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

I am delighted to take on this matter of public importance. What we just had confirmed is a very simple proposition—that the opposition leader and the Labor Party want to take to the next election higher electricity prices as their policy. Let me repeat it: they want higher electricity prices. Let me make it clear that we want lower electricity prices, and we have delivered them. It is as simple as that. If they have a different view, let us hear them categorically rule out higher electricity prices. We have achieved the double of lower emissions and lower electricity prices. They have the ignominious distinction of having had higher emissions and higher electricity prices. How do we know this? Because our fuzzy friend opposite is delighted to quote the environment department, but he has missed one small fact—the latest quarterly inventory from the Australia's Department of the Environment shows that we have just had the lowest quarterly emissions in both trend and seasonal terms since 2004.

What does that mean for our future projections? It means we have come down from a gap of 1.3 billion tonnes, which the ALP said we had to achieve in 2008 for the period 2012 to 2020. When the coalition came into government, we inherited a supposed gap of 750 million tonnes, which I said while in opposition was wildly overstated, which they ridiculed. Based on the analysis they had been doing while in government, strangely enough, we discovered that gap was down to 431 million tonnes. When we did the analysis this year, we found that that gap was down to 236 million tonnes. The latest advice from the environment department is that we will not just close that gap completely but turn, at the 2020 target date, with a surplus in hand. So the whole premise of the ALP's latest foray into this space is flat, plain wrong.

What has changed in the last six months? There are four things. Firstly, that trend in emissions continued downwards, so the write-downs have continued and will be confirmed before the Paris climate conference. Secondly, we have set a renewable energy target which also returns considerable emissions reductions to the national inventory.

Thirdly, we have had the first Emissions Reduction Fund auction, which alone produced 47 million tonnes—and there are already 500 registrations for the second auction. I think that is important to understand. The market has spoken: 500 projects have been registered for the second auction. They cover an enormous range of activities. They cover savanna burning, waste coalmine gas clean-ups, waste landfill clean-ups, soil carbon, and energy efficiency on a grand scale across this nation.

The emissions reductions through the Emissions Reductions Fund are tenfold those ever predicted by the vast majority of pundits. The report which those opposite cite said that the maximum from the first Emissions Reduction Fund auction, the greatest possible outcome, would be nine million tonnes. Do you know what? It was 47 million tonnes, 500 per cent higher than their much-vaunted modellers said. Their modellers also said there would be a shortfall of 300 million tonnes of emissions that we would have to make up. We know that every credible source already realises that we will achieve our targets, and in fact beat them, for 2020.

Fourthly, we have also struck an arrangement with the Landfill Owners Association.

When you put those four things together, over the last six months—as I predicted at the time—we have closed the gap. We have brought it down. When we came into government, there was a gap of 750 million tonnes, then 431 million tonnes, then 236 million tonnes and, by the time we get to Paris, it will be zero, and we will turn with emissions in the bank. In other words, we will achieve our goals.

At the same time, we have taken the pressure off families in terms of electricity prices. We have seen the largest fall in electricity prices in Australian recorded history. We said that we would take the full cost of the carbon tax off electricity and we did. The ACCC has confirmed it: every single electricity retailer in the country has, to the best of my advice and to the best of my knowledge, a clean bill of health when it comes to passing on the full cost of reductions.

What does that mean as we go forward? It means that we now have a system in Australia that is working—and it is not just in Australia. When we look around the world, we see that the Clean Development Mechanism, the principal system in the world today, is based on the same fundamental principles as the Emissions Reduction Fund. We see also that the World Bank has recently adopted a $100 million pilot auction facility which has extraordinary similarities to the coalition's approach. The Australian approach has become the World Bank's approach. But you would never know that, you would never imagine that, if you were listening to the opposition today.

Most interestingly, I recently met with Qantas, and one of the things they said—apart from 'thank you for removing over $100 million from our annual bill and helping us to return to the black in our Australian operations'—was that IATA, the international aviation industry body, is looking at adopting a model with extraordinary similarities to the Australian approach to emissions reductions under this government.

So we have the Clean Development Mechanism, the World Bank and IATA all advocating or adopting systems remarkably similar to this government's approach. It is truly 'an inconvenient truth' for the opposition that our emissions are down, our electricity costs are down and the world is increasingly adopting the approach on our watch, in our time.

By comparison, what do we see as the proposed future approach by the ALP? The people who brought us pink batts, Green Loans, cash for clunkers, citizens' assemblies and the carbon tax, which they pledged to terminate at the last election, now say that we should look to them for best practice in environmental design. Go figure. Their 'best practice'—it has been modelled using the targets that they have said are their targets—is a $600 billion bill for Australian families. Who did the modelling? It was the Treasury of Australia. On whose watch did Treasury do it? It was on Labor's watch. What were they looking at? They were looking at the low end of Labor's current target range, and the accumulated cost to the Australian economy by 2030 was $600 billion. What does that mean for families? It means a 78 per cent increase in wholesale electricity prices. What does it mean in terms of their annual family budget? It means a $5,000 hit overall.

This is not our modelling. This was their modelling of their policy on their watch by the Treasury of Australia. So these are their figures in their times. It is an exceptionally inconvenient moment. If they have different figures, let's see them, because at this stage they have set a target and they have said the tax is coming back. At the low end of their target, their own Treasury modelling shows a $600 billion cost, a 78 per cent increase in wholesale electricity prices and a $5,000 average hit on total family income. These are not trivial numbers but these are their numbers of their policy. So this is serious.

On this occasion, we are playing for sheep stations. We are reducing emissions. We do have the lowest quarterly emissions since 2004 in trend and seasonal terms. We are on track to meet and beat our 2020 targets and our 2030 targets. But, by contrast, they want to bring back higher electricity prices, and it is time they were honest about it.

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