Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The proposal we have before us—the proposal we believe we will likely see from the government—to scrap the Renewable Energy Target is made from a very short-sighted point of view. It is being promoted on the basis that it will cut the cost of energy and therefore promote and expand Australian jobs and Australian industry. I put it that that is an extremely short-sighted view. We know that around the world people—countries and large economies— are moving towards and embracing emissions trading schemes. Those countries are putting themselves in a place where they are going to be reducing their carbon emissions and having less carbon-intensive production.

We are going to be disadvantaged by the removal of the Renewable Energy Target in two very clear ways. One is that we will have an economy that continues to be fossil fuel dependent; that will bring with it considerable cost. It is true that what we are asking for is a trade-off in the short term—a short-term additional cost to energy prices—for the long-term benefit of reducing costs. It is about making a short-term loss in order to make a much more substantial and longer-term gain. Bloomberg, for example, has projected that, while removing the Australian RET would only save around $10 per year per domestic consumer—a very small amount—after 2020, the net position of the RET will be one of reduced energy prices. We will get that benefit—a short-term pain for a very substantial long-term gain. I put it that we might even see pain accelerating as more and more economies move to emissions trading schemes—just as we found, before Australia introduced a price on carbon, that our airlines going into the European Union airports were being charged a levy because we did not have a carbon price.

We can expect to see this writ across the economies of the developed nations. They are not going to simply allow Australia to access their markets without placing a price on our carbon intensity, such as we see in our very big trading partners. Seven of the major cities in China now have emissions trading schemes; Korea is moving to an emissions trading scheme; the states of the United States with the biggest economies have emissions trading schemes. We will see, built into our costs, a cost we are going to have imposed on us—a penalty paid for the fact that we have not decarbonised. So not only will we be losing that long-term benefit of having a decarbonised economy and cheaper energy prices but also, in the short term, we will find ourselves hit with a levy because of the carbon intensity of our manufacturing and those things that we seek to export.

The member for Tangney talked about the nuclear power industry. That is an industry whose very development was underpinned by government and this fantasy about free markets being that thing that has created innovation did not happen in nuclear energy. That was government funded. It did not happen with the internet; it did not happen with touchscreen; it did not happen with Wi-Fi—all of these technological developments were, in fact, underpinned by government investment in research and development. This is very short sighted. Even if you were not at all concerned about climate change, you would be concerned about the long-term economic consequence about Australia remaining—with its little pal 'canadia'—with those little pockets that are still allowing their economies to be driven fundamentally by the fossil-fuel industry and not getting with the program and not giving us the opportunity of those long-term reduction costs. (Time expired)

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