Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer her to her words of a few moments ago in question time when she said:

It is simply wrong to suggest that the Treasury modelling of the government's Clean Energy Future program depends upon the United States putting a price on carbon by 2016.

I also refer her to this statement from chapter 5 of the modelling document:

The modelling assumes comparable carbon pricing in other major economies from 2015-16 …

My question is: since when did the US cease to be a major economy—or is she just misleading the parliament?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I confirm again to the parliament and to the Leader of the Opposition the information that was made available to the opposition through Senate estimates and that it should know. That information is that the Treasury modelling assumes that nations hold to the lower end of their pledges for reducing carbon pollution.

This moment very much reminds me of when the Leader of the Opposition got himself in a huge mess when he was out and about at a public meeting describing Australia's minus-five-per-cent target as 'crazy', whereas at the same time his blogs—I think on Mamamia—praised the fact that the Liberal opposition actually had bipartisan support for that target. Of course, that minus-five-per-cent target is what Australia has pledged it will do by 2020. My understanding, unless something has happened this morning, is that that is supported by the Leader of the Opposition. What is being done in the Treasury modelling—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! When the House comes to order, the Leader of the Opposition on a point of order.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, Mr Speaker. The relevant statement is:

The modelling assumes comparable carbon pricing in other major economies from 2015-16 …

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Leader of the Opposition is raising direct relevance. I know that the Prime Minister is aware of that and I caution the Prime Minister that less debate, which still could be directly relevant to the question, would assist. The Prime Minister has the call.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I went to Australia's reduction target for 2020 to give the parliament and the Leader of the Opposition an example of a nation—Australia—that has made an unconditional pledge to reduce its carbon pollution. We have made an unconditional pledge to reduce our carbon pollution by five per cent.

What the Treasury modelling does is assume that other countries meet their low-end pollution reduction targets for 2020 as well. The opposition knows that when it is not on a campaign of misrepresentation. That has been gone through at Senate estimates. That is a fact available to the opposition. In terms of the position of the United States of America, it was verified by President Obama in this parliament last Thursday when he restated the commitment of the United States of America to the reduction target that it has announced.

The Leader of the Opposition, I understand, is trying to do everything he can to continue his campaign of negativity, but he cannot live in denial of the facts, and the facts are as I have just explained them to the Leader of the Opposition. For him to say anything else or to do anything else is simply to mislead the Australian people.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister detail the government's intent with (1) the new cabinet working group on water, soil and food for Australia; (2) the new reference to the Brumby-Greiner GST review on inefficient state based royalties and how this connects to the Henry review and tax reform; and (3) the new national partnership agreement to address the clash between extractive industries, productive lands and quality water? Prime Minister, can you outline in detail what each is expected to deliver?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lyne for his question. I also thank him for his consideration of the minerals resource rent tax and for his understanding of the shape of Australia's economy today and the great potentials which lie in the future for our country. Realising those potentials means that we need to better tax the area of the economy which is turbocharged and to share those benefits with other areas of the economy, but it also means that we need to address important questions about how we are going to work through issues associated with water, soil and food, with coal seam gas and with major coal projects, and also how we are dealing with the tax work which was spoken about at the recent tax forum, including concerns about royalty increases by state governments.

To go quickly through those areas, as I indicated to Labor members who raised with me community concerns in their own area about coal seam gas and large-scale coalmining, coal seam gas is going to be an important fuel for our future. What we can do as a federal government is value-add in our traditional roles of scientific leadership, coordinating the states and driving them to best practice, and that is what the government has agreed to do: to ensure that there is a well-resourced scientific body that can make the right assessments of Australia's land so that that dataset is available to everyone, including local communities, and a national partnership so we drive state governments up to coordinated best-practice standards. Local communities are empowered along the way, because that scientific information will be in their hands too. I think that that is an important development and one that has been the subject of intense discussion with the members for New England and Lyne and is a value-add to what the Commonwealth has traditionally done in these areas of planning.

In addition, the member for Lyne has raised with me how we can ensure that across our nation our water, soil and food production for the future is in the right balance. With this being the Asian century, we have huge opportunities in front of us for food production. We are seeing the rise of middle classes in Asia to more than a billion people by the end of 2020, and they will want what we have—that is, they will want high-quality, clean, green food; they will want to buy premium wine; and they will also want to go to parts of Australia that have retained their natural beauty and be able to come here for tourism purposes. That does require us to make sure that we work in balance across those areas, and the government has agreed to create a cabinet-level working group on water, soil and food. We have agreed that the members for Lyne and New England will participate in that working group, and I thank them for their agreement to do that.

Finally, the member for Lyne has been a long-time advocate for dealing with the question of inefficient state taxes. He has raised directly the question of state royalties and, in light of the MRRT, the government believes that that should be looked by the John Brumby-Nick Greiner review which is working in the area of GST reform. So I thank the member who asked the question and also the member for New England for their support and for understanding today's economy and the future for Australia.