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

Firstly, of course, it is a responsibility of the department to engage contractors. I do not have the precise dates of engagement at this point in time, but it is a function of the department to engage contractors for that purpose. As I understand it, that process is still ongoing. When those contracts are finalised, they will be recorded on the AusTender site. In relation to the funding that has been announced, last week the government indicated that $12 million has been committed for a national advertising campaign. That is a new commitment. The shadow minister is referring to an amount of $13.7 million that the government had previously announced in relation to a climate change engagement campaign. That is a separate amount of funding that appeared in the budget for 2011-12. It is divided over both financial years. That $13.7 million appears as $5.5 million in the current financial year and $8.2 million in the financial year 2011-12. That $13.7 million was derived originally from what was described as the climate change foundation campaign in the previous term of parliament. There was an amount approximating, I think, $29 million allocated to that campaign. Approximately $15.3 million was returned to the budget, and the remaining $13.7 million was provided for the engagement campaign. So the $12 million announced last week for advertising is an additional commitment that the government has made.

These are measures that are important for ensuring that members of the community have access to the appropriate information at an appropriate time in relation to the measures that the government is taking in the area of climate change and energy efficiency. The engagement campaign funding is not advertising funding in the sense that it is funding television advertising, but it is providing an opportunity for working with organisations, including non-government organisations, to improve understanding of climate change issues and energy efficiency issues. The national advertising campaign for which $12 million has been committed will be to assist community understanding at an appropriate point in time. A final decision about the advertising campaign is yet to be taken and is contingent on further discussions being held and concluded, but the campaign would be intended to provide information to the community about the carbon pricing measures that the government is proposing to implement.

Of course, there has been a lot of community debate about the issue of carbon pricing, a lot of it led by the opposition—of course, extremely misleading and misrepresentative of the positions. I think the community is entitled to be informed about the important measures associated with a carbon price mechanism and in particular that, as the government has committed, at least half of the revenue generated by the carbon price mechanism would be dedicated towards assisting households to adjust to any price impacts associated with the introduction of a carbon price into the economy. Of course, other measures are also important, and the government has further committed that the carbon price revenue would also be disposed towards supporting jobs and competitiveness of the most affected industries and, furthermore, supporting other climate change programs and measures to support the investment in clean energy that we need to be able to reduce our emissions and substantially improve the contribution of cleaner energy sources to our energy supply.

So those generally are the commitments that the government has made. We are continuing to work on the detailed carbon price package. We do so through the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee. Contingent upon the outcome of those discussions, the detail of the carbon price mechanism will be announced, and I think it will be very important for the community generally to have access to reliable factual information about the carbon price itself and how it may impact upon people.

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