Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

Nothing more clearly emphasises the differing approaches of the two sides than what we have seen today in relation to climate change. We have seen two different things. Firstly, there is the investment of $125 million in practical, real measures which will lead to major decreases in emissions in Australia—that is what the government has done today. That money will leverage more than three times that amount in total investment. That is what we on this side of the House have done on this day towards real commitments to reduce emissions, to have a real impact on climate change. And the response from the member for Grayndler? ‘No, you’ve simply got to make a statement and it will all go away.’

We acknowledged it in 125 million ways today. They are the ways of investing taxpayers’ funds in real abatement measures which are going to decrease emissions in Australia as we speak—that is what it is about. The differences in the approaches to climate change could not be summarised better than the events of this day in this place: one side making a contribution in terms of real abatement, the other side contributing to excess emissions with a proposal that they believe will clothe themselves in moral respectability whilst at the same time implying that the actual measures are in some way deficient.

I want to deal in three ways with the proposal put forward by the opposition: firstly, in relation to the generalised criticism that they make of Australia’s position under the Kyoto protocol. Again I make the point very simply that we are one of a handful of nations that are actually achieving their targets under the Kyoto protocol. That is shown by the work which has been put forward by the IPCC. There is no question that we are one of the only nations on the planet to be achieving our targets under the Kyoto protocol—and the others know that.

The opposition ask, and this is their killer point—my gosh! now we can all go home—‘If you are achieving your targets, why wouldn’t you ratify it?’ It is very simple. It is because there is a fundamental flaw, although I respect the intention behind it. The fundamental flaw is what I call the Union Carbide, or Bhopal, argument: as we speak, we are seeing the movement from Europe of aluminium, cement and steel production to a higher emissions, lower regulated profile in the Middle East, in other parts of the developing world, in India and in China. What is happening as a result of this great moral measure that the opposition talk about is a movement of emissions from one position to another. It is because there is a fundamental flaw and they do not want to acknowledge it. There is a fundamental flaw and that is real, serious and a problem. What we say is this: we will meet our targets but we are not going to embrace a situation which worsens and actually leads to the Union Carbide, or Bhopal, problem of taking emissions and activity from a regulated environment to one where they are going to lead to greater environmental damage—and you know it.

That leads me to the next one of their arguments. There is great morality about a trigger: we need to put in a trigger. Yet when this was put forward by Senator Hill, it was the Labor states, with the exception of one out of the eight states and territories, that rejected it. They did it themselves; they rejected this proposal. So we moved on and we pursued a policy of technology. We were happy to look at it, but it was rejected. That time has passed and we have tried to put in place the most effective and most practical regime within the developed world. I acknowledge that Iceland might be giving us a good run for our money, but in the developed world, in terms of measures leading to real emissions changes—and our total emissions profile is what matters—no country has done better. (Extension of time granted)

The third argument is about going forward—what is actually going to change emissions profiles. What we have seen over human history is the development of technology, and the use of clean-air legislation has worked in dealing with the great unsolvable problems of the past. We are looking—and this is extremely important—at calling to account the petrol tax and the tax on pensioners’ heating, which is effectively what the opposition are proposing. We saw what happened earlier this year with a 30 per cent increase in petrol prices. Not much—it did not change consumption patterns in any meaningful way. Why? Because these goods are essentially inelastic. They are not absolutely inelastic. If you jacked the price up high enough, if you changed the price by 100 per cent or 200 per cent, it would begin to affect consumption. But what really happens with inelastic goods like these is that people—middle-income families and lower income families—are hurt without the outcome you seek being achieved. That is what is fundamentally important.

The proposal on the other side is a petrol tax and a tax on pensioners’ heating. The reality is that that is precisely what will come from the mechanisms that have been proposed by the opposition. So we want to know what will be the tax on petrol if they want to decrease consumption and what will be the tax on energy for pensioners to heat their homes if they want to decrease consumption. This is the heart of the debate. The reason it is important is that it is about hurting people in their homes and in their lives on a daily basis without achieving the outcome the opposition so desperately seek. I believe that they are absolutely sincere in wanting the outcome, but I believe that they are misguided in pursuing a mechanism which will fail to achieve the outcome and will hurt pensioners, low-income families and middle-income families on a daily basis. If you want to achieve real cuts in emissions through forcing up the price of inelastic goods, you have to force that price up enormously. The opposition need to let this House know what those price changes are.

I say there is a better way, and that is what we are doing, which is investing directly on the supply side of emissions control. That is the message from Senator Ian Campbell and that is the approach that the Prime Minister has taken. We make no apologies for pursuing an approach—in cooperation with the states—of dealing straight up with the emissions problems at source rather than attempting to use an indirect method of jacking up the price of inelastic goods. Those inelastic goods, let me remind the House, are petrol for low-income and middle-income earners. Is that a petrol tax of 30 per cent, 50 per cent, 70 per cent, 90 per cent, 100 per cent or 200 per cent? Let us hear it. And is it a pensioners’ heating tax of 30 per cent, 50 per cent, 70 per cent, 100 per cent or 200 per cent? Again, let us hear the proposal, because in order to achieve what you want through that mechanism those are the real people who are going to be hurt. You cannot walk away from it. The opposition say it is our responsibility; it is. Do I believe it is my responsibility? I do. Do I believe the problem is real? I do. Do I take it on my shoulders? Absolutely. But do I accept your mechanisms which are going to rip at the hearts of individual pensioners and low-income families? Not for one moment. Is there a morality point in this debate? Absolutely. Those are our points and I reject the amendments absolutely.

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