Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Before I respond to the minister's claims a moment ago, I want to say to Senator Singh: it is really not very much help to come in here and repeat Labor Party mythology. Let me tell you a few things about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. It was worse than nothing. If it were in place, it would be the current CER price, which is 16 eurocents. There would be no Clean Energy Finance Corporation, no Climate Change Authority, no Renewable Energy Agency and there would be increasing free permits to the big polluters.

It was the worst designed scheme ever. It was negotiated between the Liberal Party and the Labor Party, and browned down to the point where it would have had zero effect in fact in transforming the economy, and we made those points at the time. What is more, for all this talk about a fixed-price period, Prime Minister Rudd had a fixed-price period with the CPRS—and let's not make any bones about that.

I also put on the record that the Greens, having identified it was worse than nothing ahead of Copenhagen, post Copenhagen offered the government of the day a compromise, which was actually a three-year fixed-price period. That is exactly what we negotiated, because Labor would not lift the level of ambition. Labor locked into a five per cent emissions reduction target, which is nowhere near what the science demands, and the difference between now and earlier this year, Senator Singh, is 31 May when the default cap kicked in. That is the point. As of that day, we got the default cap.

The point here today is not to go over history; the point here today is to recognise at this moment in time, we have an opportunity to get the numbers in this Senate to go to an emissions trading scheme flexible-price period away from an emissions trading scheme fixed-price period—that is the difference. That is the point of the opportunity we have here today, if the Palmer United Party will support it, and that is the interesting thing. Let's see if they will get behind an emissions trading scheme now. If not, why not?

Why, if you believe in emissions trading, wouldn't you take the route of keeping the scheme that we have got rather than something which may or may not ever happen into the future? That is the most sensible thing to do—and I heard Minister Cormann here a minute ago tell us that the Emissions Reduction Fund was effective. The department was unable to tell us exactly what percentage of the five per cent emissions reduction target, the pathetic and feeble five per cent target, would be achieved through the Emissions Reduction Fund.

So I put that question to the minister. What are you going to tell this parliament about what your Emissions Reduction Fund is proposed to do in relation to the five per cent target which we have pledged to the UNFCCC? We need to know, because Senator Xenophon and others have said that they will not support the abolition of an emissions trading scheme or the current legislation unless there is something better in its place. Frankly, there is nothing better in its place, nor is there likely to be with your Emissions Reduction Fund.

The very fundamental thing is that we know we can achieve much more, and have to achieve much more, than a five per cent emissions reduction target to meet the science and to meet our global responsibilities. The key thing about an emissions trading scheme—which I hope the Palmer United Party appreciate—is that it can be scaled up in terms of the level of ambition. You can set a higher and higher cap and drive the economy in the right direction, in a competitive direction, in the way the rest of the world is going. What the government is doing is taking the money out of taxpayers' pockets—taking it out of the pockets of the community—and giving it to the big polluters to support what effectively will end up being corporate welfare with the Emissions Reduction Fund.

I want to know from the minister how much of the five per cent you intend to get and whether you intend to scale up five per cent to anything like the 40 per cent to 60 per cent which the Climate Change Authority has said Australia will need to achieve by 2030, let alone net carbon zero by 2050. So let's get something on the record for the benefit of the senators who are going to make a decision on whether to get rid of the effective scheme that we have which is bringing down emissions. Perhaps the government can tell us now exactly what percentage of the five per cent they are going to get from their Emissions Reduction Fund and perhaps we can hear from the Palmer United Party as to whether or not they will support the emissions trading scheme that we have already got, notwithstanding that it goes to a flexible price. That is a reasonable compromise to put on the table. Let's hear it.