Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

Colleagues, if ever we needed further evidence that this government is indeed completely hopeless, today we have the living proof. Yet again, we have the government today trying to defend its carbon tax—very thinly, by those on the other side. It is extraordinary stuff. What we are talking about here now in taking note of answers is the fact that the United States President has said that the United States will not have a carbon tax or equivalent by 2016. Are you on the other side not listening? The United States is not going to have one.

Let us have a look at what we have here. As a nation, we produce 1.4 per cent of the world's emissions. That is not 14, not 24, not 64—it is 1.4 per cent only of the world's emissions. Guess how many countries other than Australia are moving to impose a carbon tax, as this government is moving to do, by the middle of next year? Some, several, dozens?