Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

There is modelling and it will shortly be released. I can give the member who asked the question a bit of a foretaste of that modelling. Let's be honest and up-front with the parliament and with the people of Australia: if there is going to be significant emissions reduction there will be a cost. There is no entirely cost-free way of significantly reducing our emissions. The modelling that was done by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade shows that a 26 per cent reduction in our emissions on 2005 levels by 2020 will cost the economy in the year 2030 between 0.2 and 0.3 per cent of GDP, so the overall cost to the economy of this will be in the order of $3 to $4 billion. The modelling also shows that a cut in the order of 40 per cent will cost more like two per cent of GDP—a massive hit on our economy, a massive hit on jobs and a massive hit on families which this government will never impose.

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