Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I was struggling to think of a way to introduce my comments about last night's State of Origin result into this debate and make it relevant. I am pleased to say—only the few people who are sitting here in the chamber would have been able to see—that some of the moves that Senator Cormann put on in his take-note speech gave me the perfect opportunity to say, 'You would be a proud contributor to any Queensland team, Senator Cormann, with your movements earlier.' That gives me a chance to put on record my congratulations to the Queenslanders.

Senator Cormann's comments in that contribution seemed to indicate that there has only ever been one party in the history of Australian government that has looked at putting taxation into the community. We have also heard from Senator Williams that there is only one party in the history of the Australian economy that has ever, through its process of developing economic responses, looked at taxation! Strangely enough, a very quick scrutiny of Hansard over the history of the Commonwealth, which I was able to do in the last minute or so, has proven that governments of all persuasions from the very start—1901—have debated in the chambers of parliament taxation for the Australian community. The way that is done has not changed that much. Proposals for economic processes come through the community, there is discussion, concern, interest and then in this place there are specific arguments about the merits of individual proposals. That is what is going to happen when we look at the pricing process of the carbon issue in this country.

When the details are released publicly on Sunday—despite the many times over the past week when there have been attempts to say what is going to happen, the details will not be released until Sunday—the issue will be in the public domain for discourse. There will be an expectation that people will be able to see the detail, will be able to argue about the impact on their own circumstances. And when parliament returns, as we see all the time, there will be the opportunity for informed discussion on the issue. Rather than just throwing up our hands with extraordinarily quick movements in every direction—much like that of Queensland rugby league team!—there will be the opportunity for debate here so we will be able to look at the real issue.

We have seen over the past months the development of concern, information and knowledge about why there should be a price on carbon. We have had this discussion. There will be people who will never agree, and we hear that regularly in this place.

The government has a position. There has been a multi-party group considering this over several months but unfortunately, as I said before, that multi-party group was lacking a couple of parties. Nonetheless, the multi-party group looked at the ways of doing this and the reasons, the background to our responsibilities on the issue of carbon.

No matter how many times you throw up the argument that because some people are not doing anything in this area then we should not, it is not a reasonable response to an international need and an international demand. As a community, as a country, we must look at the issues of pollution and carbon pricing and the destruction of our environment. Once that threshold point is there, then you look at how you do it. The process this government is putting forward to the community, to the debate in this parlia­ment, is that there should be a price on carbon. How it will work, what will be the individual processes and what will be the compensation to individuals and business will be the subjects of debate. But to just pretend that there has never been a taxation process discussed in parliament before, to pretend that we have any right as an Austra­lian community or parliament to run away from our responsibilities, to pluck figures from the air and say that we will not be able to effectively and reasonably take this debate here, is not a respectful way of looking at the way parliament operates. There will be a debate on carbon price. There must be a debate on carbon price. When we get into the aspects of how it will work, there shall be a sensible discussion on carbon price. To run a scare campaign, to pretend that the only response to the economy has been taxation from one side of government, lowers the argument. It shows that there is not an intent to look at the real issues. Once again, for people not to want to look at the real issues around the need for our whole globe, our whole area, to take their responsi­bilities in this incredibly important area of protecting the environment is not safe. (Time expired)