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Thursday, 13 October 2011
Page: 7383

Senator PRATT (Western Australia) (15:48): For this nation to move forward, we have to be a modern and competitive economy. We cannot just live in the past and be dedicated to the old ways. We know that a fundamental plank of that is moving towards a clean energy economy. This nation cannot countenance any future other than that. All credible analysis shows that we can make significant cuts in pollution while our economy continues to grow strongly. This is the path we need to be on.

Senator Eggleston made reference, as did a question in question time, to our defence forces. We cannot resile from the fact that the carbon price is a price that is borne around the economy so that it can have the effect of encouraging people to make energy savings. It is pure and simple. It is an emissions trading scheme and it is a philosophy that many of those opposite have supported. It is an economic principle that many of those opposite have supported. Senator Eggleston referred to the notion that pricing carbon will somehow affect our national security. Those opposite have, frankly, made up a great many things in relation to the carbon price but I feel that I have heard it all now with the notion that pricing carbon will somehow pose some kind of risk to our national security.

It is typical of the kind of scaremongering that we have had from those opposite and the kind of wrecking attitude that we have had from the Leader of the Opposition, who really is just interested in playing politics. We know that every living Liberal leader has supported a price on carbon. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Abbott, has supported a price on carbon. Over half of the Liberal MPs have made expressions of support for a carbon price. Mr Abbott can admit to families and pensioners of this nation that he is planning to claw back money from their pockets, or he can admit that he is not going to roll back the carbon price. It can be one or the other, but he cannot do both.

Mr Abbott should admit what everybody knows—that it is a very difficult task, and I think an impossible one, to roll back a price on carbon. And that is a fortunate thing, too, because all credible analysis shows that we can cut pollution and have our economy grow. But, if we do not do this, we will be stuck in the old ways and we will be doing a great disservice to our economy. We must modernise it. I think failing to price carbon is a form of protectionism. That is because we know that, in order to address climate change—if you believe that climate change is real—the world must cut its emissions. That will require economic and industrial change right around the globe.

If Australia leaves itself behind in those changes, we will be left behind economically as well. But we know that, with a carbon price, the economy will continue to grow, with an average growth in GNI per capita of 1.1 per cent per year; average incomes will continue to grow, rising by more than $8,000 per person by 2020 in real terms; and the number of jobs will continue to grow, with 1.6 million additional jobs by 2020. The evidence in support of pricing carbon just continues to build and build. I have heard no credible evidence to the contrary. The policy of those opposite is simply to pay polluters. It will inevitably lead to higher prices, more spending and higher taxes. (Time expired)