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Thursday, 22 September 2011
Page: 6818

Senator MILNE (Tasmania—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens) (12:13): I rise to indicate that the last speaker's contribution to this debate indicates why, no matter how many hearings we had, it would appear that the coalition is incapable of grasping the detail of the bills. I just heard Senator Cormann challenge the government to say what the net reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions of the clean energy package is. I put to him: what is the net reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions of the coalition's direct action plan? What is the global net reduction in emissions?

Senator Cormann interjecting—

Senator MILNE: This is the complete nonsense—

Opposition senators interjecting—

Senator Bob Brown: Mr Acting Deputy President, I raise a point of order. Once again the opposition was heard in silence but now are yelling out across the chamber and interrupting Senator Milne's speech. That is against the standing orders and they should desist.

Senator Cormann: On the point of order, when referring to my contribution in this chamber, Senator Milne directly challenged me to provide a particular piece of information, so I was responding to the senator's explicit invitation to provide information, which clearly she does not want to listen to.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Furner ): There is no point of order. Senators are reminded that interjections are disorderly. I expect speakers to be heard in silence.

Senator MILNE: What we heard in Senator Cormann's contribution a moment ago was in fact a very good example of what has happened. The coalition have been running a Senate committee process around the country on these bills for some time. But the point at issue is that they have not actually engaged with the substance of the debate. They have used the Senate committee process to run a campaign to spread quite a substantial amount of misinformation concerning not only climate change but indeed the clean energy package.

I remind the Senate that the coalition were invited, with two places being made available on the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee, to engage this issue. But it was a requirement that members of the committee actually believe in climate change and believe in pricing greenhouse gas emissions, consistent with market mechanisms. At that point the coalition said they did not believe in market mechanisms. They believe in the old Eastern European model of a centralised state, collecting taxes and paying out at twice the cost to the Australian economy of a market mechanism, as the Treasury officials and climate change officials pointed out yesterday.

So it would not matter how many Senate inquiries you had into this. They have an ideological view that opposes market mechanisms, which is quite an extraordinary thing for the coalition, who for years have tried to suggest they were economic rationalists. Now they have gone to the old Eastern European model. They do not believe in market mechanisms, and they are going to vote against this, anyway.

The Leader of the Opposition has said he will repeal every single climate bill. We know that that is a falsehood, because already they have said they will not repeal the Carbon Farming Initiative, which is in the package of bills, and the very first one that went through. They spent hours in this place opposing it and then stood up in the third reading and said they would not repeal it. That is going to be the fate of all of these bills, because the coalition do not have a policy on climate change that stands up. Increasingly, business is now saying: 'Sorry, your plan is going to cost us twice as much. We actually don't support it, either.' Mr Abbott, the leader of the coalition, is going to have to stand up very soon and acknowledge that he is not going to repeal all of the climate bills, after having told a convoy here and any number of people around the country that they will repeal the bills.

What is interesting about the inquiry into the bills—a joint house committee inquiry has been passed by the parliament—is that the coalition senators yesterday were much more inclined to grandstanding and shouting rather than getting to the actual substance of the bills. In fact, I would suggest that most of the coalition members did not even read the bills before going to the inquiry. They are not interested in testing the detail of the bill. This is all a sham. Talk about honour and dignity. Honour and dignity is about respecting the processes of the place. The parliament has agreed to this. Also, I note that the coalition now spends its time at every opportunity denying people leave to present amendments and points of view. So let's not have this self-righteous honour and process. Some of us were here when the Howard government had control of both houses. There was no honour and no process. There was abuse of Senate process day in, day out. We are now seeing the coalition exhibit the same abuse of process at every turn.