Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Prime Minister, and I refer the Prime Minister to the Frontier Economics report released yesterday. Frontier’s analysis shows that, under the government’s proposed emissions trading scheme, typical household electricity prices will cost up to $240 more per year than under Frontier’s proposed arrangements. Prime Minister, why do Australian households have to pay higher electricity costs because of the government’s unwillingness to consider greener, cheaper and smarter alternatives to its flawed emissions trading scheme?

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

On the impact of electricity prices flowing from the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, I would draw the opposition’s attention to the government’s white paper of the end of last year and also to the provisions contained within it for compensation for lower income households when it comes to the impact of higher electricity prices for households. It follows quite plainly that, if you adjust the carbon price in a country, it flows through to the general economy. That is why the government’s response to this through the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme deals with the need to bring down greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. That is the first principle. The second principle is to provide adjustment arrangements for industry who are most likely to be directly affected by this change in the carbon price. The third principle is a set of arrangements detailed in the government’s arrangements for providing assistance to households—in particular, pensioners, carers, seniors and other low-income households—as well as support for middle-income households and for motorists.

The question that the honourable member poses is: how do we deal with the impact on electricity prices for Australian households? The honourable member has also referred to a publication, which was apparently released yesterday, which goes to what might or might not currently constitute the opposition’s policy on climate change. When asked yesterday whether in fact the release of this document represented coalition policy, the Leader of the Opposition said no, it did not. Therefore we are left in the position—in this critical week when the Senate is due to vote on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, Australia’s response to the challenge of climate change—that the opposition, as of Tuesday of this week, two days before the vote is due in the Senate, has produced a document which it then goes out on the next breath and says is not coalition policy.

For 12 years those opposite stood in this place and did nothing when it came to emissions trading.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

There are interjections from those opposite that that is an incorrect claim on my part. Perhaps someone could direct me as to where the emissions trading scheme is. Perhaps we have lost it somewhere. Perhaps it is simply in someone’s top drawer. Perhaps it is out there and no-one has yet discovered it. For 12 years there was no action from those opposite on climate change through the introduction of an emissions trading scheme.

The second point is that prior to the last election the opposition put their hand on their heart and said they would introduce an emissions trading scheme. That was their promise, and they said it would be a cap-and-trade scheme. Suddenly, we have produced yesterday something which is not a cap-and-trade scheme. That I find remarkable of itself. There has not only been a 12-year inaction record as far as the introduction of an ETS. Secondly, they promised to introduce a cap-and-trade scheme, yet yesterday they put out a document—a policy document which is not their policy—which says they are no longer going to have a cap-and-trade scheme.

Having got through the last election, we have identified seven sets of different reasons those opposite have put forward for not having a policy on an emissions trading scheme. And it goes on and on and on. Yet we get to today and, on the week that the parliament is required to vote on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme—despite 12 years of inaction, despite seven sets of excuses as to why they needed one document or another to be publicly produced to have the basis for putting out their own policy on an emissions trading scheme—we have nothing.

The Leader of the Opposition poses a question about what I will not say is his ‘alternative proposal’ because it is a nonproposal. It is a nonpolicy, but he has nonetheless made reference to it. What is its core proposition? Its core proposition is along these lines: that you can increase your emissions target while requiring the electricity and emissions-intensive sectors of the economy to do less. These together represent some 56 per cent of total emissions in the Australian economy, so he says that on the one hand you can increase Australia’s emissions targets while requiring these two critical sectors of the Australian economy, representing 56 per cent of total emissions, to do less. That is the first proposition.

The second proposition is on the cost of the regime. That is that they will produce a scheme based on this model—perhaps, depending on what the policy ultimately is—which will actually cost less than a carbon pollution reduction scheme, and they say it will cost less than a carbon pollution reduction scheme despite the fact that they are going to provide more by way of financial assistance to the emissions-intensive trade-exposed sector and more by way of financial assistance to the coal industry as well. So it will cost less while paying more. This does not represent a policy on climate change. This is the Liberal Party’s magic pudding—that is, you can actually claim to increase your targets while requiring the key sectors in the economy generating emissions to do less and saying at the same time that you can produce a system which will cost less while providing more direct financial assistance to two of the directly affected and most important sectors of the economy.

This is an absolute rolled gold, unreconstructed Liberal Party magic pudding from central casting. The reason why we do not have a policy, of course, is transparent. That is because there is no unity behind policy on their part, as far as the Liberal Party and the National Party are concerned. What we have had, therefore, is not an exercise in policy for the long term. It is an exercise in short-term politics aimed at one single objective: to paper over the enormous divide which exists between the Liberal Party and the National Party within the coalition on an alternative approach to carbon pollution reduction.

The government’s policy is clear. We have a white paper. We have legislation. It is in the Senate. It is waiting for a vote. Those opposite have run out of excuses. The national interest demands that you come clean and put forward your policy once and for all.