Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

The reality is, Deputy Speaker—as you know and I know—before the 2010 federal election, the former Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard said, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead'—

A government member: There was!

That's right. The assistant minister is right. My apologies—the minister; congratulations on your elevation. But there was. The minister is 100 per cent right. What actually happened was, after they'd made a commitment to the Australian people, they got their vote and then they turned around and they tore the agreement up. They spent $55 million trying to sell their spin and trying to cover over their deception to the Australian people, because they said one thing before the election and something different thereafter. We all know that this is the history and the track record of the Labor Party, and now they're seeking to repeat it.

Compare that to this side of the chamber. We went to an election making it crystal clear what our policy throughout this term of government would be. Of course, we took the Australia people with us in prosecuting that critical argument, and they endorsed it every step of the way. One of the best things about what this government has been achieving in the climate change policy space isn't just that we set out a 26 to 28 per cent target by 2030; we got it endorsed by the Australia people, and we did. We then went on not just to meet and not just to beat but to smash our targets. We're already 21 per cent down on 2005 levels of emissions.

Here's a reality. It's a very difficult one for the opposition and our critics outside of this chamber to accept. The OECD average of emissions reduction is but seven per cent of 2005 levels, and we are hitting 20.8 per cent—21 per cent. That's three times the OECD average as the Prime Minister gets on a plane and goes off to Glasgow. Not only is he going to be able to report back that we're going to meet, beat and smash our targets in 2030, but he's going to be proudly able to put in a commitment from Australia, a statement very clearly from Australia, that was outlined in our substantial plan this week, to cut greenhouse gas emissions with an upwards revision of our projection where we will hit up to 35 per cent emissions reduction by 2030.

That's the fundamental difference between this side of the chamber and the Labor Party—and, frankly, increasingly, the independents who are working with them.

Don't worry, member for McMahon, I haven't even got to them yet! They are working directly with the Labor Party to subvert our democracy. You saw this with the member for Warringah earlier last year. We saw it exactly where it was. The member for Warringah introduced a bill that would have included the power for commissioners that the crossbench appointed. These commissioners would be able to not allow the recommendation of the change of any emissions targets. What they wanted to do was to empower commissioners to veto this parliament. If there was any doubt about the intent or the objective of the member for Warringah, you just need to go and look at her speech.

Only yesterday, when she moved a motion to have a discussion about her failed bill—thrice rejected—she spoke openly about the fact that Australian climate policy needs to be taken out of the hands of democratically elected representatives. When you think about that, that is nothing short of disgraceful—for you to come into this parliament and then appoint commissioners who can veto the rights of the Australian people to be able to decide their own destiny. Now, Labor are trying to support it every step of the way. Despite the fact that the member for McMahon—already, only three days after they started their narrative around legislating a target—now seems to have abandoned it and walked away from a policy position so quickly, he says it's necessary to take the issue seriously.

That must be a wake-up call to the state governments of Queensland and Western Australia that have Labor governments but no legislated target. It must be a spectacular wake up call to the 185-odd countries in the world that have a target, but it is not legislated. Because those countries—and, frankly, even state Labor governments—understand the consequences of Labor's policy. They know and they understand that when you follow the Labor approach you are empowering bureaucrats and not citizens and communities.

That is not what we on this side of the chamber see. I know that's not just what we see in this chamber; it's what we see in communities as well. I see it at every election, when I go to the polling booth. At every election there is this bloke—I won't mention his name; let's just call him David R—who stands there with his Green how-to-vote cards, and he tells people to vote for the Greens and for all of their policy ambitions. Then, as soon as the election is over, he comes storming into my office and demands that the Liberal Party adopt the positions that have just been defeated at the election. He does it every time. Every time! But don't worry. He's independent now. He's not a Green; he's an independent now. His track record shows that they're all tricky. They say one thing and do the other.

The good thing is that, in the community, everybody knows who these people are. Everybody knows about these puppetmasters who want to make puppets of the Independent members of parliament, and we're not going to let them. I can tell you, Member for McMahon: we know exactly who you are, we know that you have no respect for democracy and we know that the member for Warringah has tried to appoint bureaucrats to have veto rights over the Australian parliament, and now the Labor Party wants to do the same with the courts. So make no mistake: we see the tricky agenda. They may not up here in Canberra, but the people in our community know exactly the tricky behaviour you've got up to.

Compare that to the side of the chamber, where we are straightforward. We take an election policy, deliver it after winning an election, and then go on and develop a substantial plan—the first comprehensive economywide plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. There are 130 pages going to the different roles of technologies and the contribution that they can make. This is a plan that focuses not just on what we as a government can do but on what the communities and different levels of government can do. It empowers industry to be part of the solution. The only approach the Labor Party has is a tax. They won't reveal it yet. The member for Warringah won't reveal her plan for one yet either. But what they're secretly hoping is to get into minority government on the back of the Greens and Independents so they can pull the strings of a failed Labor government. (Time expired)

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