Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

In the absence of specific decisions about what the emissions-trading scheme will consist of and the dimensions of the scheme—how it will function, what the overall framework will be and how it will be phased in—it is, first, not possible to make forward estimates judgements on the basis of things that are completely unknown and are yet to be determined. Second, my primary responsibility with the forward estimates—and again this is a question about where my responsibilities lie and where the Treasurer’s responsibilities lie—relate to government spending. It is true in a narrow sense that there is an element of the emissions-trading scheme issue that relates to government spending. In particular I refer to the fact that we have a review of existing climate change amelioration programs in the government being undertaken by Roger Wilkins. No changes in forward estimates for those programs have been made pending the review, for obvious reasons, as we do not yet know what the content of the recommendations will be.

Clearly, as the implication in the honourable member’s question suggests, there is every prospect that some of those programs will change in the wake of new arrangements following the recommendations of that review. But until we receive the recommendations and are able to consider them and respond to them, clearly it is premature to change forward estimates in advance of going through that process. He may well want to ask the Treasurer the wider question, because essentially these questions go more to the Treasurer’s responsibility than to mine.

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