Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to briefly address the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Amendment (Household Assistance) Bill 2009. It is an extremely important bill and I think that in the general debate about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme it has not received as much attention as it demands. The introduction of a carbon price in the economy, through the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, is modelled to achieve an outcome that there is a carbon price and it will mean that there will be some increases in electricity prices. This bill has been formulated by the government as, and was foreshadowed in the white paper as being, a bill that would deliver significant household compensation to low- and middle-income earners in particular.

I wish to place on record the appreciation of the Minister for Climate Change and Water and my appreciation, in my capacity as the Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change, for the work that the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the Hon. Jenny Macklin, and her department have put into this bill. In fact, the Hon. Jenny Macklin was the minister who introduced this bill. As I said, it is an extremely important one because its purpose is to ensure that low- and middle-income households in particular are protected during the process of change envisaged by the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and compensated for any of the increases that will flow through as a consequence of having a carbon price in the economy.

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and COAG and Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on Emissions Trading Design) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to clarify the position of the opposition on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Amendment (Household Assistance) Bill 2009. Of particular concern is the need for a bill of this nature being put forward. One of the major design flaws of the scheme that is currently being voted upon in the House today is that it does involve massive churn and recycling of moneys back through the community. After one year of a $10 set price—so the first year subsequent to that—in the order of $13 billion will be collected as revenue by the government, which will result in something I think the community has been kept in the dark over; that is, electricity prices are likely to increase in the order of 30 to 40 per cent. The level of tax—and this scheme is effectively a tax—will in fact be equivalent to an increase in the GST from 10 to 12½ per cent. This will flow, like a GST, through every product and service in the community.

These are the sorts of issues that need to be on the table. People need to be informed about the consequences of the design of this scheme. It is designed, I think, with a revenue objective very much in mind, maximising the revenue to the government. The scheme, because of its design, will lead to a need for certain elements of the community to be compensated. That will involve massive administration and that will involve millions of cheques again being sent to individual Australians every year. This government is addicted to sending cheques, and you can see there are political reasons that sit behind that, not good policy reasons. If this scheme were working in tandem with the schemes of other countries around the world, the impact would not be anywhere near as severe and the requirement for compensation would not be anywhere near as severe. The issue of churn and recycling in the community and the cost of administration associated with that all amounts to poor policy and for that reason we are opposed to this bill.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.