Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, I have to take exception to Senator Cameron. If people are being led by the nose around this place it is the Labor Party being led by Bob Brown. He is the de facto leader of the Labor Party, unwillingly supported by all Senator Cameron's blue-collar workers, who think they are voting for the Labor Party but in real terms are voting for Bob Brown so he can go over and swan around in Durban and claim that he has solved the problem of a carbon tax.

Senator Ludlam interjecting—

We can read you guys like an open book. To get back to the case in point, we in Australia are taking a step that is going to cost $33 billion by 2020; that is the economic output by 2020. By 2050 that goes up to $1 trillion. They are not the National Party figures; they are the government figures. They are part of a Treasury source: Strong growth, low pollution: modelling a carbon price,chart 5.13. Australia is going into hock for $1 trillion. That is a lot of money. That is $400 for every man, woman and child. Yet, has that been modelled? Only the government and the Treasury know what the modelling is, and the government will not release that modelling. They are sticking to it and they will not release it.

Senator Cormann and I have woken up to them and we have been relentless in our attack to get the truth out. Professor Ergas said it took three months and 10 hours to show that the government would not release the modelling. But we hit a lucky streak. Senator Cormann asked Mr Glyde, who is an honest, straightforward person, whether the modelling could have been done by a third person and he was told no, the modelling could not be done by a third person; it was only Treasury that could have the modelling. Then Ms Quinn belled the cat when she said the most recent public release of the model by ABARES was the model documentation released in 2007. The government was not around in 2007—and if it was it did not have a carbon tax on its mind. What Ms Quinn said was that the model had not been released to 2007. So we have been told the model is not available firstly by Mr Glyde, secondly by Ms Quinn and thirdly by Dr Brian Fisher, a well-known, well-respected economist. Ms Quinn has told the Senate on a number of occasions that the modelling is available, but when people go to get the modelling it suddenly becomes unavailable. Dr Brian Fisher wrote to Ms Quinn and said, 'I'm prepared to buy the modelling. I'll pay for the modelling. You've said in Senate estimates that if a person goes down there he can receive the modelling', but the modelling was not available.

Why will the government not release the modelling? If the modelling came up with the same equations and the same predictions as the Labor Party and it was positive, I can tell you it would be in a shiny, glossy document and put out in a drop to every letterbox. But the government will not release the modelling because it knows that if someone else, like Fisher or McKibbin or Ergas, gets the modelling and they can put a different set of assumptions in there, then the modelling is going to throw it out—costs will go higher, more jobs will be lost, people will lose businesses, more business will go offshore. That is why the modelling will never be released.

How can anyone expect, when someone is going to spend $1 trillion—$40,000 for every man, woman and child—that it will not be audited? You would not sell $30 or $40 worth of anything unless that was audited in your stock. Why is the government so frightened? I will tell you why they are frightened: the rest of the world is avoiding this ETS like the plague. The foreign affairs minister from Canada was out here the other day. He called it pyramid selling. He said, 'I won an election on this. We wiped the opposition out by saying we won't have a carbon tax.' He said America is not going to do it, Japan is not going to do it, India is not going to do it, China is not doing it, nor are the Philippines or Indonesia. If this thing is to fly, everyone has got to do it. You cannot ask these people to put themselves permanently into a situation where they are completely losing money and it is going to cost them more—

An opposition senator: Poverty.

Complete poverty is the word I am looking for; thank you. That is why the government will not release the modelling. They know that once that modelling goes out and independent modellers use the modelling the game is up. Well, the game is up now. The 17 bills that we are debating today are the longest suicide note that the Labor Party has ever produced.

One thing I will say about the Labor Party is that they are loyal. They will follow a leader over the cliff. They will follow Bob Brown anywhere. Bob Brown is the leader. If anyone doubts that, Bob Brown wanted these bills to go through so he can go over to Durban, prance around at the climate change meeting and tell everyone how he led the federal government into the first genuine emissions trading scheme in the world. Well, he did it. He is the slickest salesman and he has the most vulnerable people following him around. They must have seen you guys in the Labor Party coming. They must have seen you coming, for you to fall for this. How could you fall for this? How could you betray your blue-collar workers? Everyone in parliament knows the reason Australia can employ people in industries is that we have always had low energy costs. That is why we have been able to employ people, but that is all going now.

This is almost fraudulent. In fact it is not almost fraudulent—it is fraudulent. People are asked to spend $1 trillion and no-one is allowed to audit the program. That is outrageous. That is unbelievable. Senator Cormann and I asked Senator Wong five times—I counted—whether she would release the modelling and five times she avoided the question. She told us she had released millions of pages, and she probably has. The more pages you release the better. It is an old trick to confuse people. The Labor Party are trying to confuse us. Instead of releasing the model, instead of giving the McKibbins, Fishers and Ergases the chance to model this, they are holding it close to themselves. If you tried to hide something from the auditor you would go to jail, and yet they are trying to hide $1 trillion from independent sources to stop them doing the modelling. There are many people who want to do this modelling—business groups, industry groups, mining groups, independent auditors, independent economists—but they cannot get it. They cannot get it because the modelling says everything will happen in 2016, everyone will be on board and everyone will have a carbon tax or a similar proposition. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.