Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

You are denying the economists. This is the Liberal Party denying a market based mechanism to deal with carbon pollution. It is ironic that a Liberal Party is not standing by a carbon pollution scheme. On top of that, it is one thing for you not to support a market based mechanism. That is bizarre enough but on top of that you will not support the Clean Energy Finance Corporation which delivers to taxpayers. It actually makes money for taxpayers. You will not even support that. On top of all of that, you want the country and the opposition to get on board with you direct action policy, which is spending $2.2 billion of taxpayers' money. So you are taking away the ability to have an emissions trading scheme, taking away the ability for the CEFC to make money for taxpayers. Then you want to spend money on a wing and a prayer that you will give money to big polluters and that will lead to some abatement. This is why there is no support for the government's climate change policy, if you can call it that.

There is no support from economists for the government's policy because it does not stack up economically or environmentally. It does not help Australia to meet its reductions targets. Yet we have Senator Cormann saying that starting from the removal of the carbon price families and pensioners are going to be better off. Clearly, families and pensioners are not going to be better off under this government because only a couple of months ago we had introduced the worst budget on record which rips the heart out of families and pensioners. It attacks the livelihoods of families and pensioners. So for you to say in this place that you stand for families and pensioners and somehow link that to carbon policy is simply another lie and another shroud of secrecy under which this government continues to operate when it cannot answer my question in relation to how you can be so certain that $550 will be passed on to families. I take it that it is not true. If it were true, Senator Corman would have got out of his seat and answered the question. Senator Cormann sat there after I asked him to qualify a question about his own regulatory impact statement. He did not get up to answer the question, which shows perfectly what the answer really is—that is, he cannot guarantee a $550 saving. He knows it is just another slogan he has put out there to convince the Australian people and to scare them into this Whyalla closing, the $100 lamb roast scare tactic, so that the Australian people vote for them. It is lies, all lies, and it is all becoming unravelled right here, right now, from your lack of clarity and the fact that you are still sitting in your chair and not answering these questions.

A number of questions have been put by opposition senators this morning. You have failed to answer them. Some of them you did not even get up and answer, just like mine. Some of them you have simply failed to answer; you have just come back with the same old slogans. That is no way for the government to run this chamber. You are in government now. You need to take responsibility for the legislation that you have brought to this place. You have done a deal with the Palmer United Party on this legislation. We want to know the answers to specific questions in relation to the amendments that have now been incorporated into this legislation. They do have an effect on electricity suppliers and gas suppliers and the like, as well as on consumers. We want to know exactly how this is going to work. That is why we have asked these questions.

So, finally, I ask you, Minister Cormann, can you please at least try to stand up and answer my question: how can you say with certainty that there will be a $550 saving, when it clearly says—on page 98 of the explanatory memorandum, in relation to the regulatory impact statement—that it is not possible to say with certainty what proportion of the carbon price may have been passed through or was absorbed in any given sector?