Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance and Administration (Senator Minchin) to questions without notice asked Senators Wong and Sterle today relating to climate change.

Today we saw quite extensive reporting in the media, including on the front page of a number of Australian papers, of the Energy Supply Association of Australia, the ESAA—which represents electricity and gas businesses, which contribute more than $14 billion to the Australian economy—calling on the Howard government to back a national emissions trading scheme. So the energy suppliers themselves are calling on the Howard government to back an emissions trading scheme. We asked Senator Minchin about this and a couple of other matters today. We asked him about the fact that even industry is calling for the government to set clear policy settings to drive more sustainable outcomes and to drive a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Let’s just get this in context: not only have we had in recent times a range of major businesses calling for the government to take leadership on this issue—and I include, for example, the Insurance Australia Group, BP, Origin Energy, Visy and Westpac—but also we now have the industry which produces energy, the Energy Supply Association, which represents electricity and gas businesses, saying, ‘We need to look at an emissions trading scheme and we need to do it soon.’

What do we have with this government? We have a government of climate change sceptics, a government that is not prepared to show national leadership on this issue. And how did Senator Minchin deal with that in question time today? He tried to suggest that actually the Energy Supply Association was motivated—I think he said he detected this motivation—by a desire to ensure that other sectors of the economy receive similar scrutiny for their greenhouse gas emissions. It was really a pathetic answer, to try and suggest that their motives in calling for what is a substantial policy initiative were driven only by a concern about other sectors. That may well be an issue but that is no answer given the fact that you have significant parts of Australian business, leading Australian business operators, calling for the government to show leadership on this issue and calling for an emissions trading scheme. And what do we have? Frankly, we have climate change sceptics—climate change troglodytes—on the other side of the chamber refusing to do anything.

People should understand that the Howard government is well behind Australian business on this issue. I want to quote briefly some of the comments of Mr Brad Page, who is the Energy Supply Association of Australia’s chief executive:

“We’ve recognised for some time that climate change is a big issue,” Mr Page said.

“ Investment decisions about base load generation are going to be needed in the next few years if we’re to meet the expected growth in demand out to 2030 … So our position on emissions trading is about recognising that if politicians conclude we’ve got to move to a low emissions economy, we can’t do it overnight.”

So we have business taking a very practical and pragmatic approach to this, recognising that there is likely to be in the future an increased pressure on business for a reduction in emissions. In fact, they are recognising that there already is that internationally, in terms of our competitor economies and also in terms of investors and the community. The only people who have not woken up to the need for this are the members of the Howard government.

Today Senator Minchin went back to the hoary old chestnut. He went back to that old line: ‘We’re not going to do this; we’re not going to go down the national emissions trading scheme route until the rest of the world signs some.’ In other words, despite the calls by business for certainty and clear signals, the Howard government’s position is ‘let’s sit on our hands’. We know that the government is running a couple of different messages here. Perhaps it is because Senator Minchin’s position actually differs from that of some of his colleagues. We know he is a climate change sceptic. I want to remind the chamber that the possibility of the introduction of a domestic emissions trading scheme ahead of any global scheme was in fact raised in an issues paper produced by the task force on emissions trading commissioned by the Prime Minister. While we know there are differences of opinion within the government, the key issue here, and people should clearly understand this, is that leading Australian businesses—many in the financial sector and in the insurance sector, because they understand the risk, and in the energy sector; today it was the Energy Supply Association, which includes gas and electricity generators—are well ahead of the government on this issue. (Time expired)