Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

That was a cracker. That was an absolute beauty. When asked what their policy on renewables is, they gave no answer. When asked what their emissions reduction target is, they gave no answer. Despite the fact that for the last month they have been telling us they have a 50 per cent renewable energy target, there was not one reference. Why is that? Why is the member for Port Adelaide ashamed? Why is he unable to talk about it? And why did he say nothing about the 40 to 60 per cent emissions reduction target for the entire country? What we see here is that when they are confronted with the reality of their policies for electricity, for households, for gas, for refrigerants—for all of these elements—they shy away from them. In the same way that there was going to be no carbon tax, in the same way that they were going to terminate the carbon tax at the last election, in the next election they will have a commitment to an ETS.

Their own policy that was revealed on the front page of The Daily Telegraph a few weeks ago said they would not put the modelling out before the election. How courageous and how honest is that? But there has been a moment of honesty. The member for Hunter, in an interview on the Andrew Bolt program said of their renewable target: 'It's not a policy. It's an aspiration.' It is just an aspiration. When asked how much it would cost and how much work the ALP had done, what did he say? 'No-one knows.' That is the truth of it: no-one knows. From the words of the ALP themselves, what does their policy cost? No-one knows.

Well, we know. They have not done the work, but we have. This work is in line with what ASL Tasman has said. ASL Tasman has talked about a range of between $65 billion and over $100 billion. The Department of the Environment work says there is an $85 billion capital expenditure cost for their policy and a $70 billion renewable energy credit cost for their policy. Those facts are real. If they want to dispute them, they should show us. Confirm what the policy is and show us the answers, because we are absolutely clear about what the impacts will be.

By contrast, what we have is a 23½ per cent renewable energy target recently voted through on a bipartisan basis. Why? Precisely because the phantom credits problem that we had warned about before the last election came to pass. The impacts were real and significant on the industry. By contrast, we will deliver a doubling of renewable energy under the renewable energy target over the next five years. We will deliver at least a doubling in small-scale solar over the coming years. We have already seen two major announcements in recent weeks, since the conclusion of that legislation.

On the renewable energy side, theirs is a 50 per cent target that they are running away from. It is suddenly an aspiration. It is a policy which is uncosted, according to the member for Hunter. If you have any differences in terms of your own policy let us know, but we have costed it using conservative modelling at an $85 billion capital cost and a $70 billion electricity cost in terms of renewable energy credits. Beyond that, though, on our side there will be a doubling of large-scale renewable energy and a doubling of small-scale solar under the target. They are the realities and they are the things that we are getting on with.

Then we turned to something broader, because most of the speech of the member opposite was about the international targets and the domestic objective. Today, under this government, Australia has added to the achievements of the past. We are one of the few countries to have met and beaten Kyoto I and to be on track to meet and beat Kyoto II. They are the realities. For all the talk, Australian is one of the good guys that have done the right thing by the world. We have actually committed, and now we see that we have put on the table a minus 26 to minus 28 per cent target for 2005 to 2030. The United States has a target of minus 26 to minus 28 for 2025. We see that Japan is minus 25, Korea is minus four per cent and China is approximately plus 150 per cent, and then you see that New Zealand and Canada are clustered around minus 30 per cent. So we are in very good company. We are doing better than many others.

Then we also see that, of all the developed countries and the major economies, we have the highest per capita reductions. So when we talk about people making a contribution, on our watch Australia will do the heavy lifting, and we are proud of that. I am really delighted. I am thrilled with the outcome today. It is better than I had ever hoped. I am really delighted that Australia has made this commitment. It will serve us well over time.

By comparison, what we see is something very interesting: a Labor Party that, over recent weeks, has committed to and has frequently publicised the fact that they want to go for a minus 40 to minus 60 target. But that target is on 2000 figures. It is higher if taken from the 2005 figure, and what does it mean? As we saw yesterday, using their own modelling by their own government of their own target using their own carbon tax of $600 billion at a carbon price of $209 per tonne, what does that translate to? That translates to a $5,000 per household impact in 2030, and if you have got an alternative let us know.

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