Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Science and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Ian Campbell, the Minister for the Environment and Heritage. Is the minister aware of growing acceptance in the corporate world about the need for a carbon-trading scheme at the same time as the government continues to oppose such a scheme? Wasn’t Mr Greg Paramor, the head of the property company Mirvac, making exactly this point when he noted, ‘It’s kind of funny that the corporate world has picked up on this and the government hasn’t’? Isn’t Mirvac now voluntarily working to offset its carbon emissions, in the belief that eventually the government will have to act? Aren’t many other leading businesses also considering following suit? Given that business is leaving the minister far behind and taking real action on climate change, aren’t the minister’s pompous claims about leading the world completely false?

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is an incredibly important question because we do know that abating greenhouse gases and trying to mitigate greenhouse gas increases is the only way that the world, working cooperatively and effectively together, can stop dangerous climate change and dangerous rises in sea level and atmospheric temperatures. So coming up with effective policies to achieve just that has been a strong focus of the government.

Yes, some people do advocate trading schemes. Recently, the Premier of New South Wales put out a plan for a possible emissions-trading scheme. We found on that day that, because of the ineffectiveness of it from an environmental point of view and because of the fact that it would impose significant costs on industry in states like WA and Queensland, by lunchtime the Western Australian Labor government had withdrawn and by dinnertime the Queensland Labor government had withdrawn from the trading scheme that the senator is referring to.

That sort of national trading scheme in Australia would have perverse environmental consequences. A lot of people focus on the cost on jobs, as Mr Beattie and Mr Carpenter have done, because you are effectively bringing in a new tax which will drive up the cost of energy in Australia at a time when Australians are saying: ‘We don’t want the cost of energy to go up. We’re sick of paying higher fuel prices. We don’t want higher energy prices.’ At a time when the Australian people are saying that, Australia’s internationally competitive businesses are saying that and we are trying to make energy more efficient, you have the Labor Party federally saying: ‘Let’s put a carbon tax on. Let’s put a tax on energy. Let’s put a tax on jobs.’

As I said, the Labor Premier of Queensland, who cares about jobs in Queensland—and coal is an industry in Queensland—and the Labor Premier of Western Australia have said, ‘No, we won’t be part of that because of the economic consequences.’ But what Mr Beattie and Mr Carpenter have not said, and what I will say, is that it also has perverse environmental consequences. If you put up the cost of doing business in Australia and drive internationally competitive businesses to shift their operations offshore then you are doing a bad thing for the environment, because you are shifting the greenhouse gas emissions to Indonesia, China or somewhere else where they have less regulation of other emissions.

So what the Australian government have done is in fact to introduce a range of initiatives which will allow the corporate sector to engage in emissions reduction. For example, the Greenhouse Friendly program involves companies using a trading system and an offset system for their carbon. They are able, under the Kyoto rules, with the endorsement of the Australian government, to offset their carbon-creating activities with Greenhouse Friendly activities—with abatement activities—and they can go to the Australian people and claim that they are carbon neutral. We as a government have facilitated that because we think it is a very worthwhile thing to do. Through the Greenhouse Challenge program we have also engaged with over 700 businesses which have measured their greenhouse inventories and have put in place greenhouse reduction plans, and they have to report on them annually. So we do believe that an effective response to greenhouse gas reduction and climate change is required, but the Labor Party’s plan to put a new tax on energy and people’s power bills and to increase their petrol bills is not the answer. (Time expired)

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Science and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Does the minister recall saying at Senate estimates in February that carbon trading was part of the answer to reducing emissions? When does the minister plan to start showing some leadership by backing up these grand claims about leading the world on climate change with action? If he supports carbon trading, when will the minister take action on greenhouse emissions and provide business with a long-term incentive to cut carbon pollution?

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Business does have an incentive. The trouble with the Labor Party is that they ignore the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars we have spent. In my last answer, Senator Evans was sitting there interjecting—creating hot air and greenhouse gases as usual. What he was saying was, ‘Tell us what you’re doing.’ I tell you every day. The Labor Party have a two-word policy—they say, ‘Sign Kyoto.’ We are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to put 12,000 solar cells on people’s roofs through the Solar Cities program. Our Greenhouse Challenge program allows businesses to reduce their abatement and to get credit for it. We have created, through the Greenhouse Friendly program, a voluntary carbon-trading scheme. You cannot even get the Labor states to sign up to your trading scheme. You want a carbon tax. The premiers of WA and Queensland will not have a bar of it, because they are too smart.