Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to a paper by the head of US President Obama’s National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers, who expressed concern about expenditures for climate change in economies where per capita income is in decline. Does the Prime Minister share the view that now is not the time to be introducing new taxes on Australian businesses through an emissions trading scheme, especially when those costs will not apply to their international competitors?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the National Party’s question goes to the policy position of the Obama administration on climate change. I would simply draw the Leader of the National Party’s attention to one fact: the Obama administration has committed itself to introducing an emissions trading scheme as a cap and trade system. They have indicated that as their policy approach. We on this side of the House welcome the fact that now in America—one of the single largest emitting countries in the world—we have a government and an administration prepared to be part of the global climate change solution and not simply to be part of the global climate change problem.

Our approach is always to be balanced and to ensure that our approach to emissions trading ensures that our economy and our jobs are looked after and that we do the right thing to ensure that the next generation of Australians have a planet and a country which can be comfortably and profitably inhabited given the impact of climate change on water, given the impact of climate change on drought, given the impact of climate change on natural disasters and given the impact of climate change on severe weather events. I would have thought that the Leader of the National Party would be seized of that as well as the importance of acting to preserve jobs and to support firms through the difficult challenges presented by the global economic recession. We on this side of the House welcome the fact that the administration of the United States of America is now signing up to be part of the global solution and is not being part of the problem.