Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Climate Change and Water (Senator Wong) to a question without notice asked by Senator Milne today relating to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

Firstly, I note that the government last year consistently said that taking strong action on climate change would cost jobs and that was why they were not going to introduce more rigorous targets. Now in the stimulus package they have acknowledged that if you spend money on reducing emissions and addressing climate change it stimulates jobs and will help to begin the process of rebuilding the manufacturing sector, which has been hollowed out after a decade of the Howard government. So I am very pleased there is now an acknowledgement that addressing climate change and moving to a low-carbon economy creates jobs.

However, the Minister for Climate Change and Water refused to say that she would revise the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme to make sure that instead of giving out permits for nothing she actually makes them conditional upon those industries implementing energy efficiency strategies, fuel switching and other job-creating ideas. It is very clear that in all those industries that are getting free permits there is enormous opportunity to make change and drive greater efficiency. The Greens believe you would have been much better off to have gone for 100 per cent auctioning of permits and then provided some of that permit income to give accelerated depreciation, for example, to companies installing energy efficient machinery, technology and so on. I am disappointed that the government did not recognise that.

But the issue I really want to focus on today is that yesterday the government claimed that the $2.7 billion insulation program would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 million tonnes by 2020. I believe they have misled the Australian community, because one of the fundamental flaws of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is the weak cap. Because the 50 million tonnes that is going to be reduced through insulation will not result in a 50 million tonne reduction in the cap, all that is going to happen is that the government is going to pay the community to reduce emissions by 50 million tonnes and that 50 million tonnes will go straight across as a direct subsidy to the big polluters. So anytime people take action to reduce emissions in their homes and communities it will not reduce Australia’s overall cap—the cap stays the same—and it will create a bigger space for those companies to pollute. We are not only giving them free permits; we are going to be using community action, reducing emissions through efficiency and so on, to give them the opportunity to pollute more. That 50 million tonne reduction in efficiency in homes is going to go straight across to an additional 50 million tonnes worth of carbon dioxide pollution from the big emitters.

The minister said today that the great thing about energy efficiency is that it gives you flexibility to reduce your emissions. What we need to hear from the minister and from the Prime Minister is that they are going to reduce the cap in the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme by 50 million tonnes to account for the 50 million tonnes that they are paying to have reduced through the efficiency measures. Otherwise it will be a case of the government using taxpayers’ money—taking money from where it is needed in health, education and so on—to reduce emissions in one sector in order to allow the polluters to pollute more. It is paying them government money to pollute.

This is a key issue, because if you do not reduce the cap you will create a complete disincentive for community engagement. Why should someone in the community pay to put solar panels on their roof if the reduction in emissions automatically goes across to allow the polluters to create that exact amount of additional pollution? That is why there was a photograph in the newspaper this week of someone taking their solar panels off their roof, saying, ‘I’ll give them to any other mug who wants them because all they are doing is allowing the coal industry to pollute more.’ This is a key issue and I believe the government misled the community by saying that the efficiency gains of 50 million tonnes would reduce Australia’s actual emissions target, because it is not reducing the cap. We have to make sure that the government immediately reduces the cap under the CPRS according to the amount that has been saved elsewhere. Otherwise there will be complete disempowerment. It is because of this that the community groups that came here to Canberra—it was fantastic: 150 community groups from across the country—said that the CPRS is a disincentive to them to take action. That is one of the reasons they will be campaigning against it.

Question agreed to.