Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

This is typical of Senator Cormann, this arrogance towards the Senate. And it is typical, in my view, of the coalition generally—that is, arrogance towards the procedures and processes of this chamber, whose job it is to analyse the bills, whose job it is to ask the questions and whose job it is to ensure that what this government is seeking to do is in the national interest. In my view the answer that Senator Cormann has just given, that the public have voted for the repeal, would be arguable if the public had been told what this was all about. Typically, the coalition lied on this issue to the Australian public—that is, the effects of the carbon price. They lied when they said—I think everyone understands now that former Senator Joyce, when he was in here, was telling people in the bush and telling people all over Australia that it would be over $100 for a leg of lamb. What the minister is doing now is continuing the process of deceiving the Australian public. The government have come out and they have argued that a family would be $550 better off.

At one stage previously the coalition were arguing that it would be $100 for a leg of lamb, which was just an absolute fabrication and an absolute lie and a position where the public were being misled about what the carbon price would do. What I am trying to get my head around is: if the public were being misled then, why is the minister not prepared to go over these issues in some detail? Why will the minister not advise, first of all, why the $100 leg of lamb did not come about? That is something I would be interested in. Why did that leg of lamb not became a $100 leg of lamb, as the coalition told the public that it would? I would be interested to hear that position. I have got a view; I would like to hear the minister's view. My view is that it was a fabrication and a lie by the coalition. It was one of the many lies told by the coalition about the effect of the carbon price.

They have not only lied on the carbon price; they lied on a whole range of issues that go to the cost of living. It seems to me, and I am very concerned, that you can go to the public when you are in opposition, as the coalition did, and run an argument about the cost of living. You can create a fear campaign over the effects of what the economists have said is the most effective means of dealing with carbon pollution in this country, and that is to put a market price on carbon. That is what we did. We took advice on this issue. We took advice on what was the most cost-effective means of dealing with carbon, and that cost-effective means was offset by support for families to take them through the introduction of the carbon price. Now we have the minister standing here this morning with no cost-benefit analysis and with no facts, simply saying that the average family would be $550 better off. Well, if the leg of lamb did not reach $100, how can anyone trust the government on anything they say in relation to the carbon price?

The issue that the government needs to deal with is the complete lack of trust that the community now has in this government. In my view, the argument that you have got a mandate, as you argued here, and that the public says you can do that is so much codswallop. It is absolute nonsense. You have a mandate based on an absolute lie, and the only way you can recover is to lay out in detail what the exact position is. Who is the average family? What does the average family look like? Where will the gains be made by that average family? Why are you now moving away from a position where everyone would get $550 to a position arguing that some will get more and some will get less? I know why you are doing it. It is because there has been absolutely no cost-benefit analysis done on this proposition that you have put up.

This is legislation based on an ideology that says: 'We're all right. In our lifetime we might get through this problem without doing anything serious about climate change.' We know what Mr Turnbull said about this government's position. We know that Mr Turnbull, in his heart—and I would say Senator Birmingham, who has looked at this somewhat seriously over a period of time—would know that all the advice that came to government was that the most effective means of dealing with a carbon pollution position in this country was for the market to put the price on carbon.

So I would be interested to know why the government, who professes the strength and the role of the market so vociferously, day in day out, would move from a market-based approach on pricing carbon to this nonsense of Direct Action—a policy that is absolutely linked in the overall position that the government takes: get rid of the price on carbon and put in this so-called Direct Action. I am still interested in why the $100 leg of lamb did not eventuate. Was that factored in to the $550 saving that would be made through the repeal of a price on carbon? Has the Direct Action program being costed, because it is directly linked to the repeal of the carbon price? How does that Direct Action program relate to the overall situation? How can we be sure that Direct Action will do anything? What is the cost of the bureaucracy that is being set up around Direct Action, because these are all costs? Is there an implication for the cost saving that families get—this $550 cost saving that a family gets? Is that less because you are setting up this huge bureaucracy to deal with Direct Action? What is the cost of Direct Action? What are the implications of Direct Action on the savings that you claim families will make? How many bureaucrats will be actually dealing with Direct Action? How many bureaucrats are being set up? What discussions has the government had with industry in relation to the type of projects Direct Action would take into account? Will the type of project have an effect on that $550 that you claim the average family will save?

You cannot tell us what average family is, you cannot tell us about the $550, you cannot tell us about the effect of the bureaucracy—you cannot seem to tell us about a whole range of costs and benefits. What discussions have you had with the industry that would lead you to believe that Direct Action and the repeal of the carbon tax would have an impact on families incomes? Will there be a reduction in power prices? Or will, as every commentator says, power prices were not solely increase due to the carbon price and that they will be a continuation of increased power prices in this country? You cannot now, when you are in government, just simply run the lies that were promoted. Some people in my view voted for the coalition on the basis that their electricity prices would go down. We are absolutely know that that is not going to be the case.

we hear other arguments. I would be interested to hear where all these jobs were going to be lost over a small imposition. Does the minister accept that the imposition of the carbon price was much less in its impact on the economy than the imposition of the GST? That is what, I think, Dr Ken Henry, when he was secretary of the Treasury, said.