Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science and Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change. Will the minister please advise the House of any challenges facing the government in taking action on behalf of the Australian community against climate change?

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia’s national interest is tied to taking strong global action on climate change and taking effective domestic action to reduce greenhouse emissions. The government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme does just that. It serves the national interest. As the Prime Minister has indicated, in two days time it will be voted upon in the Senate. That time is approaching very rapidly for the coalition. The CPRS is underpinned by the compelling international scientific evidence, by numerous reports, by reports produced by the previous government and produced by this government, by the white paper, by the Garnaut review and by the enormously detailed work that has been carried out in developing the CPRS legislation. Two days out from the vote, the coalition are still looking for a miracle solution. They are still peppered with climate change sceptics. The member for O’Connor has been very vocal about this issue in recent days. They are still disunited on the policy and they are still grasping at straws.

Only several weeks ago, the Leader of the Opposition issued nine very vague principles on the opposition’s approach to dealing with climate change. The opposition then urged the government to mimic the steps being undertaken in the United States in the Waxman-Markey legislation. Now, several weeks later, a completely different position emerges. The nine vague principles have been replaced by the presentation of another report, one in which, importantly, the electricity generation sector, which produces about 40 per cent of Australian greenhouse gas emissions, is exempted from the scheme and would operate under a different emissions-intensive scheme. That is as we understand the position. The proposal is riddled with problems and complexity. It is not transparent modelling. The assumptions are not made available. But most telling of all, in the one-hour-and-five-minute press conference that took place yesterday conducted by the Leader of the Opposition, there was one telling moment, and that was the moment when the question came: ‘Is this coalition policy?’—and the answer was no.

The report is not coalition policy. That is because no unity can be achieved on that side of the parliament about the approach to be taken to dealing with climate change. The fact is that, with the vote two days away in the Senate, we are on the cusp of voting on the most significant environmental and economic reform ever undertaken in this country by any government. That side of politics does not know what its position is. It does not have a policy response and it cannot present detailed amendments. It cannot do so. There is chaos and confusion on the Liberal Party side of politics on this issue. Not an iota of policy emerged from the coalition party room meeting today, and we are two days out from the vote. The fact of the matter is: they are too weak, they are divided, they are disunited on this important public policy challenge, and the Leader of the Opposition lacks the authority and lacks the judgment to deal with this issue.

The report they released yesterday does not add up. Just consider some of the key elements of it. They say it can deliver 100 per cent free permits to the emissions-intensive trade-exposed sector of the economy—100 per cent for the EITE industries, 100 per cent protection for all coalmines for their methane emissions—and twice the level of assistance proposed under the CPRS for electricity generators. They propose also to exclude emissions from the energy sector from the scheme and to exclude emissions from agriculture for an indefinite period of time. Those two together are over 50 per cent of our greenhouse gas emissions. They can do all of this while electricity prices are lower and while they double the unconditional target to 10 per cent by 2020.

It is not a credible proposition, it is not transparent, it is fundamentally flawed and, importantly, it shifts the risk for achieving Australia’s target reductions in emissions onto households, small businesses and taxpayers to meet the targeted cuts through the purchase of international permits. Just this morning, the member for Goldstein conceded that, even were the government to adopt the Frontier report, the Liberal Party could not guarantee that they could vote for it. That is what he said on radio this morning. It is time, two days out from the vote, that the coalition took responsibility for this position and voted for the CPRS in the Senate.