Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I listened very carefully to the shadow Treasurer's address but, as ever, I was disappointed. We have heard the proposition put forward by the opposition about the carbon tax, and they say it is the wrong time. In my submission today I am going to put forward five arguments to rebut what the shadow Treasurer was saying. In essence, I will say that, yes, this government has properly considered the changes; that, yes, this government is about protecting and creating jobs; that, yes, this government is about supporting pensioners; that, yes, in a time of economic uncertainty we are not acting alone but in fact consistent with where the world is heading; and, finally, if those first four arguments have failed to persuade you, I will just look at the record of the opposition—and when it comes to getting the big calls right the opposition have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

I will now turn to my first submission about why we do not accept the hypothesis of the opposition. We have properly considered this argument put forward in the shadow Treasurer's debate. He says that we have not had time to consider this debate. Where has he been for the last five years? Where has he been hiding? We have had more discussion on climate change than on many other issues that were ever discussed. I certainly do not recollect the opposition, when they were in government, discussing their hardline Work Choices reforms for five years before they introduced them. On the contrary, we have seen climate change and carbon pricing being debated for years. In fact, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher, raised the issue of climate change as far back as the late 1980s. Former Prime Minister John Howard, if he had been re-elected in 2007, was going to introduce an emissions trading scheme.

On this side of the fence, both former Prime Minister Rudd and now Prime Minister Gillard have been debating the need to act on climate change for many years. When former leader of the Liberal Party, Brendan Nelson, was opposition leader he was certainly committed to acting on climate change. Indeed, another former leader of the Liberal Party, the member for Wentworth, was an active proponent about climate change until, of course, today when the proverbial cat—or, dare I say it, the Liberal whips—got his tongue.

Indeed, when we look at debate on this, it should be noted that we have also had a cross-party committee negotiation process, which was very thorough and very detailed. There was lots of effort, led by the Minister for Climate Change and supported by the Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change. There has been a very thorough process to discuss climate change. But, yet again, whenever you hold a party the coalition just will not turn up to participate.

Of course the late change in the game is not the government introducing a price on pollution; it is saying that the coalition do not even believe in a carbon price any more, as they did when they were last in office. So let us be clear: the first submission I am putting to dispute the opposition's contention is that there has been a great deal of debate on climate change and a great deal of argument, research and science has gone into the proposition.

The second submission I put forward to show that the opposition's attack on our efforts to tackle climate change are misplaced is to have a look at the jobs' record of this Labor government. Even though those ungracious people sitting opposite us in the parliament never say anything good about the government, let us not forget that during the global financial crisis, due to the excellent stimulus programs the Building the Education Revolution, we saw 750,000 jobs created in Australia. Indeed, between June 2009 and June 2010, in the teeth of the global financial crisis, we saw 190,000 jobs created in small business—the fastest sector to recover. This was in part due to the excellent policies of the Labor government.

Mr Christensen interjecting—

We also understand, unlike the member for Dawson, that the world does not stand still. We understand that we cannot rely on the sleepy hollow of National Party economics to try and move this country forward. We understand that there is an international race on for clean technology jobs. We understand, unlike the Leader of the National Party, that in fact the world does not owe Australia a living and we cannot take our place in the world for granted. There is a race on for clean-tech, new manufacturing, low-pollution, economic service, green-collar jobs of the future. Unlike the opposition, we do not want to give up competing with the rest of the world. We do not believe that Australia is doomed to a second-class existence. We do not believe that Australian industry cannot compete with the rest of the world. The sooner we have a market mechanism to turbocharge our innovative efforts, the better off we are going to be in global race. These people want to tie our two legs together in the economic race to the future.

Let us also have a look at the facts. Since we announced in February—and I just warn the opposition: low incoming fact; do duck—that we would be introducing a price on carbon, employment in the coal mining industry has grown by 10 per cent. How can this be if the threats of the opposition have any truth? Whilst Mr Abbott and the Coal Association, the employers' union for the coal industry, have been busy trying to scare the pants of hardworking miners, 21,000 new mining jobs have come on stream across Australia. Furthermore, we are very lucky that the capitalists of the world do not take their economic and investment strategies from those opposite, because in 2011-12 mining capital expenditure is expected to be around $82 billion. We would have to call that an inconvenient truth. Whilst those opposite would say that this price on carbon is the end of mining and we might as well fill in all the holes in the ground, that in fact is not the case. It has almost been doubled—

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