Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate that the Minister for Finance and Deregulation has made great strides, but I really think that if he calmed down we would have a better debate in this country. Our policy will deliver the same emissions reductions as the government’s without the government’s great big new tax. Our policy is cheaper, simpler and more effective than the government’s because it relies on incentives, not penalties. That is the essential difference between our policy and the government’s. At the heart of our policy is an emissions reduction fund that will do precisely what is said to be necessary; namely, purchase the most efficient and effective ways of reducing emissions at the lowest cost. That is exactly what it is said we need and that is exactly what our policy will deliver.

There are many ways to reduce emissions. We can improve the carbon content of our soil and, in so doing, improve the productivity of our farms. There are many farmers who are already doing this, and I think those farmers deserve an incentive, not a penalty. Those farmers deserve a fair go, not a great big new tax, and to the extent that they increase the carbon content of our soil they can be helped under our policy. Under our policy we can then help fund the innovative technology for which Australians are famous.

In my first week in my new position I visited MDB Energy in Townsville. They are using carbon dioxide, waste water from power stations and sunlight to produce algae which can become biofuel and stock feed. I had the decency to visit that great innovative Australian company. The Prime Minister was 100 metres down the road and he would not take 10 minutes out of his schedule to visit this groundbreaking Australian company. I have more respect for the Australian people than to walk away from an example of world-beating Australian technology. I call on the Prime Minister to put in place a policy, as we have done, that will directly fund emissions reduction by paying Australian businesses to do what they do best: to farm more effectively, to innovate more creatively, to grow more trees and to do exactly what is needed to improve our environment.

I am a great supporter of the market. We in the coalition are going to the market and saying to all of the creative people out there, ‘You give us your best ideas for reducing emissions at the lowest cost and in the most effective ways and we will fund them.’ What we will not do, though, is fund a bunch of speculators to rip off the Australian public through a giant emissions trading scam.

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