Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. Why is a price on carbon essential for our future economy and how is such reform viewed by the broader community?

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chisholm for her question. The long-term economic future of this country is interdependent with a sustainable environment. You only have to think of the risks to key sectors of our economy, like agriculture, that climate change represents. That is a why the establishment of a carbon price in our economy is needed. It will reduce pollution and help address the challenge of climate change, it will establish certainty for business investments to be made so that investors can understand and properly analyse the returns on an investment over time, it will help drive investment in clean energy, it will create new jobs and it will ensure our future economic competitiveness.

A range of leaders in the business community recognise the importance of establishing a carbon price. Mr Graham Bradley, the President of the Business Council of Australia, has indicated that there will:

… inevitably be the need for a market based mechanism that will give us the lowest cost approach to reducing the carbon intensity of our industries.

Mr Richard McIndoe, the Managing Director of TRUenergy, has said this:

We all would like a price on carbon.

Dr Nikki Williams, the Chief Executive of the New South Wales Minerals Council, has said this:

The principle of a carbon price is one that the industry supports.

None other than the shadow Treasurer, the member for North Sydney, said this on 20 May this year, only a number of months ago:

Inevitably we’ll have a price on carbon … we’ll have to.

Admittedly, of course, there has been considerable debate about what form a carbon price should take, but some of the other comments community leaders have made are instructive. One of them said:

If you want to put a price on carbon, why not do it with a simple tax? Why not ask motorists to pay more? Why not ask electricity consumers to pay more?

That contribution was made by none other than the Leader of the Opposition last year. So he has previously advocated in the media a carbon tax. He also made some comments in relation to emissions trading when he said last year:

I think that the science is far from settled but on the insurance principle you are prepared to take reasonable precautions against significant potential risks, and that’s I think why it makes sense to have an ETS.

Those were the Leader of the Opposition’s positions on two different occasions, but neither is the position that we hear now. What we hear now it is rank opportunism and economic irresponsibility. We hear bald slogans and we see empty gestures. He is completely repudiating the national interest of this country with the position he is taking. Mainstream business understands that we need a price on carbon in our economy. That is mainstream business thinking. What we hear from the opposition, particularly the Leader of the Opposition, is all over the place.

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

Order! The minister is now going wider than talking about views of the broader community.

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They will not act in the national interest, and we call on them to do so.