Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. Why is a unified approach important to policymaking when it comes to major economic reforms? What is necessary to maintain public confidence in reforms?

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Putting a price on carbon in our economy is a major economic reform that is in this country’s long-term interests, and it will drive cuts in pollution, it will drive investment in clean energy and it will provide a stable environment for investment in the future. The government’s policy proposal, the framework that we announced, is responsive to the climate science and it also applies market principles as the lowest cost means to reduce pollution across our economy.

The fact of the matter is that on the other side of this parliament, of this House, they are deeply divided. They are divided about the climate science and they are divided about the policy responses. The Leader of the Opposition, as we know, has had multiple different and contradictory positions on climate change himself. At various times he has advocated a carbon tax; he has advocated an emissions trading scheme on other occasions. Then, he has opposed both. He has been suspicious of market mechanisms. He has said he thinks the science is crap, although at other times he has supported action on the basis of an insurance principle. He has time travelled back to Roman times, as we heard yesterday. He checks into the One Nation website to have a look at things.

Today he had an interesting experience at a press conference. After boasting that he had all these letters of support from authoritative figures supporting the coalition’s so-called ‘direct action’ policy, he was interrupted by a journalist to say the following: ‘Sorry to labour the point, Mr Abbott, but your office actually sent me your letters of support and all these people who have supported your scheme. I rang them and most of them didn’t actually support your scheme, and those that did weren’t actually scientists.’ There are a few accusations about people being loose with the truth and gilding the lily—a little bit of it applies on the other side.

On the other side of the House there is one member in particular who has maintained a consistent and principled position that I certainly have respect for, and that is the member for Wentworth. He said only yesterday in an interview on the BBC:

In terms of the principles that I was standing for—

at the time of the last debate about this issue—

I think those principles are right - I maintain them today.

Just in case there was any confusion about any of this, last night on Q&A the member for Wentworth said a number of important things about this policy issue. He said: ‘I think there should be a price on carbon’, ‘I would prefer to put a price on carbon via market-based mechanism’ and ‘I don’t think there’s a people’s revolt so much about putting a price on carbon’. In relation to the coalition’s policy on direct action he said, ‘Well, I can’t cite any economists that agree with it’. He also said: ‘The coalition’s policy of the government spending money to put a price on carbon with taxpayers’ dollars is another way,’ of dealing with it, but, ‘There is always a risk when governments are making decisions like that that there will be, you know, fiscal waste. That is a risk.’

This is the position. They are deeply divided on that side of parliament about the science. We well know the member for Tangney’s point of view and those in other contributions that have been made from time to time. There are others that think it is a communist conspiracy. There are others that adhere to the science and recognise the best way of approaching this issue is through a market mechanism. They are deeply divided. The more we get into this debate the more those divisions will be evident.