Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. I refer the minister to the overwhelming support from the BCA, the Clean Energy Council, the Aluminium Council and solar producers for the government to decouple the renewable energy target from its flawed emissions trading scheme, a scheme which will increase power bills by up to $240 a year per family, as opposed to cleaner, greener systems. Will the government therefore stop delaying its own renewable energy legislation and deliberately holding solar businesses hostage and decouple the renewable energy target from the emissions trading scheme?

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question, because never has an opposition been so exposed on their inability to deliver a consistent position on climate change. Here we are in the very week that the Australian public is waiting for this coalition to bring forward a consistent position on climate change in relation to an emissions trading scheme, and the best that the shadow minister can come up with is a question about a renewable energy target.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Pyne interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Manager of Opposition Business has obviously not referred to the standing orders, especially 65(b), in the break. He can decide whether he stays in the chamber or not by actually paying attention to those things. If his advice to those that are asking questions is inadequate about what should be asked, he cannot remedy that by interjection. He is warned.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How ludicrous is it for the shadow minister to put a question about delaying passage of legislation when they themselves cannot bring themselves to even have a policy about this particular issue? All the failures and the weaknesses of the Leader of the Opposition and the chaos and confusion of the Liberal Party have been in evidence in this past week and are in evidence in this parliament today. They do not even have a policy position on an emissions trading scheme. The predominant public policy debate in this parliament for the last decade about how to deal with climate change has been to have a price in the marketplace through an emissions trading scheme which will enable industries to get on with investing in low-emissions technology, drive the jobs and employment and bring emissions down. They did that work on that side of the House, and the Leader of the Opposition was a part of the process of doing that work when he came into this parliament. Yet, despite all of that, there is no authority whatsoever—

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. I know you were about to make a ruling, because clearly this is not relevant. The minister was asked a question about a policy of decoupling two bills in the Senate—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Dickson will resume his seat. The minister should relate his answer in response to the question.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am actually doing just that. I make the point to the House that the member for Flinders on 1 May said that the coalition would announce a more ambitious renewable energy policy than the government’s 20 per cent target by 2020. We never saw that. Then on 4 February, as they lined up to oppose the government’s energy efficient homes package, the largest rollout of energy efficiency in Australia’s history, he said:

… we will come back with more details of an energy efficiency package.

We have not seen that one either. So the opposition has not got a policy on renewable energy, which is what this question was about, it has not got a policy on energy efficiency and it has not got a policy on an emissions trading scheme. We have got the ETS; they have got the MPS—the magic pudding scheme.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. The question was about whether the government would decouple the renewable energy legislation from the emissions trading scheme.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister should relate his remarks to the question.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, the fact is that this government had a mandate to take comprehensive action on climate change, which included an emissions trading scheme and a renewable energy target, which have been brought into this parliament to be debated and voted on. It is time that the opposition stopped being the flat-earthers of the 21st century and got on with the job of supporting these policies.