Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Your policies, the coalition’s policies—$30 billion. These figures demonstrate that ‘Direct Action’ is so environmentally ineffective that it will deliver only 25 per cent of the carbon pollution abatement required for the coalition to meet the bipartisan target of five per cent. If you cannot meet it with your policies, you will have to go out and buy permits on the world market. If you buy permits on the world market—you will have to buy 75 per cent of your abatement in permits—it will cost $20 billion. That is the economic irresponsibility of the coalition. That is the economic irresponsibility of the Leader of the Opposition. That is the economic irresponsibility that will make sure you never form government. You have said in this debate that we are running scared. Let me tell you one thing: there is no running scared from having a proper policy debate on environmental issues and carbon pollution in this country—absolutely none.

Senator Fierravanti-Wells questioned my commitment to working people. She questioned my commitment to doing what is in the interests of the economy. I have challenged her and will lay the challenge down again. I am prepared to debate Senator Fierravanti-Wells in Wollongong, which is where she has her office, on jobs, climate change and financial responsibility because this is a debate that we can easily win. We will win that debate easily because we are the government who have actually dealt with the global financial crisis and we are the government that are seen around the world as having been the most effective in keeping our economy out of recession. How did we do that? We acted in a timely, targeted and temporary manner, and we looked after the funds of the Australian public. I go back to eminent economists like Joe Stiglitz, Nobel prize-winning economists, who say the priority during these situations is to make sure you keep your economy running—you do not destroy your communities and you do not destroy workers and their families’ futures. That is exactly what we did. If we had listened to the economic approach of the coalition, what would have happened? We would have sat back and waited to see what happened. That is what you were proposing. Using the same policies that resulted in the Great Depression—government having a hands-off approach, not acting in a timely, targeted and temporary manner and walking  away from the community—is the position the coalition would have us adopt. It is a coalition that is economically incompetent, it is a coalition that has no environmental credentials and it is a coalition that would put this country into $30 billion of debt through an environmental policy that is absolutely unsustainable. They want to keep the miners on side. We know the Western Australian senators are absolutely under the control of Twiggy Forrest and his ilk. We want to look after the public; not the big end of town. We will look after the nation; not the big end of town. (Time expired)