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)