth estate. Whenever you put forward this conjecture—that this legislation is going to have no effect—you may be referred to as being from the alumni of the university of east bum crack. This is all part of the peculiar process that is used at times to ridicule the self-evident argument. I acknowledge that there are people within the Labor Party who are as fervently against this ETS as any person on this side of the chamber but every time this debate moves to a position of dealing with the substance of the legislation and its capacity to bring about an effect, people move it into the rhetorical shrill of cataclysmic events. Even today we have heard that South Australia will fry. We have heard about extinction of species. We have heard that you do not have to bother going to the coast because the coast is coming to you. All these cataclysmic metaphors get rolled up and rolled up.

Even if you believe in global warming chapter and verse then you must ask the fundamental question: will this policy from two chambers in the nation of Australia change any of that? No, it will not—not one iota, not one jot. So what we really have here is a conceited belief that the unilateral actions of one nation within the globe are going to make a complete change in the dynamism of global politics. If that was the case you would start to see signs of it now. APEC fell flat on its face; it completely and utterly fell over. The whole 200-page Copenhagen agreement has now become—we do not really know—a 15-page or eight-page media release. This does not give a good warrant or premise that Mr Rudd is actually affecting global politics. In fact, it shows quite clearly that he is irrelevant to global politics. The only premise on which we should go forward on this is that somehow it would have a political global effect, but that just has not been seen; it is not there.

Let us go through it. Will sea-level rises be affected by the emissions trading scheme? Even if you believe everything about the global warming debate, the answer is: categorically, no. Will species extinction be exacerbated if Australia does not take on the ETS? Categorically, no. Will polar icecaps melt if Australia does or does not takes on the ETS? There is no relationship whatsoever. Will the droughts of southern Australia be brought to a conclusion or extended by anything Australia does with the ETS? The answer is: no.

It has become a religious debate, not a debate about science, because every time you move into the science around whether this ETS will have an effect then straight away you are moved to the religious metaphors of damnation, cataclysmic events and another realm of Dante’s Inferno that is apparently prescribed for those who dare question the tenets of the Labor Party’s position on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. And now this new alternative form of religion, with its chapter and its ecclesiastical appeal, is now being prescribed by such wondrous lights as Clive Hamilton. People like him are now issuing forth the fervent endorsement of Labor policy. Is that what we want? Is that the gentleman who we are now going to fall into line with?

A tax does not inspire anything except tax avoidance. I can tell you that as an accountant. I am just looking at this through economic eyes, without looking at the science. A tax inspires nothing but tax avoidance. Man did not develop the wheel because someone developed a tax on walking. It was not a tax on equine species that led to the development of the automobile. There is nothing that I have seen in the history of mankind where taxes inspired anything except tax avoidance. We had an example today of a half-billion dollar hole, basically by reason of tax evasion. It is brilliant. You just cannot hold the world back when people decide that they can avoid tax. But the way you can avoid this tax is quite simple: you leave Australia. That is how you could avoid this tax. Avoid Australia and you avoid the tax.

If you want to inspire innovation and take your nation forward, if you want to be a clever nation that, as the Prime Minister says, makes things, you had better make something a little bit more inspiring than a new tax. On the global stage will be the Scandinavians who developed Nokia, nuclear physicists, Silicon Valley, the Japanese manufacturing miracle and the development of China. What will Australia take to this table? What we have developed for the world, the way we are taking it forward, is a new tax—a whole new bureaucracy, a whole new swathe of tin gods, marauding across the countryside and putting their paws into every corner of people’s lives.

This new tax collects, even on the government’s rudimentary figures—and they are pretty rudimentary—$70.2 billion in the first six years. That kind of money does not grow on trees. Somebody somewhere will have to pay. That money will have to come from somewhere. The people who will pay will ultimately be those who cannot move that cost on. In the lingua franca of recent times, those people who cannot pass the cost on have been given a name. They are called working families. Working families cannot pass that cost on. They are the bunny at the end who will wear the cost. I hear the protestations of such people as Senator McEwen, who says that South Australia will fry. I cannot understand how turning off a pensioner’s air conditioner is solving the problem. I have not quite worked that one out. If the problem is heat, having no air conditioner is hardly the solution. This is the subject that the Labor Party avoids. They do not want to go into this prickle patch of who will pay.

The delivery of this tax is insidious, because it is a static tax. They do not have to prove profit to make you pay the tax. All they have to prove is that you exist. If you exist, you pay. How are you going to pay? The delivery mechanism of this tax will be associated with every corner of the house—every power point is a mechanism of revenue-raising for the government. How mad it is: if you fly to Cairns you pay the tax, but if you fly to Fiji you do not. That is a simple decision to make in a market based economy: fly to Fiji. We have devised a tax that is like the reintroduction of tariff barriers, but the only people who pay are Australians. The rest of the world do not. It is just so insanely illogical.

Every now and then the world goes off its head. This time, it is antipodean tulip mania, where the Australians, in our own peculiar form, have come up with this massive new tax. Basically the metaphor for this tax is going to the world and pulling our strides down while everybody else stands back and laughs at us. The world is watching us. Are the people who signed the Kyoto protocol abiding by it? No, they are not. It was marvellous to clap at Bali because it made people feel good, but then they have all gone on their merry way, and we are left with another encumbrance on our economy.

This tax is to inspire people to move away from the production of carbon. Unfortunately, our major export is a substance called coal, which is carbon. So we have now declared to the world that we are going to put an impost on our major export. That is a brilliant piece of economics—absolutely brilliant. We say: ‘Well, this is interesting. We’re moving away from that. Where are we going?’ And we always hear: ‘We’re going to green jobs.’ In one of the numerous Senate inquiries I have gone to, I remember asking Meghan Quinn: ‘Meghan, where are these green jobs? Can you name one?’ She said, ‘Well, what about wind farms?’ I said, ‘Have you been to a wind farm lately?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘How many people did you see working there?’ She said, and this is on the record: ‘Well, there was the person driving me round.’ So I asked, ‘Where else are these green jobs?’ and she answered, ‘Forestry.’ I asked, ‘Oh, have you been to a forest lately?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ I asked, ‘How many people did you see?’ She answered, ‘No-one.’ I asked, ‘Have you been to a coal mine lately?’ She said, ‘No, but I’ve seen them on television.’ That was her statement—‘I’ve seen them on television’! I asked, ‘Did you see many people working there?’ She answered, ‘Quite a few.’

You do not have to be Sigmund Freud to work this one out. If you want your economy to be like paths around duck ponds and new wondrous factories producing wind chimes in Nimbin then that is all right. If you want to turn yourself into a nation that takes in one another’s washing, that is fine. But you will be broke. You will be stone motherless broke. You can do that. It is possible to turn the place upside down and create a bureaucratic disaster, a new example of mankind coming up with a wondrous idea that only brings affliction.

A relevant question to ask is: what are the alternatives? There are numerous alternatives. There is a whole range of alternatives. We can look at such things as nuclear. We have to get our mind around the corner from 1954, start looking at where we are in the year of our Lord 2009 and start looking at nuclear. There are biofuels and rail. If you want a carbon-efficient investment allowance, transfer over time to gas. The Labor Party is inspiring a juncture where everything that was planned before becomes meaningless afterwards. The Labor Party have, by the deft hand of legislation, completely changed the tack of the economy. It just brings things unstuck. It brings capital projects unstuck.

Who are the people who want an emissions trading scheme? Quite obviously, the traders want a trading scheme. If we go back to the numbers, in the first year we have about $4 billion in permits going out, then there is $12.99 billion in permits going out—that is about $17 billion worth of permits. If you got a one per cent commission, you would have $170 million. If you had 1½ per cent—I suppose it would have to be 85 on that—it would be $225 million on one trade. In banking, if you churn that—and you could churn it three or four times a day—three or four times a year, we are looking at up to a billion dollars on commission, just on that. There are a lot of good reasons, there are billion-dollar reasons, to have a trading scheme if you are a trader.

I went into one of the banks the other day because I was fascinated. I had been labelled a Neanderthal, a redneck and a profligate student from the university of east bum-crack. If you do not agree with the University of Sydney or Annabel Crabb, you are in trouble. As I walked in the door of one illustrious institutions in Sydney—and they are marvellous people—I did not get an aura of environmental consciousness. I was looking around at the good men and women working in that institution and none of them seemed to be talking about the environment or panda bears or other things. They were talking about going to the pub, buying new cars and houses, and everything else available to them in life. I was told by those close to the executive that this was all about the environment; it was their conscience that was driving them down this path. In pursuing the question with them I said, ‘How much are you going to make?’ They said, ‘We have not calculated it.’ I said, ‘Don’t lie to me, how much are you going to make?’ Finally it was blurted out across the table, ‘A substantial amount of money.’ That is a substantially good reason to pursue an emissions trading scheme!

We are in this peculiar position after weeks of negotiations. I am very worried that this parliament and this Senate are getting themselves into a position of wedge politics. With a very tight time frame we have to make the most major decision in the economic direction of this nation—without a shadow of a doubt. The position of prudence and stewardship we hold in this chamber says that we should give that decision on how we vote the utmost sense of import. I am very much encouraged, when I listen to the speeches in this chamber, that all of a sudden people have picked up on this and have started to become discerning and really clinical in their assessment of this legislation.

It is humbling to see the Senate, once more, kick back into gear and do what it is supposed to do and say, ‘Is this good for my nation? Have these people proven their case? Does this warrant my vote?’ Your vote will change the direction of this nation. Each senator, and I know some are back in their rooms watching this debate at the moment, knows that their vote really is going to change the direction of the nation—it really is. More than anything else they ever do, this vote will change the direction of our nation and where it goes. Once this tax is in place it becomes set and virtually impossible to remove.

I warn you, though, that not far away from the time the Labor Party brings in this tax there will be a thing called an election. The election is a great mechanism that will make this issue not stop—it will continue. There is no way on earth people are going to be negligent in their duty to protect this nation from what is a ridiculous proposition. They will not be making up their minds based on what happens next week. It will be pursued and every time there is an amendment to a regulation it will back in this chamber.

There is only one question that people need to ask as they go forward with this vote, and that is this: what is the Labor government proposing to do? It is proposing to change the climate of the globe. That is exactly their metaphor. If it is not, tell me what your metaphor is. Your metaphor is that you are going to change the temperature of the globe. That is better than King Canute, but good luck! How are you going to do it? And this is where it goes to bathos: the Labor government is going to change the temperature of the globe with a new tax! With all the other things that could have been done, your remedy, your pill, for the wondrous cataclysmic events that have been described by a retinue of doomsayers walking into the chamber one after the other and outlining the next global affliction, is to introduce a massive new tax. Well, you have not won that argument. Not one of your senators, not one of your government representatives or your minister, has been able to clearly spell out how this tax changes the temperature of the globe. So I ask you, ‘How does this tax change the temperature of the globe?’ You show me how it does it. You have merely days to do so. If you cannot describe how this tax changes the temperature of the globe then there is only one thing that we must do, and that is we must take in the overwhelming sense that it will be disastrous for our economy. It will be an affliction on our economy. It will change the direction and the lives of working families across this nation. It is the working families who pay for the conceit of Kevin Rudd.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I congratulate Senator Joyce on his erudite contribution to this debate. It is my view that the reintroduction of these bills into this Senate typifies the cynical political opportunism of the Rudd Labor government. Just three months ago, these bills were overwhelmingly rejected by this Senate. Not one non-government senator supported the government’s flawed legislation. Despite that, exactly three months later, the government is again seeking Senate support for what is frankly a disastrous set of bills. The government’s cynical political agenda is quite naked: it is using the threat of a double dissolution to blackmail the Senate into supporting this radical legislation. There is no other reason for devoting the last two weeks of the Senate this year to the reconsideration of bills overwhelmingly rejected just three months ago.

Frankly, the timing of this debate is also testament to the vanity of Prime Minister Rudd. Right on the eve of the Copenhagen conference, Mr Rudd is determined to have this Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 [No. 2] passed so that he can strut the stage in Denmark, showing off to the world and looking extremely pleased with himself. The government has no justification whatsoever for forcing this bill through before the Copenhagen conference. The government itself has delayed the actual commencement of this scheme until July 2011—18 months away. So there is no reason the government cannot wait until after the Copenhagen conference to deal with this legislation. Frankly, Mr Rudd is prepared to sacrifice Australia’s national interest on the altar of his vanity. Mr Rudd wants to go to Denmark in December boasting about his new tax on carbon dioxide.

The coalition has maintained from day one that this legislation should not be voted upon before we know the outcome of the Copenhagen conference. Australia, of all countries, should not entrench unilaterally an emissions trading scheme which will damage the competitiveness of Australian industry, cost thousands of jobs and increase the cost of living for every Australian. Until we know that other major economies are making firm commitments to enact domestic emissions trading schemes, Australia should not act alone to enact such a scheme. Our national interest demands that we consider the preparedness of other nations to make commitments to put a price on their carbon dioxide emissions before legislating an Australian emissions trading scheme. It is literally crazy to be committing to an emissions trading scheme before we see the outcome of the discussions at Copenhagen.

It is also, frankly, idiotic of this country to legislate an emissions trading scheme before the US congress does so. Indeed, US Senate leaders are today reported as confirming that debate on the US legislation will be delayed at least until March next year. The coalition has repeatedly said that we need to know exactly what sort of cap-and-trade scheme the US legislates before Australia finalises its legislation. The US is, as we all know, the biggest emitter of CO2 on the globe, so until we know what that country is going to do, we should not complete our consideration of these bills.

May I remind the Senate that Australia produces only 1.4 per cent of global CO2 emissions. The zealots, of course, like to talk about our per capita emissions—which, frankly, are utterly irrelevant to the global debate. The only relevant statistic is our total contribution to global emissions—and, because of our very low level of emissions, nothing Australia does on its own will have any effect whatsoever on the global climate. Australia could literally shut down its whole economy tomorrow and China alone would replace all our emissions within just nine months. So how dare Mr Rudd play with the lives of ordinary Australians just to make him look good at Copenhagen and allow him to indulge in the politics of gesture. Mr Rudd is literally prepared to put at risk the viability of businesses all over Australia, to put at risk the jobs of thousands of Australians, just so he can enjoy himself in Denmark in December.

Passing this law in this fortnight would condemn Australia to lower living standards for absolutely zero environmental gain. Not only is unilateral action by Australia ludicrous, given our minute level of emissions; it is also ludicrous given Australia’s particular dependence on relatively cheap and readily available coal and gas to supply the energy which sustains our living standards, our jobs and our international competitiveness. Australia’s economy is much more adversely affected by policies to reduce CO2 emissions than most, because of the extent to which we have relied and continue to rely on fossil fuels to provide our vital energy source. Many other comparable countries have substantial nuclear power capacity—which, of course, being emissions-free, means they are not nearly so adversely affected by putting a price on CO2 emissions.

This Labor government seems to be blissfully ignorant of the structure of the Australian economy and the realities that underpin the viability of our industries and sustain our high living standards. Labor has consistently preached the virtues of sustaining a viable manufacturing industry in Australia, and encouraging value-added activities in our resources sector, yet this scheme will do untold damage to those sectors and all who work in them. Given these realities, Australia should only act in concert with other nations to tax carbon emissions. To do otherwise simply hurts every Australian for no environmental gain at all. I have to say that Mr Rudd’s arrogance and vanity in wanting to lead the world on cutting CO2 emissions is really sickening. He is happy for every Australian to pay a huge price to satisfy his ego. As Rupert Murdoch rightly said, if we act unilaterally to increase our cost of living, it will do nothing for the environment and the rest of the world will simply laugh at us.

I also take this opportunity to again condemn the government for its Orwellian description of its emissions trading scheme as a so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Only the most cynical of governments could so distort science and the English language as to describe carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Whatever one’s view of the contribution human-induced emissions of CO2 make to the global climate, it really is a disgrace to describe CO2 as a pollutant. CO2, I remind the Senate, is a clear, odourless gas, vital to life on earth. But, of course, in order to try to get away with this massive restructuring of the Australian economy, the spinmeisters in the Rudd government decided that Australians had to be deliberately misled into believing CO2 is a pollutant. So parents like me are left having to explain to our children the essential role of CO2 in the life of our planet, and that it is completely wrong to describe CO2 as pollution.

The Rudd government should also be condemned for its hysterical attacks on those who do not accept that a UN committee is the gospel on the causes of climate change. The Prime Minister’s recent Lowy Institute address was a raving rant against anyone who dares to suggest this UN committee might not have it right. Frankly, the PM needs to engage in a bit more earwax excavation if he is deaf to the considerable ongoing scientific debate about the causes of the small degree of warming that occurred in the late 20th century. Literally thousands of eminent and highly qualified scientists in Australia and all over the world do not accept the IPCC’s hypothesis that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming. It is one thing for the Prime Minister to respectfully disagree with those eminent scientists; it is quite another for him to condemn them as evil deniers, as he did in his Lowy Institute rant. The very fact that the science clearly remains in dispute is another reason to approach this matter with great caution, and another reason why Australia in particular should not act unilaterally and ahead of the rest of the world.

The package of bills before the Senate constitute a massive and damaging impost on the Australian economy and every Australian. The coalition has, after much deliberation, put forward a set of major amendments designed to lessen the damage that these bills will do to Australia. Labor’s bills, as they are, will impose the equivalent of a substantial new tax on almost everyone and everything in Australia, in the name of reducing the temperature—which of course it will not do. They involve a substantial churn of billions of dollars of costs imposed on Australians, which is then passed through the government’s hands and back to those that the government chooses to compensate for the impact of its imposition of a price on CO2. To a complete outsider it looks like the work of a madman.

In the name of reducing CO2 emissions it seeks to put a price on CO2 but then proposes to give all the money back and more to compensate people for the increased cost of living caused by its scheme. What on earth is the point of that, and what is the environmental gain? This extraordinary scheme achieves nothing for our environment but seriously damages the competitiveness of Australian industry and puts at great risk the very viability of Australian electricity generators.

As respected business reporter Robert Gottliebsen observed in the Business Spectator this week:

The current CPRS legislation will have a net enterprise value reduction of $6b for the four Latrobe Valley electricity generators in Victoria.

He reports:

Within a week of the current proposed legislation being passed, the boards of each of the companies that own the Latrobe generators will meet with their auditors on whether the companies’ debt covenants have been broken. Almost certainly a majority, if not all the boards, will decide to appoint official administrators.

The generators will be forced to cut back on long-term maintenance, with frightening implications for the reliability and price of electricity, and that will be at enormous cost to industry. And of course these effects will be felt not after the actual scheme commences in July 2011 but beginning in 2010 as a result of the passage of this scheme.

The scheme which Labor so desperately wants in place is the holy grail of all those who zealously believe in big interventionist governments controlling every aspect of our daily lives. It is one of the most interventionist, authoritarian pieces of legislation it has been my misfortune to witness in the Commonwealth parliament. Most particularly—and offensively—it proposes to establish a really quite disturbing compliance and enforcement mechanism in the form of the ‘Australian Climate Change Regulatory Authority’, described, in typically Orwellian fashion in the bills, as ‘The Authority’. The authority is to be given extraordinary powers to demand information; to require every affected entity to keep copious records; it will be empowered to send inspectors to enter premises; to require occupiers of premises to answer questions and produce documents. Non-compliance with the inspector from the authority can result in a penalty of up to six months imprisonment. Self-incrimination will not be a defence against a charge of noncompliance. Indeed the bill’s provisions in this respect subvert the rule of law by abolishing the right to silence; by reversing the onus of proof; and by setting aside privacy laws. This so-called ‘authority’ established by this legislation to enforce compliance with the draconian rules and regulations required to make its cap-and-trade scheme operate will be the envy of every past and present authoritarian regime on the planet.

In closing, this is one of the worst packages of bills ever presented to the Senate. The Senate overwhelmingly rejected this abomination in August; it should do so again.

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Recently, at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Prime minister Rudd described me as a ‘conservative climate change sceptic’ quoting my comments in the previous debate on this legislation in which I said there were two schools of thought about climate change: the greenhouse gas school and the geologists who pointed to the fact that climate change and change in sea levels has occurred over the eons of the earth’s history. It gives me a great sense of pride to have been so criticised by Kevin Rudd, because my point of view shows that I have an open and questioning mind, which is I think very important in politics, where all too often an uncritical herd instinct takes over judgement at the expense of common sense. This may be helpful to political leaders such as Mr Rudd, but I am proud to say that it is not my way, and I do question how open Mr Rudd’s mind possibly is on this subject.

Last night the Canadian government announced that it has decided to defer its greenhouse legislation until the rest of the world reaches an agreement on climate change and the USA decides how it will tackle emissions. One can only hope that sanity will prevail in Australia and the Rudd government will withdraw this legislation until at least the outcome of the Copenhagen conference is known.

According to evidence given to four Senate inquiries this legislation for a CPRS will have a serious adverse impact on the Australian economy. The Rudd/Wong CPRS is an unnecessarily grandiose scheme that will impose huge costs on the Australia economy, particularly on the agricultural and mining sectors, which are in fact the twin pillars of not only the Western Australian economy but also that of Australia as a whole. In evidence to the Senate committees the Minerals Council of Australia predicted that there would be 124,000 direct and indirect job losses as a result of passage of this legislation. It said that it would have a severe impact on agriculture, not only on production but also on processing of agricultural products. As well, the Senate committees were informed that in regional Australia in general the costs of living would increase because the cost of transport and power would increase were this legislation to be passed. Perhaps most importantly the Senate committees were told that the CPRS would reduce Australian competitiveness, and so reduce our export income, and would result in loss of emissions intensive industries to other countries—such as cement and aluminium smelters—if this legislation were to be passed. Furthermore, the Senate committees were advised of the likelihood of suspension of new projects such as gas developments in north-west. For example, Don Voelte, the CEO of Woodside, was quoted as warning that his company would look to other countries, such as Indonesia, Qatar and Africa, to establish new projects rather than bear the burden of the extra costs and reduced profits the CPRS would mean to his company.

Last week I attended an Institute of Public Affairs seminar in Melbourne on the economic impact of climate change, where the impressive list of speakers included Dr Alan Moran, Dr Alex Robson, Dr Brian Fisher as well as Professor Richard Toll and Lord Monckton, by videoconference. The seminar was informed that while there will be a negative impact on the Australian economy the two states that would be most economically impacted on by the CPRS would be Queensland and Western Australia, my home state. These two states are the drivers of the Australian economy and provide the ongoing wealth which most of the rest of the country lives on. Queensland will be adversely affected because the coal industry will face closure and Queenslanders will have to pay more for electricity because cheap coal will no longer be available to be used as a source of power. Similarly, in WA, resource projects will be under threat because the impact of CPRS taxes will make many projects uncompetitive. It was also said that WA would be forced to cease using gas for power production because of the impact of the CPRS.

The CPRS is an emissions trading scheme. It is predicated on the assumption that our major trading partners, the top four of whom—China, Japan, South Korea and India—are in the Asian region, will go ahead and establish emissions trading schemes and that Australia will be able to trade carbon credits with these countries. However, a month ago I attended a forum on renewable energy in Beijing where I found that none of our major regional trading partners are likely to establish an ETS, although they are committed to large renewable energy programs. This view has since been confirmed by the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, Julie Bishop, who recently visited our major regional trading partners in Asia and stated on ABC TV’s Lateline program on Monday night that none were likely to establish ETS programs.

The fact that none of our regional trading partners are likely to establish emissions trading schemes has serious implications for Australia because it means that there will not be any major countries with whom to trade off the massive additional taxes which the CPRS will impose on the Australian economy and industry. In fact, the Australian people will have to bear the cost of the CPRS, which it is variously estimated will range from an additional $50 billion to $87 billion per annum and which will add to the cost of living of average Australians, leading to job loses across the board as many industries become nonviable. It will particularly impact on members of lower-income groups, who will find themselves paying more for consumer goods. Household power bills as well as the cost of transport will also rise.

I think that sometimes we Australians are rather naive and think that because of our rich resources, Australia is a lucky country and we do not need to protect our advantages as assiduously as other countries do. However, when the Senate Standing Committee on Economics was looking into the CPRS issue, Mitch Hooke, the CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia, said when asked about the impact of the CPRS on the Australian economy:

Australia has to be very careful that it does not get carried away ... about our comparative advantage in ... natural resources.

He said Australia:

... is increasing sovereign risk associated with investment conditions—

with this CPRS—

and you do not need to be a Philadelphia lawyer or an economist to know that they will move their activities to where they do not have those costs. That is known as carbon leakage.

According to the Institute of Public Affairs, neither Treasury nor Professor Garnaut modelled a scenario in which there were no regional trading partners for Australia to trade carbon credits with. In other words, the situation we face today, where none of our four major trading partners have emissions trading schemes or any plans to introduce them, has not been modelled because it was perhaps rather naively assumed that countries such as China would come on board, as Professor Garnaut says, and establish emissions trading schemes some time around 2015. This means that the actual cost to the Australian economy of the Rudd/Wong CPRS is not known. Surely it is totally unacceptable that this should be the case. Senator Wong says that industry wants certainty, and I am sure that they do—

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Certain disaster!

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Certain disaster, as Senator Nash says. I am sure industry wants certainty about the costs which the CPRS will impose on it but which this government seems, very reluctant to reveal. At the very least, I would have thought that the government should require Treasury to model the scenario we now face, where none of our regional trading partners will establish emissions trading schemes, and advise the Australian people and Australian industry what the implications are for our national economy. Only this week, I was briefed by the proponents of a urea plant in the south-west of Western Australia, who stated that their plant would not be viable when the CPRS taxes were added into their calculations and that it is thus probable that this plant and the jobs it would create would be going to another country. One can only wonder how many other projects will be affected in this way and move offshore.

I would now like to say a few words about the impact on small- and medium-sized businesses. According to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, small- to medium-sized businesses will be adversely affected by the CPRS. As everyone knows, SMEs are the biggest employers in Australia, and any adverse economic impact on them has the potential to cost a lot of jobs across this country. According to the ACCI, the proposed CPRS transitional assistance package does not adequately protect the small- and medium-sized business group from the consequences of the CPRS, which I think is an unacceptable consequence of this legislation and is a matter which the Rudd government must surely rectify if it is to have any credibility when it comes to ameliorating the impact of this legislation on the people of Australia and if it has any concern for jobs in those small companies, which, as I have said, are the biggest employers in this country outside of government.

One must wonder about such an oversight. Surely the union-focused Labor government understand that small- and medium-sized enterprises really do employ more people than any other sector of this economy; but perhaps they do not. Perhaps that is why so much of the structure of this scheme has had such dire economic impacts—because this government really does not understand how the Australian economy functions and works.

I would like to make some comments about the western electricity market. Coalition senators were surprised that the Rudd government did not heed the request by Griffin Coal for amendments to correct a disadvantage that this legislation places on the western electricity market by not permitting the price of carbon to flow through to the consumer, as is the case in the so-called national electricity market, which is actually the eastern states electricity market, and Western Australia is apparently not quite part of the national scene in the view of Treasury. The western electricity market is largely gas dependent in comparison to the so-called national electricity market, which is coal based. I would certainly urge the government to rectify this situation and adopt the amendments which Griffin Coal has put forward to correct this disadvantage to the people of Western Australia.

The complexities of the CPRS in international trading, as well as the impact it will have on the Australian domestic economy, raised the question for me personally of why the Labor Party is taking Australia down this CPRS emissions trading scheme road to ruin when a less costly, simpler and arguably more effective option for Australia would have been a carbon tax. The option of a carbon tax has been supported by significant figures such as Dick Warburton, who is Chairman of the Board of Taxation, as well as eminent economists such as Geoff Carmody and industry leaders such as Mitch Hooke from the Minerals Council of Australia.

Some advantages of a carbon tax include: a carbon tax would have been much simpler to implement, without the need for the creation of the enormous bureaucracy which will be required to administer the CPRS—to which Senator Minchin has referred; a carbon tax could have been administered through the Treasury and the existing tax system, just as the GST is; a carbon tax would have been easy to change when needed and could have been varied in the annual federal budget; and, as Dick Warburton said in an article in the Australian Financial Review on 21 October this year:

Far better, then, to take the carbon tax route, which is more transparent, more direct and, importantly, more flexible. Should the supporters be right, you can ramp up the tax, but should they be wrong, you can diminish or eliminate the tax.

Very simple. I find it a matter of considerable interest that the only industry group which has supported the Rudd-Wong CPRS is the Business Council of Australia, membership of which, according to a recent article in the Australian, is largely comprised of bankers, lawyers and others associated with the finance industry. This is a group that will benefit directly from the business of carbon trading and stand to earn huge commissions from such trading. Since that is their business, that outcome is to be expected; nevertheless, one would have thought that the Rudd government would have paid more attention to the interests of those representing the mainstream of the Australian economy, such as the Minerals Council of Australia and other groups representing the poor and underprivileged—whom the ALP claim to represent the interests of—as well as industries such as those which are found in the rural sector, before setting up an emissions trading scheme which will have such adverse impacts on the Australian economy and the cost of living for ordinary people in this country.

This legislation has the potential to seriously weaken the Australian economy with dire long-term consequences, and I believe it should be rejected in its present form; or, preferably, consideration of it should be deferred until the outcome of the Copenhagen conference is known. Accordingly, I urge the Prime Minister to follow the responsible example of the Canadian government and defer this legislation while awaiting the outcome of the Copenhagen conference.

Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 [No. 2] and related bills. About three months ago, I voted against the same package of bills, because I was very conscious of the Prime Minister’s promise to bring to the Australian people evidence based policy. For example, on the 7.30 Report on 27 November 2007, the Prime Minister said, ‘I believe in evidence based policy, not just sort of grand statements.’ I voted against this package of bills three months ago because they are still not evidence based policy. They are lots of grand statements—worse than that, they are irresponsible and reckless statements. I voted against these same bills three months ago, conscious of comments made by Minister Wong on 10 March this year, when she said, ‘We are building a vehicle that will take us to the future. Some people want it to be a Ferrari, but if you can’t have the Ferrari would you really have no vehicle at all?’ I voted against these same bills three months ago, because I did not understand—and I still do not understand—the minister’s vision for the future or the Prime Minister’s vision for our future with this package of CPRS bills. As for a vehicle; no, it need not be a Ferrari but it does have to be fit for the purpose. A vehicle has to be capable of taking us from A to B. This bill is not that. In fact, if we want to talk about vehicles, this package of bills is—no disrespect to Doctor Who—more or less a Tardis. It is more like a Tardis to take us to the minister’s fanciful future and the government’s fanciful future.

What is the Prime Minister’s evidence based policy really trying to do? What is he really trying to do? What is Rudd Labor really trying to do with this package of CPRS legislation? How do we do it, and does this proposed set of solutions fix the problem? That is what evidence based policy is all about. Is the problem that the climate is changing? Is that what we are trying to fix? The climate has always changed and it always will. Is man causing our climate to change? I do not know. I really do not know. I do not know that the Prime Minister or the minister knows. But I certainly do know that the evidence—to the extent that the government has allowed it to come into the public arena—does not convince me. But I really do not know. So let us just say, ‘I don’t know our role in our changing climate.’

Let us say that we give the planet the benefit of the doubt and we decide to manage the risk of our climate changing and the prospect that man can somehow help. In that case, the role of evidence based policy is to decide whether or not the solution we are proposing will actually work. Whatever we do with our wonderful country and our emissions, when Australia contributes about 1.4 per cent to emissions globally how can the Prime Minister expect to convince the Australian public that this carbon pollution reduction scheme will have any effect on global emissions? He has not shown that. If the aim is to reduce global emissions, how will the package represented by these CPRS bills achieve that? The Prime Minister has not shown us any evidence based path to prove that. He has shown us that there will be bad side effects, like costs to jobs, lower real wages over time and increased costs to consumers.

As for Minister Wong’s Tardis to take us to her future, let’s use her analogy. If it is a vehicle, we must be going on a journey. So we have to know: from where are we going today and where is the government going to take us? What is A, your starting point; and what is B, your destination? The Australian people should be concerned that Minister Wong’s B, her destination, her future, is not even on a map. And it is fanciful to think that this package of CPRS bills is the way to get there. What about the obstacles and hazards along the way? That is what you think about when you go on a journey. You think about how much it is going to cost you—how much it is going to cost you to fill your tank, how much it is going to cost you in time out of work perhaps—to take this journey. You factor in how long you want it to take.

I voted against these bills in their current form because they are not evidence based policy and because the CPRS package is more a Tardis than any sort of vehicle that is ‘fit’ for the supposed purpose that the government would have us believe it would achieve. Rudd Labor are again getting away with being reckless with the truth. It is not telling us what this package of CPRS bills will do and it is also mute on what it will not be doing. It will be all Australian pain for little to no global gain. What role does evidence have in that? The Prime Minister would have us believe that all the evidence points to his package of CPRS legislation; but it just points to his ineptitude and incompetence. The current package representing the scheme is reckless and flawed. The process has been mismanaged and mishandled by the government from the start. How about telling us about the jobs it will cost, about the lower real wages over time, about the cost to consumers and about how it will export carbon? Why do not we hear that? We do not hear that, because the Rudd Labor government are very good at censoring its critics.

At the moment well-intentioned bureaucrats effectively censor what the opposition is able to send to Australian electorates under the publicly funded communications allowance. So, if I want to send out, for example, Hansard of this speech today as a component of the publicly funded communications allowance, I would be pretty jolly wise to first get my speech censored by the bureaucrats. Given that the banned words—or the words that might as well come back blacked out—include ‘disgraceful’, ‘flawed’, ‘dreadful’, ‘inept’, ‘mismanagement’, ‘reckless’, ‘incompetence’ and ‘irresponsible’—I think much of this speech will already be censored by the bureaucrats. But get over it, Senator Mary Jo, what about the experts who should be in this debate? CSIRO: censored! It censors itself by its internal processes and the supposed public research agency process by which it arranges with the government how it will handle the release of research.

Effectively, the CSIRO censored Dr Clive Spash earlier this year. He was told, essentially, that he could not publish his research on the economic underpinning of the carbon trading scheme versus other options. He was reportedly told in February this year that, provided he got his research peer reviewed, it could be released publicly. He got international peer review. Once cleared, he was still told that it could not be published because of ‘political sensitivities’. Science Minister Carr says scientists should have freedom of expression and that this Rudd Labor government will allow the publication of scientific research provided it has been peer reviewed, yet he somehow allows research within CSIRO to be censored due to ‘political sensitivities’. That is why, thus far, Rudd Labor seems to be getting away with not having to tell people what the CPRS should do versus what it will or will not do.

What will it not do? The government tries to say that it will not cost jobs. The government tries to say that jobs may move from one part of the economy to another, but that the CPRS package will not cost jobs. The trouble is that the evidence is that, in order to maintain an assumption that jobs will not be lost in the economy overall, the government’s modelling, done by Treasury, has to assume a fall in real wages over time. It assumes lower real wages over time—lower real wages than they would otherwise be, were it not for this package of CPRS legislation. I refer to questioning in the Senate Economics Legislation Committee on 29 May, when respected economist Dr Brian Fisher, formerly of ABARE said:

… what the Treasury has done is to make an assumption that, if we take the full economy, for every job that is lost in one place there will be another job of some description elsewhere.

He went on to say:

… to make that work what both the Treasury and I have done in the national modelling is to allow the real wages of workers to fall. We have held total employment constant but to allow that to occur we have allowed real wages to fall.

So, real wages will have to be lower than they otherwise would be, without a CPRS, in order to maintain the government’s claim that jobs will not be lost.

Let us look at what else the package of CPRS bills will not do. We do not hear from the government about what important things it will not do, but we hear from other places about issue No.1—global food security. Ban Ki-moon, on 27 January 2008, said:

During 2008, a chain reaction pushed up food prices so high that basic rations were beyond the reach of millions of people. By the end of the year, the total number of hungry people in our world approached an intolerable one billion.

What is Australia going to do to ensure our contribution to feeding ourselves—our ‘big Australia’ that the Prime Minister is very keen to build—as well as the rest of the world? This CPRS does not address that. Indeed it takes things in the opposite direction. Farmers have already reduced their greenhouse emissions by some 40 per cent since 1990. Around the world, food prices rose 140 per cent between 2002 and 2008, making food more expensive for those who, arguably, need it most and can least afford to pay for it. Changes in our climate and emissions trading—what place do they have in ensuring the production of our food and the security of our food?

What place does carbon have? Accept that pollution goes with carbon. What about the fuel for fires? It will be 43 degrees in Adelaide today, most likely. It is rather hot in South Australia and rather hot in some other states. What has happened since the tragic bushfires in Victoria to relieve the carbon load? Not enough. In any one year, emissions from wildfires in this country could amount to some 30 per cent of Australia’s net emissions for that year. In fact, the tragic Victorian bushfires would have contributed, had they been taken into account, some 20 per cent of Australia’s global emissions for that year. And guess what? Carbon emissions from wildfires are not taken into account in net emissions globally—not in Australia, not elsewhere. This is for a range of reasons but, given the amount of carbon contributed to the atmosphere by wildfires and bushfires, why is that so in the Prime Minister’s world of supposedly evidence based policy?

What about water? What about water for our food production and security? Not only is Rudd Labor letting state Labor governments get away with not doing enough to reduce the carbon fuel for bushfires; Rudd Labor is letting state Labor governments get away with not managing water as the national asset that it must be and should be. Rudd Labor is letting Labor states, for example my state of South Australia, hide behind the charade of domestic water restrictions and the charade of a High Court challenge, pitting states against states, instead of delivering a genuine national plan to manage the Murray-Darling and scarce water resources.

Rudd Labor is letting Labor states hide behind domestic water restrictions, which—says the boss of Minister Wong’s National Water Commission, Ken Matthews—when imposed initially may be followed by a period of reduced use of water but which, after a period of time will trend up, as people get what he called ‘restriction fatigue’ and demand for water ‘hardens’, because we live in first world cities in first world countries and we work out that there is a lowest usage point below which cannot reasonably be expected to go, with or without water restrictions. State Labor governments, particularly in my state of South Australia, have not proved that any sort of water restrictions will save water for Adelaide or will save the Murray. They cannot, because they do not—and they know they do not. Water restrictions are instead a smokescreen for Labor government inaction on properly collecting, storing, using, reusing and appropriately pricing water—the so-valuable asset that it is.

The CPRS totally misses other components that go into producing and securing Rudd Labor’s ‘big Australia’s’ food supply and the food for the world. It totally misses on delivering on any evidence based policy. This package of CPRS bills is not that. This package of CPRS bills, far from being a Ferrari, is battling to be a vehicle that is fit for the supposed purpose for which the government says it is designed. It is, unfortunately, little better than a Tardis that does not fit in our current world—leaving aside whatever Minister Wong fantasises for our future.

Opposition spokesman, Ian Macfarlane, said earlier today that the package of CPRS bills will change the way that business is to be done—at every level of business. And he said, ‘We will take the time needed to negotiate with the government and get this right.’ He said, ‘Copenhagen can wait.’ To reflect on a time-worn advertisement—actually, to plagiarise it: ‘It’s the bills that this coalition opposition rejects that make this coalition opposition the best.’ If the government serves and re-serves this package of CPRS bills to the coalition opposition, I will vote against it again.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not come to this debate as a sceptic, but I do come to this debate as a senator representing over four million Queenslanders whose futures will be more affected by these bills, Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 [No. 2] and related bills than any other legislation to come before the Senate in my time in parliament.

Some people say that the earth is warming, others that it is cooling and still others that it has been relatively stable. This debate is not about that. Some people say that human-made gas emissions are to blame for climate change; others say that any changes are part of natural cycles from time immemorial—indeed, if the climate stopped changing, we should be really worried. This debate is not about that. Some people say that any climate change will be a calamity; others say that a warmer earth is a more fertile and prosperous earth. This debate is not about that. Some people say that in response to climate change we should adopt emission trading schemes, others argue for carbon taxes and others argue for grand geo-engineering schemes to modify the climate. This debate is not about that either.

What this debate is about is this: that Kevin Rudd wants to rush through the biggest, most far-reaching tax in our nation’s history. Kevin Rudd wants to introduce it now, before we know what, if anything, the rest of the world decides on in Copenhagen and before our major trading partners introduce any emission reduction schemes of their own—if they do at all. This legislation before the Senate today will change the way we live and work, it will cost jobs, it will reduce economic opportunities and it will damage Australia’s competitiveness. That much is certain. Yet Kevin Rudd is willing to sacrifice it all to be the first—and for all we know—the only one. There are no credible reasons—no scientific reasons, no environmental reasons, no economic reasons—to rush this flawed legislation through right now, this very moment, before the rest of the world acts.

There is just one reason to rush in first before the rest of the world acts—that is, Kevin Rudd’s bloated moral vanity. We have seen in this debate the ugly devolution of Kevin Rudd. Kevin Rudd, the nerd from Nambour, wants to transform himself into Kevin Rudd, the cool kid from Copenhagen—and, for that ugly transformation, thousands of Australians will be losing their jobs. Kevin Rudd wants a pat on the head from President Obama, a photo opportunity with Al Gore and high tea with Ban Ki Moon—and, for that, every Australian will be paying more for everything they buy, from food, to energy, to services. Kevin Rudd wants the recognition and validation of the trendy, international jet-set crowd—and, for that, our industries will be handicapped and our standard of living put at risk. It is not about a healthy planet; it is about Kevin Rudd’s unhealthy ego. And though they might both be of a similar size, they are not the same—because what is good for Kevin Rudd is not good for Australia, Australian jobs and Australian working families.

Mr Acting Deputy President Hutchins, do you remember working families? Isn’t it funny how we do not hear much anymore about working families? They will be the ones paying for Kevin Rudd’s moral vanity. Every day when working families pay more for everything from the moment they wake up and put a kettle on to the time they switch off the TV and go to bed, they can thank Kevin Rudd. Every time working families lose jobs or their children cannot get a job because our economy is being battered by our competitors, they can thank Kevin Rudd. When working families’ standard of living declines in comparison with that of the rest of the world, they can thank Kevin Rudd. They can thank Kevin Rudd and his bloated moral vanity, because Kevin Rudd wants to be cool and wants to be the first. He wants to lead the world even if he sells out Australia’s national interest.

Why would you do that? Why would you do something you know goes against the national interest and against the interests of the people you are supposed to represent? Why would you want to disadvantage a kid from Bankstown who is doing a diploma and wants to get a job in the mining industry? Why would you do that? Why would you disadvantage him? Why would you want to impose extra tax burdens and costs on a family in Caboolture who are already struggling in difficult times? Why would you do that? Why would you want to make it more difficult for a small business to carry on, employ people and contribute to the local community? Why would you knowingly do that? Why would you knowingly make it harder for Australians to compete? Why would you go out of your way to make it harder for small businesses to compete? Why would you knowingly do that? Why would you want to make it harder for a kid in Sydney to compete with his overseas competitors in Singapore? Why would you knowingly and willingly do that? All this would be for no environmental benefit in the absence of global action—none, zero, zip. Why would Kevin Rudd do all that? Why would he do all that? Because he wants to be the Astro Boy of global politics.

Some say that we need to pass the ETS bills speedily for the sake of business certainty, but there can be no certainty for Australian business or agriculture until international benchmarks and standards have been established. In a global economy, it is global benchmarks and global standards that matter. No outcome negotiated prior to Copenhagen will result in certainty for Australia’s business and rural sectors—none, let alone the fact that none of us have seen the regulations that business will have to follow in the future. None of us have even seen the actual regulations. There will be no certainty for business until well after Copenhagen.

Over the last few weeks there have been a lot of negotiations, talks and lobbying around Parliament House. Not surprisingly, everyone wants to ensure that their sector gets the best deal out of the ETS, and that is understandable. But remember this: every group the lobbyists succeed in securing a better deal for means a greater burden for millions who do not have lobbyists spruiking their interests in this place. Do not forget that. Who speaks for the pensioner in the outer suburbs of Melbourne who will see the cost of everything go up? Who speaks for them? Who speaks for the miner and his young family in Broken Hill who might lose a job? Who speaks for them? Who speaks for the small business man in Perth who might no longer be able to keep his business afloat? Who speaks for him? Who speaks for young Australians whose futures are now compromised? Who speaks for them? Who speaks for all those people who will ultimately pay Kevin Rudd’s tax? It will affect ordinary Australians, not the big end of town. Who speaks for the ordinary Australians who will lose their jobs, ordinary Australians who will see their standard of living decline, ordinary Australians who will see their opportunities reduced? Who speaks for those who are not organised, who cannot employ lobbyists to plead their case, those who will pay the bill for this tax? Who speaks for the working families and who speaks for the forgotten people? It is not Kevin Rudd and it is not the Australian Labor Party.

Let me repeat: it is ultimate folly to try to rush through and pass an emissions trading scheme before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and before our major trading partners introduce similar schemes. To do so will risk Australian jobs and Australia’s standard of living for negligible environmental benefit. This is a global problem and, more than any other I can think of, requires a global solution—not some quixotic action by a Prime Minister who is willing to sacrifice the national interest for his own personal interest and personal aggrandisement, all under the guise of helping the environment.

We all want to help the environment. We all agree that it is beneficial to shift from fossil fuels to cleaner fuels. We all want to leave a better world to our children. The difference is that Kevin Rudd wants to encumber Australia with a new tax, even if no-one else in the world will do so in their own country. I can only look my voters in Queensland in the eye and support an ETS if it is part of a global effort, if we all from Brisbane to Bangalore and from Baltimore to Brussels and Beijing share the responsibility and the burden and ultimately, we hope, the rewards of global action. At the very least, why would Australia want to enact an ETS and prejudice its industry before the United States and other developed nations have done so? Quite simply, it is not in our national interest.

No-one can tell me why Australia should charge in first, why we should proceed with an ETS before Copenhagen and before our own major trading partners come up with responses of their own. No-one can tell me because it makes no sense. It is not in our national interest and it is not in the interests of Australia’s working families. It is not even in the interests of the environment, because any action by Australia alone, in the absence of action by major global emitters, will have virtually no effect on the climate. So, if you are voting for these flawed and premature bills in the absence of any similar action by anyone else in the world, go tell the people of Australia how increasing their energy prices is in our national interest. Go tell the people of Australia how increasing the prices of every good and service traded in our country is in our national interest. Go tell the people of Australia how reducing their standard of living is in the national interest. Go tell the people of Australia how handicapping our export industries is in our national interest. Go tell the people of Australia why their children in Brisbane, Melbourne, Mount Isa and Wagga Wagga will find it harder to get jobs while their peers in Bombay, Manchester, Pittsburgh and Shanghai will not have the same challenges. Go tell them that.

Mr Acting Deputy President, vote for these bills today and go out there into the real Australia outside Parliament House and tell the people of Australia what you have done. Under the guise of genuine community concern with the environment and pollution, the government will seek to pass legislation they know is not in our national interest simply to satisfy the bloated moral vanity and to stroke the ego of one man. I guess this is the Christmas present this parliament intends to give to the Australian people: a less competitive country and a bleaker future for our children. It is a shame and it is a disgrace.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand here today with a great sense of weight and gravity because I think the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 [No. 2] is probably the most important piece of legislation that this country is going to see for quite some time. It is certainly the most important piece of legislation that I have had to deal with in my very brief four years in this parliament. I stand here as a representative of all of the people across New South Wales, but I unashamedly say that my primary focus is on those who live outside the capital city, those who live across regional Australia. I am far more comfortable in a pair of jeans and boots in a paddock than I am in a suit in this chamber, but I am here so that those people who are out there right at this minute in paddocks across this state harvesting in their jeans and boots have someone to be their voice here in this chamber, and it is my absolute privilege to do that for them. It is not just those farmers across regional Australia but all those people in the small businesses, all those people in those regional communities, who work so hard to be the backbone of this country, all those mums and dads and children right across this state, all those teenagers and all those single people right across this state, particularly in those regional areas, that I am here to represent. This is such a serious moment for them. We have seen all the hype and debate and spin around the ETS. What is missing is the awareness that this is so important. The decision that this parliament makes about these bills, if we do not get it right, will change their lives for ever.

How did we get to the point of having these bills here in the chamber before us? We got to this point because of the debate, so-called, around global warming and around climate change. We have heard a lot over recent times from the scientists about the warming of the globe and the contribution that, in their view, man is making to that change in the climate. I put it to you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that we have not had a balanced debate. There is a significant cohort of scientists who have an alternative view. We have not had a balanced debate. There is a significant cohort of individuals who have a differing view, but we have never had the debate.

We keep being told that the science is in and the science is settled, but by whom? By that particular cohort of scientists who believe that they are correct and that no amount of dissent should be entertained, that no amount of dissent should ever be appreciated or accepted because if you do—oh my goodness!—you are a sceptic. How dare you question the beliefs of this particular bunch of scientists! How dare you question that! I was brought up to believe that questioning was a good thing, that to question those things put before you, whether you were two, 15, 40, or 90 years old, was a good and a healthy thing because it meant that you were using your mind to make your own decision, that you were balancing up the debate before you, that you were looking at all the options and that you were coming to your own determination of what you thought was right. But that is not being allowed in this debate for one moment because, if you do not agree that man is causing global warming, you are a sceptic. That is wrong. Regardless of what your view is on whether or not man is causing that change, to pillory those people who ask the question is simply wrong.

But that is not what we are discussing today. Today we are discussing the CPRS bills that are before us. I commend the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Nick Minchin for pointing out earlier what a misnomer ‘CPRS legislation’ is. I also commend him on his speech to the chamber. The interesting thing is that when we go out there into the community around 90 per cent of people say that they have no idea how this ETS and this CPRS will work. They have no idea. I put it to you that the other 10 per cent are lying, because to understand how this is going to work is impossible. It is absolutely impossible, and anybody who says they know how it will work is probably stretching the truth a bit. As my good colleague Senator Mason said, ‘We haven’t even seen the regulations yet.’ We have not got a clue. We are working on what we assume are the principles on which this will work. Those principles are so incredibly indeterminate at this point that it is very difficult. But what we do know about are the basic premises—and that is why I, for one, am so against these bills and this ETS.

I want to make one thing very clear. We in the Nationals have always said that we want a healthier, cleaner future for the environment. There is no doubt about that. I think all Australians—every single Australian across the country—would want a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable future for the environment. That goes without saying. But this ETS is not the way to do it. I say to those people out there who are listening and those who perhaps one day might read my speech that just because you believe in an ETS does not mean you support a better environment. They are completely separate. Do not for one moment think, ‘I’m saving the environment because I support the ETS.’ That is a completely wrong premise; it is a furphy because it is simply not gong to do it. The ETS does not stand for a cleaner, healthier environment for the future.

What we need to look at here is a very simple set of circumstances. The government has a goal. Let us bring this right back to the simplicities: what is their goal? They want to reduce man’s effect on what is causing the globe to warm. I do not think there is any argument about that. This government wants to change man’s contribution to the warming of the globe. But the action that they are taking is completely incongruous with the goal that they are trying to achieve. It is completely incongruous: it is like apples and oranges. They are trying to introduce a set of legislation that will not achieve the goal that they are trying to achieve. It simply will not achieve it. The rest of the world is not on board. Until the rest of the world is doing this it is not going to make one tiny bit of difference to the climate.

So it fails sense and reason. It is beyond the realms of commonsense that the government should say, ‘Okay, we want to fix the warming globe. We don’t want it to warm up anymore so we’ll have a really good look at man’s contribution to that and we’ll fix it,’ when the mechanism that they have given us to fix it is not going to work. How stupid is that? If ever there was a stupid decision taken by a government this is it, because no matter how many hundreds of pages of legislation they introduce and no matter how many vain speeches get put forward by the Prime Minister and those opposite on how incredibly good this legislation is, it is not going to fix it. You cannot get away from that fact, and no amount of argument from the other side will lead you to the view that this is going to fix it. It simply is not.

But, of course, the other side have a Prime Minister who has to show leadership! There was a beautiful cartoon the other day of the Prime Minister underneath a big planet, with all the other world leaders saying, ‘Didn’t he get the memo?’ He is the only one that does not realise that he is the only one who is doing this at the moment—on some vain sort of avenue towards being leader of the world. I think that is where he is trying to head. Along the way he is forgetting the people of Australia. He is so concerned with what he is doing that he is forgetting the people of Australia.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He does not spend enough time in Australia.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take that interjection, thank you, Senator Cormann. He does not spend enough time in Australia. He certainly does not spend enough time in regional Australia, although he did go to a wind farm yesterday. I find it somewhat ironic that the Prime Minister should be somewhere where there is wind!

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And that’s both ends!

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take that interjection, thank you, Senator McGauran. No, you were not in your seat, I cannot possibly do that! But this is absolutely serious. The Nationals have been very clear on this issue since day one. We have not wavered one speck. Indeed, it was Senator Boswell, standing in this chamber, who belled the cat on this long before anybody else. I remember sitting here, listening to him speaking on his MPI one day and I thought, ‘Senator Boswell is onto something here.’ That was a very long time ago and he was dead right. The Nationals, from that moment on, have not moved away from our view that we should be voting against this ETS.

And there are some very clear and simple reasons for that. This is a massive new tax. Forget about the GFC; we now have the MNT—and this massive new tax is going to be far worse for people across Australia than any GFC ever would be. The legislation is going to hit regional Australia harder than anywhere else across the country. I am not going to stand here, as a senator for New South Wales, and not do everything I possibly can to make sure that those regions have someone here fighting for them. My Nationals colleagues and I—and, I must say, some of my Liberal colleagues as well—are trying to do this for people in regional Australia because the legislation is simply wrong. It is not right, it is not fair and it is not on. The other very simple reason we oppose this is that we emit 1.4 per cent of the emissions. While ever the rest of the world is not on board, while our major trading partners are not on board, it is not going to make the slightest bit of difference to the climate. So why on earth are we even considering these bills? Because of the Prime Minister’s vanity, because of some fairyland path the government want to go down because they have to show leadership. It is just rubbish. What is really sad is that it is people in Australia that are going to be hurt so badly by this.

That MNT, massive new tax, has been related to an increase to the GST of around 2½ per cent. So let’s have a 12½ per cent GST—there is a really good idea! As my very good colleague sitting here in front of me, Senator Joyce, said, it is going to come at you out of your shopping trolleys, your light switches and your power points. It is going to come at you from everywhere. I commend my Senate leader for the excellent speech he gave in this chamber this morning and for the work he has done out there fighting for the people that need someone in here to bat for them so that this craziness on the other side of this chamber, and on the other side of the other house, does not take hold. It simply cannot.

It simply cannot. Look at the job losses: 126,000 jobs to go, including 66,000 in mining. And guess who those people are—

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Blue-collar workers.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Senator Boswell; I will take that interjection. They are blue-collar workers. They are mums and dads. They are the so-called working families that this Prime Minister railed about so strongly during the election campaign, saying they needed his help to have a good life. Now he is going to ruin it, because it is those people that are going to lose their jobs and face the higher costs. It is those people that are going to have those bills, and that is a fact. He cannot run away and squib out from that. Those costs will be passed on—for what? So he can go off on his merry tractor being leader of the world? It is not good enough for a Prime Minister of this country to so completely disregard the people that he represents.

The impacts on regional Australia are appalling. We have heard over recent days that agriculture is going to be excluded from the ETS. What a no-brainer that is. Everybody wants agriculture to be excluded from an ETS.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was left out in the first place.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Senator Boswell. I was going to refer to some comments that the leader, Senator Joyce, made earlier this morning. Isn’t it peculiar that they are being hailed for taking out something that was never in? I might be a little bit cynical in my old age, but my bet is, given that we have had the deputy before the Senate committee saying that they have absolutely no idea how to measure the emissions from the animals, that the government was never going to have it in the ETS anyway. So here we have a fantastic thing—they have taken five weeks to give in on something that, quite probably, they were never going to include anyway and which, as Senator Joyce said, was not included in the first place!

So there is no great joy there, and I will tell you why. All of those imbedded costs—fuel, transport, electricity, cement, packaging and fertiliser, and the list goes on—will still fall right in the laps of our farmers, the backbone of this country. Those farmers are feeding this nation. This government expects those farmers to just accept those costs and say: ‘That’s okay; that’s fine. We’ll accept costs for something that’s going to make no difference to the environment.’ How stupid is that? Those farmers are also going to have to put up with the fact that food processing is still in the ETS, so abattoirs are going to have to pass their extra costs down to the farmers. Farmers are the bottom of the food chain; there is nowhere else for those costs to go. I will not stand in this chamber and not do everything I can to try and stop that happening. It is simply wrong.

Regional Australia has had absolutely enough. Since this government have been in, we have seem them abolish the single desk, get rid of the $2 billion communications fund and try to whack on an extra 40 per cent to AQIS fees. We have seen Land and Water Australia gone, cuts to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, a $12 million cut to the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation and uncertainty around the future of drought funding—right at the very time that so many farmers in rural communities right across this country are still in the grip of drought. And now what does the government want to do? They want to give regional Australia an ETS. They want to give all of Australia, obviously, an ETS, but they want to—

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A Christmas present.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Senator Mason. What a Christmas present that is—‘By the way, we’ll just whack up your charges’!

And for what? The CEO of the Food and Grocery Council, Kate Carnell, has said that people are going to move to cheaper imports because the price of food on the shelves is going to go up. Do we really want to become a nation of importers? Is that what we want, with all of the quality assurance issues—look at melamine in China—and all of the issues of security of supply? The only reason we get security of supply at the moment is that we have a domestic productive capacity. The minute we lose that we will be at the mercy of those overseas countries in terms of supply. I do not think there is a single Australian that wants to go down that road. If we do not do everything we can to ensure that rural Australia has a productive, sustainable future then our food security becomes tenuous. This is not just a scaremongering tactic; this is dead serious. If we do not have a sustainable rural Australia, we do not have a sustainable domestic production capacity.

It is not only our own people we need to feed in this world. The world population is going to go to nine billion by about 2050. How are we planning on feeding them? It is this country that has the ability to do that, and yet we have a government that at every turn is ripping the guts out of rural Australia, which is there to provide for this nation. It is not fair, it is not right and it is not on. I know that my Nationals colleagues and many of my regional and metro Liberal colleagues recognise how important this is and what sort of impact this is going to have.

We know there are some amendments being discussed at the moment to the ETS. I will put my position very clearly on the record: my view is that those amendments will not change anything. They will not change those three key things: that it is a massive new tax; it is going to hit regional Australia harder than anywhere else; and, if the rest of the world is not on board, it is not going to make the slightest bit of difference to the climate—not any.

My position has not changed and I will absolutely maintain my position. I say to any of my colleagues who truly understand the impact of this—and I think they all do—that if we truly believe we are representing people in our communities right across Australia, none of us should support this bill. If we do, we will be selling out regional Australia. I will not be supporting these bills.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Senate is debating a suite of 11 bills that will establish an emissions trading scheme—an ETS—in Australia. In doing so, Australia is embarking on a solo voyage to a new frontier. Of all the countries in the world, none have established a scheme that threatens the competitiveness of their key industries and the accompanying jobs and investment. None have prejudiced their natural competitive advantage by taxing it, except Australia. The bitter side to it is that this ETS will not do one thing to stop global warming, to save the Barrier Reef or to save a polar bear.

I believe that Australians want us to do our share to reduce emissions but they do not want us to go over the top without covering fire. They do not want our industry savaged with effectively a carbon tax while none of our competitors face a similar tax. That would mean jobs would be lost and we would sacrifice our economic survival. Rightly, Australians do not want us going it alone while other countries wait to pick off our markets, our jobs and our industries. We are not a nation of green monks willing to give these things up to high-polluting rivals; we are an industrious, creative and practical nation. We are an island that has lived on trade since Macarthur sent the first bale of wool overseas. If the rest of the world agrees to accept a carbon price then we will all be in it together and there is a chance that we can reduce emissions. But if our trading competitors are not involved, or if their involvement is heavily qualified—like the EU—then Australia will be battered on the foreign shores of her reckless solo ETS voyage. Macarthur’s global vision would not have survived the good ship ETS.

I have heard many arguments, attended many committee meetings, and spoken with numerous industry heads, small businesses and farmers. When the ETS is understood, there is overwhelming opposition. It is basically a tax on energy. It is a tax on everything that moves in your house, in your shop, in your hospital, in your school, in the factory where you work, the tools you use, in the pubs where you have a cold drink, in the abattoirs and in the fish processing factories. All these things need energy to work and they all produce emissions.

Overnight, producing and doing all these things will cost more money: that is the core of this legislation introducing the CPRS. Yet, still there are the ETS deniers, the sceptics, who cannot face the economic facts of this debate. Some of them are rent seekers who have a vested interest and who stand to make millions from the churn of money going from businesses and householders to government via financial instruments and their brokers. Many members of the Business Council of Australia and AiG fall into this category. The other economic sceptics are those who cannot see past the green camouflage on this legislation. They see the smokestacks and the flooding waters, not knowing that it is harmless steam they are looking at on old file footage. They are just smoke and mirrors and camouflage. I would not be so quick to dismiss talks of the Left’s new green agenda to save the planet with a decarbonised revolution. I believe it is working well. People forget that communism looked good to some educated people too.

As a long-time senator, in fact the father of this house, I can tell when the political balance that secures our fragile democracy is threatened. Under the coalition government the equilibrium was pretty stable most of the time and Australia met its challenges in a robust and healthy way. But now there is a close alliance between Labor and the extreme greens, the balance is being lost. The great problem with that is that it brings both extremes into play, the extreme Left and the extreme Right. That is what we are seeing today. Instead of exposing extreme green elements for what they are, Labor has got into bed with them to secure preferences and votes. Meanwhile, there is a corresponding opposing reaction in the Right. My colleagues know it is springing up out there; it is boiling in the bush. The last time that level of unhappiness and frustration happened, we saw the rise of One Nation.

In cyber Australia right now there is a growing groundswell of disaffected people. I think probably up to a million people have been listening to Lord Monckton’s view of the now defunct draft treaty. It is up to us, especially the Nationals, to keep the debate on the rails and prevent it from becoming extreme. If we are not the voice of regional Australia, whether by absence or by timidity, people will look to the charlatans and the extreme Right for their political representation. I have heard this view circulating among some of my colleagues. One view is that the coalition can get away with supporting the CPRS because who else will the Right vote for come election time: the Right has nowhere to go, they are in the bag. I have heard my colleagues say this. But to those tempted to think that, let us think again. Recent history has shown that, when there is disenchantment on the Right, Labor stays in power, thanks to renegade and rogue elements that hijack and split the conservative vote. The Senate can prevent that move to the extremes by giving rural and regional Australia a fair hearing on the ETS. To ignore or belittle their views would be a grave mistake. They are the ones who would have to wear the ETS far more than the leafy suburb professionals. This is a warning that we must not forget these people. Their views must be considered and the government must be accountable for the widespread negative fallout from a carbon tax.

Those in regional Australia will be the hardest hit by this ETS; therefore, they should be the first to be considered. And do not insult them with promises of green jobs. They are seldom in the places where the non-green jobs are being destroyed, nor do they pay as well as miners rates. The people out there are not stupid. They know from past experience when they are being made to pay for a political crusade that benefits someone else, somewhere else. Do not treat rural and regional Australians as though they were mugs, Mr Rudd. It would be the greatest folly, economically and politically, if this ETS were to pass against the wishes of regional Australia.

What people everywhere also want to know—I have a right to know, and they have a right to know—is an area that I have been chasing the government over for months. What is our international commitment in terms of climate assistance to developing countries? What is the green-aid tab for Australia? And how will it be funded—by what new taxes or regulations? This is clearly a major part of the Copenhagen process, as is verified by the ridiculous terms of the draft treaty which is causing so much angst. So why won’t the government come clean? The Prime Minister says we will pay our fair share—but everyone wants to know what that fair share is. What is that fair share, Mr Prime Minister?

The Treasury modelling has played an enormous role in this debate, but a false one. Many people, from the Prime Minister down, have used it to back up their claims that this ETS is doable and will not cost too much—who dare gainsay it, in the face of the Treasury modelling? But I urge all thinking Australians to consider this: the Treasury modelling has not been done on the CPRS before us. Secondly, all its outcomes are based on the fact that other countries come in and have an ETS equivalent as well. That is why, in the Treasury modelling, the dangers are not so immediately apparent. The figures are based on a totally unreal hypothesis. We know that Copenhagen is a dud. We know that our trading competitors like India, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Russia and so on are not accepting a carbon price, so the Treasury analysis and its outcomes fall apart and are worthless.

Debate interrupted.