Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I strongly support the need to take effective action on anthropogenic climate change. It is up to us to do what is necessary to meet this challenge and to meet it as soon as possible, because the costs of not acting now will be much higher in the long run. The issue is: how do you drive the best possible reduction in emissions as efficiently as possible? Senator Back does have a very good point in terms of wind energy. It is intermittent and it is unreliable. In terms of the renewable path, it is much better to go down the path of large-scale solar, for instance. And South Australia needlessly has the highest power prices in the nation.

My concern with the previous government's carbon tax policy, the Labor government's tax policy, was that it was a huge revenue churn, and that itself is inefficient. Back in 2009, when the now Prime Minister was opposition leader, we jointly commissioned Frontier Economics to prepare an alternative emissions trading scheme. It was in my view cleaner, greener and smarter, because its churn on revenue was lower and it was based on energy intensity. I believe it has an enormous amount of merit.

Politics has intervened. I have worked constructively with the coalition since the election to improve its Direct Action legislation, to strengthen the safeguard mechanism and to make the overall scheme much more accountable and practical. We have heard what the costs of emissions reductions have been: an average of $12.25 per tonne.

More must be done. I think it is a good thing that our Prime Minister is in Paris. I think the previous Prime Minister had no intention of going there. The fact that Malcolm Turnbull is there is a good thing. We also need to regularly review emissions targets. I believe the 26 to 28 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030 needs to be much more ambitious, so I will work constructively with my colleagues on both sides of the chamber to see what we can do in practical terms to reduce emissions as much as possible, to constantly review those targets and, of course, to be aware of the damage that has been done, not to ignore issues of adaptation.