Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question again is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister rule out the establishment of a cap-and-trade emissions trading system to set a price for carbon?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not going to rule things in and out in advance of getting the assessment of the expert committee that has been established. This expert committee is made up of the best brains in the federal Public Service. There is a considerable store of talent there. The group, chaired by the secretary of my department, includes the Secretary of the Treasury, other very senior public servants—all of whom have got a big contribution to make—and leaders of industry. I think they should be allowed to take submissions and then to provide some advice.

But I can tell you what I can rule out: I can rule out embracing responses to climate change that are going to damage the Australian economy. I refer all those who sit opposite to page 71 of today’s Melbourne Sun-Herald, to an article by Mr Terry McCrann in which he says, ‘The Leader of the Opposition proposes to damage the Australian economy in the short term and to destroy it in the long term.’ That is a very interesting description from Mr McCrann of the impact of the climate change policies that the Leader of the Opposition has embraced.

The Leader of the Opposition has embraced a policy of cutting by 30 per cent greenhouse gas emissions in Australia by the year 2020. So in 13 years we are meant to cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent. Anyone with an atom of common sense would know that that would visit enormous dislocation on the Australian economy and would throw thousands of people in the coal industry out of work. I have to ask the rhetorical question: why does the Labor Party have it in for the coal industry of Australia? Why does it have as an environmental spokesman somebody who is very sceptical about the expansion of not only the uranium industry in this country but also the coal industry? Let me say to the Leader of the Opposition: I will certainly rule out knee-jerk reactions that are going to greatly damage the Australian economy, reduce our international competitiveness and rob hardworking Australians of their jobs. I will rule all of those out.

As to the form of any carbon trading system, we have set ourselves a path of getting some advice from people who know about that. I intend to wait until I get that advice before committing myself to the specifics of what form that system might take.