Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Robertson for her question. The government is approaching the challenge of climate change by concentrating on three areas in particular: firstly, renewable energy; secondly, the improvement of energy efficiency in businesses and households; and, thirdly, working on the introduction of a carbon price. Of course, the introduction of a carbon price is a vital economic reform for business in this country because, without a carbon price, Australia’s businesses and investors will continue to operate in an environment where there is considerable uncertainty when they are analysing alternative investment proposals.

Earlier today, nine of Australia’s leading superannuation fund and funds management organisations announced plans to form a new industry panel that will be dedicated to pursuing certainty around carbon pricing. The panel consists of CEOs from some very large financial institutions, including AMP Capital Investors, BT Investment Management, AustralianSuper and a number of others. Together these nine organisations are responsible for about $350 billion in funds under management and are extremely significant investors in the Australian equities markets. Earlier today, Mr Mark Lazberger, CEO of Colonial First State Global Asset Management, had this to say about the issue of a carbon price:

The current uncertainty surrounding carbon pricing hinders investment decision making across both emissions intensive and low emissions assets. To allow sensible long term investment decisions, the framework for pricing emissions must be resolved.

In other words, what Mr Lazberger is referring to, along with his colleagues on this panel, is that investors need to know what the carbon price is and how it will be constructed so that they can properly assess competing investment proposals not only in emissions intensive industries—

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