Senator CORMANN (Western Australia) (15:02): Pursuant to standing order 74(5), I ask the Minister representing the Treasurer for an explanation as to why an answer has not been provided to question on notice No. 437 regarding how much of the stimulus package remains to be spent in 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 even though that question was asked back on 11 March 2011?

Senator WONG (South Australia—Minister for Finance and Deregulation) (15:02): I can indicate to Senator Cormann that my advice is that the response to this question was tabled with the Senate today. I thank him for letting my office know he intended to raise this.

Senator Abetz: You could have told him.

Senator WONG: Senator Abetz, I was somewhat busy in question time, otherwise I would have sent him a note. I thank him for having the courtesy to raise this with my office this morning.

Senator CORMANN (Western Australia) (15:03): I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

In doing so, I do express disappointment that we have been waiting for 150 days for some pretty basic information which goes to the government's financial and economic management. We wrote to the minister at 9.30 or 10 o'clock this morning and nobody had the courtesy to let us know that the intention was to table it today. At this point I do not have a copy of the answer, even though the minister was well aware that this issue was going to be raised after question time. I wrote to the minister twice in relation to this. I wrote to the minister back in May, I wrote to the minister again in July. We had a debate about it for 20 minutes back in July, which you might remember, Mr Deputy President Parry, because it was your first opportunity to chair this session with us as the new Deputy President.

We have a government here in Canberra which is incompetent, fiscally reckless and irresponsible, and refuses to be accountable to the parliament. It is just not good enough that the government is unable to provide an answer for 150 days about how much of the stimulus package remains to be spent for 2011-12 and 2012-13. Some of the information sought has since become public through other channels, specifically in relation to 2010-11 and 2011-12. The fact that for 150 days this government refused to provide an answer to a question that should be answered within 30 days would seem to indicate that there is something to hide. I would be very interested to read the answer that finally has been put forward and to see why the government would try to avoid answering a basic question like this for more than 150 days.

We have a bad Labor government here in Canberra which spends too much, borrows too much and taxes too much. Whenever questions are raised this unaccountable Treasurer, who treats the Senate with absolute contempt, refuses to provide answers in a timely and appropriate fashion.

We always have to remind ourselves why this government is now able to brag about the stronger position that Australia is in compared to other countries around the world. The reason we are in a better position than we otherwise would be is because this government inherited a budget with absolutely no government net debt. This government inherited a budget with a $22 billion surplus. This government inherited a budget where we had to spend zero dollars on interest payments servicing the debt that was paid off by the previous government.

We now have an incompetent Treasurer who treats the Senate with contempt, who was not able to provide an answer in good time. Whenever he has something to hide, he goes for the cover-up. And we can well understand why he would go for the cover-up. With the government having inherited a very strong budget position, we are now in a position where four out of four budgets under this government have been deficit budgets. Every single budget that has been put together by the Labor Party has been a deficit budget—every single one of them.

But we were told that 2012-13 was going to be different, that 2012-13 was going to see the historically unprecedented experience of a surplus under this Labor government. The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, was going to deliver a surplus budget in 2012-13, but he was not prepared to tell us how much he was still going to spend on his fiscal stimulus package in 2012-13. I would be very interested to see what the answer says and even now maybe somebody can provide me with a copy of the answer that the govern­ment supposedly has tabled here in the parliament. I think it is quite extraordinary that the minister would just tell us that the answer has been provided without actually giving it to us.

Here we have a government which in 2009-10 spent $28 billion on stimulating the economy through fiscal stimulus—that is, by spending taxpayers' dollars, by borrowing money, by going into debt. Do you know what the Reserve Bank was doing at the same time? In 2009-10 the Reserve Bank increased interest rates six times in a row. This government was completely panicked, they were completely out of their depth and they did what they always do when they do not know what to do. They looked at their Labour friends and at their Democrat friends in other parts of the world. They looked at what Gordon Brown was doing in the UK and they looked at what Barack Obama was doing in the US and they thought that, as they were spending money, as they were spending more and as they were taxing more and going into debt, 'maybe we should do the same'. So off they went and spent $89 billion of taxpayers' dollars. Even at a time when the Reserve Bank was putting on the brakes through monetary policy, this government was still out there stimulating the economy. So you have the Reserve Bank and this incompetent and fiscally reckless and irresponsible government going in opposite directions.

I was very interested to observe that in the US we have had interest rates at record lows—hovering around zero per cent—for a couple of years. In fact, the US Federal Reserve said that interest rates in the US would remain at 0.25 per cent or thereabouts until the middle of 2013. That was their attempt to provide additional impetus to the market. Of course, in the UK and in the US they have been printing money for a number of years. They call it quantitative easing.

I have just had advice that the Senate Table Office as at 3.07 pm, which was three minutes ago and was after Minister Wong said to this chamber that the Treasurer's answer had been tabled, had not received an answer to question on notice No. 437. So here we have Senator Wong misleading the chamber. I hope that Senator Wong has the courtesy to come back into this chamber as this is an absolute disgrace. This incompetent government is treating this Senate with absolute contempt. For more than 150 days it has refused to provide an answer to a very legitimate question about how much of the fiscal stimulus package remains to be spent in 2012-13, and here we have the minister for finance, on behalf of the Treasurer, advising this chamber that an answer was tabled in the Senate, when I have advice now from the Table Office that so far there is still no answer. This government is perpetuating the cover-up. This is an absolutely disgrace­ful and outrageous contempt of the Senate.

We have a government that has completely mismanaged our public finances. We have a government that inherited a strong budget position but has completely made a mess of it. Every single one of those Labor senators on the other side of the chamber is going to be responsible, in the passage of history, for the mess that they have created. They are making it worse. We are already in a situation where we are looking at $107 billion worth of government net debt. We have had four successive deficits. In question time today, Minister Wong was laying the groundwork, was laying the foundation, for the delivery of a deficit in 2012-13. The words she used were that, oh well, the world has changed. There is always an excuse for yet another Labor deficit. There is always another reason as to why this government cannot live within its means.

The truth of the matter is that we did not need to go this far into debt. We did not need to spend $89 billion worth of taxpayers' dollars—taxpayers' dollars raised today or taxpayers' dollars borrowed against future generations. In Australia our official cash rate bottomed out at three per cent. In 2009-10 alone we had six successive increases in interest rates to take the interest rate in that year from three to 4.5 per cent. Of course, since then we have had another 0.25 per cent increase, to take it up to the current rate of 4.75 per cent. Clearly, there was an opportunity for the Reserve Bank to continue to do its job and to continue to provide stimulus to the economy, if that was required in its judgment, by further lowering interest rates. Our interest rates bottomed out at three per cent and have since gone up to 4.75 per cent but in the UK and in the US they are still at record lows. We know that is one—not the only one, but one—of the reasons why the Australian dollar is in the position that it is in, which is putting further pressure on exporters across Australia. It is one of the reasons why the Australian exchange rate is where it is compared to that of the US.

If only the Reserve Bank had been allowed to do its job and if only the Reserve Bank had not faced a government that was putting billions and billions and billions of dollars of fiscal stimulus into the economy—inefficiently, mind you, through pink batts, through school halls, through the Building the Education Revolution and through all of the inefficient programs that they put out there. It would actually have been much more efficient if the Reserve Bank had been able to effectively put more money into the economy by reducing interest rates, which would have left people with more money in their pocket and they would have allocated their money throughout the economy way more efficiently than this incompetent government could. Instead we have pink batts, school halls and all sorts of things that have been examples of bad and wasteful spending of taxpayers' dollars and we have been left with $107 billion of government net debt—from a start of zero net debt and it is rising. In this budget alone, $26 billion is going to be spent on servicing the interest on the debt that this government has accumulated—and again it is rising.

I make the point here that this incom­petent government is actually going to introduce new multibillion dollar taxes that are going to make us less competitive internationally, that are going to have a serious impact on our economic prosperity into the future. All of that leaves the budget in a worse fiscal position at the end of the process. I will explain: only the Labor Party can come up with a new multibillion dollar tax that would leave the budget in a worse position. We have two examples of this. There is the mining tax, which Treasury tells us will raise about $38½ billion over the decade. Incidentally, $25 billion of that will come from iron ore production in Western Australia. The cost of the related measures—the proposed increase to compulsory super, the company tax cuts and various other measures—is about $57 billion over the same period.

Over the next decade, the budget is going to be about $20 billion worse off than when this government started, further worsening the structural deficit position. This does not even take into account the fact that every time a state government—like the state government in Western Australia, the state government in Queensland or any other state government with resources—makes a decision to remove a royalty concession or to increase royalties, it will be a further black hole in the budget, courtesy of the dodgy mining tax deal that this government entered into with the three big mining companies. No wonder this budget is in a mess. No wonder the Labor Party cannot deliver a surplus budget. Every time they make a decision, the budget is in a worse position than before they started.

I will stay on the mining tax for a moment. The government promised to credit all state and territory royalties to those who have to pay the mining tax. Here we have the government which dodgily and inapprop­riately did a deal behind closed doors—it was exclusive and in secret—with the three big mining companies. Not only were all their competitors excluded; state and territory governments, who just happen to have responsibility for royalty arrangements, were also excluded. Nobody included them in the deal, but here we have this incompetent government making a promise to these three big mining companies. Clearly they stared them down. The three big mining companies got this Prime Minister and this Treasurer to promise to credit all state and territory royalties without the state and territory governments being part of the agreement. In this country, you cannot have tax reform in the area of resource taxation or in the area of royalty arrangements without actively engaging and seeking agreement from state and territory governments. Any competent federal leader would know that and any competent federal Treasurer would know that—except for this Prime Minister and this Treasurer. Of course, this is just one example of incompetence.

There is also the carbon tax. I was there on budget night on Lateline. I was sitting next to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Senator Wong. We were both giving our assessment of the budget. Senator Wong was saying how fantastic it was, and I was saying, 'It's just not worth the paper it's written on.' Do you know why I said that, Mr Deputy President? The carbon tax informa­tion was not in it. So we said: 'The revenue figures are wrong. The expenditure figures are wrong. The inflation figures are wrong. The economic growth figures are wrong—everything is wrong.' Minister Wong said, not to worry, that it will be broadly budget neutral. We now know that it will not be. The government will raise $25 billion and spend $4.3 billion more. The budget is going to be $4.3 billion worse off, yet again.

I conclude my contribution on this: I cannot believe that Minister Wong has not come in here to explain why she has misled the Senate. I hope that an explanation from the minister will be forthcoming at a later hour. She told us that an answer to the question that I raised had been tabled, when clearly the Table Office has confirmed—and I suspect that it is still the case right now—there is no answer from the Treasurer. I think that is absolutely disgraceful. I look forward to it being provided to us ASAP.

Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (15:19): I was going to defend Senator Wong from that attack on why she had not answered the question, until I heard that she had actually misled the Senate. She followed her leader's cause of telling mistruths—in her leader's case, lies, deliberate lies, to the Australian public. It was exactly one year ago today that Julia Gillard, the Leader of the Labor Party, promised Australians that there would be 'No carbon tax under a government I lead'. She also promised that she would not introduce a carbon tax until there was a consensus. There was a consensus a year ago, and that was a consensus of most politicians in this parliament that there would be no carbon tax.

I wanted to defend Senator Wong because I can understand why she, on behalf of the Treasurer, has not got the time to answer questions. It is because she has been so busy trying to explain and excuse her leader, Julia Gillard, who deliberately lied to the Australian public a year ago today when she said that there would be 'No carbon tax under a government I lead'. A year ago Senator Wong was the minister for climate change. She was the one running around at Copenhagen who was going to save the world from climate change. She was the one who no doubt joined with her leader in putting forward this solemn promise to the Australian public that there would be no carbon tax under a government Julia Gillard led. And I can understand why Senator Wong has since that moment been so busy trying to explain that deliberate and outright lie of her leader, Julia Gillard.

One might understand why Senator Wong was not able to pass on the answer from the Treasurer. Could I also just perhaps offer a little helpful advice not only to Senator Wong but to all of the ministers on the other side. If Senator Wong, and she is the principal offender, at question time actually tried to answer a question, perhaps there would not be as many questions put on notice because we would get the answers in question time, which is what question time is all about. We in this chamber and the Australian public expect that at question time the government is asked questions about its administration of the government and we and the Australian public expect that reasonably competent ministers might be able to answer those questions in question time.

Very few of the ministers on the other side, perhaps with the exception of Senator Sherry, can ever answer a question without notice. When she is asked a question Senator Wong has adopted the tactic—and just bear my words on this, and look through theHansard—whereby, for the first half of her time, at least, for answering questions she chooses to attack the questioner. It happened today, but that is not unusual. She does it all the time. I would suggest to Senator Wong and other ministers in this chamber that if they were to put a little more effort into actually answering questions rather than attacking the questioner, or rather than talking about anything except what the question is about, there would perhaps be fewer questions put on notice and we would not have the sort of debate and anger that comes up when governments cannot answer questions after 135 days, as it is in this case.

I urge government ministers to try and have a go at answering questions put to them. If you have not got a clue on the answer, which is basically all of the time, can you just sit down instead of wasting the Senate's time in attacking the questioner. In that way we may not have so many questions needing to be put on notice.

Question agreed to.

Senator HUMPHRIES (Australian Capital Territory) (15:24): Pursuant to standing order 74(5), I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs for an explanation as to why answers have not been provided to question Nos 232 and 274, asked nine months ago, in November 2010.

Senator CONROY (Victoria—Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Digital Productivity) (15:24): I understand that the senator will be receiving a response to his important questions in coming days. I am also advised that the opposition will not be able to cover its $70 billion black hole from the modest amount of stationery purchased by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Trade.

Senator HUMPHRIES (Australian Capital Territory) (15:24): I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

The fact is that, however the minister chooses to make light of this question, I have asked a serious question about the government's use of stationery, mobile telephones and travel and other issues that go to the competence and good administration, or lack thereof, of this government. I asked those questions of every minister in November last year, which is nine months ago. The Minister for Foreign Affairs does not seem to be able to answer those questions. I accept that that minister may have travelled somewhat more than other ministers and probably has more staff and maybe more mobile phones than other ministers, but I also note that his colleagues were able to answer those questions in a much shorter time frame—for example, the Minister for Defence, with a very complex portfolio and presumably as large and complex an office, was able to answer these very questions back in January this year, seven months ago. If this government is serious about transparency and about good administration, it ought to be upfront about what it is spending on these matters. I urge the minister to provide those answers very quickly.

Question agreed to.

Senator RONALDSON (Victoria) (15:26): I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation (Senator Wong) to questions without notice asked today relating to a proposed carbon tax.

I assume that the two ministers at the table will not be speaking in relation to this motion. I assume that Senator Brown is not and, therefore, I assume that Senators Feeney and Pratt will be speaking on this matter today. I ask them this question and I want them to give the chamber the answer: 12 months ago were the Australian people entitled to believe the Prime Minister when she said, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead'? Were they entitled to believe her when she made that comment 12 months ago?

The answer to that question must surely be yes. But I will wait for Senators Pratt and Feeney to confirm that the answer must be yes to that simple question of whether the Australian people were entitled to believe their Prime Minister 12 months ago when she told them, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' Were the people in the gallery in front of you, Mr Deputy President, entitled to believe their Prime Minister when she said to them that 'there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead'? The answer to that question must be an emphatic yes, they were entitled to believe it.

So the next question for Senators Feeney and Pratt must be: on what basis do you now justify what was a clear lie to the Australian people? Rise today and tell the chamber and the community on what basis you justify a lie told 12 months ago. If there is no justification, and there can be no justifi­cation, stand up and tell this chamber, tell the people in the gallery, the people listening today and the thousands of people who were demonstrating today on what basis you justify not going to the Australian people for a fresh election to let them vote on this issue.

There are three key issues; there are three key answers to three key questions. I will be very interested to hear, Senator Feeney and Senator Pratt, what your responses will be. You cannot leave this chamber today without answering those questions because they are fundamental questions about the public policy debate we are having at the moment. They are fundamental questions which you must answer. The Australian people surely were entitled to believe their Prime Minister when she told them six days before the last election that there would be no carbon tax. You and I know, Senator Feeney, through you Mr Deputy President, that had she been truthful to the Australian community the outcome of that election would have been entirely different.

It was a bald faced lie designed to put people at ease about a carbon tax prior to the election. She either knew it was a lie at the time, having had the discussions with Senator Brown before then, or knows there can be no justification whatsoever for her behaviour since. If the Australian people are not able to rely on their Prime Minister to be truthful with them about such a significant public policy matter, how can they believe anything else she tells them? How can they believe her? This debate is about the Prime Minister's integrity. This debate is about the sorts of matters that Senator Wong refused to answer today. We saw utter incompetence from this senior government minister. She had absolutely no idea of the implications for the freight sector, the small business sector and regional and rural Australia in the answers she gave. She had absolutely no idea whatsoever. My home city of Ballarat, along with Geelong and Bendigo, are great manufacturing centres in regional Victoria.

Senator Feeney, you and I know what the outcome of this tax will be. You and I know what your own union leaders are saying about this insidious, toxic tax. You know what effect it will have on the coal industry and you know what jobs will be at risk. You have provided absolutely no level of comfort for anyone outside regional and rural Victoria, let alone metropolitan Australia, in relation to what this tax will do.

Let me go very quickly through some of the ramifications, all of which are undeniable and all of which beggar belief—and it beggars belief that an Australian Prime Minister can do this to her own people. A family on a single income of $65,000 a year will receive no compensation— (Time expired)

Senator FEENEY (Victoria—Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) (15:31): I rise on the motion to take note of Senator Wong's answer.

Senator Ronaldson: Answer my question.

Senator FEENEY: Senator Ronaldson, having just endured your hyperbole for the last few minutes, I am sure you will pay me the courtesy of listening. The Labor Party's policy is to achieve a five per cent cut in 2000 emission levels by 2020. This represents a goal of abating some 160 million tonnes of carbon by 2020. I think that policy is generally well known. What I think is perhaps less well known is that the Liberal and National parties have the same policy. It is also their policy to cut 2000 carbon emission levels in this country by five per cent by 2020. One might think that the fact that we have the same target and the same policy might mean that we are in an environment where there could be accord. One might think that it might be the basis for agreement. Of course once upon a time it would have been. The reason it is not the case now, the reason it is not the basis for an accord, is that the Liberal and National parties live in shame of their own policy. Theirs is a policy that was cobbled together in the aftermath of dealing with the clash between those opposite who are sceptics and those who believe in climate change. They now have a policy which they seek to hide. This is why those opposite wander around Australia and say different things to different audiences. This is why those opposite attend rallies of climate change sceptics and shamelessly agree with those audiences.

The fact that their policy is the same policy as the government's is hidden. When one looks in detail through their policy, their so-called direct action policy, one finds it is neither direct nor about action. It is a policy that aims to achieve the very same targets as our policy, but they have found a more expensive route to do it. The direct action policy is a policy which ultimately boils down to paying polluters and sending the bill to Australian households. Theirs is a command economy model and it goes to one of the more extraordinary features of this debate. The government are promoting a policy which ultimately will result in an emissions trading scheme—a floating price. The fixed permit will ultimately transition into a carbon market and that market will mean—

Senator Fifield: It is an artificial market.

Senator FEENEY: On that interjection, one might reflect that the very first markets in every sphere of activity were. There is demand. There is supply. There will be a market and that market will set a price. If those opposite want to have angst about the design of this market, let them do that. But surely their first order of business should be to try and craft a market of their own. But they are not doing that; of course they are not. Those opposite are seeking to achieve the same target that this government are seeking to achieve, but they have looked to the Soviet Union for inspiration. It is a five-year tractor factory in the Urals that sits as the guiding light for the policy of those opposite.

While it is estimated that the carbon price designed by this government and to be delivered by this government will cost something in the order of $550 per person, I have seen an assessment that under the coalition's policy it will cost $750 per person. How can this be so? Those opposite are crafting a policy which hinges on the idea of a committee of cabinet handing out enormous sums of money to their friends, the polluters. The extraordinary proposition, as Malcolm Turnbull has so eloquently put it, is that those who are polluting will be paid to abate their polluting. Under their own system there is absolutely no incentive for polluters to reform their behaviour. But wait; it gets worse. Under their carbon plan, 70 per cent of the carbon to be abated is to be abated through soil carbon. As we know, soil carbon is not presently accounted for in the Kyoto accounting standards. So their 70 per cent target is something that cannot be accounted for in the international system. That may be an unfortunate thing— (Time expired)

Senator BUSHBY (Tasmania—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (15:36): I rise on the motion to take note of Senator Wong's answer. I was listening with great interest to Senator Feeney, particularly where he said that both parties have the same emissions reduction target of five per cent by 2020, and that given this it would be nice if there could be bipartisan accord. Can I say that there is a bipartisan accord on the way to deal with this and it is not the one Senator Feeney was referring to. In fact, the bipartisan accord came into existence exactly one year ago today when the Prime Minister put a hand on her heart and solemnly said to the people of Australia, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' From that day on there was a bipartisan approach to dealing with emissions reduction, based on the fact that neither major party would introduce a carbon tax. Earlier this year, the bipartisan approach to emissions abatement which Senator Feeney longs for evaporated when the Prime Minister broke her solemn promise to the Australian people.

So here we are on the first anniversary of her statement that—and I repeat her very clear statement—'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' On this anniversary of her solemn statement to the Australian people the Prime Minister should apologise. Today thousands of people have been out the front of Parliament House, all of them incensed by the fact that the Prime Minister managed to achieve a victory at the last election based, at least in significant part, on the fact that she had made that promise to the Australian people. We all know there is no doubt that there are seats around the country which Labor would not have won had she not done that.

The Prime Minister now says, 'Things changed after the election and we had to go with the circumstances we faced at that point.' When Tony Abbott, as Leader of the Opposition, was challenging the Prime Minister prior to the election, there was absolutely no doubt as to the circumstances he was talking about. When he said to the Prime Minister, 'Will you rule out introducing a carbon tax after the next election?' it was in the full knowledge that the Greens had an excellent chance of winning the balance of power in the Senate and that the Prime Minister would need to deal with the Greens. It was in the full knowledge that the election was going to be tight and that there could be a need to deal with Independents in the post-election environment. The Leader of the Opposition put that challenge to the Prime Minister knowing full well that that was the case and the Prime Minister, in making her response, knew full well that those were the circumstances in which that challenge was being put to her. Yet she still stood up and said, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.'

So after the election, when what was likely to occur did occur, the government, for what can only be considered grubby personal reasons of wanting to hang on to power, did a deal with the Greens. As a result the Prime Minister had to renege on her promise to the Australian people and, as we all know, is now seeking to introduce this carbon tax.

I say again, the argument we have in this place when talking about the government's carbon tax is not whether Australia should take action to reduce emissions. That is accepted by both major parties. Senator Feeney acknowledged that just a few minutes ago. The argument is: what is the best way to do this? This is despite the fact that government senators—Senator Feeney excluded on this particular occasion—continue to paint themselves as the only major party committed to this outcome. It is disingenuous and dishonest to do that because clearly both major parties have a plan to reduce emissions. The government's plan is far more about being seen to be doing something than actually addressing the problem. Their toxic new carbon tax may help them to feel warm and fuzzy and may even help them sleep better at night—because they feel they have done something for the environment—but their tax will not help reduce global emissions and will not address the challenge of climate change.

In answering a question from Senator Abetz, Minister Wong spoke about China's renewable energy production but failed to look at the relativities, to mention the percentage of renewables of the total economy which that represented. This is massive compared with Australia's energy production. (Time expired)

Senator CAROL BROWN (Tasmania—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (15:41): In question time today, Senator Wong gave excellent responses to the questions asked of her and said in one of her responses, 'To be a first-rate economy you need to be a clean energy economy.' Australia's carbon pollution is continuing to grow at a rapid rate. Without action it is expected to grow by almost two per cent a year to 2020. That is why the Australian government has a comprehensive plan to build a clean energy future. Our plan includes introducing the carbon price, promoting innovation and investment in renewable energy, encouraging energy efficiency and creating opportunities in the land sector to cut pollution.

Climate scientists have been telling us for years that the world is warming and that carbon pollution poses a threat to our environment and our economy. The rest of the world is acting and we cannot be left behind. Eighty-nine countries, which represent 80 per cent of global emissions and 90 per cent of the world's economy, have already pledged to take action on climate change. Australia generates more carbon pollution per capita than any other developed country, including the United States. We also produce significantly more pollution per person than India and China. Our carbon pollution is increasing at a rapid rate and without action it will continue to grow. We cannot wait any longer. We must act now and the Gillard Labor government is taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A price on carbon is not a tax on ordinary Australians. It is the big polluters who will pay under the government's carbon price plan—unlike the direct action plan of those opposite who insist on making taxpayers pay. Under their plan, families will be worse off with each Australian household paying around $1,300 more in taxes. In the government's plans, Australia's 500 biggest companies will be charged for the pollution they produce. This will help drive investment in clean energy technologies. It will be good for our children and our grandchildren. All of the money raised from the carbon price will be used to support households and jobs and to invest in clean energy and climate change programs. To assist households with price impacts, the government is introducing a comprehensive assistance package. This will comprise two rounds of tax cuts and increases in pensions, allowances and benefits. The tax cuts and increased payments will be targeted at those who need them most. This will mean Labor will ensure that pensioners, low- and middle-income earners and families are assisted.

Under our assistance package, nine out of 10 households will receive assistance through a combination of tax cuts and increased payments. Almost six million Australian households will receive tax cuts or increases in payments that fully cover the average price impacts of the carbon price. Labor will also provide a 20 per cent buffer for over four million Australian households. This means that those households will receive assistance that covers 120 per cent of the average price impact of the carbon price. Age, disability support and carer pensioners will receive $338 a year for singles on the full rate and $510 a year for couples combined on the full rate.

We know that self-funded retirees will also require support when the carbon price is implemented, so we will be providing the same assistance to eligible self-funded retirees that we are providing to age and disability pensioners. We are also tripling the tax-free threshold to over $18,000, which means that over one million Australians will no longer need to lodge a tax return.

In my home state of Tasmania the assistance package will ensure that 102,300 pensioners receive assistance through their pension payments to offset any carbon price increases. More than 45,600 families in Tasmania will also receive household assistance through their family assistance payment. On top of this, taxpayers in Tasmania with an annual income under $80,000 will get a tax cut, with most receiving at least $300 per year. This assistance is in stark contrast to the plan offered by the opposition. (Time expired)

Senator FIFIELD (Victoria—Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) (15:47): The opposition has asked questions today on the carbon tax and is seeking to take note of answers to those questions for the very simple reason that every Labor member and senator who was elected at the last election—every single one—was elected on the basis of a lie. In the House of Representatives, of 150 members, 148 presented themselves to the electorate on a platform of there being no carbon tax—because I assume that Mr Oakeshott and Mr Bandt presented themselves on a platform of a carbon tax. The entire economic policy of this government is therefore also based on a lie.

I take a particular interest in the effect of this so-called economic reform because my state of Victoria will be hit first and hit hardest by the carbon tax. You may know, Mr Deputy President, that my office is in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne and the south-east of Melbourne is the home of manufacturing in Australia. Somewhere in the order of 44 per cent of manufacturing output comes from the south-east region. There are 70,000 people employed in manufacturing in that region. I have been visiting manufacturer after manufacturer during the break, with Mrs Mirabella from the other place, the shadow minister for industry, innovation and science, and when you talk to manufacturers it is not a pretty story that you hear. They tell you in detail the number of employees they will have to lay off if a carbon tax comes into place and about how much their energy bills will go up. We are talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in increased costs for many of these businesses.

I do want to acknowledge, however, that one Labor member, Mr Dreyfus from the other place, who is the parliamentary secretary for climate change and a carbon tax, has been visiting manufacturers in the south-east. Indeed, when I went to the annual general meeting of SEMMA, the South East Melbourne Manufacturers Alliance, a week or two back, Mr Dreyfus was addressing the meeting on the topic of 'Why a carbon tax is good for you'. He did not receive a terribly good reception, it would be fair to say. He did not persuade the audience. I recall that one manufacturer stood up and said, 'In my business we're going to have to pay $120,000 a year more in electricity because of the carbon tax,' and Mr Dreyfus's response was, 'That just goes to prove my point that the impact of a carbon tax will only be modest.' What Mr Dreyfus considers to be modest is something entirely different from what a business considers to be modest.

We have spoken a bit about the manufacturing sector and we have spoken about the steel industry and other industry sectors, but there is one area that has received scant attention from this govern­ment in relation to the impact of a carbon tax. That is the area of disabilities, carers and the voluntary sector. The government, when it comes to people with disabilities, says: 'Trust us. We'll give compensation. It'll be sorted.' The government is offering an increase to the disability support pension. That sounds fine if you accept that that compensation is adequate—which I do not, but let's just put that to one side for a second. There are over four million Australians with a disability. There are 813,000-odd people on the disability support pension. That means there are in excess of 3.2 million Australians with a disability who will receive no direct compensation as a result of the carbon tax. It is ironic in the extreme that at a time when the government is talking about improving long-term care and support for people with disabilities through the idea of a national disability insurance scheme—and that is something I am very supportive of—and making the lives of people with a disability easier, it is also looking at a way, a method, that will impact directly on the living standards of people with disabilities. Carers, according to the government, will receive an increase in their carers payment, but there are many millions more carers than there are people on the carers payment. This tax will hit the south-east of Melbourne hard. It will also hit people in my portfolio hard. (Time expired)

Senator MILNE (Tasmania—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens) (15:52): I rise to respond to an answer the minister gave in relation to coal seam gas. I find what is going on in Australia with coal seam gas fascinating because there is an assumption, which keeps getting trotted out all over the place, that coal seam gas is cleaner than coal as an energy source and, therefore, we should embrace a massive expansion of coal seam gas.

When I asked the minister today if she could tell the Senate whether coal seam gas extracted in Australia is less greenhouse gas intensive than black coal on a life cycle analysis, she could not answer the question. That is because the work has not been done here in Australia on the greenhouse gas intensity of coal seam gas on life cycle analysis. It is about time that it was. I am one of those people who has said strongly that gas internationally has to be seen at the maximum as a bridging fuel. In Australia we need to move straight to renewables and people looking at gas need to see it as an interim measure and not as a long-term investment. Because certain companies see the profits that they think they can get from coal seam gas, tragically they have completely overrun rural communities in Australia. These communities are outraged at what has been going on, as is the medical fraternity which is out there very strongly warning of the health impacts of coal seam gas.

The Greens will bring in legislation which will give farmers the right to say, 'No, you can't come on to the property to extract coal seam gas.' I will be very interested to see what the coalition does. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Abbott, has got into quite a pickle on this. Last week he said that farmers should say no, but he has spent the past 24 hours back-peddling and trying to dig himself a place to hide from that issue. We need to have Australian studies on the greenhouse gas intensity of coal seam gas from whoa to go, including fugitive emissions from the areas where these gas wells are being drilled and fugitive emissions from not only those leaking wells but also the pipes. We need to have the energy input analysed from the reverse osmosis of the billions of litres of produced water. We also need to look at the energy embodied in the transport of the gas to the liquefication facilities, the liquefication itself and the transportation overseas. Once you start looking at the greenhouse gas emissions and the intensity of all that, you will find that all these people who claim that coal seam gas is cleaner than coal are in fact wildly exaggerating any benefits. When you take away the disbenefit of loss of agricultural production, you will show that coal seam gas is not the great investment that so many people claim it is.

It is time we took food and water security seriously. I have argued in here until I am blue in the face that you cannot deal with these issues separately. You need to look at the water crisis, the food crisis, the energy crisis and the climate crisis all at once and not take actions that lead to perverse outcomes if you deal with only one of those and not the rest at the same time. Farming communities across Australia are quite rightly saying they are under enormous pressure. They are under pressure from the dollar; they are under pressure because they are losing land to the expansion of urban areas. They are losing because they cannot make a decent farm gate price anymore because of the impact of the supermarkets in Australia and competition from imported food, which is coming into this country having been grown under different environmental conditions and lower wages elsewhere. They are under pressure all over the place and now they find that the gas industry is marching onto their properties with no consideration, no consultation in many cases and completely disrupting life on their land—not to mention the impacts on the Great Artesian Basin. We still cannot get an answer from the government or anybody else on the impacts of this massive expansion of coal seam gas on water availability in Australia and the Great Artesian Basin.

I am glad the minister is going to come back because we want to know on what basis these claims are being made. Are the claims being made just on the basis of industry or have there been any independent reports? Are these reports based in Australia or overseas? I would not mind betting that most of them will come from companies that have done some sort of studies elsewhere. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.

The PRESIDENT (15:57): It is with deep regret that I inform the Senate of the death on 31 July 2011 of the Hon. Allan Clyde Holding, a former minister and member of the House of Representatives for the division of Melbourne Ports, Victoria, from 1977 to 1998. I call on the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate.

Senator CONROY (Victoria—Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Digital Productivity) (15:58): by leave—I move:

The Senate records its deep regret at the death on 31 July 2011, of the Honourable Allan Clyde Holding, former minister and member for Melbourne Ports, and places on record its appreciation of his long and meritorious public service and tenders its profound sympathy to his family.

Allan Clyde Holding was born in Melbourne on 27 April 1931. After being educated at Hawthorn West Central School and Trinity Grammar School in Kew, he studied for a bachelor of laws degree at the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1955. As John Cain recalls, it was Clyde and he who promoted the activities of the Melbourne University Labor Club and the Victorian Young Labor association into strong and effective student and policy organisations which produced a number of future Victorian Labor politicians and activists. Clyde's early career was as a solicitor specialising in industrial law, particularly industrial accidents. He co-founded the law firm which today is known as Holding Redlich. In 1962 he was elected as the member for Richmond to the Victorian parliament. In 1967 Clyde became leader of the parliamentary Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition, a position which he held until 1977. His 10 years of party leadership were a tumultuous time in which Labor lost two state elections, saw factional fighting which led to federal intervention and a leadership challenge from Barry Jones, which Clyde remarked as being unsuccessful on the grounds that 'Quiz kids can't count'. After the second election loss, he resigned the leadership. He successfully won the seat of Melbourne Ports at the 1977 federal election, and held the seat at the following seven elections, finally retiring in 1998 after 21 years in the Commonwealth parliament.

As an authentic and influential Labor politician, Clyde was loved and hated—often at the same time. He bore the scars of his upbringing between the Great Depression and the Second World War and the exper­iences of a political party under stress during the 1950s. For some, he was a 'cynic with decency', others described him as 'an old style' Labor numbers man who was prepared to promote Bob Hawke's leadership aspira­tions, but for many he is remembered as a competent and conscientious adminis­trator who took on vested interests after he became the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the first Hawke government in 1983.

Clyde strongly pushed for uniform national Aboriginal land rights, which at the time were not fully supported within the Labor leadership, or by the mining industry or state governments. As the history of his time shows, there was intense lobbying against land rights and, without the direct support of his ministerial colleagues, he was unable to prevail. In 1987, after nearly four years, he was removed from Aboriginal Affairs to have his responsibilities focused on the lesser portfolio of Employment Services and Youth Affairs. Within 12 months, his main portfolio was switched to Transport and Communications Support, and finally to cabinet in the portfolio of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs. Not many ministers would have enjoyed the experiences of having three such disparate portfolios in such a short period. As part of a wider reshuffle in 1989, Prime Minister Hawke demoted Clyde to the Arts and Territories portfolio. By the accounts of the time, this was a messy, widely leaked demotion, which Clyde resisted. In 1990 he went to the backbench and remained there until he retired in 1998.

It would be misleading to define a person's achievements in one paragraph. Yet there were a number that I am sure he would have been enormously proud of: the handing back of Uluru to its Indigenous owners; the appointment of Charles Perkins as Secretary of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs; the appointment of Betty Churcher to the directorship of the National Gallery of Australia; his direct support to the National Film and Sound Archives and to Film Australia; and his push to establish the National Museum of Australia, which now dominates the northern edge of the western basin of Lake Burley Griffin. Clyde's passion for justice, the arts and Aboriginal issues continued after his retirement from the parliament. Put simply by Bob Hawke, Clyde 'was pre-eminently a good, decent and remarkably brave man'.

On behalf of the government and, in particular, Victorian senators, we mark his passing on 31 July 2011 with respect. We offer our sympathies to his surviving family: his second wife, Judy, and their daughter, Isabella, and his first wife, Margaret, and their children, Peter, Jenny and Danny, and the four grandchildren.

I was lucky enough to be able to attend the memorial this morning in Melbourne, along with those from both sides of parliament, in recognition of his work. It was a very fond recollection of Clyde's life, with many very funny stories told. There were many stories about his determination to stand up to the worst of the elements of the Victorian socialist Left—the Bill Hartleys and the George Crawfords—who pushed such divisive policies. Clyde was remembered fondly for being part of those who made the success of the Victorian Labor Party their mission. His leadership in standing up to those elements and his willingness to take risks in pursuit of sound public policies, at the expense of support from the likes of Crawford and Hartley, were remembered fondly. The intervention that became the foundation for the success of the Victorian Labor Party governments of John Cain, Steve Bracks and John Brumby goes back to that period when Clyde Holding was one of the key figures who democratised the Victorian branch of the Labor Party. This was fondly remarked on by some who were more directly involved than myself.

I am lucky enough to have inherited the benefits of Clyde Holding's work. I doubt that I and a number of people in this chamber today would be able to stand up in a federal Labor government if it had not been for the courage and determination of Clyde Holding in overturning those who sought to put warped ideology ahead of the needs of the Victorian and Australian public. I, like many others in this chamber, will miss Clyde Holding.

Senator ABETZ (Tasmania—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (16:05): The Hon. Clyde Holding was a respected political opponent of the coalition. More importantly, he was highly regarded by his own and was a faithful servant of the ALP and the people of Victoria. He served 15 years in state parliament and 21 years in the federal parliament, making a total innings of public service of some 36 years. That is a huge innings in anybody's language. To remain opposition leader for 10 years is a huge task. Losing elections always leads people to seek the silver bullet—a new leader is all you need—so to retain the confidence, albeit amidst challenges, for so long and then be promoted to federal politics is an exceptional accolade.

From there, a distinguished ministerial career followed. Senator Conroy, on behalf of the Labor government, has provided a detailed, eloquent tribute. I do not seek to add to that but to simply say that as a coalition we note his resilience, his skill as an orator and his passion. We also note that he was deservedly seen as a respected friend of the Jewish community. The coalition acknowledges the service of the Hon. Clyde Holding to our nation. Our condolences are expressed to his widow and his four children.

Senator FAULKNER (New South Wales) (16:07): I too speak in support of this condolence motion on the death of the former Leader of the Opposition in Victoria and former member for Melbourne Ports and minister in the Hawke Labor government, Clyde Holding. The name 'Clyde Holding' was first noticed by members of the Labor Party when as a 24-year-old law student in 1955, following the catastrophic split in the party, he was appointed as the new antigrouper secretary of the Victorian Young Labor Association. It was to be the start of a very long life in politics. As a young lawyer in the 1950s, Clyde specialised in industrial accidents and went on to establish, with other Labor lawyers, the law firm Holding, Ryan and Co., now Holding Redlich, which was later to become a leading Melbourne legal practice.

The death in 1962 of Bill Towers, a bootmaker, Gallipoli veteran and also president of the Collingwood branch of the Australian Soviet Friendship League during World War II, required a by-election for the seat of Richmond. Clyde contested Labor preselection—held under the questionable auspices of the Victorian central executive—and he won by one vote. Needless to say, he easily won the seat in the May 1962 by-election, with a thumping 66 per cent of the primary vote, commencing 36 years of continuous service in state and federal parliament. In the early years he established his member's office in the front room of his house in Waltham Street, Richmond. He maintained cordial relations with the Richmond local Labor machine, those dynasties of the Loughnan and O'Connell families—a not inconsiderable achievement in itself. Much has been written about the ALP in Richmond in those years, both fiction and non-fiction, but throughout it all Clyde survived and his standing and reputation grew.

It is difficult in the 21st century to understand the parlous state of the Victorian branch of the Australian Labor Party in the 1960s and 1970s. For me, it is summed up best by Barry Jones's wonderful description of Labor's campaign launch in 1964, when Clyde was seeking re-election after his first term. Barry himself of course, as we have heard, contested a leadership battle against Clyde in 1976, leading to that famous comment from Clyde, 'Quiz kids can't count'. Barry Jones vividly recalled the 1964 campaign launched by Labor opposition leader Clive Stoneham in Prahran Town Hall with a speech televised live:

We sat in the hall, hoping for the best but fearing the worst. The speech had been prepared by the ALP head office, with minimal consultation with Stoneham. He was to read the speech from large sheets of pasteboard on which the text had been written. At the top left corner of the first sheet his name, 'CLIVE', had been written in capitals as a cue to avoid confusion. Unfortunately, the curves of the letter 'C' had been drawn over-generously, so the letter resembled an 'O'.

At 8pm the live telecast began. Allan Fraser—

the member for Eden-Monaro, who had been brought down from New South Wales to be campaign director in the election—

stood by the first pasteboard sheet, pointing to the name 'CLIVE'. The Leader looked baffled and said nothing. Allan Fraser tapped the name 'CLIVE' again. Silence. He tapped a third time. Clive Stoneham smiled, relaxed and mysteriously began his televised campaign election speech with the words, 'Thank you, Olive'.

Worse was to come. The speech was due to run on television for 30 minutes, but Stoneham finished after 25. Inviting questions from the floor was not considered to be a good idea, so Dinny Lovegrove, Deputy Leader and an excellent impromptu speaker, was called on. Unhappily, he reached back to his deep memory as a Trotskyist in the 1930s. He began:

'We know what this election is about: the struggle between the rich and the poor. We know who our enemies are: the kind of people who have two cars in the garage, central heating and a sprinkler system in the lawn. And on their walls, they have something that looks as if two cockroaches have been crawling about in Indian ink, a piece of so-called modern art!'

Barry concluded:

It was great rhetoric. Unhappily, Labor lost more seats and it was eighteen years before we won another Victorian election.

It fell to Clyde Holding, after Labor suffered its fifth consecutive defeat in the 1967 Victorian state election, to succeed Clive Stoneham and take on the tough job of party leader. His 10 years of leadership coincided with a party struggling to deal with the impact of the split, a weak and ineffective parliamentary team, a state parliamentary organisation overwhelmingly focused on internal party matters, and Victorian politics dominated by Henry Bolte and then Dick Hamer as Liberal premiers, propped up in power by the DLP. Clyde Holding led Labor in three successive election losses in 1970, 1973 and 1976. For Clyde these years must have been as frustrating as they were gruelling. Clyde was a committed campaigner against the death penalty in Victoria. He was an active and vocal opponent of the death penalty cases of Robert Peter Tait in 1962 and of Ronald Ryan in 1967, the last man to be legally executed in Australia.

Clyde was arrested at one protest against the hanging of Ronald Ryan. He used to recount with great amusement the story of how the local police sergeant had ordered a compliant constable to go down to the demo and pick out the biggest yobbo he could find and bring him in. That yobbo was Clyde. Back at the station Clyde was asked for his name, which he gave, Allan Clyde Holding; his occupation, which he gave, lawyer and member of parliament; and was bowled over by the next question: 'Can you read or write?' Clyde survived the experience.

Clyde was a tough operator in a tough environment against an equally tough opponent, Henry Bolte. On one occasion he received a grudging compliment from Bolte at an end-of-year function. I have been told that Bolte said of Clyde Holding, 'I don't have a son but if I did have one I'd like him to be like you—dirty, hard and rotten.' Praise indeed from Henry Bolte.

Clyde made the move to federal politics in 1977 when he contested Labor preselection for Melbourne Ports, which had been held by Frank Crean for 26 years. He was up against a very strong candidate in Frank's son, Simon, but repeating the pattern of his 1962 preselection success he won the ballot by the narrowest of margins: one vote. Clyde represented Melbourne Ports for 21 years from 1977 to 1998. Unlike his career in the Victorian parliament, spent entirely on the opposition benches, he served in the federal parliament throughout the years of the Hawke and Keating governments.

From 1983 to 1990 he served as a minister and for a short period in cabinet. As Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the Hawke government from 1983 to 1987, he placed Aboriginal land rights firmly on the national agenda. The handing back of Uluru to its traditional owners in 1985 in the face of hostile opposition, particularly from the Northern Territory government, was a highlight. In fact Clyde Holding had a very early and deep commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs long before they became mainstream issues. He was deeply frustrated by opposition to his plans to recognise native title years before the High Court's Mabo decision.

He concluded his ministerial career with responsibility for the arts. Not all ministers for the arts have been passionate about the arts themselves but Clyde was widely read. He was a Shakespearean tragic, a collector of paintings, including Aboriginal barks, and a lover of music. He played a central role in the Commonwealth's receipt of the great gift of Bundanon from the painter Arthur Boyd. He was responsible for expanding the Film Finance Corporation, the National Archives, the National Gallery and the National Library.

After Labor was returned in the 1990 federal election and after service in five portfolios Clyde stayed on the back bench until his retirement from parliament at the 1998 election. I served in the federal parliamentary Labor Party with Clyde for nine years. He had a quirky sense of humour, always seemed easygoing, was a prodigious reader, was curious and certainly was very skilful on his feet. He was a stump orator of the very highest calibre. More than that, he was exceptionally effective in parliamentary debate. And he was deeply committed to Labor values.

Mr President, Clyde Holding made a difference and he will be missed. My sincere sympathy also goes to Clyde's family and his many friends.

Question agreed to, honourable senators standing in their places.

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (16:20): by leave—I move:

That the Senate records its deep regret at the death, on 7 August 2011, of Nancy Grace Augusta Wake, AC, GM, decorated Second World War servicewoman, and places on record its appreciation of her service to the allied forces and resistance to the German occupation of France and tenders its profound sympathy to her extended family.

It is rare for the Senate to move a condolence motion other than for very specific groups of persons like former members of the parliament but, on this occasion, the Senate has agreed to do so, given the outstanding nature of Nancy Wake's contribution and her place in the history of Australia.

It is very rare for Australians to adopt New Zealanders, but Australians claim her as an Australian. Nancy Wake was actually born in Wellington, New Zealand, on 30 August 1912. Despite her many exploits she lived a very long life. Her family moved to Sydney in 1914. Nancy's early life was challenging. Her father abandoned the family in Australia after selling the family home and heading back to New Zealand. Nancy's mother was allegedly quite religious and apparently oppressively strict. It was perhaps her experiences as a child with an absent father and a controlling mother which encouraged the defiant and rebellious streak in Nancy.

At 16, she took her first job as a nurse. Then she used a small family inheritance to fund travel to Europe, with the aim of training as a journalist, a career which she would eventually pursue. We should remember that at that stage it would have been very unusual for a woman to pursue a career like that. As a journalist one of her first assignments was to interview Adolph Hitler. Her travels in the 1930s in Vienna allowed her to witness the Nazi regime firsthand. Speaking about this experience of witnessing the persecution of Jews she said, 'I don't know what I'll do about it, but if I can do anything one day, I'll do it.'

Settling in Paris, she met her first husband, French industrialist Henri Edmond Fiocca. Together they both joined the French Resistance shortly after the invasion of France by the Nazis in 1940. In this early period in the resistance, she began by smuggling messages and goods in Vichy, France. Buying an ambulance, she successfully smuggled refugees fleeing the German advance. By 1942, the Gestapo had become aware of an unidentified woman agent who they sought to capture. Nancy was nicknamed the White Mouse and placed at No. 1 on the Gestapo wanted list, with a 5 million franc bounty. She escaped to London around this time but tragically her husband was captured, tortured and killed by the Gestapo after their resistance network was betrayed.

After moving to London she joined the British Special Operations Executive, where she became a member of a 470-strong specially trained resistance force set up to work directly with local resistance forces. In 1944, Nancy Wake was parachuted into Auvergne to assist the D-Day landings. She was required to organise and coordinate an army of 7,000 resistance troops. Perhaps the most significant operation of her unit was a very successful attack on a Gestapo headquarters.

One of her resistance colleagues said of Nancy: 'She is the most feminine woman I know, until the fight starts. Then she is like five men.' Wake was never shy of being put in the middle of action, often taking responsibility because a woman was deemed to have more chance of success. In one particularly gruelling operation, she cycled about 500 kilometres in 72 hours, crossing several German checkpoints to find an operator to radio Britain and request new radio codes. That she survived the war is indeed a remarkable fact.

After the war she resettled in Australia with her second husband, ex-RAF pilot John Forward. She then, strangely, became interested in Liberal Party politics, running as a candidate for the federal electorate of Barton in the 1949 election against Doc Evatt, where she secured a 13 per cent swing to the Liberal Party. She again ran against Evatt at the 1951 election, missing out by a mere 250 votes. Her final attempt to win a federal seat was at the 1966 election in the safe Labor seat of Kingsford Smith, where she only lost by about 1,500 votes.

Her awards are numerous and she is arguably the most decorated woman of the Second World War. She has received numerous awards from France. She has the Medal of Freedom from the United States. She has the George Medal from the United Kingdom. In 1970 she was appointed Chevalier of the Legion of Honour and in 1998 was promoted to Officer of the Legion of Honour. Unfortunately, it was not until 2004 that her exploits were recognised by the Australian government, when Nancy was awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia. She has also received recognition from New Zealand.

After her second husband died in Port Macquarie in 1997, she returned to England in 2001. She lived an extraordinary life and her story is just an incredible one. I cannot do justice to it in a short condolence motion speech here, but I do recommend Peter FitzSimons's biography. I have got to be careful about advertising, I suppose, but he did a great job of bringing her story to life and providing the colour and adventure that was so much a part of her incredible story. Peter is an ex-second rower for the Wallabies and played a lot of rugby in the south of France, so he had to be tough and probably a little on the dirty side, but he said after writing the book that, 'We both agreed that she was 10 times the man I would ever be.' He paid an extraordinary tribute to her life in the book.

Nancy Wake was an extraordinary woman. Her life story is one of courage, determination and incredible commitment to freedom and opposition to the invasion of France and the German regime there. It is an incredible life story and I am very pleased to be part of the Senate as it acknowledges that tremendous life and the tremendous contribution she made to Australia and the broader allied Second World War effort.

Senator ABETZ (Tasmania—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (16:28): I regret that I did not meet Nancy Wake, but I am glad that I did not meet Nancy Wake in the first 16 years of my life. She once famously said, 'I killed a lot of Germans and I am only sorry I didn't kill more.' Nancy Wake was Australia's most decorated servicewoman and one of the most decorated allied servicewomen of World War II. She was a true heroine in every sense of the word. Her courage and resourcefulness in a wartime France saved thousands of allied lives. The French government made her a Chevalier de Legion d'Honneur, France's highest honour, and awarded her the Croix de Guerre with star and two palms and the Medaille de la Resistance. She also received Britain's George Medal and the US Medal of Freedom. In 2004, she was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, long overdue recognition from the country in which she grew up and to which she returned on war's end.

Nancy Wake trained as a nurse before an inheritance from a New Zealand aunt enabled her to fulfil her dream of travelling to New York, London and Paris. After studying journalism in London, she became a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune in Paris and reported on the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany. A 1933 trip to interview Hitler in Vienna galvanised her views on the Nazis. 'I saw the disagreeable things that he was doing to people, first of all the Jews,' she told ABC radio in 1985. 'I thought it was quite revolting,' she said.

When war broke out, along with her French husband she helped downed British pilots and Jewish families to escape the German occupying force, planning escape routes for thousands of Allied troops. She often used her feminine wiles to glean information from the Germans and to evade security. By 1943 Gestapo agents were closing in. Wake told her husband she was going shopping and would soon return. They never saw each other again. She later learned that her husband had been captured, tortured and then executed for refusing to divulge information about her activities or whereabouts. It took her several attempts to cross the Pyrenees into Spain. On one attempt she was held and interrogated by the Vichy French. She eventually did reach Britain where she convinced the Special Operations Executive to train her as a spy.

In early 1944 she was parachuted into the Auvergne region of central France to organise the local Maquis Resistance, collect air drops of ammunition and arms, and establish radio links with their base in Britain. Wake helped recruit an additional 3,000 fighters to build a force of about 7,000. She led groups of these fighters on guerrilla and sabotage raids on German troops, installations and equipment in the lead-up to D-day.

A French Resistance comrade said that, 'When fighting, she was like five men.' She could kill the enemy with her bare hands. Her proudest exploit was her very own Tour de France, cycling over 400 kilometres or so through occupied France in 72 hours to relay a request for a replacement radio and codes. In the final days of the war she was part of a very bold assault on the Gestapo headquarters which killed 38.

Upon her return to Australia after the war, Nancy joined the New South Wales Liberal Party and became an institution within our party. The Liberal Party is very proud to call her one of our own. She served as a member of the party's state executive and was known to address branch meetings and talk about her experiences during the war. Nancy stood as a candidate at the historic 1949 federal election. She contested the seat held by Dr Herbert 'Doc' Evatt, achieving a 13 per cent swing. When she won preselection for the electorate, the Liberal Party sent Dr Evatt a telegram: 'Nancy Wake, Liberal candidate, parachuted into Barton tonight'. She was a gutsy campaigner and she spent most days thereafter doorknocking and addressing meetings. She stated that her reason for standing was:

… a gradual gathering together of controls, centralisation of power in the hands of a few power-hungry fanatics …

Although Nancy was unsuccessful, the Liberal Party led by Robert Menzies won office at a national level at the election for the first time. Nancy Wake cut Dr Evatt's margin from 11,112 to 2,644. Undaunted, she decided to stand against him again. It was a testament to the postwar Liberal Party under Robert Menzies that it could attract candidates of the calibre of Nancy Wake.

In 1951 another election was called. The then Liberal Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, came to tell electors that they must send Nancy to Canberra. This time she missed out by just a few hundred votes. After a period living overseas, Nancy came back to Australia and contested the seat of Kingsford-Smith for the Liberal Party at the 1966 federal election. With her second husband, John Forward, as her campaign manager, Nancy threw her efforts into this new battle. Although she gained a 6.9 per cent swing against the Labor incumbent, Nancy fell short of winning the seat. The experience of being thrice rejected was a difficult one for Nancy, who came to regret her experience with politics. But the book by Peter FitzSimons on Nancy Wake, referred to by the Leader of the Government in the Senate, on page 287 indicates she was no run-of-the-mill Liberal Party candidate:

The Liberal Party was a deeply conservative organisation with very firm ideas about how a woman should behave and many local members looked askance at the 'Nancy way' for it was hardly a perfect match. She, for example, never wore stockings or a hat and was quite happy to cross her legs while sitting on a public platform if she felt like it and if she wanted to have a drink in a beer garden she did so and she simply did not give a damn if someone in the party thought that this was too unladylike for their proposed representative. 'What did I care about trying to be a lady?' she asks rhetorically. 'After what I had been through the thought that I would worry about whether or not I wore stockings or a hat was completely ludicrous. If any of them ever wanted to chip me about it, I told them off in the strongest possible language.'

Further on the respect in which Nancy Wake was held is referred to by the author, Mr FitzSimons. It was in the first campaign and Ben Chifley was in fact called in to exhort the electors of Barton to return Dr Evatt to Canberra though he was very careful not to utter one word of criticism against Nancy Wake. He writes:

It seems that this was more than simply a polite public stance for when, by pure chance, the Labor Prime Minister happened to come face to face with the Liberal candidate in the corridor of a hotel in the Barton electorate on a day when they were both campaigning, the Prime Minister removed the pipe from his mouth, bowed deeply and moved on. In response, Nancy recalls warmly, he was a lovely man, a true gentleman.

I believe that it is further credit to her that, having sacrificed so much during the war, she went to extraordinarily brave lengths in an effort to serve her country in peace. It has been said that her decision to enter politics divided public opinion about her, reduced the receptiveness of the Australian people to her story and made it difficult for the Labor Party to support public celebration of her. I do not believe this is the case, or if it was, time has erased any partisan feelings towards her, as this condolence motion testifies and as do the generous comments of the Leader of the Government in the Senate. Of course, way back then when she was a candidate that was also testified to by the homage that the Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, paid her. One can only imagine what contribution she would have made to our parliament had she been successful.

Nancy Wake's life force was an inspiration. As she said, 'I got away with blue murder and loved every minute of it.' I understand that Nancy Wake wanted her ashes to be scattered amongst the wildflowers at Montlucon in central France, where she fought in a heroic 1944 attack on the local Gestapo headquarters and where perhaps, from reading her biography, she was most alive. Her nation salutes her life, her bravery, her selflessness and her service. The coalition trusts that the Nancy Wake story will continue to be told for generations to come. May she rest in peace.

Senator JOYCE (Queensland—Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) (16:40): It is a great honour to be able to have the opportunity to speak on this condolence motion for Nancy Grace Augusta Wake. To go through the honours that Nancy Wake has received is to note what is really a representation of a spectacular life. There was an issue with her receiving honours from Australia. There were some concerns and I will not actually give the quote that Nancy Wake gave as to what she first of all considered in regard to receiving an honour from Australia, but those things were obviously resolved at the end of her life.

She was a Companion of the Order of Australia, she had received from the United Kingdom the George Medal and she received, obviously, the 1939-45 Star, though many people received that, the France and Germany Star, the Defence Medal and the War Medal 1939-45. The honours that were bestowed on her by the French included the Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur—which is quite something for a person away from France to get—and being an officer in the same order and the Croix de Guerre with two Palms and a Star. She received the Medal of Freedom from the United States and also, from the French Republic, a highly unusual honour for an outsider to get, the Medaille de la Résistance. She was one of the few people not French who received that honour. Also, New Zealand gave her a badge of honour.

When we actually look at Nancy's life, we see it was one that started in New Zealand before she moved to Neutral Bay and, as has been represented, her father went back to New Zealand. For want of a better word, he deserted the family and her mother brought Nancy up. I think Nancy was the youngest of six children. Hers was an exemplary life. She had attended North Sydney Technical College, where her main subject was home science. She went on, after receiving and using an endowment from one of her relatives in New Zealand—an aunt, I believe—of about £200, to go to New York and from New York across to London and then to Paris, where she started as a journalist. In her role as a journalist she saw the start of fascism and her memories included seeing Jews tied to a wheel and being beaten and whipped. That built her resolve, she said, to do something about these rotten people. Her life was one of absolute stoicism. She had very little regard for her own safety. Those around her reflected that she always seemed like someone who would survive and live life to the fullest. She met up with a French industrialist, Henri Fiocca, who had no reason to be anything more at that point in time than a person who was pretty well set in life. I think she married him in 1939. But in Marseille they were involved with the French Resistance and lived a double life. As the Gestapo started to close in on them, Henri said to her that she had to leave. Of course, you would not disclose what you were doing so that is why she came to a conversation where she just said to Henri, 'I'm going out to do some shopping,' and she never came back. She left, and the deal was not to tell people what exactly you were up to as, obviously, that would put them at risk. Later on he was captured by the Gestapo and tortured and killed. She only found out about this much later. He was killed in 1943. Nancy then had to make several attempts—four, in fact—to get into Spain. Finally she got to Spain but even on that final attempt she and others were shot at as they jumped from a train and ran through a vineyard to get away. They then made their way to Gibraltar, and from Gibraltar they had a convoy back to England. Nancy was then trained in the Special Operations Executive. This was basically a group that worked behind enemy lines. For that purpose she was later parachuted back into France. When she was parachuted back into France, she got caught in a tree and the French officer who found her said, 'I hope all the trees in France bear such a beautiful fruit as this one.' Her typical reply in Australian form—and you have to forgive me for the profanity—was, 'Don't talk that French shit to me.' This was the character of the person. This person was at points in time responsible for the command of 7,000 people. She and others were also engaged on and off with a force of 22,000 people. At that point in time, Captain Ian Garrow was in a Montlucon concentration camp and Nancy went there and deceived the guard into releasing him. The bravery of this person is just beyond belief.

Then there is the story of the bike ride of 250 miles in 72 hours that we have all heard about. Nancy said that she did not do it because she was brave; she did it because she was the only one who could possibly have done it. Anybody else would have been killed. She rode 250 miles in 72 hours, and when she got off the bike she said that she was on fire; she was in that much pain. Nancy did it to get codes back that had to be destroyed. To retrieve the codes, they had to drive to another place and on the way people were engaging with her. They initially did not believe that she was part of the resistance. They did not believe the story of how she could have ridden that far.

I think she is a great example of how a human being and someone that all Australians can relate to could become not a saint but resolute in the purpose of destroying fascism and all that fascism represented—the evil that fascism was. Later on she had the same disdain for communism. She saw them as basically similar entities, with a similar purpose. At the end the war she engaged in a number of attempts at politics. I think at one stage she took Dr Evatt down to about 250 votes, which was quite remarkable given that Dr Evatt was a substantial figure in the Labor Party of the time.

Nancy married again and moved to Port Macquarie. She lived there for quite some time until the death of her second husband. I think she was married to him for about 40 years. She then decided to move back to England. She resided at the Stafford Hotel in England, where people noted that she preferred a gin and tonic. She liked to live life to its fullest, right to the very end. It was said that a lot of her accounts were paid for anonymously. There was a belief that one of the anonymous payers of her accounts was the Prince of Wales. She is a person who will go down in history not just as someone whom we all have a great affection for because of her time as an Australian and the fact that she resided in our nation for the majority of her life—although she was born in Wellington, New Zealand; I think she stayed there until she was about four—but for the essence of her character and for showing us what a person is capable of doing when the cause is right.

For me it is an immense honour to be able to have the capacity to stand here and, as a small token of appreciation, respect the life of a person who was responsible for saving thousands of allied service people, service men and women. Nancy's bravery was exemplary. She was courageous. She was ferocious and courageous. She was no wallflower. She clearly admitted to killing people herself in the delivery of grenades into certain areas. In fact, she killed a Gestapo guard with her hands. We are talking about a person who was ferocious but she was ferocious for a cause, and it was a war. It was a war against evil. She picked the side of right and she fought it to the nth part of her being, knowing that if she did not prevail then evil would prevail, and that was just not an option for her.

It is with great honour that we reflect on the life of Nancy Wake. I do not know what her faith was, but I hope she may rest in peace.

Question agreed to, honourable senators standing in their places.

Senator BOB BROWN (Tasmania—Leader of the Australian Greens) (16:57): I move:

That the Senate—

(a)   notes the outstanding service provided to the Parliament by the staff of the Department of Parliamentary Services, in particular, the services of Hansard, the Parliamentary Library and broadcasting services; and

(b)   calls on the Presiding Officers to ensure staff are treated fairly and guaranteed pay and conditions commensurate with the services they provide to the Parliament.

This motion notes the outstanding service provided to the parliament by the staff of the Department of Parliamentary Services.

Question agreed to.

Senator BOB BROWN: I would just note that the opposition opposed that motion.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: That is noted, Senator Brown.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Adams) ( 17:46): The President has received a letter from Senator Fifield proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely:

The Gillard government's determination to introduce a carbon tax despite the Prime Minister's solemn promise not to do so.

I call upon those senators who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

The PRESIDENT: I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Senator CORMANN (Western Australia) (17:47): Today we mark the anniversary of the Prime Minister's carbon tax lie. Today we mark the anniversary of the Prime Minister's broken promise, which she solemnly and emphatically made on 16 August 2010 in the shadow of a difficult election that was just five days away and that she knew she was at serious risk of losing. Five days before the last election, when the Prime Minister knew she was in trouble, the hollow men in her office and the spin doctors at Sussex Street in Sydney and around Australia were telling her, 'Unless you make an emphatic promise that there will be no carbon tax under a government you lead, chances are that our government will be history and you will no longer be Prime Minister come 22 August.' The only reason the Prime Minister looked down the barrel of that camera and talked directly to the Australian people, five days before the last election, is that she knew that she had to rule out a carbon tax otherwise she was not going to be Prime Minister for more than another five days.

The carbon tax is a bad tax based on a lie. It is a broken promise and it is a policy we oppose, firstly because it is a broken promise, but also because it is bad policy for Australia. The carbon tax is bad for household budgets, it is bad for the economy and it is no good for the environment either. The lie continues, because the Prime Minister tells us that the whole point of the carbon tax is to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. She tells us that somehow this carbon tax package will help Australia make a contribution to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. But, of course, it will not do anything of the sort. The lie continues to this day.

The carbon tax will push up the cost of everything, it will make Australia less competitive internationally, it will cost jobs and it will hurt small business, and all of that without doing anything to help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. It will make overseas emitters more competitive than even the most environmentally efficient equivalent businesses in Australia. Helping overseas emitters to take market share away from businesses in Australia is not effective action on climate change; it is a reckless and irresponsible act of economic self-harm.

I note that we have a senator from Tasmania in the chamber with us. I have travelled around Australia over the past five or six weeks, including to an aluminium smelter in Bell Bay, in the seat of Bass. I am sure that Senator Polley well knows which company I am talking about. It is a company that over the past 20 years has done much to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. It has done much to reduce its energy intensity. It has done much to reduce the emissions it produces. In fact, as Senator Polley would know, as a manufacturing business in the great state of Tasmania it draws most of its energy from hydro. I see Senator Polley is nodding, so she agrees with me.

But, do you know what will happen with this carbon tax? Aluminium smelters in China will become more competitive than the aluminium smelter in Bell Bay, near Launceston. Aluminium smelters in China will take market share from the aluminium smelter in Tasmania. That is what they have told us. I see that Senator Polley is now shaking her head, so she no longer agrees. But I know for a fact that the Assistant Treasurer, Bill Shorten, was there meeting with the good people at the aluminium smelter on the same day I was there. We were both told that in this current economic environment, where they are right on the edge in terms of international com­petitiveness—given the strength of the Australian dollar and given the state of the economy internationally, generally—that this carbon tax will seriously undermine and put further pressure on their international competitiveness position. They told that to representatives from the government as well as representatives from the Liberal-National party. They have said that this carbon tax will help businesses in China, who would be more polluting, to take market share from that particular business in Tasmania. That is not effective action on climate change. As a US congressman observed, this is more akin to an act of unilateral economic dis­armament.

I will go through some of the lies that are still being perpetrated now. I just talked about emitters in China. Manufacturing businesses in China cannot wait for this carbon tax to come into place. They know this will help them take market share from Australian manufacturing businesses. The Prime Minister, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, the Treasurer and others keep talking about how we are somehow going to reduce emissions by sending business overseas. But reducing emissions in Australia in a way that increases them by more in other parts of the world does not do anything for the environment; it actually leaves the world worse off environ­mentally. People here in Australia have been asked to make a sacrifice. Their jobs have been put at risk. They have been asked to pay more for their electricity, they have been asked to pay more for their gas and they have been asked to pay more for their household goods, and what for? Only to shift emissions to other parts of the world.

Let us just have a look at the impact that this carbon tax will have on emissions. Emissions in Australia are going to continue to go up. At present, according to the information that was released as part of the package, we put out levels of about 578 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in Australia in 2009-10. Under the core policy scenario, by 2020 our domestic emissions will be 621 million tonnes. Now emissions are continuing to go up. So the government says: 'Don't worry about that. They'll be lower than they otherwise would be. The reason we can say emissions are going down is that without a carbon tax they would go up by more. They're not going to go up by quite as much.'

Let us look at that argument. We turn around and say, 'What is going to be the impact on jobs?' We are told that jobs will continue to grow. The economy is going to continue to grow. But hang on: economic growth is going to be lower. There are going to be fewer jobs, and the government is saying that there is not going to be an impact of the carbon tax. When it comes to jobs, when it comes to the economy, you have to compare things with current levels. Compared with current levels, supposedly jobs are still going to go up, even though they are going to be lower than they otherwise would be. When it comes to emissions you cannot compare with current levels; you have to compare with what the situation would have been. You have to decide. If you say that emissions are going down just because they are going to be lower than they otherwise would have been, then you have to admit that jobs are going to go down as well—and of course the Treasury modelling assumes that real wages are going to go down.

Let us look at the impact on emissions globally. Only three years ago Treasury did what they said was the most comprehensive modelling ever done on anything to do with carbon pollution and so on. They assumed then that China, in 2020, would put out 16.1 billion tonnes of emissions. Three years later, they have revised their modelling. Now they think China will put out 17.9 billion tonnes of emissions by 2020. So just by having revised their expectations, they now think that Chinese emissions are going to be 1.8 billion tonnes higher in 2020 than what they thought three years ago. That is more than three times—

Senator Williams: Three times Australia's total.

Senator CORMANN: That is three times Australia's total annual emissions, which are currently less than 600 million tonnes. In 2005, China's emissions were at 7.2 billion. The global community now expects that China's emissions will be at 17.9 billion tonnes in 2020. That is an increase of 10 billion tonnes in emissions between 2005 and 2020.

This carbon tax package is a joke. It is a broken promise. It is bad for Australia. This is a bad tax based on a lie, and this parliament should not support it. The Prime Minister will stand condemned for her deceit of the Australian people.

Senator CAMERON (New South Wales) (17:57): I always like following Senator Cormann. Senator Cormann has learned absolutely nothing from the inquiry that his party set up to look at the carbon tax. He has obviously not listened to Treasury. He has obviously not listened to any of the scientists. He is obviously determined to be a climate change denier and part of the right-wing group in the coalition that actually do not care about the long-term future of this country but are only interested in short-term politics. I think we have to come back, from time to time, to remind ourselves what this is all about. It is all about trying to deal with carbon pollution that is warming the planet.

Senator Williams: Carbon is not a pollutant.

Senator CAMERON: I hear Senator Williams interjecting that carbon is not a pollutant. This is typical of what I think is the bulk of the coalition's view. It is unscientific. It is antiscientific. It is trying to deny the science of climate change. Senator Williams at least does not make any bones about the fact that he is a denier of this stuff. That is to his credit. I do not accept what he says, but at least he does not deny it. The worst elements in the coalition are those that say, 'I agree with the science, but …'—and then they have all the arguments about why the science is not relevant. It is a nonsense.

Senator Birmingham will be talking here later. I think Senator Birmingham is one of the most tainted politicians in this chamber in relation to climate change. Senator Birmingham was a strong supporter of putting a price on carbon but, when he thought he could make some political progress within the coalition, he dumps his values, he dumps his policies—and what does he do? He takes up 'direct action'.

We have another group in the Senate who are obviously climate change deniers: the DLP. The DLP are here. I am never quite sure what pocket the DLP are in—whether it is the Nationals' pocket or the Liberals' pocket—but he is always in one of those pockets, let me tell you.

Senator Williams: He's not in your pocket!

Senator CAMERON: I really don't want him near my pocket! But let us see what the eminent scientists in this country say is the real issue. There is the CSIRO. Senator Williams would rely on the CSIRO plenty of times to get information about the climate, about the weather, about what is happening with carbon in the soil—he would rely on that. But he does not believe what the CSIRO say in their recent book, Climate Change: Science and Solutions for Australia. What do the CSIRO say? This is not a political party; this is Australia's scientists. They say: 'Climate change is one of the greatest ecological, economic, and social challenges facing us today.'

We agree on this side that these are huge challenges, but it takes the Labor Party to deal with big challenges. What you get from the coalition is misinformation, fear campaigns and an idealisation of people like Lord Monckton. What do we have? We had Senator Cormann, as I said in the last session, lining up to get Lord Monckton's autograph in Western Australia! That is the sort of level of anti-science that is in the coalition. It is clear that the climate change deniers are in control.

What do the CSIRO say? They say: 'The impacts of climate change are already clearly visible in Australia.' It is not a theory; it is 'clearly visible', according to the scientists. They say:

Southern and eastern Australia’s water supply reliability is expected to decline as a result of reduced rainfall and increased evaporation, affecting irrigation, domestic and industrial water use, and environmental flows.

How could any person who says they stand up for the bush deny the science? It is absolutely a joke.

Senator Cormann: You're clearly committed to do to the Labor vote what you've done to the AMWU membership!

Senator CAMERON: And here we have Senator Cormann! Senator Cormann must have gone up to have a look at Lord Monckton's autograph and he is all fired up and he wants to come after poor me, trying to deal with the scientific facts.

Senator Williams interjecting—

Senator Cormann interjecting—

Senator CAMERON: We have the climate change deniers over there attacking me when I am dealing with the scientific facts. So, anyway, the National Party are doing a great disservice to the bush by being climate change deniers. The CSIRO go on to say:

Development and population growth in Australia’s coastal regions will exacerbate the risks from sea level rise and increase the likely severity and frequency of coastal flooding.

People who have a scientific brain are saying these things, but you can't expect Senator Williams, Senator Joyce, Senator Cormann or the DLP to actually understand these issues, because this is a political exercise for them. It is not a scientific exercise; it is an exercise in political denial. It is an exercise in misinformation. It is an exercise in fear campaigns. That is what the coalition are about.

The CSIRO go on to say our infrastructure is under threat. They say heatwaves, storms and floods will have a direct impact on the health of Australians. They say:

Moderate warming in the absence of rainfall declines can be beneficial to some agricultural crops, and higher levels of carbon dioxide can stimulate plant growth.

We hear this from the opposite side all the time. But the CSIRO say:

However —

you know that word 'however'—

… these positive effects can be offset by changes in temperature, rainfall, pests, and the availability of nutrients. Production from cropping and livestock is projected to decline over much of southern Australia, as is the quality of grain, grape, vegetable, fruit, and other crops.

Senator Williams, you are doing your so-called constituency a great disservice by being a climate change denier, because you are denying the scientific facts. This is not an argument about whether the government's position is more economically responsible than the coalition's position; it is actually a debate between science and the deniers—and the deniers are in control in the coalition. Malcolm Turnbull actually knows the real position. I will come to Malcolm Turnbull in a minute. On the science, where is the document The science of climate change: questions and answers from? It is certainly not from the coalition. It is from the Australian Academy of Science. They explain climate change. They explain how the earth's climate has changed in the past and how it has changed in the recent past. They say unequivocally that human activities are causing climate change. They list the causes, similarly to the CSIRO. Then they ask the question of how we deal with the uncertainty of some of the science. They say this:

Although climate forecasts are uncertain and will remain so, the broad conclusions of climate change science as outlined above—

And I hope that the DLP are listening—

are based on many lines of evidence that together give a high degree of confidence. Partly because of scientific uncertainty but also because many aspects of human life are involved, decisions about action on climate change will need to involve extensive consideration of issues beyond science, including ethics, economics and risk management.

I have heard people argue that it is the sun that is doing it. NASA, who have more information and understanding about the sun than anybody else on the planet, do not agree with that proposition. I suppose that the NASA scientists are part of the climate science communist collusion against democracy—NASA. What NASA says is that the Arctic sea ice minimum has declined 11.5 per cent in this decade, that carbon dioxide is now 391 parts per million, that sea level is increasing by 3.27 millimetres a year, that global temperature has gone up 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit on average since 1880 and that Greenland's land ice is reducing by 100 billion tonnes per year.

That is the science of the issue. We now have to deal with the politics. And the politics are underpinned on the other side by a lack of scientific understanding, a lack of scientific acceptance and attacks on our scientists. They are the cheerleaders for Alan Jones against people like Professor Karoly. Actually, I am not sure who is cheering who on. Why do they have this position? If you look at why they are doing this, they do not accept the science. They want to back in their big business backers in the mining industry. They want to back in the billionaires, such as Twiggy Forrest. They want to back in all those people who are opposing this because it might affect their profits. It is about time that those on the other side stood up for the Australian nation against the billionaire miners in this country. It is about time that they stood up for their constituency, because that constituency will be harmed. But what they are doing is simply relying on the donations flowing in from the billionaire miners and because of that they are taking a position against the national interest in support of the billionaire miners.

I have gone through some of the issues. But there is at least one—and there is more than that; we know that—coalition MP who knows the real truth here. Who is that? Malcolm Turnbull, who you all hailed as the most economically literate leader that you had ever had—back when he was your leader. But after he was knifed by the right wing—the extremists of the party—he suddenly became not economically literate. But he does have some economic literacy. I do not agree with everything that he says, but I agree with what he said about direct action, which is your supposed policy. He said that it was a recipe for fiscal recklessness. And you dare to come here and lecture us about fiscal responsibility when the most competent economic analyst on your side, Malcolm Turnbull, has got you pegged. He said that the chief advantage of the opposition's direct action policy is that it is easy to stop if you do not believe in preventing climate change. You do not believe in it.

What the government has done is take the challenge up. We are making sure that the polluters pay and not the community. You have a $70 billion black hole that you are trying to cover up. And one of the things that you are going to try and do is get rid of the department of climate change. You will want to get rid of the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology next. You are an absolute disgrace. Short-term politics are driving you and the national interest has dropped to second best. You are a disgrace. You are a rabble. You will fall apart and be exposed. And I hope to be there exposing you all the way down the line. (Time expired)

Senator WILLIAMS (New South Wales—Nationals Whip in the Senate) (18:12): I note that Senator Cameron said that those on the other side use misinformation and fear campaigns. Senator Cameron, please do not leave the chamber. Stay here: I have some messages for you. He talks about carbon pollution. But what is it? Why is it when you go on to Google and you search for a list of pollutants carbon dioxide does not come up? 'Carbon pollution', Senator Cameron says. But 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the food that we eat is carbon. Did you enjoy your lunch of pollution today, Senator Cameron? Under your description, that is exactly what it is. That is misinformation, deception and propaganda.

One year gone since the big promise from the Prime Minister, Ms Gillard: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' She said it twice. And who was that backed up by? The Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer, Mr Swan, with words to the effect that the accusations by Tony Abbott and the coalition that if Labor were re-elected they would introduce a carbon tax were 'hysterical'. The highest elected office in the country is Prime Minister. And what did she do? She betrayed the Australian people. The second highest elected position in this nation is Deputy Prime Minister. Mr Swan is also the Treasurer. He betrayed the Australian people as well. There are 150 members over in that other chamber, the House of Representatives. I know of 145 at least who went to the last election saying there would be no carbon tax. But now what is the government doing to the Australian people? Senator McLucas shakes her head. Well, there are 72 Labor members over there who said there would be no carbon tax. There are 73 coalition members. That makes 145. That was the policy of 145 of those elected members of parliament prior to the last election: 'There will be no carbon tax.' And what have we got? It was a big false claim. There was a backflip.

This is what is wrong with this government. The Australian people have lost trust in this government. They do not trust it to manage the money. We have seen the waste of money. They do not trust it to balance the books. We have seen debt—I looked at the website of the Australian Office of Financial Management last Friday—of $197 billion. That figure is renewed on the website every Friday. The Australian people do not trust you with money. They do not trust you in the way you spend it. They do not trust you in your borrowing and wasting of it. They do not trust your promises about no carbon tax. That is why the Labor Party, the Australian Labor Party—I should clarify because we have another Labor Party in this chamber now, the Democratic Labor Party—has a 2 in front of its primary vote in the polling: because the Australian people do not trust you. It is as simple as that. There is mis­management and waste and the government says: 'We will have the budget in surplus come next year. Next May there will be this big surplus budget.' But now it is backtracking on that. Surplus budgets are something that the Australian Labor Party does not understand. In the last 17 years of government under the Australian Labor Party, there have been four government budget surpluses. The ALP only sees red print all over its budgets.

But I will go back to this argument about the carbon tax and the cost to business. The cement industry are going to get a 94.5 per cent discount. That means they are only going to get taxed about $9 million. This is an industry that is facing huge competition from cheap imports from places like China. We have just seen the announcement of the closing down of the Kandos factory, with the loss of 98 jobs directly plus the truckies' jobs and all the other jobs that rely on it. They are gone. And you are going to put $9 million on that industry, which can hardly even afford to remain financially viable because of the high Australian dollar—brought about, I might add, by the high interest rates brought about by government waste and spending. Here is the government, foot on the accelerator, stimulating the economy, and the Reserve Bank has got its hand on the handbrake, pulling on it hard, with seven interest rate rises in a row—and we wonder why the Australian dollar is way above parity with the US dollar. That is one of the main reasons: our interest rates, including the 4.75 per cent official cash rate.

What is the cost to business? The cement industry, which is already in trouble, will be in more trouble. In our Senate Select Committee on Scrutiny of New Taxes, chaired by the very capable Senator Cormann, we have heard about Bindaree Beef, an abattoir in the local town where I live, employing 630 people. I believe it is the biggest employer in the seat of New England. I hope Tony Windsor actually thinks about that one day before he votes on this tax. There will be a cost of $2.74 million to that abattoir in the first year. We can go around the countryside and show you the abattoirs closed down. You can go to Broome, Derby, Katherine, Coonamble, Guyra, Gunnedah or Byron Bay—you can go around and see them closed everywhere. And what is this government going to do? It is going to put taxes on these businesses. Do their competitors in America have to face a tax? No, they do not. It is just another nail in the coffin.

Then we have the cost to the transport industry. On 1 July 2014 there will be another 6.21c tax on the truckies' diesel—in other words, there will be less rebate for the truckies. The government has already taken 3½c off their rebate. The return to the truckies per litre of diesel was 18½c when Labor won government in 2007. Now it is down to 15c. The truckies use eight billion litres of diesel a year, so the government has already charged the trucking industry over $240 million. As Tony Sheldon told our committee, this carbon tax is a death tax. Truckies will be forced to work harder, work longer and drop the maintenance on their vehicles. That is what your Transport Workers Union colleague and supporter said. Senator McLucas may shake her head, but the evidence is in Hansard if you want to read the transcript of the committee hearings. It is all in Hansard. He referred to it as a death tax because he is showing common sense about the effect on the transport industry.

Now we get to the most amazing thing of all. What is this going to do for the globe? When we get to the committee stage of this legislation, when it gets to this place, I will have a question. We know there are about 380 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere now. I want to know how much this tax will do to reduce those parts per million. That is what I want to know. The fact is that by 2020 our CO2 emissions will have gone up 43 million tonnes a year in Australia. We are not going down; we are going up. We have heard the figure today from Senator Cormann. China is going to go up by about eight billion tonnes to 17.9 billion tonnes. So we are going up. What are we going to do then? With some of that $72 billion taxed from the 500 largest emitters, we are going to buy carbon credits. This is when it is going to get really interesting. We are going to buy those credits from places overseas like Nigeria—they might be selling carbon credits—Brazil and Argentina. Who is going to check and police those carbon credits, to make sure they are for real and are not fake, fraudulent? This is opening up a whole new game around the world to transfer money off to other countries. That is what this is about.

In Australia, we are going to have the carbon cops. Bob Carr and Kim Yeadon, when he was minister—Kimberley Maxwell Yeadon, the jumped-up shop steward, as John Laws used to refer to him—brought in the tree police. A farmer who pushed over a tree faced a fine of up to $50,000. They talk about property rights. We are going to have the carbon cops. If a company puts in the wrong information, there will be a fine of up to $1.1 million or 10 years jail or both. They are going to be going around policing our companies. But what is going to happen with these credits we are buying from overseas? We will have no idea, but the billions will flow. I think the greatest statistic of all is that the emissions trading scheme that has been in place in 27 European Union countries plus three other countries—30 in total—for more than 5½ years, covering about 500 million people producing 14 per cent of the world CO2, collects approximately $500 million a year. That is $1 per person—$1 for producing 14 per cent of the world's emissions. We are going to tax Australians almost $400 per person—400 times the amount—for producing one-tenth of the emissions, 1.4 per cent. Is that justice? Is that fair? Emissions are going to go up. I am a firm believer in climate change. I believe the climate has been changing for millions of years and will continue to do so. They say the sea levels are rising. Why has Deb O'Neill MP bought a house down near the beach? Why is Minister Carmel Tebbutt moving down near the beach? If the sea level were going to rise, that would be the last place you would be going. They do not even think it is going to rise. I will check those statistics out, but that is the information—that is two Labor MPs who have moved down close to the waterfront, having total faith that the sea levels will not rise. This is a farce. In this inquiry we are having in the committee that Senator Madigan is part of, the more we dive into this whole carbon tax plan, the more ridiculous we can see the whole plan is. (Time expired)

Senator CROSSIN (Northern Territory) (18:22): That rant and rave just show you how important it is to come into this chamber and have these debates. I welcome this debate. I think I and my colleagues would be happy to be here minute after minute and hour after hour debating this issue, because—

Senator Nash interjecting—

Senator Williams interjecting—

Senator CROSSIN: You keep interjecting but with no alternative points of policy and no alternative points of fact. We just listen to ramble after ramble. Let me give you a—

Senator Nash interjecting—

Senator Williams interjecting—

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Back ): Order! Senator Crossin is entitled to be heard in silence.

Senator CROSSIN: Thank you very much, sir. Let me just give you one really good example of a ramble. I am surprised—but maybe the next speaker might go to this. This is an example of why we would be happy to debate endlessly in this chamber our policy on putting a price on carbon. The Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Abetz, just today, talking about the position that Qantas has taken in taking jobs offshore, said this:

Clearly Labor’s Carbon Tax has not assisted Qantas in its need to compete internationally.

Suddenly, today, that is the carbon price's problem. That is this government's problem. Senator Abetz went on to say:

Planes can’t fly without fuel and the imposition of Labor’s Carbon Tax will have on operating costs is bad news for the aviation sector.

Guess what? This is another example of the mistruths, mismanagement and clear lack of understanding that we have from the opposition in this parliament, because—wait for it—there is actually no tax being applied to aviation fuel. Not only that, but our policy kicks in on 1 July next year, so how can you possibly blame the position that Qantas has taken—

Senator Williams: Mr Acting Deputy President, I raise a point of order. It is clear. On actually stating the truth there, it is clear in the legislation that it is going on—

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Williams, could you explain the point of order.

Senator Williams: the fuel, domestic fuel, aeroplane fuel.

Senator CROSSIN: Let me clearly respond to that. Before you rush into this scare campaign, that is exactly what you need to do: read the legislation and try and get a grasp of the policy issues that we are putting before this country and this parliament. In fact, there will be no carbon price on international aviation flying from Australia. Get that clear. Get that really clear. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the position that Qantas has taken today. The carbon price will not even come into effect until 1 July next year. So we have another example just today where the Leader of the Opposition in this very chamber misleads, once again, on the carbon price on aviation, trying to pretend to the rest of this country, to Qantas workers, to Qantas passengers and to clients of Qantas that somehow this government is responsible for the decision that Qantas has taken. As Minister Combet said in the press release he released just half an hour or so ago: 'Senator Abetz has today revealed just how far the coalition is prepared to go in its unprincipled fear campaign against a carbon price.' Once again, Minister Combet is right. He is absolutely right.

While we are talking about scare campaigns here, let us turn the tables a bit about the deceitful, unprincipled and reckless scare campaign that is being run by the opposition and their leader, Mr Abbott, as he tries desperately to prove to the people of this country that he is fit to lead this country, that he is fit to be Prime Minister and that in fact he has an alternative policy. There is an alternative policy, but it is far worse, much worse, in terms of its impact on households than you could ever imagine. I will get to that a bit later if I get a chance. Claim after claim from Mr Abbott can be clearly discredited. It is all based on fear. It is based on a lack of understanding. It is based on an inability to grasp the fact that climate is changing.

We want to have an impact on that change. We want to have an impact on carbon that is put into the air. We want to put a price on carbon and we want this country to be involved in that and be a leader around the rest of the world.

Let us have a look at the first claim from Mr Abbott. He said on 19 July:

I mean, that’s my position and that’s always been my position but I’ve never been in favour of a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme …

That is what he said on 19 July. Well, this is the real fact about that claim. Mr Abbott was a senior minister in the Howard government that went to the 2007 election—let us talk about that point in time, the 2007 election and what was said prior to that election, where the party of the people sitting opposite me went to that election—with a policy of introducing an emissions trading scheme. And yet he said:

… I've never been in favour of a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme …

So what does that mean? When the coalition parties went to the election in 2007, everyone wanted an emissions trading scheme—oh, that is right, except Mr Abbott, and he only just remembered that on 19 July this year.

He also previously said:

I also think that if you want to put a price on carbon, why not just do it with a simple tax?

Who said that? Mr Abbott said that. When did he say that? On 29 July 2009, not long ago. What did he mean by that? He said:

I also think that if you want to put a price on carbon, why not just do it with a simple tax?

In fact, that was not one year ago; it was two years ago that he said that. Here is another claim from Mr Abbott:

… climate change is real, humanity does make a contribution to it and we’ve got to take effective action against it. I mean, that’s my position and that’s always been my position …

That was on 19 July 2011, just this year. The fact is that Mr Abbott has previously said that the science of climate change was 'absolute crap'. One minute he thinks it is crap but a couple of years later he says that climate change is real. So those opposite have the audacity to want to come into this chamber and debate what our leader has said—a credible Prime Minister who is trying to forge a path in this country in tackling climate change, making a difference and being part of the rest of the world in having an effect—but are not prepared to have a really good look and scrutinise what their leader has said.

I note that, as I started to quote from Mr Abbott, those opposite have run away—like Shrek and the donkey. They have run out of the chamber because, when you turn the tide back on this party and start to light the fire under the Bunsen burner and turn a bit of heat up, they all disappear and dissipate. They do not like it and they all run away. 'We don't want to talk about it. Let's not talk about Mr Abbott's view on climate change. Let's talk about anything else.' Mr Abbott does not have a view about climate change that is consistent. From day to day, week to week and year to year Mr Abbott does not have a view that is consistent about climate change and what he would do about it.

Then there was a third claim. Should I keep going? We might be able to get the others opposite to run away as well if I keep going.

Senator Williams interjecting—

Senator CROSSIN: Yes, that is right, this is cruel and the Australian public need to know how cruel it would be if they had such a leader as Mr Abbott as Prime Minister. Mr Abbott said on 19 July:

... there is no doubt that this package, as it stands, is going to do terrible damage to the aluminium industry in this country.

That is exactly what he claimed. What is the fact of that statement? If those opposite actually grasped and read our policy and reiterated our policy accurately, they would see that aluminium in fact will receive significant assistance under the government's Jobs and Competitiveness Program. Alan Cransberg, the Managing Director of Alcoa of Australia said:

I am confident the government has heard our concerns and provided measures that can help our Australian facilities remain globally competitive.

That was in the Alcoa Community e-news of July 2011. Should I keep going? Probably not. We could spend all night talking about Mr Abbott and his inconsistent views about this tax and his inability to reiterate and articulate a policy that would be credible amongst the Australian public.

Let us just talk about what we are going to do and the positive impact that this government will make. With our plan to cut carbon pollution we are also planning to drive investment in clean energy technologies and infrastructure. We want to do two things. We want to cut the pollution, the emissions, that are out there in the atmosphere and we want to turn this country into a clean, green energy future; a clean, green future that drives energy using the likes of solar, gas and wind.

I hear some people say, 'I don't think we are going to have much of an impact here.' That is a claim you will hear often from the people opposite. 'Why are we doing this? If the rest of the world isn't doing it, why should we do it? It's not going to have any benefit.' Well, the rest of the world is doing it. The rest of the world is actually addressing this problem, but most people opposite do not want to acknowledge or accept that. They would like you to believe that we are standing on an island, literally by ourselves, compared to the rest of the world. It is not true. It is absolutely not true.

Over 89 countries, which account for over 80 per cent of the world's global emissions and over 90 per cent of the global economy, have pledged to reduce or limit their carbon pollution by 2020. In fact scores of countries have already started the transformation to a low-pollution economy. Some 32 countries and a number of the US states already have emissions trading schemes in place. Our five top trading partners—China, Japan, the US, Korea and India, and, among others, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands—have implemented or are piloting an emissions trading scheme or carbon taxes at the national, state, or city level. We are not alone.

The fact that we are moving now at such a late stage in this country's development means that we are lagging behind. We could have done this 18 months ago but, of course, all we could do then was stand back and watch the circus on the other side decide that climate change was so unacceptable and so intolerable to tackle that they dumped their leader in favour of someone who was an absolute sceptic about it. That is about all the contribution to climate change we have seen from the Liberal Party in this country. They just drop a leader who had some commitment to climate change and replace him with a leader who has no commitment to it. In fact he believes it is 'absolute crap'.

New Zealand introduced a trading scheme in 2008 initially covering only forestry but then, last year, it expanded significantly to cover liquid fossil fuels, stationary energy and industrial processes. And then there is China. We had questions today in question time about China. China has indicated that it will introduce an emissions trading pilot scheme in a number of provinces including the industrial centres of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong. China is on the program. Mr Abbott is not, but China is on the program. The World Bank recently indicated that these regional schemes may be expanded to a national scheme by 2015. China has the world's largest installed renewable energy electricity generation capacity. In 2009 China added 37 gigawatts of renewable power capacity, more than any other country in the world.

If we want to talk about another country that is continually raised by those people opposite, let us move on to India. India has a tax on coal which is expected to generate over half a billion dollars annually to fund research into clean energy technologies. The US is committed to achieving its target to reduce its emissions by 17 per cent by 2020. We have countries that are acting and we have countries that are moving on climate change and are committed to it. Let us have a look very closely at exactly what people are saying about our package as we move to introduce this legislation. Professor Garnaut stated on 10 July:

This is a strong climate change policy package. It will allow Australia to do its fair share in an effective global effort to reduce the risks of climate change, and to do so at reasonable cost.

David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, in a letter to the Prime Minister on 31 July said this:

I was delighted to hear of the ambitious package of climate change policy measures you announced on 10 July and wanted to congratulate you on taking this bold step.

He must be a Conservative Party leader who does have a little bit of vision, unlike his comrade in the Liberal Party here in Australia. Geoff Garrett, Queensland Chief Scientist, said on 19 July:

The science indicates that we have anthropogenic (man-made) global warming and we need to reduce carbon emissions …

As such, I do support ... that in order to get the market forces going, you do need to put a price on carbon.

Many people have come out. I have sheets and sheets of them here, which I will not read out because I will not have enough time. We have an attempt by the people opposite to still pretend that we do not have to do anything to act on carbon. If we were to do something under their plan, households would pay and we would compensate polluters. We would provide them with incentives and at the end of the day householders would be far worse off under their plan.

Senator BIRMINGHAM (South Australia) (18:38): It is a pleasure to rise on this matter of public importance on this very significant anniversary of the Prime Minister's most solemn election promise that there would be no carbon tax under a government she leads. Perhaps she does not lead this government. Perhaps the leaders of the government are not in the chamber at present but are found over in that quarter of the Senate chamber. Perhaps they are the leaders of the government.

Senator Crossin: Who leads your party, Simon?

Senator BIRMINGHAM: Thank you for the interjection, Senator Crossin. Let me deal with some of the things that you raised. You wanted to talk about Senator Abetz's comments on Qantas. You wanted to talk about Qantas and what the impact might be on them and on the aviation industry. Let us be very clear: the aviation industry is a shining example of why this is bad policy. Why is that? Because you are going to put up the prices for the aviation industry that is operating in Australia. It will be far more expensive as a result of the carbon tax for people to hop on a plane and go on holiday in North Queensland—

Senator McLucas: How much?

Senator BIRMINGHAM: In your home state, Senator McLucas, it will be more expensive for people to take a trip and holiday than to go overseas. Senator Crossin was right: flights out of Australia will not have the tax applied to aviation fuel, but flights in Australia will. So this is a tax that discriminates against domestic tourism. It is a tax that makes it more expensive for people to holiday at home and cheaper for them to go and spend their money overseas. That is what this government has set up. Just as the CEO of Coca-Cola Amatil highlighted some time ago, this is a discriminatory tax because it makes everything in Australia more expensive compared with things imported from overseas. That is the truth of it. There is no arguing about that. Imports do not face a carbon tax impost whatsoever, but locally produced goods and services do and the same applies for the tourism industry, which will be particularly hard hit.

Senator McLucas interjecting—

Senator BIRMINGHAM: I am sorry; I will have to be a little quieter to hear your interjections, Senator McLucas. Qantas was not the only company to announce job losses today. Unfortunately OneSteel joined Qantas in announcing 400 job losses. OneSteel is a major employer in the South Australian regional city of Whyalla in my home state. They announced losses of 400 jobs as a result of seeing an 11 per cent decline in their profit over the course of this year.

Senator McEwen: You are not going to blame that on the carbon tax, surely.

Senator BIRMINGHAM: Senator McEwen, what I am going to do is quote OneSteel. I would not want to misrepresent their position at all. In terms of One Steel looking at their forward outlook and 'factors that could cause actual results or perform­ance to differ materially', they highlight 'legislative changes, regulatory changes or other changes in the laws which affect OneSteel's business, including environmental laws and the carbon tax'. They certainly see in their risk factors, in their profile for the future, the carbon tax looming large. That is unsurprising given that in the presentation they released today it states that the carbon tax, as we now know, will be $23 a tonne. It would be nice if the government did some Treasury modelling on that price rather than a made up price of $20, which the carbon tax is not. That is a different matter. OneSteel go on to say, 'Based on FY10 production expected tax for scope 1 and 2 emissions would be $18.4m'—$18.4 million off the bottom line. You would have to reconsider your employment and your outlook when you face an $18.4 million hit coming down the line at you. It is little wonder, especially in these times of such international uncertainty, the high dollar and the weakness in parts of the Australian economy. All of these things combine with an utter lack of comprehensive global action to demonstrate that this is the worst possible time to be contemplating something like this and inflicting it on companies like Qantas or OneSteel or anybody else within Australia.

Senator Crossin wanted to paint a rosy picture of international action. Here is a challenge for the government: does anybody in the government believe that when they go to the Conference of the Parties in Durban later this year to discuss climate change there will be a new legally binding agreement? Will there be something to replace Kyoto when it expires in 2012? That is right: the current legally binding agreement expires next year. The jig is almost up; time is almost out. Does anybody in this government actually think, after the debacle of Copenhagen, that they are going to get anything more than the flimsy pledges that are made, which are hardly worth the bits of paper they are written on given the utter lack of action by governments around the world to back them up? Most governments around the world could not even bring themselves to meet the allegedly legally binding com­mitments they made under Kyoto, so lord only knows what they are going to do when it comes to meeting these pledges that have been made to date.

Senator Crossin decided she wanted to highlight India putting a price on emissions in the coal industry or the use of coal. She said it is going to raise half a billion dollars. Isn't that exciting. It is going to raise half a billion dollars.

Senator Williams: A billion people, half a billion dollars.

Senator BIRMINGHAM: A billion people indeed, Senator Williams, and they are going to raise half a billion dollars from their carbon price. Well, our much smaller economy with a much, much smaller 22 million Australians is going to raise $9 billion. We are going to raise 18 times what the Indians are going to raise. And Senator Crossin thinks this is a good comparison and a good demonstration—

Senator McEwen interjecting —

Senator BIRMINGHAM: You want to go to budget responsibilities, Senator McEwen? I do not have the time to go to budget and fiscal responsibility with you lot. I have the carbon tax to deal with first. Senator Crossin thinks that half a billion dollars raised in India is comparable and is justification for us to have a $9 billion slug on the Australian economy. It really is just remarkable.

Senator Cameron spoke earlier in this debate and he actually had a few things to say about me. I thank Senator Cameron for flattering me with his attention. It is nice to get that, even when you are not in the chamber at the time. He accused me of being tainted in this debate. 'Tainted' was the word he wanted to use. I would love to know, in a fair analysis, what on earth Senator Cameron thinks the Prime Minister is. If I am 'tainted', what is the Prime Minister? She is utterly compromised in this debate now. She stands with no credibility left, having convinced the former Prime Minister to ditch his ETS and having gone to an election. Let us be honest: she went to an election, and we would all be saying, hypothetically, that she lied at the election, were it not unparliamentary to do so. That is what people would be saying: the Prime Minister misled, led the Australian people up the garden path, told mistruths—however you want to put it. It is crystal clear what she did. We all know what the words were—'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead'—one year ago today.

We know what Wayne Swan said one year ago yesterday: 'Well, certainly, what we reject is this hysterical allegation somehow that we are moving towards a carbon tax. We certainly reject that.' One year ago today it was an hysterical allegation. Not long after that, it was fact. It went from hysteria to fact because the government was misleading at every single step of the way. This govern­ment wants to come in here and try to debate everything and anything but the reality that they lied to the people at the last election, that they lied their way into office. As a result of that, they are now pursuing a policy that has absolutely no mandate, that was rejected by the Australian people, and they are not game to take it back. They are not game to go back and give Australians a fair chance, a fair choice to actually decide this. That is the challenge to them. Front up to the people. Let them have their say. Have courage in your convictions. That is when we might actually see a fair debate on this issue.

Senator McLUCAS ( Queensland — Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers ) ( 18:48 ): On behalf of the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, I table a ministerial statement on Afghanistan.

Senator BIRMINGHAM (South Australia) (16:50): I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Senator CORMANN (Western Australia) (18:52): I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I am referring to the agreement between the government of Australia and the government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands on the exchange of information with respect to taxes done at Majuro on 12 May 2010. The operative words here are 'exchange of information with respect to taxes', because, of course, taxes are what this government knows a lot about but it does not know so much about 'exchange of information'. We were promised a new era of openness and transparency in government. We were promised that this Prime Minister would let the sun shine in. But we have multibillion-dollar new taxes imposed by this government to fund multibillion-dollar new levels of expenditure. This is a government which spends too much and borrows too much, which leaves this government in debt and deficit. We are now looking at $107 billion worth of government—

Senator McLUCAS: I rise on a point of order, Madam Acting Deputy President, that goes to relevance. I know that we usually range fairly widely when we are taking note of government documents, including treaties, but I do think that Senator Cormann is possibly stretching the normal practice of Senate procedure.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Pratt ): Thank you, Senator McLucas. I shall pay careful attention to Senator Cormann's remarks and draw his attention to the standing orders.

Senator CORMANN: Thank you very much, Madam Acting Deputy President. I can well understand why Senator McLucas is very touchy when I talk about the lack of information that is being exchanged by this government, even though they committed to the good people of the government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands that they would exchange information.

Government senators interjecting—

Senator CORMANN: What I am wondering is whether the people in the Republic of the Marshall Islands have had any more luck than the senators in this chamber, because, of course, the senators in this chamber should not be treated any worse than the good people in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. It is for that reason I am complaining that we are being treated way worse than the citizens of the Republic of the Marshall Islands—and, of course, we should not be treated by this government like a bunch of mushrooms.

I will get to the pertinent facts straight­away, Madam Acting Deputy President. It is an issue that arose earlier today. More than 150 days ago I asked this government for some information about how they were spending taxpayers' money here in Australia. Specifically I asked:

How much of the stimulus package remains to be spent for each of the following financial years: (a) 2010-11; (b) 2011-12; and (c) 2012-13.

It is true that the government has taken so long to answer this question and to exchange this information with the Senate—and I am sure they would have sent the information to the Marshall Islanders but not to us. So here we are and 2010-11 is now finished. The financial year is now over. So that information should be very readily available but it has not been provided. The 2011-12 one has since been provided to a Senate estimates committee—I grant them that—but the information for 2012-13 has not been. This question has been on the Notice Paper for more than 150 days and to this day the government has refused to provide the information to the Senate. I hope that the good people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands have more luck in exchanging information about taxation with this government than we have had in trying to scrutinise their expenditure, because this government's economic team is led by a Treasurer who is incompetent, who has been fiscally reckless, who has presided over four successive deficits in a row and who comes in with one new multibillion-dollar tax after another.

After the Henry tax review observed that we have way too many taxes, with 125 taxes around Australia, and after the Henry tax review observed that 10 of those taxes collect 90 per cent of the revenue, with the remaining 115 taxes collecting 10 per cent of the revenue, and after the Henry tax review observed that we should have fewer taxes than the 125 taxes, this Labor government has added another five taxes to the mix. We are now going to be talking about the student tax, the flood tax, the carbon tax, the mining tax and the LPG tax. One tax after the other comes out from this government, yet this government is not prepared to be accountable to the Australian parliament when it comes to explaining how much of taxpayers' dollars they are spending and when. Very specifically, I think it is an absolute disgrace that, after the more than 150 days that question No. 437 has been on the Notice Paper, this incompetent Treasurer refuses to be accountable to this parliament, refuses to provide any information about how much of the stimulus package remains unspent for 2012-13. I hope that somebody in the press gallery will try their luck and get this information from the Treasurer. Certainly we here in the parliament are unable to do so as, sadly, we are unable to do way too often, because this is a secretive government which always has something to cover up, which always has another example of incompetence or wasteful spending to cover up. No doubt that is why the Treasurer is not sharing this information, not exchanging this information, with the Australian parliament.

Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (18:58): I am drawn to enter this debate having been encouraged by the very fine words of my colleague Senator Cormann but also having been encouraged by the interjections from senators opposite. I have actually been to both the Marshall Islands and Mauritius. I have to say they are both great countries. The Marshall Islands has a very big shipping register but it is a developing country. It does not have the techniques, the public service and the technology that the Australian government has. It seems incredible to me that some information, which must be clearly at the Treasurer's fingertips, cannot be provided in answer to questions on notice from Senator Cormann after more than 150 days. What if it took 150 days to supply the sort of tax information that is required by these two treaties to the governments of the Marshall Islands and Mauritius? Surely it would be available in Australia, with all of its public servants, with all of its technology and with all of its information systems. There are thousands and thousands of public servants in this town who are there to record this sort of information. I am sure that if the Treasurer had one ounce of intelligence and ability—and I will give him credit for having one ounce, perhaps not much more—that information would be available. If the government of Mauritius or the government of the Marshall Islands were asking for it, it would be readily available; but when the opposition asks for it, suddenly it becomes all too hard. For a government that pays lip service to accountability and openness, this is an absolute disgrace. But what would you expect from a government led by a leader who solemnly promised not to introduce a carbon tax in her government? She did that one year ago today. When you cannot believe the Leader of the Labor Party, who is currently our Prime Minister, on that basic promise, how can you believe her on her promise of openness and accountability, which is required in relation to the explanation of taxes?

If these developing countries, the Marshall Islands and Mauritius, with their limited resources can exchange their tax information with Australia's tax information, why on earth can't the Treasurer of our nation supply what must be very basic information that he would have at his fingertips? One can only assume that, yet again, this government is demonstrating not only its incompetence but its dishonesty. It is demonstrating its inability not only to properly manage the country but also to comply with any of the promises it made in relation to (a) 'no carbon taxes in the government I lead' and (b) the openness and accountability that was supposed to be part of the new paradigm, which is this awful, dysfunctional government that we have 'not running' Australia at the present time.

Question agreed to.

Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (19:03): I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

In so doing, could I just refer the Senate to sections A and B, which perhaps should be called through at a later date. I did want to note the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service Report for 2009-10, as I am Deputy Chairman of the Joint Committee on the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. We visited Customs operations in both Darwin and Sydney and I have to say by way of congratulations to the Customs and Border Protection people that they are doing a magnificent job in those two ports of entry, both seaports and airports. I am sure they are doing the same in other ports as well. In fact, having recently come through the Brisbane border protection area, I can confirm that they do equally as well in Brisbane. I am sure they do a magnificent job everywhere.

One of the very difficult things for the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service is that, beyond their normal airport and seaport operations, they are tasked with the job of intercepting all the boat people coming into our country illegally. I might take this opportunity to note that, since the announcement of what is called the 'Malaysian solution'—the solution for processing people who have come to our country by illegal means—boats have continued to arrive. You will recall, Madam Acting President, that I mentioned in a previous speech how you really cannot believe the current Leader of the Labor Party, who happens to be for the moment the Prime Minister of this country, on carbon taxes. You will remember that just one year ago today she made the solemn promise that there would be no carbon tax 'under a government I lead'. We know that she has, with impunity, broken that promise. But you might also recall that she made a promise that she would never send illegal immigrants for processing in a country that was not a signatory to the United Nations refugee convention. Yet it is clearly recorded that Malaysia is not a signatory to that convention. How can the Leader of the Labor Party, who is currently the Prime Minister, on one hand before an election say that she will not send immigrants arriving by illegal means to countries outside of Australia for processing if those countries are not signatories to the United Nations convention on refugees and, with impunity, simply break that promise after the election?

This Labor Party-Greens government is developing a real history of making solemn promises before an election and simply discarding them after the election. In relation to border protection, in fact in relation to any other promise that the current Prime Minister might ever make in relation to anything, it makes one wonder how we can possibly believe her. In relation to the carbon tax she is saying that we are going to compensate everybody. How different is that from the promise in which she said, 'I won't introduce a carbon tax'? It has transpired in the border protection—

Senator McLucas: Madam Acting Deputy President, I raise a point of order and I want to go to the question of relevance. I note that in Senator Macdonald's previous contribution he did try to join in the countries with whom a treaty had been made, but I think that in this contribution he is actually straying a long way from the report that he is taking note of.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Pratt ): Thank you, Senator McLucas. I remind Senator Macdonald that he has taken to his feet to speak to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service Report 2009-10 and that he should speak to that according to the standing orders.

Senator IAN MACDONALD: Thank you, Madam Deputy President. I have been speaking about the border protection and customs service and what a great job they do but I am saying that, unfortunately, more and more their resources are being diverted to collecting people arriving illegally in our country, using their patrol boats and all their resources to become policemen, almost, in stopping illegal boat people from coming in. I am simply demonstrating that, in relation to border protection that the Customs and Border Protection Service is required to enforce or anything else, you simply cannot believe our Prime Minister, the Leader of the Labor Party. In that area you cannot believe her on anything she might say about anything. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (19:10): I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Senator McLUCAS (Queensland—Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) (19:10): I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Senator McLUCAS (Queensland—Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) (19:10): I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Senator POLLEY (Tasmania—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (19:11): Tonight I want to talk to the Senate in relation to the green skills centre in Newnham, Launceston, in my home state. The Tasmanian Skills Institute has been in operation since 1 January 2009 as a training provider, emerging from TAFE Tasmania as part of the Tasmanian government's reform of the post-secondary education sector.

The Skills Institute's Green Skills Centre of Excellence was officially opened at the Alanvale training facility in Launceston on 22 July this year, although it began operating two months prior to the official opening and many of the employer clients have appreciated the potential benefits they can bring to their business by training their employees through this facility.

The Skills Institute is an experienced registered training organisation with around 400 employees operating from eight major training hubs in trade and technical training across Tasmania. The Skills Institute is dedicated to workforce development in partnership with employers. The client group of the Skills Institute is employers and their employees. This client group has differing needs and expectations from the traditional TAFE student group, who attend a campus of their own volition.

The federal government provided $6.4 million under the Training Infrastructure Investment for Tomorrow element of the Teaching and Learning Capital Fund for Vocational Education and Training to build the centre, and what a magnificent facility it is. The state government, through the Skills Institute, contributed $750,000 towards the cost of the facility, bringing the total investment to $7.15 million.

The Green Skills Centre of Excellence project provides a state-of-the-art, Green Star rated training facility for a combination of construction, allied trades, joinery and furnishings trades. The centre has been built to the latest technology standards and is in line with the National VET Sector Sustainability Policy and Action Plan 2009-2012. The project introduces and implements green technology not only in the infrastructure and fabric of the new building but also in the training programs delivered, which in turn influence attitudes and work practices in industry.

A highlight is the purchase of $650,000 worth of state-of-the-art woodworking machines, including a five-axis computer controlled work centre believed to be the first of its kind in the state. This means furniture trades apprentices now have access to machinery that is at the cutting edge of technology. Prior to this new facility being built, training facilities operated from a post World War II textile factory on the fringe of the Launceston CBD, with its most recent modifications carried out 30 years ago.

I would now like to turn to Scottsdale, which is in the north-eastern region of Tasmania and the centre of the Dorset region, which is approximately an hour north-east of Launceston. The region has been affected over the last eight years or so by downturns in the food industries and it has also been affected by the downturn in the forestry industry in Tasmania. The recently announced forestry agreement between the federal and state governments will assist in dealing with the effects of change within that industry. It would be very easy to believe that this community is depressed, downhearted and waiting for handouts. However, in my recent visits to the community, this is not what I found; in fact quite the reverse.

I visited the Dorset men's shed. As we all know, unlike women, most men are reluctant to talk about their emotions and that means that they usually do not ask for help. Probably because of this many men tend to be less healthy than women, they sometimes drink more, they take more risks and they suffer more from isolation, loneliness and depression. Relationship breakdowns, retrenchment or early retirement, loss of children following divorce, physical or mental illness are just some of the problems that men find hard to deal with on their own.

A good men's shed must have a good coordinator and the Dorset men's shed has one of those individuals. He has both the technical and the social skills to help develop a safe and happy environment, where men are welcome to work on a project of their choice in their own time, and where the only thing they must do is observe safe working practices.

The Dorset men's shed is one of more than 30 men's sheds in Tasmania—and there are more than 500 across Australia. The numbers attending and the range of activities are impressive. Women are also attending some of the projects, and I witnessed some women at the leadlighting course and making things for their own homes. Local charities are also benefiting from the timber and metal items produced by the men's shed. The quality and range of articles produced for the annual challenge event is astonishing. This year's challenge was no exception, with many outstanding pieces of woodwork—dining settings, chessboards and lazy Susans, just to name a few.

When I go to the north-east, I like to visit as many places as I can, including the high schools. But I also visited Aminya, which is a small nursing home on the edge of Scottsdale that is managed by Presbyterian Care. Like other organisations in Scottsdale, the facility continues to be improved. The recent internal modifications are excellent and it is an outstanding facility. They have plans to extend and are one of the big employers in that region, which is very important.

More importantly, a community relies a great deal on their local council. The Dorset Council have been dealing with the challenges that the forestry industry have been going through. When I met with the general manager and the mayor, I was impressed by how positive they were about the future of their municipality. They talked about the benefits of the National Broadband Network. They talked about how businesses have moved from interstate and are being managed out of Scottsdale because of the NBN. They talked about their ongoing plans for the future development of tourism in the area. They talked about health services. Whether you talk about health, whether you talk about tourism or whether you talk about education, they will all benefit from the rollout of the National Broadband Network.

The Dorset Trade Training Centre, which is part of the Tasmanian Polytechnic, is another wonderful initiative. The sorts of subjects covered at the Polytechnic include primary industry and infra­structure, tourism and hospitality, health and wellbeing, build­ing and construction, childcare and com­munity services, and business. The Dorset Trade Training Centre was only officially opened late last year, but it already has a fantastic network because of the people working there. They are locals who know the networks, have a great working relationship with the men's shed and are working with the local high school. When I spoke to the young people who were doing courses such as carpentry or working on car engines, I found they were all enthusiastic. These young people see this as a great opportunity to help them on their way to a successful future.

Whether at the aged-care facility, the high school, the trade training centre, the men's shed or a meeting with the mayor and the general manager of the Dorset Council, their overall attitude was not about wanting a handout; it was about a helping hand. They have plans for their future. It is a lovely environment and it was refreshing to visit them all. They typify the Tasmanian spirit and can-do attitude. They reinforced once again what a huge benefit the National Broadband Network has been to the area, and having visited other areas in Tasmania I know how important it is for Tasmania generally.

I do not have much time tonight, but I do want to touch on one other area that I have been involved in. One of the great delights during this winter recess has been to attend a number of Building the Education Revolu­tion openings. At the Invermay Primary School, a school which was built in 1889, you could see how it has been transformed and the benefits that has brought to the Invermay community. At St Finbar's Catholic primary school you could see how innovative they have been with their redevelopment. At the East Launceston Primary School, a school that has been established for many, many decades, you could see how they have really benefited from this investment into the future of our young people.

Senator MOORE (Queensland) (19:21): At the beginning of this month, I was fortunate enough to be in Sri Lanka in Colombo for the 27th Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development. This particular meeting was focused on the growth of the world population, as we move to the figure of seven billion bodies on our planet. The meeting coincided with the release of the latest 2010 revision of world population prospects, the official United Nations population projections prepared by the population division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which drew the attention of the world to the growth of our population and future expectations. The projections pointed out clearly that we will this year have a world population of seven billion and they traced the history, showing how long it has taken to reach these levels and showing the acceleration which has occurred during the past centuries.

World population is projected to cross the seven billion mark very soon, the eight billion mark in 2028 and the nine billion mark in 2054. It is expected to stabilise at just over 10 billion after 2200. It has taken just 12 years for the world to add the most recent billion to our population. That is the shortest period in time in world history for a billion people to be added to the population. And the stats—and I am not normally a statistical person—give us some sense of the growth rate.

World population did not reach one billion until 1804. It took 123 years to reach two billion in 1927, 33 years to reach three billion in 1960, 14 years to reach four billion in 1974 and 13 years to reach five billion in 1987. You can see where the projections are going. This is something which we believe the world should think about and acknowledge and we believe we need to look at how we move forward.

The 27th conference was opened by Mr Fukuda, the previous Prime Minister of Japan, who has been a strong supporter of the issues around world population. Mr Fukuda talked about the fact that activity by international parliamentarians in population and development started in Colombo in 1979 with the first international conference of parliamentarians on population and develop­ment. We have a record of that meeting, which shows that the countries across our area, particularly those of the Asia-Pacific and including Australia, gathered at there. The successful outcome of the Colombo conference led to the Asian Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development, which took place in Beijing in 1981. It was there that the following really important principle was adopted:

The population issue cannot be forced. The issue cannot be resolved unless members of parliament who represent our people play our roles.

Mr Fukuda then took us to a wider discussion about what we needed to do to take action. He said:

First, we should have a clear vision as to how we can achieve sustainable development—

and that the important aspect is—

... to come to grips with the issues facing us from a long-term and panoramic perspective. We must understand that the issue of population is inseparable from such ... issues as food security, the environment, energy, and water.

That set out the program of the people we met at the conference, the key papers that were presented. They looked at those issues about which we talk so often in this place: sustainability, food security and effective aid development processes where we, as donor countries, can work effectively with people with strong aid and development programs.

It was a wonderful moment when we could talk about the Australian aid program, the recent review and the way that the review of our aid program is looking towards a future where the issues of sustainability, environment and population are indeed key to our future aid development, which is of course linked to the Millennium Develop­ment Goals. The second aim of the conference was the need:

... to reaffirm that without resolving population issues there cannot be sustainable development. To achieve that result, we must bring to mind our Cairo Agreement and achieve universal access to reproductive health services. This is the first step for poor people to realise a decent life as human beings—

and that is in clear compliance with the Millennium Development Goals which the United Nations has confirmed.

The third aspect was to:

... find ways to harmonise economic growth with sustainable development.

That looks at working with countries. We have been most privileged today in this place to have an opportunity to meet the leaders of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to look at how we can achieve economic development in our region that must be linked to sustainable development and engagement with population.

Achieving the process will not be easy, but members of parliament have a responsibility. Since the Cairo declaration we have agreed that together we can work to make a change and to ensure that the issues of population are clearly on the agenda. Indeed, when we have these meetings there is sometimes a view that it is just a matter of sharing knowledge and having a talk. That is just not true. There has always been a statement of commitment and action coming out of the meetings. The 27th meeting came up with a public declaration, which is available on the internet, to which every parliamentarian from the 15 countries represented made a commitment to adhere. We talked about the issues of the 30th year of activity around the AFPPD and how we now have a body of knowledge which we can look back and learn from and in which we can trace the progress.

Also as parliamentarians we committed to a range of actions. The focus of this meeting is that we are elected representatives without any particular party allegiance who come together to look at the issues around population leading to a range of actions. We strongly advocate among our fellow parlia­mentarians, the media and other stakeholders because our deep concern is that inter­national interest in the impact and consequences of the ever-growing world population has been waning. There is a concern among parliamentary groups that, while there is acknowledgement that issues around sustainable development and economic development are clearly on the agenda, there has been, we believe, some waning of the acknowledgement of the role of population growth in that process. It is our job, as people who feel this is important, to keep this on the agenda and to keep talking about it. In fact, one of the key actions is that we expect parliamentarians who have the great fortune and honour to attend these meetings of the UN and the Asian Forum on Population and Development to go back to our parliaments and continue to talk about these issues, keep them on the agenda. That is why I have made a range of speeches on these issues. I hope to continue to do so.

We also as parliamentarians request international aid agencies to provide parliamentarians with evidence based tools to advocate to the public, both in developed and developing countries, about the impact of growing world population on the earth's future. And we expect that Australia, as a donor nation which has a strong and proud history of the work that we do, will acknowledge the issues of population and work with the countries with which we are engaged on intercountry aid development—that we look at the issues of population in discussions with governments about the development of multilateral trade agreements and in working with NGOs.

We confirmed the importance of advocacy activities in maintaining and augmenting aid budgets in developed countries and requested donor organisations to implement them effectively. Indeed, what we have been doing in the past weeks is looking at the way aid is developed, how we actually work with countries to ensure that we are not imposing ideas from outside, no matter how good they may seem to us, but working with the countries themselves to see that there is a joint commitment and understanding of the issues. When you sit around the table at these international meetings and hear stories from parliamentarians from other countries, you know that they understand the threat to their nations. They understand sustainability. They want to work with us so that we can have an effective, developed process between us.

We must work with international agencies to share with parliamentarians concrete examples of good practice, cost-effectiveness and socioeconomic impact on the community so that we can cooperate in advocacy activities. Most importantly, we reaffirmed the spirit of the 1979 Colombo Declaration on Population and Development and the important role that parliamentarians have to play in population and development issues.

Senator MARK BISHOP (Western Australia) (19:31): I rise this evening to talk about progress on major infrastructure projects in my duty electorate of Swan. I have been inspired to take this action following a similar discussion which occurred in the other place recently. I have been advised the member for Swan claimed credit for ensuring the federal government delivered on a promise to upgrade Great Eastern Highway. I was somewhat taken aback by this suggestion. My surprise sprang from my intimate knowledge of the progress of this project. It has a history that goes back some time—in fact, a little while longer than the current member's interest.

Great Eastern Highway, for those not familiar with this part of the world, is a road which starts near the entrance to Perth city and the famous Causeway Bridge. It meanders through the eastern suburbs of Rivervale, Ascot, Belmont, Cloverdale and Redcliffe to Perth airport. Past this point it continues through Guildford and Midland to suburbs and, later, towns in the hills district. As part of the AusLink national network, it will take you to the eastern states of Australia. It is an important road, as it links the airport to the city, and for that reason it is a busy road.

The proposal was to upgrade a stretch of the highway from Kooyong Road to the airport. This section has only four lanes but currently services 55,000 vehicles per day. Traffic volume is forecast to increase to 66,500 vehicles per day by 2016 and is projected to reach 79,000 vehicles per day by 2031. My former colleague Kim Wilkie lobbied the Howard government for many years to fund upgrades to this part of the highway; however, it must be said that there was not much interest. On 18 November 2006 he received a response from Howard government minister Mr Jim Lloyd, which said in part:

… this section of highway is not part of the AusLink National Network, and the Western Australian Government is responsible for its funding …

He went on to say:

… I can see no particular virtue in the inclusion of the GEH in the Perth Urban Corridor Strategy …

In stark contrast, the Rudd government in 2007 committed $180 million to upgrade that part of the highway. Funding for the planning phase was committed by the Carpenter government in 2008. Since that time, the project has been expanded and the estimated cost is now some $350 million. As a result, the current government has increased the Commonwealth's contribution to $280 million. Work has begun and is scheduled for completion in late 2013. Contrary to the views of others, there was never any danger that we would fail to honour our commitment. We accepted that this major works project was necessary to increase the capacity, the safety and the efficiency of one of the city's principal transport routes.

The federal government has also made a commitment to the Gateway WA project. This project involves upgrades to the road network around Perth airport. In essence, the project includes a freeway-to-freeway interchange at the intersection of Leach Highway and Tonkin Highway. It will also increase freeway capacity to six lanes. The estimated cost of this project is $600 million. The federal government's contribution will be $480 million. It is a project that has been identified by the Western Australian government as a national infrastructure priority. I agree.

As all would be aware, Western Australia is experiencing a massive expansion in the resources industry. That means more fly-in fly-out workers using what is fast becoming the busiest airport in Australia. The proposed consolidation of the domestic and international airport terminals by 2017-18 is expected to double passenger and freight movements by 2030. The Gateway project is critical to ensuring that we can meet this demand. If the last resources boom showed us anything, it is that funding of key infrastructure projects cannot be put off if we are to maximise its benefits.

Finally I would like to talk about the rollout of the National Broadband Network, the NBN. Over the years I have received a number of complaints from local residents about broadband black spots. The complaints have come from residents in parts of Kewdale, Cloverdale and areas around Ferndale and Langford. All of these suburbs are within five to 10 kilometres of the central business district. They are not regional areas; they are not rural areas. So why are they unable to access broadband services?

The answer is blindingly obvious. Telstra, in being allowed to be run as a vertically integrated monopoly, had no incentive to maintain or develop new infrastructure. The NBN will fix that by separating the wholesale from the retail. It will create a level playing field between service providers. Retail prices charged to consumers will be determined by the retail service providers. That, of course, will stimulate competition. The fibre network will mean more choice, greater competition and better value services. Along with faster and cheaper broadband for families and local businesses, it will also provide equity in access. It is true to say that the NBN will change the way we live.

I am very pleased that last year the government announced that Victoria Park would be the second phase rollout of the NBN. Initially, 3,000 homes and businesses will be connected to the network. From there, the network will spread through Telstra's copper network of ducts, pits and exchanges. The agreement with Telstra will enable NBN Co. to deliver next generation super broadband services with less disruption to residents and reduced rollout costs.

These projects are part of the Gillard government's commitment to infrastructure projects in Western Australia. In all, Western Australia will receive record funding of $920 million for transport infrastructure alone. As well as upgrades to the Great Eastern Highway and the Gateway WA project, that funding will enable upgrades to road and rail into Port Esperance, upgrades to the Great Northern Highway at Port Hedland, an access road for Bunbury Port and the Northbridge rail link project through Perth's CBD.

In the Swan electorate, the federal government's commitment to major infrastructure projects is welcomed by residents, local businesses, transport companies and large-scale commercial enterprises, local and state government representatives and, I think it would be fair to say, the member for Swan.

Senator BOSWELL (Queensland) (19:39): Mr Acting Deputy President, I seek leave to speak for 20 minutes.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Back ): Leave is granted.

Senator BOSWELL: There are things about the world that will always remain constant. One is that sea levels and tides will always go up and down. The political situation in Australia now and the argument for a carbon tax are like the tides, they ebb and flow, and opinions are rising and falling. The opinions of Australians on a carbon tax have fallen significantly, as only 36 per cent of people actually want it. The government has done everything but tell Australians not to buy a house at the beach because it will soon be under water. Mr Acting Deputy President, I know that you have a seaside property and I hope you do not feel that you have to sell it, because my speech will give you some encouragement to hold that property.

The Gillard government argues that climate change is affecting rising sea levels. But the need for a carbon tax to offset these effects is losing depth as evidence to the contrary mounts and the facts on sea levels are favouring history over the Labor government's alarmist future. According to the National Tidal Centre of the Bureau of Meteorology, the average trend calculated from 39 tide stations was a rise of 0.9 millimetres a year over the last century. These figures now show a much more realistic average rise of sea levels of 1.4 millimetres a year. I tried that out and was told, 'If you really want to be accurate, go and get some satellite data.' So I did.

Satellite data also shows sea levels globally have risen by 3.2 millimetres a year. I was informed that over the 20th century sea levels had risen by about 1.8 millimetres a year for an overall sea rise level of about 20 centimetres during that period. These figures are accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the government backed report on climate change, The critical decade, released last month, and they agree with my research. Both The critical decade report and the Bureau of Meteorology agree that sea levels have risen by 3.2 millimetres a year—so we have some common ground there—and would rise to about 0.32 metres by 2100. The report goes on to state on page 25 in tiny letters that projections of 1.5 or two metres seem high, but why did it then state on page 23, in extra large headlines and large font, that sea levels could rise by 0.50 to nearly two metres in the next hundred years. To say sea levels could rise by two metres in a hundred years when they have been rising by 3.2 millimetres a year over the last 20 years seems unrealistic. Yes, they could rise. You could be hit by a satellite—anything could happen. But it is not realistic.

According to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Mr Combet, by 2100 sea levels will have risen by 1.1 metres. He has based most of his recent scaremongering on a report that was released in June. The report, Climate change risks to coastal buildings and infrastructure, was released a week later than The critical decade. It identifies significant risks to commercial and light industrial infrastructure and road and rail systems in Australia's coastal areas based on a sea level rise of 1.1 metres, representing a high-end scenario for 2100. If we are to believe the two government reports, it seems that sea levels have risen by two metres and have dropped by one metre. It is the Archimedes-in-a-bathtub principle—sea levels have changed in the space of a week. There were two reports: one said two metres; the other said 1.1 metres. How are we to believe these things if the government cannot even get it right within a period of two weeks and comes out with two differing reports varying by up to a metre? The two reports were brought out in the space of a week and yet predict two different things. How can this be? Either sea levels will rise by two metres or by 1.1 metre—it cannot be both. The exaggerations do not stop there. We can look at the findings of scientists that Labor holds up as gatekeepers of the truth on climate change, like Tim Flannery. He said:

Anyone with a coastal view from their bedroom window, or their kitchen window, or wherever, is likely to lose their house as a result of that change, so anywhere, any coastal cities, coastal areas, are in grave danger.

But the next year he bought a house just four or five metres from the edge of the tidal waters around the Hawkesbury estuary. He now contradicts that earlier scare without apologising for it. He told the Weekend Australian that while waterfront property generally was at risk, his little bit of paradise was secure for his lifetime:

There is no chance of it being inundated, short of a collapse of the Greenland Ice Shelf.

Flannery has also admitted that no matter what action we take on climate change there will not be anything that will have a substantial effect on global warming for at least 1,000 years. I think he did mention 100 years, but 1,000 years was mentioned there too. Despite Flannery's misrepresentation and misuse of the facts, other non-government aligned scientists have conducted research of the highest calibre and have deemed the reality of the situation to be different and not so dire.

A former environmental scientist for the Bureau of Meteorology, William Kininmonth, has written a paper entitled, 'A natural constraint to anthropogenic global warming' that demonstrates exactly why Minister Combet's and Mr Flannery's predictions are wrong. Kininmonth 's paper shows that Minister Combet is confusing the projections of rudimentary computer models with science. The rudimentary computer models to date have shown no ability to predict temperature and sea level variations on monthly, seasonal, annual or decadal timescales.

Despite the contrary claims by the IPCC and its followers, there is no demonstrated skill in the computer models; they likely exaggerate the impact of atmospheric CO2 increases by more than a factor of three. The empirical evidence of science is that the climate system varies on a range of timescales for reasons that are poorly understood. The interannual variability associated with El Nino events has a great impact on Australia's climate, ocean surface temperatures and sea levels around Northern Australia. These events and their impacts cannot be predicted in advance. The decadal fluctuations in climate are observed but not understood. The centennial-scale fluctua­tions, with advancing and retreating mountain glaciers, have been identified from historical accounts and from archaeological and proxy records; the recent emergence from the little ice age and the current relative warmth are part of this pattern. The evidence of science is that the 20th century rate of warming and sea level rise was not unusual and there is no uncontroversial observational evidence indicating that the rates of warming or sea level rises have accelerated recently with increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

In the face of sound evidence, the projections of rudimentary computer models are a poor basis for government policy. And yet Minister Combet insists that coastal assets at risk from the combined impact of inundation and erosion include between 5,800 and 8,600 commercial buildings, between 3,700 and 6,200 light industrial buildings and between 27,000 and 35,000 kilometres of roads and rail. But as Mr Kininmonth asserts, these stats are based on computer generated figures. The Gillard government wants to use facts that we know cannot be predicted in advance and to disregard historical evidence that suggests all is not what it seems. Not only that—it continues to deny the existence of further evidence that proves its stance on sea levels to be wrong.

For example, even if we are to believe Minister Combet's claims based on his report, new findings separate from Mr Kininmonth 's suggest that sea levels could even be decelerating. This analysis was undertaken by New South Wales principal coastal specialist Phil Watson and calls into question one of the key criteria for large-scale inundation around the Australian coast by 2100—the assumption of an accelerating rise in sea levels because of climate change. Based on tide gauge records, the analysis finds there was a consistent trend of weak deceleration from 1940 to 2000. According to Mr Watson this deceleration is continuing and the government's projections are way off. Mr Watson's finding is supported by a similar analysis of long-term tide gauges in the US earlier this year. Both seem to raise questions about the CSIRO's sea-level predictions.

Mr Watson contends that in all cases it is clear that although the sea level is rising, it has been decelerating for at least the last half of the 20th century, and so the present trend would only produce a sea level rise of around 15 centimetres for the 21st century. Mr Watson has pointed out in his research that during the 20th century there was a measurable global average rise in the mean sea level of about 17 centimetres, plus or minus five centimetres. But scientific projections, led by the government funded Panel on Climate Change, have suggested climate change will deliver a much greater global tide rise in the mean sea level this century of 80 to 100 centimetres.

How can the predictions be so different? If one is wrong, which one is it? One would have to believe the historical evidence that suggests a less alarmist scenario rather than the government funded view which we know cannot be accurately predicted. Both Kininmonth and Watson seem to be saying the same thing: that the government's view on sea levels is not accurate or realistic. However, the Gillard government knows the alarmist view is the only one that will allow an argument in favour of a carbon tax to hold any water. So, the factual and historical science must be disregarded in favour of a much more biased and inaccurate form. It is like having a jigsaw puzzle and, instead of matching each piece with the correct holes, you try to make the holes match the pieces. That is what the government is doing.

The difference in the two models shows that there is a clear problem with the CSIRO findings. The difference is so vast—15 centimetres versus 1.1 metres—that there has to be some sort of miscalculation here. And yet the Labor government still bangs on about the science. As Julia Gillard says, 'It all comes back to the science, the science, the science'. She boasts about the informa­tion from the CSIRO being a direct reason for initiating her destructive policy. The truth is that empirical evidence shows that sea levels are in fact not rising at the rate the government says they are. If the government ignores this, it is being irrespon­sible and reckless and is imposing a major burden onto the economy of Australia. Rising sea levels are also a factor in people not being able to get bank loans for businesses and houses, as the bank deems certain areas too risky to be developed due to future sea level predictions. This is creating great uncertainty.

Science can be right or wrong and the CSIRO can be right or wrong. Two prominent scientists disagree with CSIRO. So what can we do as laypeople? All we can do is look at how the tide has increased over the last 100 years—20 centimetres—and how the tide has risen in the last 10 or 15 years, which is about 3.2 millimetres a year. Everyone agrees it is 3.2 millimetres a year. But then we see this massive jump, as predicted by the coastal report and the other report, and it is going to go from 3.2 millimetres a year—which no-one has an argument with—to two metres in one report and 1.1 metres in the other report. In the small print of these reports they say that might be an exaggeration, it might be too much, but in the big black headlines in one report it clearly states that the level of sea rise could approach two metres. There are disclaimers on it but that is the headline, in big, black, bold writing. That is what people look at.

We have to look at these things carefully. Yes, anything can happen in the world and I accept that. But how do you go from 3.2 millimetres a year to the worst-case scenario of a two-metre rise in sea levels? No-one is denying that that could happen, but it is very, very unlikely. Quite frankly, I think it has been a scare campaign by Mr Combet and the Gillard government.

Senator KROGER (Victoria—Chief Opposition Whip in the Senate) (19:55): Mr President, I seek leave to speak for longer than 10 minutes.

Leave granted.

Senator KROGER: I rise tonight to honour and farewell one of Australia's greatest heroes. Nancy Grace Augusta Wake, affectionately known as the 'White Mouse', passed away on Sunday 7 August only a few weeks short of her 99th birthday. This extraordinary and incomparable lady will always hold a very special place in the hearts of generations of Australians. Though never wearing this country's uniform, she became our greatest war hero when fighting the Nazis in Europe during World War II. Nancy Wake effectively eluded Hitler's Gestapo, saving up to 1,000 allied soldiers from certain death.

She was, as we know, a leading figure in the French Resistance movement and was directly involved in preparations for the D-Day landings in Normandy. So remarkable and effective were her achievements that by 1943 she was one of the Gestapo's most wanted persons, with a 5 million franc bounty on her head.

Notwithstanding her nickname, Nancy Wake was no mouse by nature. She did what had to be done—she put her own life in jeopardy time after time to save the lives of others. I am reminded of the story of her confronting and removing an SS sentry with her bare hands, squeezing the very life out of him to prevent him raising an alarm during a raid. This was an extraordinary woman with the courage of a lion; a woman of iron-willed determination, of breathtaking bravery and of infinite resourcefulness in the battle of the just.

For those generations born after World War II, we can only read about her life and wonder what the formative triggers were in turning a small Sydney schoolgirl into one of our war heroes. She certainly had to fight for her place in life from the very first breath she drew. As we have heard, she endured a difficult and challenging childhood, with her father leaving his wife and family of six children. Nancy was the youngest child and her father never returned to Sydney after he left for New Zealand. He sold up the family home while they still occupied it, and one can only imagine the emotional stress that this would have put on all the family—and particularly the youngest of the family, Nancy.

At the young age of 16 Nancy left the family home to forge her own way in life. She trained as a nurse to make ends meet, but it was a £200 windfall inheritance from a distant aunt which was to change her fortune. She first travelled to New York and then to London, where she talked her way into a job as a journalist by pretending to be fluent in Egyptian. At this interview, she clearly showed the first signs of her remarkable talent to get things done in her own inimitable way.

She did not stay in London. Instead she moved to Paris, where she also worked as a journalist and learned to speak French like a native. It was then that her life would change forever. She witnessed the rise of Adolf Hitler and saw firsthand the direct outcomes of his regime in Berlin and Vienna, where she observed how storm troopers publicly persecuted Jews. At that moment Nancy Wake swore to herself that one day she would do everything in her power to fight this inequitable regime. And she did when she finally had the chance, which made her one of those rare jewels who step up to their promises.

This turn of events must have surprised some friends, colleagues and acquaintances of Nancy. Before the war she was a sultry glamour girl who enjoyed the life of champagne and caviar with her first husband, the French playboy Henri Fiocca. But when the war broke out Nancy Wake did not hesitate a second and became a courier for the French Resistance and also joined the escape network of Captain Ian Garrow. When the network was betrayed she had to immediately flee the country. She had to leave her husband behind, who was later captured, tortured and executed by the Gestapo because he would not reveal the whereabouts of his wife. Nancy Wake, tragically, only learned of his fate after the war and blamed herself for his death.

She fled to Britain, where she signed up to the Special Operations Executive, who trained her in clandestine work. Back then it was one of the few military areas that men and women could equally participate in. She was taught survival skills in very difficult conditions. She learned to parachute, how to operate a radio and the use of weapons and explosives. She also learned how to kill silently before being parachuted back into France. Her SOE superiors remembered her as 'a very good and fast shot' and that she possessed excellent field craft. The White Mouse, they noted, 'put the men to shame by her cheerful spirit and strength of character'.

A French colleague once said about her: 'She is the most feminine woman I know until the fighting starts. Then she is like five men.' What a woman, and wouldn't we have all loved to have met her. Nancy Wake was without doubt a stunner and an Australian bombshell. Those who say that a beautiful girl can be very dangerous certainly were spot-on when referring to Nancy. She fought in the war with both male and female weapons. In her autobiography she recalled:

I'd see a German officer on the train or somewhere, sometimes dressed in civvies, but you could pick 'em. So, instead of raising suspicions I'd flirt with them, ask for a light and say my lighter was out of fuel.

She told how she would get beautifully dressed and hang around making dates with Germans to get information. She wrote:

A little powder and a little drink on the way, and I'd pass their posts and wink and say, 'Do you want to search me?'

Her looks clearly helped her in deceiving and tricking the soldiers. However, she was everything but idle when being parachuted into enemy territory, hiding in trenches, ducking machine gun fire, attacking German installations and local Gestapo headquarters, or famously cycling more than 500 kilometres in just 70 hours through several German checkpoints to recover important radio codes.

When the 1944 Normandy landings were approaching, Wake's resistance groups were diverting as many German troops as possible. This meant they were constantly on the move, sleeping rough and engaging the enemy in numerous fire fights. Wake led a force of more than 7,000, which was a highly motivated army that made life decidedly uncom­fortable for about 22,000 German storm troopers stationed in the area. She did an extraordinary job in leading those troops, especially when you consider that she lost only about 100 of the fighters, whilst more than 1,400 German soldiers were casualties.

In response to this she received numerous honours after the war such as the Legion d'Honneur as well as three Croix de Guerre and a French Resistance Medal, Britain's George Medal and the US Medal of Freedom. Nancy Wake was one of the highest decorated female servicewomen of the war. It fills me with great sadness that it took Australia almost six decades to honour her incredible achievements with her Companion of the Order of Australia. It is also a tragedy that she felt that she needed to leave Australia in 2001 following her disappointment at the lack of acknowledgement in this country.

Her medals are on display in the Second World War Gallery at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. What is not on display is the fight she took up after the war. Nancy Wake's determination was again demonstrated when she stood three times as a candidate for the Liberal Party in the 1949, 1951 and 1966 federal elections. In all those elections she was up for a fight and tried the impossible by going after one of the more senior guys in the Chifley government. Sadly she was unsuccessful, despite achieving remarkable record swings in all three campaigns.

In the 1949 campaign, for example, she ran against then Deputy Prime Minister, Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs, Dr Evatt. She went to the polls with the cry, 'I am the defender of freedom; Dr Evatt is the defender of communism.' This campaign resulted in a huge 13 per cent swing against Dr Evatt. However Labor retained the seat with 53.2 per cent on a two-party preferred basis. The second time Nancy Wake ran against Dr Evatt was in the 1951 election, when she came even closer in defeating the then Deputy Leader of the Opposition by reducing the margin to less than 250 votes. One can only imagine how this extraordinary woman must have felt after having been defeated in federal politics. The word 'surrender' surely did not exist in her vocabulary. One can only imagine how different things may have been if she had achieved electoral success. There is no question she was a trailblazer and would have served with the same level of passion, vigour, merit and integrity that guided her in her life. Her family and former friends have so much to be proud of and we will never forget the amazing contribution she has made to our lives.

In reflecting on Nancy Wake's courageous stance against anti-Semitism in the 1930s, I am reminded of recent disgraceful protests and boycotts in the heart of the central business district of Melbourne, scenes that I am sure would have captured the attention of Nancy some 80 years ago. The fact that anti-Semitic protests are happening in modern day Australia is an outrage that we should all roundly condemn. I speak of the recent violent protests orchestrated by the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement outside the Max Brenner chocolate shop in Melbourne, when some 19 demonstrators and three police were injured.

The BDS movement unashamedly targets companies that have any sort of connection with Israel. It is a disgraceful movement, one that was supported by the Marrickville Council and one that receives support from members of the Greens to this day, including Senator Lee Rhiannon. Their aim is to economically cripple the only democracy in the Middle East and the one country in which the region's Arabs are guaranteed safety. The serious consequences of this political movement cannot be overstated. Colleagues should pick up a book or view the old news footage of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, the night in which Jewish homes, shops, towns and villages in Germany were ransacked. To think that activists can justify what was essentially a picket of a legitimate business because it is an Israeli company is contemptible.

I wish to applaud the swift response from the Victorian Minister for Consumer Affairs, the Hon. Michael O'Brien, for taking immediate action and requesting an investiga­tion by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission into the legality of their actions. At the recent ugly Melbourne protest, BDS activists prevented potential customers from entering the store as part of an orchestrated campaign to impose a secondary boycott on the com­mercial activities of the business and demonstrate that they could boycott businesses that have any association with Israeli owners. The Maritime Union of Australia, Geelong Trades Hall Council, Green Left Weekly, Australians for Palestine and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign are all involved in or support the BDS campaign.

It is shocking that the purpose of this boycott was to cause substantial loss or damage to the Max Brenner business. Such conduct could potentially contravene section 45D of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. I support Minister O'Brien's request to the ACCC Chairman, Rod Sims, to investigate these matters and consider seeking injunctive relief preventing further disruptions to the Max Brenner business.

Senate adjourned at 20:11