Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. Will the Acting Prime Minister update the House about the importance of transparency when it comes to the impact of carbon pricing?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Banks for that very important question. The government has been absolutely open about the impact of carbon pricing on the general price level, and we know that it will impact on inflation by 0.7 per cent, less than one cent in the dollar. We know that the great bulk of businesses will do the right thing; they always do. But, for any business that is thinking of misleading claims about the impact of carbon pricing, they will have the ACCC down on them like a tonne of bricks, because it is simply not going to be justified for people to be making the sorts of claims that were made by the shadow minister before without that going through full ACCC scrutiny.

It is the role of the ACCC to examine unreasonable claims. It is the role of the ACCC to put in place fines if those claims are found to be false and misleading, so that is what we have done with the ACCC. We have funded them. They are establishing a hotline that consumers can call, but not just consumers, because it could be other businesses that will become the victim of this process. It is there for business as well as consumers, on 1300 303 609. As I have said, we have put in place the appropriate funding, and there can be fines of up to $1.1 million—up to 1.1 million reasons for people not to rip off consumers or other businesses.

The opposition have been running around the place, saying that the impact on prices is going to be unimaginable; they are going to go through the roof. We have also had a further Treasury study, and this new Treasury analysis once again shows a price impact of less than one cent in the dollar in the September quarter of 2012. This is a study of what markets are expecting from the impact of the carbon price, and it has confirmed the original Treasury modelling. But, despite all of this, we have got the opposition running around with their scare campaign, whilst at the same time you have got opposition backbenchers over there investing in coal companies, which the Leader of the Opposition tells us are going to be wiped from the face of the earth.

The fact is—and this is a simple fact—that on 1 July we will see the true test of Tony Abbott's slippery scare campaign. The fact is that 1 July will reveal the Leader of the Opposition as a dodgy snake oil salesman—nothing but deceit and negativity.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. I refer the minister to his claim that the number of companies required to directly pay the carbon tax will be considerably lower than the 500 previously thought. How does he reconcile that statement with the fact that 1,200 mostly small and medium Australian companies that import refrigerants will be hit directly by the tax? Why does the minister continue to mislead the Australian people about the impact of the world's largest carbon— (Time expired)

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

There is only one of side of this parliament where there have been misleading statements made. As I was making the point before, it is on that side, and if they were running a business the ACCC would be jumping all over them for the claims that they have been making. Under the Clean Energy Act, the Clean Energy Regulator is required to publish a list of liable entities on a public information database, and that database was updated for a second time last Friday. Organisations are placed on that that are expected, on reasonable grounds, to be liable for the carbon price mechanism in the relevant financial year. The number of entities published by last Friday is 294. It includes 34 local councils and resolves issues that had fallaciously been raised by those opposite. On current information available to the regulator the list comprises 294 entities. The regulator has also advised that it is in discussion with a number of other liable entities who want to use the act's provisions allowing them to transfer liability within their corporate group or amongst joint venture partners, and that will ultimately add to the list as entities access those provisions under the act. They are well aware, however, of their responsibilities under the act.

In relation to the issue of synthetic greenhouse gases, it was the Howard government that introduced legislation regulating and placing a levy upon the importation of synthetic greenhouse gases, and the government has ensured that a carbon price applies to those cases.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Assistant Treasurer. How is the government making sure that hard-working families, seniors and small businesses are getting a fair go with the introduction of a carbon price?

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wakefield for his question. Pricing carbon is the cheapest and most efficient way of reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and tackling the challenge of climate change. It is a significant economic reform that will drive investment in clean energy and will help cut greenhouse gas emissions by 160 million tonnes in 2020. That is the equivalent of the emissions generated by 45 million cars. At the same time, by 2020 our economy is projected to grow by around one-third, with 1.6 million new jobs being created and average incomes rising by around $9,000 per person. Because we are a Labor government we are determined to implement this important change in a way that ensures we look after hard-working Australians. That is why we are increasing payments to families, pensioners and eligible self-funded retirees. That is why we are also providing tax relief to individuals and small businesses. That tax relief not only involves incentives like the instant asset write-off, but it also involves the tripling of the tax-free threshold.

We know that there is a lot of misleading information being spread out there about the carbon price but, for the record, the carbon price will have an average impact of 0.7 per cent, or less than one per cent. That is less than one cent in the dollar. This is less than one-third of the impact of the GST when it was introduced by the previous government. Today the ACCC has launched a new hotline and an online forum where Australians will have the opportunity to report businesses that they suspect are making false and misleading claims in relation to the carbon price. We know that most businesses will do the right thing, but rest assured that those businesses who jack up prices and falsely blame the carbon price will have the ACCC to deal with. The ACCC, of course, has the power to seek penalties of up to $1.1 million per contravention. While the government is out there trying to crack down on misleading claims, the Leader of the Opposition has been out there making a few of his own. Not only is he out there making misleading claims, he now thinks it is okay to encourage businesses to do the same. We all know he has been out there saying that price rises would be astronomical and that they would be unimaginable. He said that the coal industry would be killed off and that Whyalla would be wiped off the map. We have heard it all before from the Leader of the Opposition—first it was going to be a cobra strike, but now it is going to be a python squeeze. The only thing we can guarantee is that it would take a python to squeeze a few facts out of the Leader of the Opposition.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister's time has expired.