Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In this question time we asked the question, and it's a logical question to ask: given the Prime Minister's many commitments to various approaches to climate policy, and given how many times he has adopted a position and abandoned it at the first headwind, how can we trust him on this latest announcement?

This latest announcement—a three-letter acronym, the NEG—is the new thing we're all supposed to believe in. But why is this any different from the litany of programs adopted by the Prime Minister and abandoned the moment Mr Abbott raised his voice? I can run through them again. He was a supporter of the ETS, he was a supporter of the carbon tax, he was a supporter of an EIS, he was a supporter of a CET and he was a supporter of a RET. Now he's the supporter of a NEG. It doesn't inspire a lot of confidence, does it? We're now into the fifth year of this government—the fifth year in a period where there has been an investment strike. The day this crowd came into the parliament and assumed government they decided to abolish any coherent policy approach to dealing with climate change; and the investment community, quite reasonably, just didn't know what to do. Without clear policy settings about how we intend to address climate change as a nation, it is impossible to make rational assessments about how to direct your investment. And indeed that is what we have been told over and over again.

I was interested to hear Senator Duniam implore us to 'listen to the experts'. Well, I'll remind him of this: the experts have been talking to us for some time. The experts from industry, the expert academic economists and the expert market economists have been talking to us. And what they've been saying to us is, 'You need to put some certainty around the investment environment.' We have waited for four years and we're into our fifth year ,and now we're expected to believe that the NEG is the thing that is going to create that certainty.

I saw Senator Duniam waving around a glossy brochure, and I look forward to receiving my copy of that glossy brochure. I have spent the last hour and a half trawling the internet trying to find written down details of this policy that has been announced by a press release and, I understand, perhaps on a social media video from the Prime Minister. I think we deserve a little bit more than that. I think we need to understand the analysis and the modelling that lies behind the set of propositions that are being wheeled out now.

But I will tell you what I've been able to find out in the short time that's been able to me. This thing, this policy, involves an emissions guarantee. What is that? How will it work? We don't really know. We had some explanation read out rather laboriously by Senator Scullion. As far as I can tell, the actual target that will form the basis of this emissions guarantee is yet to be set. As far as I can tell from the reports being made in the media, this guarantee is something that is going to be 'worked through' in the lead-up to COAG. So, in fact, we've got absolutely no idea what it is that this guarantee represents. What part of the emissions reduction task that we are committed to in our Paris agreement will this emissions guarantee play? We don't know, because the level hasn't been set, and quite obviously the modelling associated with it has not been done.

It's the same with the reliability guarantee. What is the standard that is to be set? That hasn't been announced publicly and again, as I understand it, this is something to be 'worked through' as we approach COAG. This isn't a policy; this is a set of aspirations and a kind of plea that hopefully they can get together with state and territory governments and work something out as they approach the next COAG. Mr Frydenberg was asked today: 'How can you make these commitments about the cost to households, how can you make these commitments that costs will go down, if you have made none of the decisions about the actual targets to be established in this guarantee?' He responded in this way: 'The Commonwealth will be asking the AEMC to do detailed analysis and modelling of the specific proposal in the lead-up to discussions at COAG. We will provide, if you like, firmer estimates of those price effects. The price numbers you are referring to are based on, if you like, analysis and modelling of the market and the alternative schemes we have looked at in the past. It's an average over the 10 years.' Nothing there. Completely hopeless. All hot air.