Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am certainly pleased to rise and put on the record my opposition to the carbon tax that Labor has proposed in this House. There can be no doubt, in considering my remarks ahead of this evening's debate, that the world does need to address the issue of climate change. There can be no doubt that, globally, mankind is having an impact. As the father of a three-year-old son, as someone who looks at what is happening around the world, I cannot help but think to myself that not only is there a certain—and I do not want to overstate it in any way, shape or form—element of morality to this from one generation to the next but also there is something more fundamentally and economically rational about tackling climate change.

For the last five, six or even 10 decades the world predominantly has relied on one source of fuel to drive electricity and generate power for industry. This at its core has been crucial to the way in which, globally, we have helped to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and into a better state of living. It has been at the core of the way in which societies have helped to raise standards of living, lower infant mortality, increase life spans and make a material difference to humanity's survival on this planet.

We have reached a point where, if we apply adequate resources and ingenuity, we are able to develop, commercialise and harness other renewable forms of electricity in a way that will make a difference to our world, to our environment and to mankind going forward. Ultimately, it is in all of our collective interests to develop a form of renewable energy that does not have a significant detrimental environmental impact. That is just plain good economics, that is just plain good common sense and that is an approach to this issue that resonates with the moral obligation we have from one generation to the next.

Unfortunately, I seek to make the bulk of my contribution to consideration in detail on the amendments, because I was gagged by the government from speaking in the main debate that took place earlier today. That notwithstanding, I feel very strongly about this issue. That is part of the reason I said to the Leader of the Opposition I was prepared to fly back from New York, from my secondment to the United Nations. I wanted to put on the record my opposition to Labor's approach. There can be no doubt, as I said, that we as a nation do have an obligation to act on climate change, but this is not the correct approach. Labor's approach to tackling climate change—through the introduction of a carbon tax and, in a more deceitful way, through the introduction of a carbon tax without a mandate; in fact, quite the opposite, since the Prime Minister vowed, only days out from the last election, that if elected they would not introduce a carbon tax—is not the approach. The key to ensuring the success of a reform like this is to ensure that the community has ownership of the reform. And Labor's approach provides no community ownership whatsoever.

This is a significant reform that absolutely must be done in lock step with global action. Despite the pressing need for there to be action on climate change, despite the issues that I have raised about economic consequences and despite the fact that I believe there is a moral obligation to deal with climate change, to do so effectively unilaterally, thus imposing a significant impost on the Australian economy when the rest of the world is not at that point, is economic recklessness. It is blind ideology that drives an agenda that does not look to the stark reality that, in order to perform meaningful change, in order to foster and grow meaningful ownership of a reform throughout a community, you must ensure that the community is going to be better off for that reform.

There are some elements of this debate that can simply not be ignored. Principal among them—I am mindful of the time, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I would seek the call again.

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