Senator JOYCE (Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) (11:15 AM) —Obviously, a lot of the questions that we ask here are not so much for our information but for the information of the Australia people. To get it on the record, what is clear from what the minister said is that the Climate Change Action Fund is going to source its money through the sale of permits through the CPRS. The CPRS is another piece of legislation. This legislation was supposed to be decoupled—that is, there is supposed to be no connection between the two. Quite obviously, there is. If we are going to be financing the food production industry with revenue from another piece of legislation, then it is to be queried as to whether there is true decoupling.

What we want, and this is why we have moved this amendment and why it gets to the source of the issue, is to make sure that the decoupling is truly authentic and therefore we want to make sure that food production is outside the scheme. Therefore, we have to pass this amendment. What the government has put up in regards to the ETS—the ‘employment termination scheme’ or ‘extra tax system’—or the CPRS, the cunning plan to get them to a double dissolution, with RS standing for what the economy will look like when they have finished, is putting immense duress on the food production industry. They gave the guarantee that they would decouple it, and they have not. To bring about a proper decoupling, we have to make sure that the food production industry is outside.

Minister, you clearly put on the record for the Australian people—and I thank you for that—the connection between the CPRS and the renewable energy target. In doing that, you have also confirmed that you have not actually decoupled the two pieces of legislation. Senator Wong is nodding. She acknowledges that they are not decoupled. There is no authenticity to the promise that you gave to the Australian people that you would decouple them. That means that you are now going to use the food production industry—the farmers, the working families who work in those plants—as pawns in your little game. That is completely unfair. You should not do that. One of the pawns in your little game is also going to be the capacity of Australian farmers to put Australian produce on the shelves of shops in Australia. And who are we going to replace those people with? We are going to replace them with the people who produce food that we import from overseas. They are going to have no renewable energy target or cunning plan reduction schemes or cunning plan RSs. We are going to take it backwards.

If you truly believe in catastrophic climate change—if that is what it is all about; if that is the be all and end all; if that is the thing that you have to put at the forefront of everything; if no matter what that is the goal and all other things should be put aside except that—then quite obviously you have to look at nuclear power. But you cannot do that, because that is a sacred cow. You cannot talk about nuclear power; you cannot mention that sacred cow; you have to leave that one alone.

What we are going to do if we do not pass this today is bang up the dairy farmers. It is dairy production that is going to cop it in the neck because of this.

Senator Boswell —What about abattoirs?

Senator JOYCE —And the abattoirs and the canneries. It is the food production people who are going to cop it, because the Labor Party want to use that section of the economy, that section of the community and that section of regional Australia as a little pawn in their game. There should have been proper decoupling—decoupling that the government gave a guarantee, a warrant, that they would do. But they have not done it. The minister admitted this. She nodded in the chamber and said, ‘That’s exactly what we’re doing.’ She said that over there. She said: ‘That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re keeping the two tied together.’ Why are you doing that? You gave a guarantee that you would not do that, Minister. But you are doing that. So you are being a little bit mischievous in the way that you are conducting things here. Maybe you should go back to Murray Goulburn and have dinner with them again and say: ‘What we intend to do with you, dairy producers of Australia, is use you as a little pawn in our game. You are now a political football.’

Let us be fair about this. You have heard it in the chamber. This is about connecting the two schemes. This is about putting duress on the whole process in full knowledge of what is going to happen to dairy. This is a clear connection. She has told us that the action fund is connected to the CPRS. Therefore, you have the duress. That is what we are up against. This ETS is a most insidious new tax that is going to come into play with words such as ‘catastrophe’ and ‘abomination’ connected to it. But the realities are economic realities for the people who government policy will affect. I ask you, Minister, to honour your commitment and decouple as you promised that you would.