Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The government has made quite clear that we support the spirit of this motion on international aviation and emissions trading. We have made clear our opposition to the EU's unilateral action on international aviation on a number of occasions and in a number of fora. We have done that through meetings, through letters between the Australian government and EU ministers and through the Australia-EU senior officials talks on climate change.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation, ICAO, is the main forum through which countries negotiate an agreement on limiting emissions. We made our position very clear at the most recent meeting of that organisation: we asked the EU to hold off on their expansion of the EU ETS on international aviation. We want to work together with all ICAO members, including the EU, towards a binding sectoral agreement for the industry. And that is indeed the sensible approach to be taking on climate change and aviation.

We support a market based mechanism because we understand that it is the most efficient and effective way of reducing emissions and dealing with dangerous climate change. The Department of Infrastructure and Transport is working with a range of ICAO representatives to seek resolution of the issue. We are working with representatives of Brazil, Canada, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Singapore, the UAE and the US as well as European and industry representatives. That approach of working through ICAO is much better than whatever the member for Wide Bay means when he says in his motion at part 2(c) 'join any international action'. Our approach to climate change is a market based one, but it is one that also supports households.

It was my pleasure yesterday to host a morning tea for the Prime Minister and the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs in Amaroo. At that morning tea was a group of Canberra pensioners: Estelle Griffin, Trish Roberts, Susan Cook, Pat Corbett, John and Kathy Bonnett, Janice and Fred Hodgson and Ada and Hank De Puit. It was an opportunity for those pensioners to hear first-hand from the Prime Minister and the minister for families and community services about how Labor is helping pensioners, about how we are ensuring that pensioners have household assistance that will not only allow them to deal with the modest price rises—0.7 per cent of the CPI—but also give them a buffer. Millions of Australian pensioners, even after accounting for the changes in costs that flow from the carbon price, even without changing their behaviour—none of our modelling assumes the behavioural change which we know is likely to take place—will still have a buffer.

I want to thank Gesima Olney, Joel Olney, Penny Hardy, Edie Terrell, Margaret Ryan and Lyndell Tutty for their hard work in putting together that morning tea, giving a valuable opportunity for Canberra pensioners to speak directly with the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was asked directly about what will happen when costs go up and she responded by saying, 'Yes, it is true that there will be electricity price effects—not the 30 per cent that the opposition has been talking about but effects that we have modelled at around 10 per cent, around $3 a week for the typical household.

These increases in pensions and allowances, assistance that pensioners will see flowing into their bank accounts from today and over the coming weeks, will ensure that Australian pensioners are able to deal with the price changes that will flow from pricing carbon.' I know that so many Canberra pensioners are committed to putting a price on carbon pollution. They recognise, as do conservative governments in the UK and New Zealand, as did the Australia Liberal and National parties in the 2007 election and past that—up until the change of leadership in the Liberal Party—that putting a price on carbon pollution is the most efficient and effective way of dealing with dangerous climate change. And they recognise that the household assistance—half the money raised from the carbon price will go to household assistance—is the appropriate way of making sure that Australian households are able to deal with the modest price changes that will flow from carbon pricing. They know that, come 1 July, towns will not be wiped off the map, that price changes will not be catastrophic.

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