Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is again to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal report, the climate change mitigation report and his own Treasury documentation, all of which indicate large increases in electricity prices as a result of his emissions trading scheme. So I ask the Prime Minister: what is the increase? Is it the seven per cent that he told this House on Tuesday? Is it the 18 per cent that he admitted yesterday? Is it the 20 per cent which IPART claims? Is it the 25 per cent which Frontier Economics claims? Whatever it is, his great big new tax is a massive slug on Australian families and I call on the Prime Minister to explain himself.

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

I welcome the debate on alternative policies on climate change. In the lengthy question asked by the Leader of the Opposition he referred to a well-known consultancy firm called Frontier Economics. It is interesting to see what Frontier had to say about the scheme put forward by those opposite, because when asked again about this on radio yesterday the well-known Danny Price from Frontier Economics said this: ‘So I am in favour, ultimately, of a trading scheme.’ That is what Frontier Economics said.

The Leader of the Opposition said yesterday, the day before or the day before that that Frontier Economics were full backers of his approach. It strikes me as passing strange that the full backers of his approach say that the only way to deal with these challenges in the long term is through a market based system. I say to the Leader of the Opposition: if you are going to invoke an authority like Frontier Economics to justify your position, you get onto the telephone and you ask them, ‘Guys, are you going to back me up?’ because on this occasion they walked away from it at a million miles an hour.

The second part of the question which the honourable Leader of the Opposition asked was about electricity prices. I repeat what I said to him yesterday: price rises would be seven per cent in 2011-12 and 12 per cent in 2012-13. Yesterday, the shadow Treasurer said that there was something remarkably new in this. I draw his attention to a statement which was released by the Minister for Climate Change and Water in November of last year following the negotiations with your side of politics when we agreed on the approach to this. That contained within it precisely the final position vis-a-vis the impact on electricity and gas prices. The prices were put in those terms and at that amount because that was the deal we struck with you. That was contained in the statement and the letter by the minister in November last year and we have been absolutely consistent about that.

The final point I make in response to the Leader of the Opposition is this: through a market based system dealing with the challenge of climate, we have indicated quite plainly what the impact on prices will be. Mr Howard said when he was Prime Minister that if you are going to act on climate change it will have an effect on prices. That is what happens. Here is the difference. This government put forward a proposal which says that if prices are going up we will take the money we get from the biggest polluters in the country and use that to provide compensation to working families so that working families can use that money to invest in other forms of energy efficiency. We provide compensation: 92 per cent of Australian households are provided with compensation. How much is provided by way of compensation by those opposite? A big fat zero. Overall, it is a bit like this: we provide a scheme which is low cost, we provide a scheme which is more effective and we provide a scheme which is totally funded; they provide a scheme which is ineffective, which is high cost and which is totally without any funding detail at all.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I seek leave to table the transcript from which the Prime Minister was quoting, in which Mr Danny Price says that his scheme is almost the worst way to put a trading scheme together.

Leave not granted.