Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Furthermore, on 3 June last year, the former Prime Minister said:

Significantly reducing emissions will mean higher costs for businesses and households, there is no escaping that …

That is what the former Prime Minister had to say. Then we had the member for Wentworth as environment minister representing what I understood was Howard government policy but not Liberal Party policy. That was the position that we had from the member for Wentworth yesterday.

The government recognises the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport, which currently comprise around 14 per cent of Australia’s total emissions. By bringing transport fuels into the Australian emissions-trading system, consumers will be given greater incentive to improve the energy efficiency of their transport choices.

So let us just put all of this into context. The former Prime Minister said in the middle of last year, when the coalition spoke of their intention to introduce an emissions-trading scheme, that action in these areas would increase energy costs. Furthermore, they said that they would include transport within the emissions-trading scheme. And yet we have an entire question time strategy—the new chapter in the fear campaign being launched by those opposite—about the impact of emissions trading on petrol prices. We have a very clear-cut process to unfold an emissions-trading scheme in Australia: (1) we are going to have a green paper later, in July; (2)—

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