Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Of course there is no point of order. There is a minister who is touchy about the fundamental and inherent flaws in this carbon tax. I understand why the minister is touchy. She is very embarrassed by the fact that she has to push through a carbon tax that the government knows will do nothing to help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

I will conclude on the point I was making before the minister rudely interrupted me. The minister wants us to believe that somehow China is making huge efforts to reduce emissions. Back in 2008, only three years ago, the government thought that by 2020 emissions of CO2 in China would go up to 16.1 billion tonnes. Do you know what figure the government now thinks CO2 emissions will go to in China in 2020? It will be 17.9 billion tonnes of CO2. So, over the past three years there has been a deterioration to the tune of 1.8 billion tonnes of CO2 in the government's expectation of what will happen in China with CO2 emissions. That figure is three times the total volume of CO2 emissions in Australia, which puts into perspective what we are talking about here.

This government is all spin. There is no honest policy and there is no honest factual information; it is all spin. The government comes in here and says that China is making all these efforts, when over the past three years its expectation of what will happen in China by 2020 has deteriorated—it has gone backwards. The government's expectation of what will happen with CO2 emissions in China is now worse than it was three years ago, whereas Australia continues to meet its commitments under the Kyoto protocol—whether it was the Howard government or the current government. We are doing our bit. We are doing what we committed to do. So don't give us all of this false rhetoric, Minister. Give us some facts.