Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Deakin for his very important question. Economists and the business community understand that having a carbon price is a very important part of our economic evolution. Over 30 countries around the world have moved to a carbon price and, unless we move, we are at serious risk of being left behind. We do have to move to the low-pollution economy of the future; it is absolutely essential to future prosperity. Of course, there are even those opposite who think a move to a carbon price is inevitable. The shadow Treasurer himself said on 20 May that we have to, it is ‘inevitable’. And we have had the shadow minister for climate change who has written a thesis saying it is absolutely imperative to have a price on carbon. And we have got the member for Wentworth, who has had this to say—and he only said this on 12 June 2010:

… we cannot cost effectively achieve a substantial cut in emissions without putting a price on carbon. We have to put a price on carbon.

So that is the view of three senior shadow ministers across the other side of the House. But we really heard the truth of it last night when the member for Wentworth was on the BBC and he said: ‘Look, it would have otherwise been different. I was only beaten by one vote.’ So there are a lot more opposite who do really believe in a carbon price.

It is one thing to oppose what the government is going to do on a carbon price. It is an entirely different thing to say that it would be repealed. Nothing could be more damaging to investment in this country. You could not send a more damaging message to international investors and particularly to investors in renewable energy than a promise to repeal. I think that demonstrates how desperate are all of those opposite. They are prepared to do anything to trash our economic reputation and to trash our standing in the international community. Nowhere is this more damaging than when it comes to the energy supply sector. We have seen five-year forecasts in that sector fall from $18 billion in 2009 to $8 billion in 2010. As the Prime Minister was saying before, if we do not get a carbon price in place we will not get the investment in the energy sector, and electricity prices will be higher than they otherwise would be. Responsibility for that will be directly at the feet of all those opposite.

This decision not just to oppose but to repeal strikes at the heart of business certainty, strikes at the heart of investment in jobs in our economy. If anything demonstrates how irresponsible they are and how they have no economic credentials or capacity to govern, it has been this decision. What we have opposite with the Leader of the Opposition is a political con man who is not game to take a political decision, a con man who wants to believe dealing with climate change is cost free.

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