Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In this chamber today we saw, from those opposite, one of the greatest acts of political hypocrisy and political doublespeak that we have witnessed in this country for a very long time. It came in particular from the member for Indi and the Leader of the Opposition, who have spent the last nine months travelling the length and breadth of this country knocking people out of the way to get into workshops and don silly hard hats and fluoro vests so that they could pose for cameras in front of real workers and try and send a message around the country that they care for workers. They had an opportunity in this place today to put those slogans, that cheap rhetoric, into action and put their votes where their mouths are, but they squibbed it. They had an opportunity to stand up for Australian workers. They had an opportunity to stand up for people like those in my electorate of Throsby and do something valuable for them, but they went missing. They had the opportunity to vote for the steel industry transformation plan. This is a plan that is providing $300 million worth of much-needed assistance to the steel industry, which is vital to my region and the national economy. As the member for La Trobe has previously identified, the steel industry provides jobs to thousands of Australians and provides an incredibly important product to Australian and international markets, and it is finding it very difficult to trade in an international environment with very high input costs—the flipside of the high value that we are getting for our commodities like iron and coal—and the very high Australian dollar.

So the opposition had the opportunity today to say they were going to do something to assist the workers and companies in the steel industry and they went missing. I know that many of those opposite might say that the reason they voted against this was because they are opposed to what the government is doing to put a price on carbon and put in place real action to deal with climate change. The simple fact of the matter is that they could have maintained that objection and still voted in favour of the steel industry and manufacturing workers because not one cent of the revenue that is raised from the carbon price is going into the steel industry transformation plan; they are completely separate revenue streams. It would have been possible for the member for Indi to try and convince all of those economic rationalists on her front bench and those on her back bench to do something in support of manufacturing workers, but they went missing. They went missing because what they have been engaging in over the last nine months is nothing more than a sideshow designed for the media crew and it has absolutely no substance. We have a plan. We have a bundle of legislation which will enable us to deal with the generational challenge of climate change, and deal with it in the cheapest, most efficient and most effective way possible. It is a way, by putting a price on carbon and providing incentives to invest in energy efficiency, that will enable business to transform at the lowest cost. It acknowledges that there are some industries which need additional assistance and need shielding from the carbon price because of the nature of their business—the nature of their manufacturing process or their production process. We have put in place a well calibrated package which deals with the economic circumstances of these businesses.

We have been met today by a proposition that we should delay the introduction of this legislation and the carbon price. This comes after 35 parliamentary inquiries into climate change since 1994. There have been about 250 questions asked in this place on carbon pricing and over 15 separate MPI debates. We have had around 33 hours of speaking on this legislation alone, featuring around, or in addition to, 120 speakers on this. I do not think anybody who has been witnessing this debate for over 10 years can say that we have not had a full and proper debate, that the science is not known and that everything is not clear.

When you analyse the real reason behind this motion to delay the introduction of this legislation you find that there is one thing—and one thing alone. We know that delay will prevent the thing that those opposite fear the most. The thing that they fear the most is the lived experience of this legislation. They know that from 1 July next year the sky is not going to fall in, and all of those consumers around the country will be measuring in brown copper coins the increase to their costs, and not in the orange-and-yellow notes, as they have been led to believe, by those opposite. That is the real reason lying behind their motion to delay. We have had enough delay already. (Time expired)

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