Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have been away from this place for a bit, and the arrival of a new child always focuses one's mind to the distant future. I think the important part of this debate is to remember that we need a balanced approach to this. Everyone would have to accept that it is wealthy nations that can do something substantively about the environment. All of us want to achieve a cleaner, greener environment, but we want to do it from a position where we strengthen our economy. By weakening our economy, we will not have the resources to do what we need to do with respect to protecting our environment. That is why, while I was on leave, I was, quite frankly, gobsmacked to hear that the Labor Party had adopted, effectively, a policy position that called on 50 per cent of renewable energy by 2030.

As I travel around my electorate and talk to producers, principally fruit processors—and I am grateful for them—they tell me that, aside from wages, the second most significant input cost to their business is the cost of electricity. I thought to myself immediately, 'What is a policy position like this going to do, if it were ever government policy'—my goodness—'to the cost of electricity?' Quite frankly, this policy would see the cost of electricity rise to a point where you could not fly a rocket over it!

The member for Hunter is someone who I have come to spend a bit of time with, particularly on the joint committee for agriculture, and he seems to be a sensible bloke. I probably like him more than I should! It is one of the things you learn about coming into this place, that you seem to make friendships on both sides of the place. He was asked, 'What would this cost?' Not once, not twice—as if on Mount Sinai—he said 'No-one knows.' And that is the reality; no-one knows how incredibly expensive this shift would be.

On the other hand, our government is taking a sensible approach to renewable energies. We have adopted, effectively, a target on renewable energies which is sensible, balanced and achievable, as opposed to far-fetched, fanciful and entirely unachievable. What it will see—and we saw from earlier contributions—is a doubling of the renewable energy rollout over the next few years, as we have seen in place already. That is the point. We have to ensure that we can achieve this. It is one thing to speak to our base and to move further and further to the left because we are concerned for our vote being diffused by the Greens, but it is another thing to come into this place to govern and implement policies which are achievable—and that is what we have seen from a government which has helped push us to a point where we will reach our Kyoto targets.

By 2020, we will be there. Indeed, we will exceed our targets; we will better our targets. And so it will be, I am sure, in terms of the targets, which are sensible and measured and have been announced recently. We are not going to do it with froth and bubbles, with respect. It is hard work. It is about practical, on-the-ground measures. It is very easy to come in here and simply say that we will achieve a 50 per cent target by 2030. But we are not having a real discussion about what that does to the Australian economy, how it weakens it and how it makes it even more difficult to achieve positive outcomes for the environment.

I have said very little about Labor's reckless 40 to 60 per cent target in carbon emissions. That will be a $633 billion-hit to the Australian economy. I do not know when we started speaking about millions and billions so easily, but it will be a $633 billion-hit our economy. That is money that we could be applying to a cleaner, greener Australian economy. It is a six per cent fall in per capita income per person in the nation. It is a $4,900 reduction in take-home pay. It is equivalent to a carbon price of over $200.

The nation knows that only a healthy and prosperous country can do something about its environment, and we should avoid this— (Time expired)

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