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.