Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I know that the Labor Party are very embarrassed about their track record when it comes to imposing unnecessary and bad taxes on the Australian community such as the carbon tax.

As I was saying before, in 2010 then Prime Minister Gillard went to the election and said, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' What did she promise? She promised to have a climate change assembly. It was to be a citizens assembly with 150 citizens working to achieve consensus on how to deal with this area of public policy. But, of course, straight after the election the then government did a deal with the Greens. They entered into a coalition with the Greens. Everything that followed after that is history.

Earlier today Senator Singh asked me, 'Why are you not accepting the science?' As I said then, we are accepting the science. What we are not doing is accepting Labor's carbon tax, because it does nothing to help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, arguably it actually pushes up global emissions because it pushes up the cost of electricity in Australia, it pushes up the cost of gas and it pushes up the cost of doing business. It helps our competitors in other parts of the world become more competitive. It is helping our competitors in other parts of the world take market share away from us. It is helping our competitors in other parts of the world to grow jobs at our expense. In the process, it is shifting emissions to other parts of the world where arguably for the same amount of economic output they are higher.

You will never believe what else I was asked earlier today. I was asked why we were acting against the will of the Australian people. This really goes to the crux of this whole issue. Something that the Labor Party clearly has not understood is that we have a very old-fashioned method here in Australia to test the will of the Australian people on a regular basis. It is called an election. We had an election in 2013 and the Labor Party lost, with their carbon tax, and the coalition won saying that we would get rid of the carbon tax. What we are doing here without any ifs or buts is getting rid of the carbon tax and we are not supporting replacing it with a carbon tax by another name because it is not in the national interest for us to do so.

We have people here saying that an emissions trading scheme is a market based mechanism. No, it is not. It is not something that comes out of the market at all. It is a government intervention. It is government imposing a compulsory price on the market. It is government putting in place massive regulation. It is government putting in place a massive bureaucracy. It is government putting in place policing across Australia in order to enforce compliance with government regulation. Government regulation is not a market based mechanism. It might be in Pyongyang. In Pyongyang they might think that when you put government regulation in place it is a market mechanism. When you go to Pyongyang you might think that more regulation is like a free market. But here in Australia more regulation and more taxes are not because of the free market.

Our system is actually a market based mechanism. Our Direct Action policy is part of a market based mechanism. Our Emissions Reduction Fund is a market based mechanism. With our Emissions Reduction Fund we are going out into the market and asking the market to competitively tender to help reduce emissions in Australia in a way that is economically responsible and environmentally effective. We are forcing businesses and other people out there to compete with each other. When you force people to compete with each other, that creates a market. So here we are. We, the government, through our Emissions Reduction Fund and our Direct Action policy, are putting forward a genuine market based mechanism.

But the Labor Party does not really understand how the emissions trading scheme here in Australia—the largest and most comprehensive national economy-wide emissions trading scheme or carbon tax anywhere in the world—interacts with the fact that there is no such scheme anywhere else in the world. There is such a thing as a global economy. Australia is only a small part of a global economy. We represent less than 1.4 per cent of global emissions. The US represents 19 per cent of global emissions. China represents 23 per cent of global emissions. Europe represents 13 per cent of global emissions. We are a small part of a global economy. When we are imposing costs on businesses, individuals, families and pensioners in Australia that are not faced by people and businesses in other parts of the world, we are asking people in Australia to make a sacrifice that is not asked of other people or businesses in other parts of the world. In asking them to make that sacrifice, at least it should make a difference. The problem is that neither the carbon tax nor Labor's proposal for a modified or rebadged carbon tax do anything to help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

I see that Senator Bullock is here in the chamber. I know that he will say to me that all he is doing is faithfully promoting Labor Party policy. I have a certain fondness for Senator Bullock because I believe that he is a fundamentally decent and honest man. He went to the WA Senate by-election saying, 'Labor is scrapping the carbon tax.' The only problem was that on the very same day that he was making that statement in Western Australia—and I am sure that he was told to make that statement by his party—his Labor colleagues here in this chamber were voting to keep the carbon tax. Labor in this chamber were voting to keep the carbon tax on the very same day that Senator Bullock was sent out into the community by his party to say that Labor was scrapping it. These are the sorts of political games that we have seen from the Labor Party for way too long: in 2010, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead'; in 2013, 'We already have removed the carbon tax'; in 2014, 'Labor is scrapping the carbon tax'—all the way through, playing the game; all the way through, working to keep the tax that they are trying to make the people across Australia believe they have already got rid of.

And here we are still this week. On Monday, we had to have a debate all day on whether we could start the debate. Then later in the week they are saying, 'You're not giving us enough time.' We spent the whole day on Monday debating whether or not we could start the debate this week. What was that all about? The Australian people voted in September 2013 to get rid of this thing. They want the carbon tax gone, because the carbon tax is bad. The carbon tax is bad for the economy, it is bad for families, it is bad for jobs, it is bad for our international competitiveness and it is imposing sacrifices on our community without actually making a positive difference to the environment. There is absolutely no reason why we should have a carbon tax in Australia, either in the form in which it was legislated by the previous government or in the form that Labor now wants to rebadge it. That is at the heart, really, of why we are having this debate and that is of course why the coalition continues to persist with the approach we have taken.

It is always important for those of us here in this chamber, who represent our respective states, that we focus on the best interests of our states and on the best interests of our country. If we are serious about wanting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia and globally, we should be having a conversation on how Australia could best contribute to that effort. And guess what: in the great state of Western Australia, which I have the privilege to represent in this chamber, we have a wonderful opportunity to help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in an economically responsible and environmentally effective way. We can have a win-win-win situation: we can increase the level of economic activity, increase the number of jobs and help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. How do we do it? It is by producing more LNG in Australia, not less, and exporting that LNG to China, to Japan and to other places around the world where it can displace less environmentally friendly energy sources.

Of course, Labor's carbon tax, or Labor's emissions trading scheme proposal, in the absence of an appropriately comprehensive global agreement, makes it harder for us to increase the level of LNG production, when that is something we could do here in Australia to help the world. There should be more LNG out of Australia. What does that mean? If we produced more LNG in Australia, helping the world, we would have to accept higher-emissions-producing LNG here in Australia domestically, but the good thing is that it would actually help reduce emissions by more in other parts of the world. So the net effect is beneficial, whereas the net effect of Labor's carbon tax and emissions trading scheme is to push up global emissions. So not only are people in Australia being asked to make a sacrifice; they are being asked to make a sacrifice, under the Labor-Greens scheme, which actually makes things worse for the environment, whereas our approach will help reduce emissions in Australia in a way that achieves a genuine, proportionate net reduction in emissions in the world. That is why we commend to the Senate our policy approach as a superior approach—and it is of course the approach that received the only tick of approval that matters, and that is that tick of approval from the Australian people.

I was asked whether I was aware of comments by X, Y and Z—this business, that stakeholder and whatever. We are of course aware of all of the comments that have been made by a whole range of people, but guess what: our sense of purpose is very clear—we made a promise to get rid of the carbon tax because that is good for the economy, because that is good for families, because that is good for pensioners, because that is good for jobs, because that is good for attracting investment in Australia and because it also means that, through a more effective alternative policy, we can reduce emissions in Australia in a fiscally responsible way. But, no, the Labor Party do not get this, even though this has been argued ad nauseam. The only time they get this is in the shadow of an election. If this carbon tax were still hanging around by the time of the next election, I bet that the Labor Party would go to yet another election promising to get rid of it. Why do we know that? Because in 2010 they said we would not get it; in 2013 they said they had removed it, even though it stayed; and since then they have voted to keep it. In 2014 they said they were scrapping it. They have not. But here we are today and the Senate has the historic opportunity to act in the national interest. Today the Senate has the historic opportunity to help ensure that we can reduce emissions in Australia in a way that is economically responsible, fiscally responsible and environmentally effective.

Clearly all the Labor Party and the Greens want to do is to shift emissions to other parts of the world—out of sight, out of mind. They do not care that they are making it harder for aluminium producers in Australia to be able to compete with aluminium producers in China, even though aluminium producers in Australia are 50 per cent more environmentally efficient, even though emissions in Australia, for the same amount of aluminium production, are much, much lower. They are quite happy for aluminium producers in other parts of the world to take market share away from us, even though that pushes up the level of emissions in the world. That is the short-sighted approach by the Labor Party and the Greens—imposing a negative impact on our economy, imposing sacrifices on families, pensioners, small business and big business, making it harder to create jobs, making it harder to attract investment. As the Parliamentary Budget Office independently assessed in the lead-up to the last election, getting rid of the carbon tax will deliver an economic growth dividend, and that is the economic growth dividend that Australia needs right now, because, as a result of the mismanagement of the previous government, the Labor-Greens government, we have an economy growing below trend. We inherited rising unemployment. We need to turn that situation around. Getting rid of this bad Labor-Greens carbon tax is a very important part of our economic action strategy to build a stronger economy where everyone has the opportunity to get ahead.