Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Ludlam for a question of some detail—which is what we usually do in committee debates. I will come back to him with a detailed answer on the NEM issues he has raised in a short period. I have just asked the advisers to provide me with some advice on that.

In Senator Cormann's contribution, he asked about the emissions trajectory. What the government has said and the Treasury modelling shows is that with a carbon price we would reduce Australia's emissions from what they would otherwise be. If you do not use that analysis, you are constructing a world which does not exist, which is a world in which emissions do not grow, which is completely illogical. I think the Treasury modelling shows that without a carbon price Australia's emissions will grow to over a billion tonnes by 2050—to 686 million tonnes in 2020, and with a carbon price there would be 621 million tonnes of domestic emissions and an offset of some 94 million tonnes through international linking by 2020.

In relation to the economic effects, I have said on many occasions that the Treasury modelling shows that the Australian economy will continue to grow at the same time as we cut pollution. The economy continues to grow, with average growth in GNI per capita of 1.1 per cent a year. Average incomes grow strongly. Jobs grow strongly, with some 1.6 million additional jobs by 2020, and Australia's carbon pollution would fall by 160 million tonnes per annum in 2020.

In terms of overseas permits, I do not believe there was a question in particular in relation to that; I think there was yet another set of criticisms about international linking. I think it is a very worrying trend that we have a Liberal Party that appears to believe, in relation to international action to support the global economy and international linking to ensure that Australian firms can adjust at the lowest cost, that both should be opposed on the basis of some strange protectionist or xenophobic criteria. In relation to the net effect on global emissions, Senator, if you assert that your policy achieves the five per cent reduction then the net effect on global emissions of our policy and your policy is the same. The difference is that ours costs less and will actually have an effect. We know that the coalition's policy will cost some $1,300 per household per annum to deliver.