Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am describing the history of this, why the debate has gone on long enough and why there should not be a further delay. In 2007, the Labor side went to the election with an emissions trading scheme with a one-year fixed price. During the term from 2007 to 2009, when it was finally rejected in the Senate, we had a white paper, a green paper, an exposure draft, debate in this House and two Senate inquiries. The opposition of the time negotiated with the government on an outcome and the parties agreed on it. Then overnight there was an opposition leadership change and the opposition changed their policy after four years of consistency on this policy. The shame of it is that on this side we know that this is a policy blip on the part of the opposition. Once their leadership changes again, they will revert to their natural policy position, which is to support a market mechanism as they did in 2007, 2008 and 2009. When that happens, they will realise they lost this opportunity by not entering into the debate on this.

Australia is an interesting country. The Australian people tend to pick one party in the state government, one party in the federal government and a balance-of-power, minor party in the Senate. They require us as a government and an opposition to work together to get our bills through, and every government in Australian history, with the exception perhaps of the Howard government when it had a majority in the Senate, has done exactly that. The government and the opposition have worked together to find a path through. It is the working together of both sides which causes stability in this country. It means that when governments change we do not flip-flop from one side of the policy to the other because we have worked together to find a position which we can both support. You have lost an opportunity here. You have lost a real opportunity to be part of a major reform.

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