John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

My attention has been drawn to the plan, and I heard the Premier of New South Wales and the Premier of South Australia waxing lyrical about the plan on radio this morning. What the Labor states want and what the federal opposition wants is a European modelled emissions trading scheme starting in 2010. It has the long-term goal of reducing emissions by 60 per cent by the year 2050. It will involve a $12 to $14 carbon tax, higher electricity bills and a 37 per cent reduction in coal-fired power generation. Electricity generators and gas pipelines around Australia will be the first targeted, and additional sectors will be added over time.

The hardest hit states under this plan will be the resource-exporting states of Queensland and Western Australia. Workers will see their jobs disappear and jobs exported to other parts of the world. States like South Australia that are reliant on drawing electricity from the national grid will be even more exposed. The analysis to be released by the states today indicates that, under Labor’s proposal, retail electricity prices in Darwin will rise by nearly $200 a year, wholesale prices in Western Australia in each year are expected to be on average 40 per cent higher and states such as Tasmania that have a higher relative use of electricity will have higher relative increases in power bills.

These proposals very closely echo the proposals of the Leader of the Opposition in his various blueprint speeches delivered last year and this year, which involve cutting emissions by 60 per cent by the year 2050, ratifying Kyoto, setting mandated emissions target reductions and establishing a national emissions trading scheme.

According to ABARE, a 50 per cent cut in Australian emissions by 2050 would lead to a 10 per cent fall in GDP, a 20 per cent fall in real wages, a carbon price equivalent to a doubling of petrol prices, and a staggering 600 per cent rise in electricity and gas prices. These are not the calculations of my office. They are not the calculations of the federal secretariat of the Liberal Party. They are the calculations of the Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, a very respected federal government body.

So, to borrow a phrase that is beloved by the Queensland Premier, let me say to Mr Beattie: why don’t you stand up for Queensland? Why don’t you stand up for jobs in the coal industry in Queensland? And why don’t you tell your Labor mates in New South Wales and South Australia that you are not going to have any truck with a proposal that would cripple the resource industry in Queensland, export jobs from that great state and impose unbearable, higher petrol prices on Australians at a time when we face the prospect of even higher fuel prices?

See this speech in context