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

I thank the honourable member for her question. I do notice on this question of climate change that, within barely 24 hours of the release of the alternative plan, we had about three or four questions from those opposite on climate change, and then it went elsewhere.

I am asked about the integrity and transparency of dealing with the effectiveness and costs of different approaches to climate change. The government has described the proposal put forward by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday as a giant climate con job, and we have done so for three or four specific reasons. The first is this: it does less, it costs more and it is totally unfunded. These are very basic propositions. It does less because they do not cap carbon; it costs more because the cost to taxpayers is 300 per cent more than that put forward by the government. The reason that occurs is that they have let the big polluters off scot-free and instead they have transferred the burden to taxpayers and consumers. That is con No. 1.

What is con No. 2? Con No. 2 is: where do they fund this totally unfunded scheme from? The Minister for Finance and Deregulation referred today to Senator Joyce’s intervention in this debate, and the bottom line is that if you have, at their calculation, more than $10 billion invested in this scheme—$10 billion possibly rising—then the question is that you can fund it by an increased tax or you can fund it by cutting services for schools, for hospitals or for defence. In these areas today they were asked and they ruled out none. That is con No. 2.

What is con No. 3? Con No. 3 is the performance last night by the Leader of the Opposition on the absolute giant con at the middle of this overall con job, and that is his comparison of apples with oranges. He was challenged three times by Kerry O’Brien to come clean on his so-called giant tax. Three times he ducked and weaved—this is the ‘straight-talking’ Leader of the Opposition: three times asked a straight question, duck and weave, duck and weave and duck and weave—because the giant con at the centre of it was his equation of the total value of the carbon market on the one hand with the value of a total tax and direct tax on the Australian consumer and household on the other. That is the absolute con. He knows that. Everyone who follows this debate knows that.

But, as they say, there is more. I would go to the whole question of the bona fides of their engagement in this debate on climate change generally. We know the Leader of the Opposition has said in the past, in his own words, that climate change is ‘absolute crap’. Those are his words, not mine. But he has also sought to invoke the authority of others to legitimise the plan that he put forward yesterday. Let me quote to you what he said. He said yesterday:

I do want to draw your attention to the work that has been done by Frontier Economics who have said that our policy is economically and environmentally responsible.

Furthermore, he went on and said:

… it was incidentally designed by Frontier Economics who are very happy with the scheme that we are putting up today.

For the information of the House, that was yesterday. Today we have had some developments. The managing director of Frontier Economics, Mr Danny Price, said a few hours ago the following:

Well, we’ve looked at Tony Abbott’s scheme—two things, really: the quantity of abatement from the different sources and whether the costs actually add up. We’ve never said anything about whether that’s more cost effective than the CPRS or, indeed, what we proposed, so it’s been a very limited review in this case.

But there is more, because the managing director of Frontier Economics, Mr Danny Price, was invoked by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, if I read it correctly, as part of the mob who designed it; it was designed by Frontier Economics, to quote him. The Leader of the Opposition says here:

I do want to draw your attention to the work that has been done by Frontier Economics who have said that our policy is economically and environmentally responsible.

That is what the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday. Let me go on, therefore, to what Frontier Economics have said today on radio. The radio presenter said:

Mr Abbott’s saying he’s got an emissions reduction fund which will raise $1 billion over four years but, okay, he’s not calling it a carbon tax, but that’s a tax. That’s got to be money found that would normally be spent on health, education et cetera, so it’s a tax indirectly.

That is the radio presenter. Here is the answer given by Danny Price, the managing director of Frontier Economics. In response to that question, he says:

Yep. So, instead of under the government’s scheme where producers and consumers are having to buy permits and the government handing the money back again, what’s happening again is the government will have to pay for it by changing taxes and changing expenditures.

That is his description of what they are putting forward. Can I say to those opposite: let me just repeat what Mr Price from Frontier Economics said:

So, instead of under the government’s scheme where producers and consumers are having to buy permits and the government handing the money back again, what’s happening again is the government will have to pay for it by changing taxes and changing expenditures.

Let us be very clear about this.

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