Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

The reason for the request for the states to abolish their mandatory targets is because that is what the Prime Minister’s task force actually recommended. Businesses would prefer there to be one target for all of Australia rather than all of the various state targets, which are a bit of a mishmash. Most people who are concerned about industry are concerned that there be one agreed target right around Australia. Otherwise, if you happen to have an aluminium smelter, let’s say in Tasmania, you might have to pay more for energy than if you have an aluminium smelter in Queensland, simply on the basis of the targets. So it makes good sense. But the government has said time and time again that things such as mandatory renewable energy targets have their purpose. Indeed, we introduced them and I think that they have served a very useful purpose.

In relation to regulations, today the Senate will be debating legislation requiring reporting conditions on particular businesses above a certain threshold. All of those factors which the senator is referring to are factors that we have taken into account, have dealt with or are dealing with in a comprehensive way and which, in fact, have the backing of the Prime Minister’s emissions task force. With great respect to the senator, the emission’s task force brought together the best brains available to us in this area and that is why the government is being very heavily influenced by the task force’s advice, rather than the stunt-a-day from the likes of Mr Garrett, who one day said he would close down our coalmines and kick 36,000 people out of work. When asked, ‘What about the jobs?’ he said, ‘That is hypothetical’, as though coalmining jobs are somehow hypothetical. They are real jobs sustaining thousands of families and hundreds of communities around Australia.