Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the coalition, I move:

That—

(1)

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and 10 related bills be referred to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 11 May 2010.

(2)

In undertaking the inquiry, the committee should consider.

(a)

the package of amendments announced by the Government on 24 November 2009 and incorporated in current proposed legislation, including the impact of the bills on the Australian resources sector, Australian exports, the competitiveness of Australian industry, employment levels and electricity prices;

(b)

the modelling underpinning the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) including the lower projected carbon price and the cost of the CPRS package over the current budget period to 2014-15;

(c)

the outcome of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Copenhagen in December 2009;

(d)

the current state of progress of other countries in implementing emissions and abatement measures to meet non-binding emissions reduction targets; and

(e)

the status of, and likely prospects for, the United States of America’s emissions trading legislation.

(3)

The committee should seek evidence from, but not limited to, the Productivity Commission, Frontier Economics, the Minerals Council of Australia, the Australian Coal Association and the Energy Supply Association of Australia.

In moving this motion, the coalition strongly believes that there is a need for these measures to be fully examined. That is the historical role of the Senate, and it has done so, if I might say, exceptionally well. Even when the blood rushed on the very rare occasion to the Howard government head and we did not want Senate inquiries into legislation, it was amazing when the Senate did so vote how certain things were exposed to us which made us say quietly behind our hand, ‘Thank goodness for that Senate inquiry because it did expose a few things that had not been taken to account.’ Those of us who have been here a few years know the importance of Senate committee inquiries and the great benefit that they provide. I trust that there is no honourable senator in this place who thinks that the probing, the testing and the inquiring by Senate committees of proposals is something that should be rejected out of hand. I hope we all support that. Indeed, we have a Prime Minister who allegedly supports evidence based policy.

The bill that we are seeking to submit to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee, very interestingly—if people listened closely they would have heard this in the title—is the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and the related bills. This is new legislation. This is different legislation to that which we have debated in the past. What it seeks to do, and I think quite appropriately, is incorporate a lot of the amendments that the Senate wanted passed last time around.

What do those changes involve? They involve a significant change to the CPRS, the big new tax on everything, of $114 billion. This is a huge scheme, the most significant scheme ever sought to be legislated by a Commonwealth government. This is a massive issue, whether you like a CPRS or you do not like it. In a bid to try to get Senate support, Labor moved a host of amendments. Those amendments have never really been fully tested, fully exposed, fully considered by a Senate inquiry. The differences in the packages and how the money is spread around are at the thousand-plus million dollar mark. This is a lot of money. The compensation being paid to families changed in this legislation.

Can I just stop on that one. We remember the debacle of the Leader of the Government in the Senate, when we asked him about the compensation scheme under this legislation, so cockily telling us: 92 per cent of Australian families would be compensated—and how dare we as an opposition ask questions like this because it was all debated previously and we should know and we should be ashamed of ourselves. Two days later the Leader of the Government in the Senate was in this place and, like Labor always do—they can never apologise and say they got something wrong—he said he ‘misspoke’. The 92 per cent figure, if I recall, evaporated down to about 51 per cent of families getting full compensation. Even the Leader of the Government in the Senate does not fully understand the legislation and the compensation package.

Also, there are huge changes in relation to the power-generating sector, which is very important. Mr Rudd told the Australian people that there would be an increase in power prices, but when we asked for the modelling and all of the detail we were not given it. When Mr Rudd is asked how this new scheme, this different scheme, would impact on the cost of a loaf of bread or a litre of milk, he cannot tell us. I think the people of Australia want answers, and we are entitled to explore those issues courtesy of a Senate inquiry. We as a coalition are proposing that the inquiry take 2½ months and report on 11 May 2010. A scheme of this magnitude and one which has had wholesale changes now made to it I think is worthy of an inquiry of that length. It is not very long, given the significant nature of the package we are dealing with.

At the time of the last election this issue was described as the ‘greatest moral challenge of our time’. That was said 22 times during the last election campaign, yet in the Australia Day speeches by the Prime Minister it was not mentioned at all. The government itself has shunted this legislation down its list of priorities. It is no longer the greatest moral challenge of our time. Indeed, according to the government’s own agenda in this place, the greatest moral challenge that it faces is breaking an election promise on private health insurance. But I am distracting myself from the main argument.

This legislation will come into force on 1 January 2011. If all the evidence comes back that everything is hunky-dory and good then the Senate can consider and explore these issues further in debate and the legislation can still be put in place, one would assume, by 2011, so there is no rush for this legislation. Indeed, the Labor Party itself changed the commencement date from 2010 to 2011. It did that of its own volition. The nauseatingly moralising Prime Minister, who just talks and talks, and who said that this was the greatest moral challenge of our time, all of a sudden has said that it is that great a moral challenge that we can just defer consideration and implementation for 12 months. We are not changing the commencement date; all we are doing is saying let us have a look at the detail of this legislation.

This legislation has had a lot of precursors. There was the exposure draft by Senator Wong, then Mr Combet was called in to bring in a completely different bill, then there were the substantial amendments at the end of last year and now we have a newly drafted bill. Underpinning all of those manifestations of the legislation were certain propositions, certain givens, that we were told the modelling was based on and, of course, the greatest of those was that there would be world action at Copenhagen, that the world would come together. That was one of the underlying principles of the modelling and the considerations. We now know why the Prime Minister felt so at home at Copenhagen—it was a talkfest with no action. It was all talk and no action—that is why the Prime Minister revelled in it, loved it and identified with it. Now that we know that there is no world action, one of the supporting pillars of this legislation has been taken out, because of the consequences for Australian jobs, Australian industry and the security of Australian power supplies.

Another underpinning was that carbon capture and storage would be commercially viable by the year 2020. I genuinely hope it is, but a lot of the advice I am getting is that, as we move closer to the year 2020 and since those pronouncements were made about two years ago, people are now questioning whether it will become commercially viable. I think it is appropriate that we explore that.

Another underpinning of the so-called modelling—the bits and pieces we did get and we were told about—was what the Australian population was going to be by the year 2050. Within 12 months, from the first introduction of the legislation until the end of last year, that figure changed considerably—by millions of people. If I recall, it was by either two or three million people. When you are dealing with a population of only about 21 million, that is 10 per cent. That is a huge discrepancy.

Why can’t we be told what the outcome would be if the new figures were imported into the modelling? What would be the pressures on our power generators to provide the electricity to these people? What would be the pressures on our community in providing all the community services that those extra two or three million people would anticipate to be their birthrights? There would be a huge impact on our carbon emissions. There is no doubt about that. We as a Senate are entitled to know the answers to those sorts of questions. I could go on at some length about the modelling and what is underpinning it, which the government has sought to sell to the Australian people, but these are just some examples of what we on this side of the chamber believe needs to be explored.

I know that there are also some who would say that the science may well have shifted in recent times. In this religiously defined debate, I have declared myself—also in religious terms—an agnostic and I will not enter into the science of the debate, other than to say I have noted that some of the IPCC considerations are now being modulated or remodelled. But I will not go there, because our motion does not seek to re-explore the science, despite the huge embarrassment I think the University of East Anglia is in, as well as a few other institutions and people. As far as we are concerned, that is to the side. We believe that there are matters of graver importance to be considered. Let us make no mistake: this would be a massive, big new tax on everything. It would impact every man, woman and child in Australia today and every man, woman and child in Australia for generations to come.

One of the reasons we need to explore the documentation that the government has given us is that new information has come to light—substantially new information. For example, the New South Wales Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal, IPART, have said that electricity prices will rise by up to 62 per cent over the next three years, a third of which will be as a result of Mr Rudd’s big new tax on everything. Now, why would the New South Wales state government allow that information to get into the public domain? Because they dispute Mr Rudd’s modelling in relation to electricity prices. Let us make no mistake about that. IPART are an independent body; I am sure they did not leak it. They provided their report to the New South Wales Labor government and, magically, it appeared in the media. I wonder how that occurred! New South Wales state Labor do not trust Mr Rudd’s modelling. There is similar information for Victoria. There is the Morgan Stanley report on the impact of the so-called CPRS, this big new tax on everything, about how it would impact and devastate the power-generating capacity in Victoria. That report—or the snippets we have got from it, because federal Labor refuse to release it although it is within their power to release it; deliberately they refuse to release it—indicates that Victorians would suffer a similar increase in electricity prices as people in New South Wales, once again debunking the modelling by the federal Labor government.

What is clear is that, as the debate on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme—this big new tax on everything—has progressed, more and more holes have been found in the Labor government’s arguments, underpinnings and modelling, as a result of which their CPRS Bill is significantly different to their draft exposure and then bill of 2009, because of course now we have the 2010 version. So this has been through three manifestations, and this third manifestation is worthy of a very considered and detailed inquiry. In addition, although this would in rough terms be a 2½-month enquiry, the only time that the parliament would be denied consideration of the bill would be the next sitting fortnight of the Senate—only two weeks—because the report would be ready for the Senate on 11 May, which I understand is budget week. So the actual delay in considering the legislation is only two weeks from the point of view of parliament. When you are considering a document that would submit Australia to a $114 billion big new tax on everything, I think it is worthy of inquiry.

I also say in relation to the failure of Copenhagen—and what a dismal failure it was; a big talkfest, with 114 people from Australia over there, those that the Prime Minister loves, but no world action—that if we go ahead with this suggestion we will in fact contribute to a worse world environmental outcome. Allow me to explain: through carbon leakage, the world would be worse off. In my home state of Tasmania we have a Nyrstar zinc works, as does Senator Farrell in Port Pirie—and Senator Wong. They produce one tonne of zinc for roughly two tonnes of CO2, which is pretty clean in comparison to the rest of the world. China does it for six tonnes of CO2 per tonne of zinc produced. If we price ourselves out of the world market, people will not be buying clean, Australian zinc; they will be buying polluting, Chinese zinc, and as a result the world’s carbon emissions will be even greater. That is the perverse outcome of Mr Rudd’s ill thought out scheme. It is the reason that we in the coalition believe that there is a very real need for a lot of these issues to be tested, especially the huge movement as a result of the failure of Copenhagen. President Obama himself seems to be walking away from an emissions trading scheme. Canada said, ‘If the US are in, we’re in and we’ll adopt their system.’ That is no longer so. The US is walking away; therefore, Canada is walking away. And so it is unravelling around the world.

Just for the record, we as a coalition believe in a no regrets policy in this space, and that is why Mr Abbott has provided a very exciting direct action plan to deal with these issues without the need for a $114 billion big new tax on everything which would devastate jobs, devastate our economy and devastate electricity supplies around our nation. So I say to all honourable senators, irrespective of your views—whether your predisposition is to support or oppose this legislation, whether or not you believe in the science, whether or not you believe the modelling is up to scratch—these are all issues worthy of consideration, and I commend the motion to the Senate.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Abetz is very, very kind about how the Australian people view the ETS. It has been one of the greatest political debacles of all time, the major plank of Labor Party policy and the moral issue of our time, apparently. We see now the sort of logic, acumen and diligence that goes into these Labor Party plans, and it is no better personified than by the ceiling insulation program. If these people cannot get fluffy stuff into the ceiling without creating a national crisis, how on earth can we trust them to completely rejig the Australian economy? The question comes before us as to why we would have an inquiry. I have a few ideas; Copenhagen is one of them. Copenhagen is a slight change of events and something that should be examined.

The Labor Party under their own admission, through such people as Lindsay Tanner, the Minister for Finance and Administration, said of the last program that they had to rush it out and they did not have the time to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. That was his quote on Sky News. Why wouldn’t that make us want to make sure that if they are not prepared to dot the i’s and cross the t’s then maybe we should do it for them? Because they have brought back this piece of legislation, we must have a full and transparent inquiry to once more engage the Australian people on how ultimately farcical this whole plan is.

Everybody in the Labor Party is deserting it like rats deserting the sinking ship. They will not be running in here today to stand at the back and holler and scream. No, there will be dead silence over there today. Even their leader, Kevin Rudd, has gone quiet on this. He has tried the idea of walking both sides of the fence but it has turned into something that is quite anatomically difficult for him. We go back once more to Mr Keating and the clear idea that, if you do not understand this massive new tax, do not vote for it. If you do understand it you would never vote for it. Most importantly, there is his retort that it is your choice that you want to make this your battleground, so we are going to do you and we are going to do you slowly.

This ETS is nothing more than a program that was never, ever going to change the climate. It was never, ever going to make the globe cooler. What it was going to do was rip tens of billions of dollars, in excess of $100 billion, out of the consumer by way of credits that would be passed on, but for whose benefit? The climate was not going to change. Who was the benefactor of this? Stockbrokers and bankers made their commissions on the way through. They became very environmentally conscious once they started seeing the billions of dollars that were going to land on their boardroom tables.

To be honest, I think the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, became very environmentally conscious when he looked at the debt racing through the roof and was trying to apply a mechanism to see how he could get the government’s hands on some of that money to prop up the parlous state of finances that the Labor Party had placed this nation’s budget in. These are the people who all of a sudden became environmentally conscious, so these are the people who also have to be questioned. What was this all about? We see in the Wall Street Journal that Yvo de Boer has resigned and that the IPCC is floundering and falling to pieces. These are not my statements; these are statements in articles today by Gordon Crovitz. We have to start bringing these issues forward and discussing them.

It is only proper that the Australian people took the Labor Party on trust and thought, ‘You are doing something that is right, so, although we don’t understand it, we will give you the benefit of the doubt.’ But the more they came to understand it, the more they did not like it. The more they came to understand it, the more they came to the position that they were basically being misled. They were being misled and they were being ripped off. The Australian people have a right to a further inquiry. They have a right to a further ventilation of the facts. They have a right to see exactly where Australia sits now that Copenhagen has fallen flat on its face. They have a right to understand what this will do to our economy if we fly solo, as is the intention of the Labor Party and what they wish to do to our nation. They have a right to ask how absolutely, patently absurd it would be if Australia had not dodged the bullet, if Australia had actually, in some sort of pall of insanity, voted for the ETS and it was now in place. Imagine the place we would be living in now! Imagine the peculiarity of where we would be now! Australia would be on its lonesome out there with its own tax on a colourless, odourless gas, apparently on the premise that we are going to cool the planet from a room in Canberra.

It was the Australian people who rose up and basically made the phones melt down in this joint. It was those same people who rang up and lobbied and said, ‘You cannot do this to us.’ They have the right to a further inquiry. They have a further right to have their day in court. They have the right to clearly pin this tail to the Labor Party donkey. This is the ETS tail on the Labor Party donkey and we have to make sure all of Australia sees it. This is what the Labor Party intend to do—wondrous visions, huge costs and bizarre economics, and a complete reconfiguration of our nation’s economy based on a tax on a colourless, odourless gas, as administered from the same government that gave us the ceiling insulation program. If that is not scary enough, have a look at how they are going in the other place.

We have to clearly start to state to people that the whole point of the ETS was to put the price of a product up so that you could not afford it. That is the premise of it. It was going to be a pricing mechanism. It was to make things more expensive so that you could not afford them, so that you would change what you purchased. It was a mechanism to make you poorer, and in making you poorer you could not afford the things that you really should be entitled to.

The premise that you could actually change your buying patterns on such things as electricity is an interesting concept. If we look at what has been happening to electricity prices and the increase in electricity prices—up 25 per cent in some states—have we seen a corresponding reduction in the use of electricity? No, we have not. We have just seen that the people who use electricity are poorer because they do not have as much money. What was the ETS going to do? It was going to put up the price of electricity so that every time you turned on the television you would realise that that was being taxed and you were becoming poorer, because in a room in Canberra they believed they could single-handedly cool the temperature of the globe. Every time you opened the fridge and a little light went on you would be reminded that Mr Rudd was taxing you. Every time you ironed clothes you would be taxed. Every time you cooked the toast, you would be taxed. We have to take it back to this simple analogy.

The Labor Party had this wondrous scheme of approaching nirvana, global peace—and a massive new tax for the Labor Party. And on the way through a lot of very rich and very successful bankers would become even richer and more successful—and good luck to them because when you see a mug you have just got to take them for a ride. And they could see a mug coming. They could see the mug punter, the Australian parliament, about to deliver them an absolute entree into a massive new sector of wealth. Everything that was involved in our nation, whether we liked it or not, would have some interconnection with this tax. It was not an option. You did not have an option whether you paid the tax or not. You just paid it. It is not a case of if you are poor you do not pay it—you just pay it. No matter where you are, you pay it. Then there is the administration of the so-called compensation scheme. That was going to be done with the same diligence, of course, that we saw with the ceiling insulation program. It was a cack-arsed mess.

But the Labor Party want to bring it back. The fact is that the Labor Party said, and the Deputy Prime Minister Gillard came out and said, that the first thing the parliament will do—and this is why we still had the hype going on last year—will be to bring this piece of legislation back. But times have changed and the Australian people have brought a sense of balance and foreboding into the Labor Party. So as the first thing that they want to bring back, they want ever so quietly to sneak it in here and just have a quiet little vote—maybe do it on the voices. The moral issue of our time would be stuck between tabling the report and, while not into the noncontroversial, be put into the section of the red that says: ‘Please deal with this very quickly when we are not on broadcast.’ That is where they would like to have it: ‘Please put us out of our misery where no-one can see it. Please quietly strangle this behind the door. Please take this to a public toilet near you and flush it away. Please get rid of this.’ The Labor Party have to go through the motions but they do not want to fess up to exactly what they were going to do to the Australian economy.

These are the people who have the hide, the gall, to say that they are responsible. These people have the gall to talk about who is a risk to the economy.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are the risk! No-one would let you anywhere near—

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will tell you what is a risk: the risk is the ETS. The risk is the government that would do that. The risk is the people who bring in such things as the ceiling insulation program. You are the risk and your risk is epitomised by this ETS. That is the risk that the Labor Party is to the Australian people. In this Disneyland like trip, which was the ETS, that is Labor Party management par excellence. That is where the risk is, and the Australian people will see what a risk you people are—what an absolutely hypocritical and disastrous outcome the Labor Party would be.

It is your policy, isn’t it? It is your policy to bring in this ETS. It is your policy to rejig the Australian economy. It is your policy to make people poorer. It is your policy that you believe you can cool the temperature of the globe from a room down the corridor from this chamber. Now that is not only unbelievable; it exemplifies risk. It goes to show you that nothing else the Labor Party tells you you can take seriously, because that is who they are. In this fanciful world they live in, the fanciful world of an ETS, the fanciful world of $245 billion in gross debt, the fanciful world of ceiling insulation, the fanciful world of Labor Party economics, that is the risk they are to the Australian people. That is why the Australian people are marking you down on your economic credentials. That is why you are polling down. They are a wake-up to you.

We are going to make sure that they see more and more and more of you on this issue. We are going to watch with some interest as Prime Minister Rudd and Mr Swan and Mr Tanner come into the House and laud the benefits of this massive new tax. We are going to watch with interest. I challenge Mr Tanner to come into the other place tomorrow and talk to us about the benefits of the ETS and how this is a good outcome for the economics of our nation and how it is going to help us pay back our debt. I challenge Mr Swan, once he gets off his puerile little statements, to have the courage and conviction to talk about the ETS and what a great outcome it is. But, no, Minister Wong, they are going to leave you high and dry, because that is what they do to you, and they are doing it right now.

I do believe that Minister Wong believes in this policy. I disagree with it, but I do believe she believes in it. But the others are such philosophical mercenaries, such absolute drifters, such economic illiterates, that they would devise this massive new tax for a complete rejigging of the Australian economy, they would lay it on Minister Wong’s lap and when it blows up they would all run away. And that is exactly what they have done.

They did it, and we are going to pursue them for it. This tax has gone absolutely pear-shaped. I will watch with interest to see whether Mr Rudd, Mr Swan and Mr Tanner field questions in the other place about the benefits of the ETS. Let us try them out. They want to talk about conviction; they want to talk about who is a risk. Let us see if they do that. Let us put the weight back on them. Let us see whether they actually go in and support you, Minister Wong, or whether they leave you high and dry.

I look forward to going around the seats of Dawson, the Hunter Valley and Flynn, and in marginal electorates, and explaining to them what the Labor Party has in mind for them. It is a moral issue of the Labor Party’s times. It is not the moral issue of our time; it is the moral issue of the Labor Party’s times. And it will personify the Labor Party’s times, as brief as those times will be. When the Labor Party’s times are over, so too will be the ETS. That is what is so important. When the Labor Party, the government of this nation, is finished, then that is the only time we can safely say that the ETS is finished. So we must finish the Labor Party’s role in government to finish the ETS. It is as simple as that.

But what you will see are the so-called halcyon days of the global crusade led by the Prime Minister as it all falls flat on its face after Copenhagen. We will see where this goes next. We will judge the mettle of Mr Swan, we will judge the mettle of Mr Tanner and we will judge the mettle of Mr Rudd to see if he truly is a man who knows where both of them are and whether he wants to go forward by coming into the chamber and prosecuting his case for the delivery of the ETS. This personifies his economic credentials. I am interested to see. But they will not. They will dwell on the puerile, they will dwell on the minimal. But they will not dwell on their major economic policy, the global issue, the moral issue of our times.

So I say to all people: judge them by what they do and judge them by how they act. Do not judge them by the vaudeville spectacle that is currently provided for us in the other place every day at question time. Judge the Labor Party by the ceiling insulation debacle. That is what we should judge them by. Ask yourself this question: if they could not successfully get fluffy stuff into ceilings without creating a national crisis that is going to cost tens of millions of dollars to fix, that ended up costing people’s lives and that has burned down in excess of 100 houses without this sort of calamity—watching the Labor Party is like the further escapades of Calamity Jane—how do you reckon we would be going under a Labor Party ETS? How do you think the world would now look under an ETS?

What an absolute farce. Even now they do not have the capacity, the intestinal fortitude, to walk into the chamber. If Mr Rudd is over the ETS he should walk in and say, ‘It is over; I am finishing it. I am not going forward with it.’ If he was a man of ticker, that is what he would do. But he will not do that. He plays this funny little game where he is sort of for it but he wants it to quietly die. It is really remarkable. This is what the people see. They are starting to encapsulate their view of Mr Rudd, Mr Swan and Mr Tanner through their view of the ETS. They are saying: ‘That is who they are; they are the ETS—the extra tax system, the enormous tax system.’ The CPRS was initially the ‘cunning plan’ to get a double dissolution and ‘RS’ is what the economy would be if they got there. That is what it was all about. The polls were with them at that stage but now they have become something else. They have morphed—gecko-like. They have morphed into another form of creature.

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Chameleon-like!

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Chameleon. Well, it is not gecko; I was thinking of Mr Garrett’s shoulder. Yes, chameleon-like. A new species of chameleon is now developing. We will have this inquiry so that we can clearly spell out to the Australian people exactly who you are. We have to reveal all the chameleon-like tendencies, all the falsities and all the ridiculous propositions that have been put forward in this moral issue of our times. It is the biggest economic document—bigger than the GST—that has been foisted on the Australian people. We will show the Australian people the bullet that they have avoided. We know it is not going to go through. It is an absolute dog of a scheme. Everyone knows that now. We will show you what economic responsibility really is. If you want to see what irresponsibility is, it is Labor’s ETS.

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Support for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is dropping by the day. Every day there is another group coming out saying there is no need to rush this through recklessly. Look at what happens when this government rushes things through. Look at the batty batts program—rushing it through. It is embarrassing. Lives are at risk and up to $1 billion has been wasted, and all because you rushed it through. It is wise and prudent to take the time, especially when community support for a carbon pollution reduction scheme is dropping by the day. They are also getting nervous about this government being able to implement things. It is wise and prudent to use this time to look at the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2010 and related bills through a Senate inquiry.

We have to also realise that this Senate has already agreed that the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme bills will be considered in May. That is the earliest they are going to be considered. So why would you stand idly by and not support this Senate inquiry? Anyone who does not support this inquiry is not fair dinkum about making sure we are doing the right thing by the Australian public. These bills are scheduled to come back to the Senate in May. The Senate has agreed to that, so we should use this time wisely and prudently to look at these new bills. Rushing ahead is risky, especially with this government, as proven by the batty batts program. Look what happened with the NBN: 17 million bucks in a tender went belly up—and you are asking us to trust you on implementation. We are all getting nervous, so why not have the Senate look at these new bills to make sure that we are taking the time to consider the matter fully?  At the end of my speech, I will move the amendment which has already been circulated in the chamber. It says in part that the committee of this inquiry:

... must invite the Productivity Commission to make:

(a)

a detailed submission to the committee setting out viable alternative schemes to the CPRS and the cost and benefits under those schemes of achieving the targets that are contained in the bills ...

Let us look at other schemes. Let us have the Productivity Commission look at this rather than have the government saying, ‘Other schemes aren’t worthy.’ Subparagraph (b) of my amendment—I will not read the whole lot out as I will move the amendment at the end of my speech to add paragraph (4)—proposes that we look at ‘the potential costs to the Australian economy by committing to the targets contained in these bills before all other major world economies’, such as China, the United States of America, India and Russia, commit to targets that are lower than those that have been set out by the Rudd government. How will that impact on our economy? These are questions that need to be answered, and I think we must invite the Productivity Commission to provide a detailed submission on the matter.

I will be supporting this motion, albeit with the amendment that I have put forward, because it is wise and prudent to do so. It is not stalling the legislation, because the Senate has already agreed that the legislation is not coming up to be debated until May. So why do we not use this time prudently to have a Senate inquiry looking into the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and invite the Productivity Commission to look at two other details that I think this Senate needs to have answers to before we start debating the bills in May? I move:

At the end of the motion, add:

“(4)   In undertaking the inquiry, the committee must invite the Productivity Commission to make:

(a)

a detailed submission to the committee setting out viable alternative schemes to the CPRS and the cost and benefits under those schemes of achieving the targets that are contained in the bills; and

(b)

a detailed submission to the committee setting out the potential costs to the Australian economy by committing to the targets contained in these bills before all other major world economies (including China, the United States of America, India and Russia) commit to at least the emission reduction targets, and before we know what those targets are, this detailed submission should also include the potential costs to the Australian economy if other major world economies do commit to lower emissions reduction targets and any impacts resulting from the reliance of other major economies on nuclear power sources”.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What an extraordinary proposition from the opposition.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is Senator Wong closing the debate?

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, Senator Boswell. It is not my motion; it is your motion. That means that I cannot close the debate. I would like to close the debate to send the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme bills off to an inquiry, because we have had this debate and all we had from Senator Joyce was a reiteration of the same set of conspiracy theories and, frankly, madness that we heard over a long period of time in what I think was the third longest debate in the Senate’s history—the debate on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009.

There has been some talk about this being rushed. I say that we are in no danger whatsoever of being accused of rushing. We had 12 years of inaction under John Howard until he finally decided to adopt an emissions trading scheme as policy and this legislation has been before the Senate no fewer than four times. You might recall that the first time the opposition played procedural games so as not to have to debate it. What are they doing now? Exactly the same thing—more procedural games because they do not want the bills brought on. It is somewhat bizarre, because we have had a lot of hairy-chested noise and a lot of chest-thumping from the Leader of the Opposition. He keeps saying, ‘Bring it on!’ Yet here in the Senate chamber we saw the opposition seeking to delay yesterday and then successfully delaying debate today on this legislation until the next sitting.

While the Leader of the Opposition is saying, ‘Bring it on!’ and beating his chest, we have the opposition in the Senate wimping out because they do not want the debate. If they want the debate so much—if they want to do what Senator Joyce said and run the scare campaign they say they want to run—they should bring the debate on. But they are not doing that. They are playing procedural games deferring it until the May sittings, and now they want another inquiry.

For the information of the Senate, if this inquiry gets up it will be no less than the 15th inquiry into climate change since the Rudd government took office. There have been 15 inquiries. This is process gone mad. These are people who will do and say anything to avoid taking action on climate change. I would have more respect for the opposition if they could just reiterate what they believe, which is, as Mr Abbott said, ‘Climate change is absolute crap.’ Why don’t you just tell people that instead of playing these games in the Senate to avoid having the discussion?

While I am on the subject of some of the more remarkable things put forward in this debate, I comment as a side issue on the irony of Senator Joyce lecturing the Senate about economic risk. Senator Joyce is seen as such a liability by the coalition as the shadow minister for finance—and we know they are all lining up to take his job—that he cannot even get a question during question time on any issue to do with economics, presumably because he might mix up his millions, billions and trillions.

This matter has been before the Senate previously on four occasions. This would be the 15th inquiry into climate change since we took office. Senator Abetz says, somewhat grandiosely, ‘There are a lot of amendments.’ But he is talking about the amendments that we negotiated with the then Leader of the Opposition and Mr Macfarlane and that were endorsed in Senator Abetz’s party room. He is asking the Senate to go and do an inquiry into amendments that his party room supported before they tore down their leader. This is extraordinary. Didn’t you talk about it in your party room? You were certainly in there for many hours before you endorsed it, yet now you are going to send it off for another Senate inquiry just to make sure that we waste more taxpayers’ funds on more inquiries on an issue that you have already decided you are going to oppose. That is really the issue here: you are not referring this matter for inquiry because you actually want to find out anything. You are not referring it because you might change your minds or because you want to inquire. You have made your position absolutely clear to the extent that you have executed a leader so you do not have to vote for action on climate change. That is what you have done.

It is really quite an extraordinary abuse of process to be suggesting that there is any merit to this inquiry. We have had years of inquiry into the best way to reduce emissions in this country. Your own Prime Minister, John Howard, commissioned Peter Shergold to do a report through the Task Group on Emissions Trading. It reported whilst you were still in government and it said very clearly that the lowest cost way to reduce emissions, which is the key to dealing with climate change, is to introduce an emissions trading scheme. You went to the last election with that policy. You now have elected a man who says climate change is absolute crap. I disagree, but what you are doing is delaying debate in this place rather than simply saying, ‘Bring it on,’ having the debate and voting against the bills. I do not quite understand why it is that you would take this path.

There were a whole range of other matters, and I do not want to go into this in detail because we had a very long debate on the last occasions where many of these same issues were argued by the opposition over and over again. I remind senators on that side, when they accuse people on this side of being part of some bizarre conspiracy around the science of climate change, that even John Howard recognised the science. Margaret Thatcher recognised the science. The US Department of Defence has also indicated its view on climate change, which is that it does represent a significant threat. We know that emissions trading has been adopted in over 30 countries.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has not!

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has been adopted in over 30 countries. I will take that interjection, Senator Boswell, because it would be useful if we could actually have some facts in this debate. Unfortunately, those on the other side are not interested in facts. You are not interested in the implications climate change has for our economy and our way of life. You are not interested in the risks that climate change poses to our agricultural sector.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bernardi interjecting—

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bernardi is well known as a man who denies the existence of climate change; he should think about what has happened in his home state of South Australia in recent years in terms of inflows into the Murray-Darling and the availability of water.

The reality is that those on the other side do not believe climate change is real. They run the Liberal Party these days. They have put forward a policy which is nothing more than a climate con job to get them through to the election, which is what you would expect from a party that is run by people who do not believe climate change is real. But what is really bizarre is that you have Mr Abbott beating his chest about ‘bringing it on’ at the same time as his senators are playing procedural games so as not to have the debate here, and now want the 15th inquiry, as I said, into climate change since the Rudd government came to power.

The government does not support this referral. It is just another delaying tactic from the opposition—people who, no matter what evidence is presented to them, currently wish not to act.

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think the minister would have to reflect on how this can be a delaying tactic when—

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s no point of order.

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, the Senate has already agreed that this legislation would not come back before May.

Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Fielding, whose views on climate change are well known—

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, nail him up!

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. I will take that injection. Senator Johnston just said, ‘Nail him up.’ I have never used language like that. It is only those on that side who have used language like that.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s what you use.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have never heard me using language like that. This is not an unknown tactic. When you wish to speak—

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

The Acting Deputy President:

Order!

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. It is not an unknown tactic, is it: when people want to use the language of prejudice, they then accuse others of using it. The reality is that those are not words that I use, Senator; they are words you have used. It is true that Senator Fielding’s views on climate change are well known. I disagree with them—he is entitled to them, but I disagree with them. I think it is irresponsible to take this view, given the risk to Australia now and in the future.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, there’s a personal comment; there’s an attack.

The Acting Deputy President:

Order!

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are some people in this chamber who do not really treat this chamber with much respect. What I was, I think, trying to point out before the interjection by the frontbencher representing the opposition is this: we wanted these bills brought on. Senator Fielding refers to the delay. I remind him that he delivered the delay with the opposition. He voted with the opposition to ensure these bills were delayed again, so it is a little disingenuous for him to come in here and talk about this issue of delay when he in fact ensured that the coalition’s delaying tactics worked. He should be upfront about that.

The government does not support this motion. This is a motion, again, to defer consideration. This is a motion to provide the 15th inquiry since we have come to government on a policy that was negotiated with and supported by your party room.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bernardi interjecting—

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge you have changed position. You now have elected a man who thinks climate change is absolute crap. That has made Senator Bernardi very happy. But the reality is that no amount of inquiry, no amount of discussion and no amount of debate is going to change your minds. So you have to wonder what is the real agenda behind yet another delaying attack from an opposition that has done nothing but oppose and delay action on climate change, both in government and, now, in opposition since last year.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The resolution that we are debating now is to refer the ETS, or the CPRS, to a committee. Senator Wong says we have done all that and we have had 15 inquiries. I suppose in some way she is right. But the reason we do need an inquiry is that the whole bill has changed. It fell to the ground in a heap of custard at Copenhagen. When Senator Wong went to Copenhagen with her 109 colleagues, or whoever she took over there—I suppose someone has to carry the hairdryer—

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

Mr Acting Deputy President Bishop, I rise on a point of order. I find those sexist remarks unparliamentary and I would ask that the senator withdraw them. I have been in this Senate for quite some years and in the Tasmanian parliament for 10 years and I am over the fact that people can make disparaging remarks of that kind. I would seek that they be withdrawn.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw. Because Senator Milne has asked me to withdraw, I will withdraw. I do have some regard for her. What I was saying to Senator Wong is that the whole bill has changed. The bill was based on the fact that Australia, Canada, the EU, the former Soviet Union, Japan and annex B countries would be in a scheme from 2010, with China and higher income developing countries being in the scheme from 2015. India and the middle-income countries would be in the scheme from 2020. And there would be full coverage—that is, everyone in an ETS, right around the world—from 2025. That is what the modelling was based on. I do not know how you were ever going to achieve it. I could never see it working. I sat back and thought, ‘This is going to be a disaster beyond all disasters,’ but I never thought it would be the disaster that it turned out to be.

What this parliament now has in front of it is a bill that has been modelled on the assumption that all the countries in the world would be involved in an ETS scheme by 2025. That clearly did not happen in Copenhagen. What happened in Copenhagen, as everyone knows, is that very little was achieved. What was achieved was that there was no agreement on mandatory targets, no process of verification of targets, no treaty and no timetable, and there was some vague commitment that the world would try, by all doing their own thing, to hold the temperatures at around two per cent. That was the outcome of Copenhagen and that is the agreement that the Labor Party signed off on. I put it to the Senate that the whole package of bills that is being offered to the parliament has changed. It changed at Copenhagen, because the modelling that was predicted was that all would be in it by 2025. The prediction that small business would be okay and would be reimbursed was on the presumption that overseas competitors would not have any advantage, because we would all be in a scheme. The prediction for pensioners was predicted on us all being in a scheme. We know that is not going to happen.

If you are going to present this legislation again to the parliament, you have to go back and remodel the predictions and the assumptions. The bill that you are putting before the parliament now and which we are referring to a committee has to be changed. You are putting up something now that is a fraud, a con, because you know it cannot work the way in which your modelling predicted. That is the reason that we should be sending it to a committee. I do not know which way the numbers will fall, but what I do know is that the legislation on the table is wrong. It is being presented to this parliament wrongly, because the assumptions are wrong.

Also, what Senator Wong signed up to was that we had to get the non-developed countries as part of a climate regime scheme. The world had to put $30 billion on the table between 2010 and 2012, and from 2012 until 2020 the world had to stump up with $100 billion. Senator Milne and I have continually asked Senator Wong: what is our share? We have not been told what our share is, unless Senator Milne has received some information that I have not received. Both of us have tried to find out what our share will be. That amount of money has to be referred to a Senate committee. What is our share of $30 billion for the lemon of a program that the government pushes forward? What is our proportion of $100 billion in 2020? How are we going to raise that money? Is it by tax or is it by some sort of levy? One of the proposals that the government supported was a tax or a levy on aviation and shipping fuel. This will further penalise our exports. These are the things that have to be presented to a committee so that we can get the information. I am sure that Senator Milne would agree with me. These are the things that the parliament must know before we proceed with debating legislation.

What we are debating is an entirely different bill to the one that was before Copenhagen, that assumed we would all be in one big happy party by 2025. We would all be in it—China, Russia, India, Brazil; we would all be one big happy family all joined up in an ETS. Well, it was never going to work; I could never see how it was going to work. I could never see how the world was all going to join together; I could never see how America was going to sign an ETS with a 10 per cent unemployment rate. It was just a Labor Party pipedream that could never happen. And it was exposed in Copenhagen.

Now you have the greatest lemon of a policy that has ever been presented—at least in my 30 years in this place. It started off that everyone was full of vigour and the people wanted it. They wanted it until they could see that they were going to be the only ones who were going to pay their insurance policy. I refer to some Galaxy polling that was done before Copenhagen. The polling said about 54 per cent did not want to do it until after Copenhagen; about 34 per cent wanted to do it straightaway. As the debate heated up people could see that they were going to be the only ones paying the insurance policy, and Australia would be the only one that would be involved in an ETS and the rest of the world were not going to be involved. And how close we came to that. How very, very close this nation came to the greatest disaster of all time; if we had put that legislation through. Senator Wong keeps using the 30 countries. Let me tell Senator Wong: yes, if she uses the EU as 30 countries—there are probably 27 or 28 countries in it—but because it is one collective economy, we would have been the only independent economy that would have been stupid enough, silly enough to actually vote. And how close we came! One vote and there was a change of leadership; one vote the other way and Australia was down the drain by $120 billion—and that is close. I hope the people who are listening to this realise just how close they came to Australia being saddled with a $120 billion tax, which was turned around by Tony Abbott and his colleagues. It was turned around, but it was such a close call.

You have to wonder. If you cannot sell $2 billion worth of batts and you are not marketing them, then you are just giving them away for virtually nothing. If you cannot do that, how are you going to run the most complicated, convoluted scheme that has ever been presented to the world—a world government scheme and everyone has to play their part? You can imagine how complicated that would be. And if you do not have the capacity to give $2 billion worth of batts away, you have absolutely no chance of ever coming to terms with an ETS.

The game is up. Senator Conroy understands that the game is up. Most of the hardheads in the Labor Party know that the game is up, but they cannot find the escape route. That is their problem. They cannot find an escape route. If they go with the Greens, they will get castigated. If they pull out, they will lose what we call the doctors’ wives votes, the soft leafy suburbs. So they are stuck. They would love to get out of it. If someone could give them a way out, if someone could release them from this $120 billion lemon that they have tied around their neck—

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A stinking cat!

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is like a stinking cat tied around their neck and they cannot find a way to get rid of it.

It is a gold mine for us. We will go around every working-class seat and say: ‘Your jobs are on the line. You’ve got a choice. If you want to vote for Kevin Rudd, you’ll be voting for an ETS. You will be voting for a stinking cat that is going to cost you $120 billion, it’s going to put the industries that you work in—the mining industries, the aluminium industry, the steel industry, the glass industry, the cement industry—at risk and it’s going to put your jobs at risk. The government will make your industries anti-competitive. It was so before Copenhagen, but it is doubly so now.’ But the government are hell-bent on putting this legislation through. They come here and want to get it through. They want to get it through today. I would not vote for something that is not even a true reflection of what is in the bill. The bill is finished. They have to go back and remodel it, present their remodelling to the parliament and then ask the parliament to vote on something that is real. But they are presenting a fraud, a con to the parliament of Australia and they know it.

The modelling is wrong. Canada, United States, China, Russia—the big emitters—have said, ‘We’re not going to have a bar of this.’ And you could have said that before we even went to Copenhagen. How could America, with 10 per cent unemployment—it would probably be worse if it did not have such a huge defence force—vote for it? How could it get through congress? It just could not. It was never going to work. But those opposite believe they can get it through in some sneaky way in a form that is not really reflecting what is in the bill.

If the Labor Party want to go ahead with this—I cannot see how they can get out of it—then with Senator Joyce and Senator Bernardi and Senator ‘Whacker’ Williams, I will be out in the field. This is politics. We will be telling all of those blue-collar workers that Labor has ratted on them. The Labor people have ratted on the blue-collar worker because they want to keep the green section of their party happy!

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like you ratted when you sold Telstra!

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you want to talk about Telstra, we can do that on another date. We are talking about ratting on the blue-collar workers that you are supposed to represent. You are going to cost them their jobs; you are going to desert them. You just want to bring in a bit of subterfuge about Telstra—

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Subterfuge!

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, it is subterfuge. We are debating the greatest cause of job losses in Australia, and it is hard to believe that it is the ALP that is doing it. They are doing it to their own blue-collar workers because they have probably made some pact with the soft, leafy suburb sections of their party. It is just a free kick in front of goal for the conservative forces in every working class suburb. I have seen the polls just falling away overnight. I indicated that in a Galaxy poll the figure had gone up to 60 per cent not wanting to do anything before Copenhagen. Those wanting to go ahead had fallen from 34 per cent in a poll a week before to 27 per cent. If you take the Greens out of that 27 per cent, and that is 12 per cent and going up and the government vote is going down, you end up with about 12 per cent support.

If we are going to go through this facade of presenting legislation to the parliament, then the Australian people want to know that what we are debating is a true and accurate reflection of what is in the bill. It is not, and it never was since Copenhagen. They also want to know where our share of the $30 billion is coming from, and the $100 billion we have to pay the non-developed countries. Until the government tells us these things, they are just not telling the truth. They are not telling the Australian people what it is all about. I have tried and tried with Senator Milne—we often do not agree on things; sometimes we do, as we do on this issue—to find out what our share of the $30 billion is, what our share of the $100 billion is and how we are going to fund it. It is not small bikkies; it is big bikkies. The government has to tell us these things. They have to tell the electorate. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. That is what you are trying to do by presenting this ETS bill. Your assumptions on small business, pensioners, overseas trade and everything else are wrong. This matter has to go to a committee.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are any number of questions that one could raise and should raise about the government’s ill-named, in fact deceitfully named, Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. This is a government that has clearly failed to level with the Australian people, because they bought the assumption that the Liberal Party and the coalition would walk willingly with them through this forest of economic disaster and deceit. They tried to deceive the Australian people by saying they were going to create green jobs and it was not going to have any adverse impact on the world; it was going to be picked up by all countries around the world, and Copenhagen was going to be a spectacular success.

I have to say that not all Labor members did that. They were very disciplined. But a number of people felt deeply uncomfortable with this. Although Minister Garrett’s judgement is absolutely flawed in regard to the installation of insulation, he also feels deeply uncomfortable because in his heart he is a deep green movement person. He knows this is not an environmental policy; it is an economic policy that is designed to grab $10 billion—that will pick the pockets of the Australian people to the tune of $10 billion—every year by targeting big business and then pretending that big business, or business, will not pass those costs on. But of course they have also ignored the impact on small business—the heart and soul, the very driving force, of our economy—who have had their pockets picked by Mr Rudd and his team of extremists.

Debate interrupted.