Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister and Treasurer. Why has the government set its carbon tax at $23 a tonne when analysts at Thomson Reuters yesterday slashed their forecast for international permits until 2020 by 59 per cent to a mere $4.30 a tonne?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The information I have, which may be somewhat different from what the shadow Treasurer has quoted, says that analysts believe the price for European permits may increase by $8 in 2013 and rise to around $22 to $23 by 2015 if the EU legislates current policy proposals. So he has been caught again misrepresenting the facts.

As I have said in this House on a number of occasions, the Europeans are reconsidering their approach to their emissions trading scheme. They are looking at making changes. What that means is that we could well see a rise in carbon price in the European Union. But this goes to the very heart of the deception that those opposite continue to put forward in this House. There is no figure they will not bend. There is no policy impact they will not exaggerate in their attempt to deny the science of climate change and to go on and deny that the price impact of the carbon price in this country is 0.7 per cent—less than 1c in the dollar.

So, once again, the shadow Treasurer has been caught out with his figures. The Thomson report does not necessarily prove the point that he was making. What we say is that we have the right balance between market incentives and giving business certainty. And what we saw from the IMF yesterday was another endorsement of our scheme.