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

The Leader of the Opposition knows that across the coal industry the price per tonne of coal is modest indeed. At an example of $20 per tonne carbon price, the impact on the price per tonne of coal mined for methane emissions is around $1.60 per tonne. This does not prevent the Leader of the Opposition going to the Minerals Council of Australia meeting a week or two ago and claiming it would be the death and destruction of the coal industry—ridiculous hyperbole, increasingly shrill.

It does not matter that the Productivity Commission does a report identifying 1,000 policies in the economies of seven of our trading partners; he still goes out and claims that Australia will be going it alone against the rest of the world—increasingly ridiculous claims. As we heard yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition in the past has strongly advocated that a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme is the best way to go. He said, 'If you want to put a price on carbon why not do it with a simple tax?' As a self-described weathervane, misrepresenting yourself as well as everyone else is now just a tool of the trade.

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