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

The member for Indi suggests it may have some inappropriate use. It will not. It will be a finance corporation with an independent board. It will have an investment mandate and it will be established in a manner that will ensure that it operates in an appropriate fashion to assist and commercialise low-emissions technologies and renewable technology—notwithstanding all the slur, slander and rubbish that comes from the other side.

Importantly, having established all of these mechanisms to cut pollution and drive investment in our economy, naturally the government has also placed a lot of attention on assistance to households and businesses, in particular to households to deal with any price consequences of the establishment of a carbon price in the economy. The Treasury modelling on this is clear. There is projected to be a 0.7 per cent increase in the CPI as a consequence of introducing the carbon price mechanism. The average potential price impact on households averaged across the economy is around $9.90 according to the Treasury modelling. The government, of course, will institute tax cuts, increases in the pension, increases in family tax benefits and a host of other Commonwealth payments to offset for many households that price impact, modest as it may be. In fact, the average level of assistance provided to households across the economy is $10.10.

The tax cuts will be delivered by a very important tax reform. The proposition contained in the policy material that the government will implement provides for an increase in the tax-free threshold from $6,000 to $18,200 from 1 July next year and, from 1 July 2015, an increase in the tax-free threshold to $19,400. This will mean that more than one million people will not have to submit an income tax return. It will deliver tax cuts to many households. Coupled with that, pensions and other Commonwealth payments will rise by 1.7 per cent, meaning that, contrary to the assertions falsely made by the shadow minister, nine out of 10 households will receive some assistance to meet the modest price impacts. Six million households will receive assistance to meet their expected average price impact. Four million households will receive assistance of 120 per cent of their expected price impact. Single pensioners will be better off. Coupled pensioners will be better off. Many others in that category of four million households will be better off.

On top of this, the government is providing significant assistance to industry to support jobs, in particular in relation to industries that are in the emissions-intensive trade-exposed part of the economy. There is also assistance for small business. There are other measures contained in the policy announcement that are very important that interested members of the community have access to.

Up against all of this is a farce of a policy from the coalition. It does not stack up. When the policy was first enunciated by the shadow minister in February 2010, it asserted that about 70 per cent of the emissions reductions it proposed could to achieve an emissions reduction target of a five per cent cut in year-2000 levels of emissions in our economy by 2020 could be achieved from soil carbons. The science is not there, and it does not comply with the international rules. It simply cannot work. (Time expired)

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