Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Thedifferent approach to environmental and climate change challenges, so evident in the House today, is emblematic of the stark contrast between Labor’s policies and beliefs and the coalition’s policies and beliefs. It is the difference between the two parties. Labor stand for bigger and bigger government and higher taxes. Labor’s answer to any problem is to throw more money at it. If they have to borrow, they borrow more and keep handing it out. In the case of climate change, the government are talking about $114 billion over nine years to 2020—a tax on the Australian people. That is Labor’s answer to the challenges of the environment and climate change. Labor believe in megabureaucracies. Labor are addicted to debt—massive public debt to fund their vote-buying sprees. Their emissions trading tax represents bigger government, massive taxes, huge bureaucracies and vote buying in an election year, and every year thereafter. In contrast, the coalition believe and have always believed in smaller government, less government interference, innovation and enterprise, the creativity of the Australian people and lower taxes and fiscal responsibility.

Labor invariably and inevitably leaves behind a mountain of debt and invariably and inevitably the coalition has to pay it off to ensure that future generations of Australians, those whom the Prime Minister professes to be so concerned about, are not burdened by profligate Labor debt. Remember what we did in 1996 when we had to pay off Labor’s $96 billion debt and had to find the $10 billion each year that was needed to meet the interest payments on that massive debt. That was the response of the coalition to the first Intergenerational report on the ageing of the population in 2002. That is what our response was: pay off Labor’s massive debt, the crippling debt that we inherited, so that future generations were not punished by having to pay off Labor’s debt. And the Labor government has done it again, except this time it will be a $120 billion debt, and rising.

On climate change and the government’s approach to it, the government’s great big new tax is not about saving the environment. It has never been about saving the environment. The Prime Minister has never had an environmental agenda. It has only ever been a political agenda. The Prime Minister knows that a great big tax on everything in Australia will not reduce global emissions—he knows that—yet that is what he is seeking to foist on Australian families. This great big new tax is all about the Prime Minister’s desire to hand out bribes in an election year and every year thereafter. That is Labor’s claim to economic responsibility—borrow to the hilt and then hand it out. True to Labor tradition, the government has blown the budget and now needs to raise taxes, and the Prime Minister is cynically using the fig leaf of emissions trading. This is all about raising a massive tax on the Australian people for the government’s coffers.

Members will remember that, before the Copenhagen conference, the Prime Minister described climate change as the ‘greatest moral, economic and environmental challenge of our generation’. ‘The bigger the cuts to emissions the better’, he claimed. He tried to scare the living daylights out of Australians with story after story of an environmental Armageddon that would come to Australia unless deep cuts were made to emissions in this country and that could only be done by a tax. That was what the Prime Minister said. And remember the government’s countdown to Copenhagen—‘50 days until the end of the Earth unless we pass the emissions trading scheme legislation’; ‘25 days to Copenhagen’. The coalition urged caution and repeatedly said that no legislation should be passed before Copenhagen. We pointed out that it was prudent to see what commitments were made by the rest of the world prior to locking Australia into a position. But, no, the Prime Minister insisted that Australia had to lead the world by being the only nation on Earth prepared to send jobs offshore and emissions offshore by a great big tax imposed on the Australian people. Australia is responsible for 1.4 per cent of global emissions. We could cut our emissions deeply and devastate our economy yet have no impact whatsoever on global emissions if the major emitters did not reduce their emissions.

The nations of the world gathered at Copenhagen last December, and what happened? Well, the conference started very badly when a draft document was leaked—a document which had Prime Minister Rudd’s paw prints all over it—which infuriated developing countries and things went from bad to worse as the conference descended into a farce. There were reports of heavy-handed tactics, including by the Prime Minister of Australia, against smaller nations in the Pacific and others. India labelled Prime Minister Rudd as an ayatollah, such was his behaviour at Copenhagen. News back home broke of the Prime Minister’s entourage at Copenhagen—114 people at last count; a bigger contingent than far larger economies, far larger populations, far larger emitters. The Prime Minister’s entourage knocked up a carbon footprint you could not jump over—something like 1,800 tonnes of carbon emitted just flying his entourage to Copenhagen. But most distressing for the Prime Minister was the fact that the man who was so keen to lead the world on climate change, was so keen to be the friend of the chair and centre stage at Copenhagen, was locked out of the final discussions that led to the watered down accord—incidentally, basically requiring no country to do anything.

After the failure of Copenhagen—the conference upon which this Prime Minister staked his leadership and his credibility; a conference universally seen as a failure by all but the Prime Minister of Australia—instead of admitting that he got it wrong, the Prime Minister hid in Kirribilli for a couple of weeks, no doubt licking his wounds, pouting and probably swearing at the staff and kicking his cat or dog or whoever features in his kiddies’ book, and then emerged to announce that, in the face of the failure of Copenhagen, he was still ideologically committed to a great big new tax on the Australian people which will do nothing to reduce global emissions.

The government proposes to reintroduce its great big tax legislation today—legislation that has no friends. The Minerals Council of Australia, which represents a major sector of the Australian economy, said today in a media release:

The failure of the Copenhagen climate change talks underscored the need to promote and adopt economically conservative climate change policies aligned with the rate of development of policies and actions across the rest of the world.

It went on to say:

There is no point trying to lead the world with aggressive climate change schemes if the major economies are not interested in following—or worse still, regard Australia’s initiatives as an example of what not to do.

The Copenhagen fiasco amply demonstrated that the major economies and Australia’s export competitors have no appetite for radical CPRS-style economic re-engineering in response to climate change.

The proposed CPRS—

the government’s emissions trading scheme legislation—

remains the most costly emissions trading scheme in the world—while failing to deliver material reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions.

This government scheme is damned by all yet this Prime Minister insists on foisting this tax on the Australian people.

So while the Prime Minister’s political strategy is evident, it also reveals his contempt for the Australian public by trying to lock Australia into a flawed emissions trading scheme. The Prime Minister is more than willing to sacrifice jobs. He has ignored all warnings to date about job losses. He is more than willing to cause serious and long-term damage to the Australian economy—and he is on track to do just that with his scheme—while having no impact on reducing global emissions. As the National Generators Forum said today in a media release:

The NGF does not support the federal government’s CPRS in its current form. The CPRS badly damages the asset values of generating businesses, which creates serious risks for energy security and investment.

That is a statement by the National Generators Forum.

As we have noted, the Prime Minister has on numerous occasions described climate change as the ‘greatest moral challenge of our generation’. One would have thought that the ‘greatest moral challenge of our generation’ would have required one of the greatest debates of our nation. But the Prime Minister is still insisting that it is his way or the highway and refuses to explain to the Australian people how his emissions trading tax will work.

We know that the emissions trading scheme will fundamentally restructure our economy over time. It will have a fundamental impact on the Australian economy. But, according to a recent poll, while a majority of Australians want action on climate change, only about five per cent said they knew what an emissions trading scheme was. The Prime Minister of this country is cynically trading on that lack of understanding of the complexity of his scheme. There has been no public education program from the government. There has been no information to the Australian public on what an emissions trading scheme is or what a carbon pollution reduction scheme is. There has been very little detailed analysis of Labor’s scheme. The Prime Minister refuses to answer questions in question time in the people’s house about what it will cost families. There has been virtually no information provided by the government on what it will cost Australians in terms of increased energy costs or increased electricity costs in particular—the increased overall costs of living for Australians. This is a deliberate Labor strategy to keep people in the dark—literally—and to suppress information that would reveal the failings of Labor’s scheme and the cynical politics behind the introduction again of an emissions trading scheme that has been rejected by all the political parties in this House.

According to a recent international report, Australia is the country most likely to be disadvantaged by the transition to a low-carbon economy. That is because our economy has been built on cheap and plentiful energy, in the main from burning coal. So wouldn’t you expect the government to explain to the Australian people how this transition to a low-carbon economy will take place through the imposition of a massive tax? It is this lack of appropriate scrutiny, public discussion and debate on the government’s great big tax that is causing so much concern amongst the Australian people. If anyone questions the Prime Minister or challenges him on any of his assumptions to do with climate change, they are immediately denounced as a climate change denier or a climate change sceptic. It is this vicious, nasty suppression of debate that so concerns the Australian public.

The coalition today has released a sensible, pragmatic environmental policy based on direct action. It is affordable, it is understandable and it is environmentally and economically responsible. It takes advantage of some of Australia’s greatest natural assets, the soil and the sun—and Australia has plenty of both. While it stands on its own as a responsible environmental policy, it shows unquestionably that there is another way, there is a better way, than the Prime Minister’s great big tax on the Australian people. It shows that the Prime Minister was trying to con the Australian people that there was only one way to tackle global emissions, and that was to slug Australians with a great big tax. Australians will welcome the debate that has been caused as a result of the release of the coalition’s sensible policy. As the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said in its statement today:

It is in the public interest for there to be a strong contest of policy ideas about climate change responses before we impose major or unilateral adjustment costs on our economy, and the Coalition statement—

that is, the policy released by the coalition—according to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, does just that. It contributes to that strong contest of policy ideas. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry went on to say:

ACCI has consistently pointed to the fact that internationally there are a range of proposals which have been put forward to deal with this environmental and economic challenge.

Business welcomes a debate on these and other ideas proceeding in Australia in the interests of finding the most effective and economically sustainable approach.

Since the Copenhagen conference in December 2009 the global dynamic has shifted and it is clear the likelihood of international agreement with clear and binding targets will not be achievable at least in the medium term.

Given the uncertainty now existing after Copenhagen over what other nations will do, a domestic policy approach that provides more carrot than stick tends to reflect the temper of the times.

This Prime Minister is ignoring the temper of the times. He has got his head in the sand over the failure of Copenhagen, which so destroyed his credibility on the whole economical issue. He is ignoring the impost on the Australian people. He is contemptuously disregarding their concerns about how they can afford a great big new tax on top of having to pay back the great big massive debt that Labor has racked up in just two years in government.

The coalition’s policy has been endorsed by a range of people, from the National Association of Forest Industries to the National Farmers Federation, because they understand that Australia cannot afford the great big new tax to be imposed on the Australian people by the Rudd government. The coalition stands for a sensible environmental economic policy that will reduce emissions but not slug Australians with a tax. (Time expired)

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