David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

As the shadow Treasurer said, it is an inevitability that we will have to price carbon in this country. That is why Michael Fraser, the CEO of AGL says:

AGL supports the introduction of a price on carbon emissions as soon as possible to provide investment certainty for the energy industry as Australia begins the transition to a low carbon economy.

Meanwhile, out there in the electricity generation world we see that old generators continue to pump out the electricity at higher and higher cost. The investment community is standing back not prepared to invest in new generation capacity because they have to go and borrow money. They have to raise capital. They have to look at a return on their investment across the life of that asset, which might be 30 years, 40 years or 50 years. And they know, because even the shadow Treasurer is telling them, a price on carbon is inevitable. They know it is coming; they just do not know when and they do not know how much they are going to have to pay. They want to know when and they want to know how much they are going to pay so they can factor that into their long-term investment decisions. But every day that they are given continued uncertainty they will choose not to invest in new energy-generating capacity. Like running an old motor vehicle, they will keep their generators on the road; they will keep their generators running at higher costs and they will pass those costs on to consumers all around the country. So people in my electorate, manufacturers and householders, will pay more in electricity costs because of inaction and uncertainty. That is why we say we are going to deliver certainty. We are going to give the investment community certainty about the price on carbon. You know it is coming; we will tell you when it is coming and how much you are going to pay so you can make the long-term investment decisions that you need to make in order to secure energy security for this country in the future.

If the coalition ever have the opportunity to repeal the legislation that we intend to put in place then they will have to look people in the eye and explain why there has not been any new investment in electricity generation. They will have to answer that question. And they will have to answer the question about why people's power bills continue to go up, up and up. And they will have to answer the question as to why they do not have a plan to deliver more investment in electricity generation in this country. Indeed, they do not have a plan that will contribute to easing the burden of the rising cost of living that comes with electricity power prices increasing at the rate at which they are. They do not have a plan to encourage renewable energy or cleaner and more efficient energy. There is no plan from the opposition. That is something they will have to confront.

The coalition have already indicated that the way they will fund their much more expensive approach to reducing emissions—they do agree with five per cent but they have a more expensive approach to reducing emissions—is by cutting funding elsewhere. They want to cut $70 billion worth of expenditure. We all know what a coalition government is like. We all know that they slash spending when it comes to services and they cut jobs. We are currently up to about 13,000 jobs that they want to cut. We know that they will bring back Work Choices. As sure as night follows day, when you bring back the coalition, when the coalition gets into government, not only will they cut expenditure on government services but also they will cut jobs and bring back Work Choices. (Time expired)

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