Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency and Minister for Industry and Innovation. Will the minister update the House on the first six months of the carbon price coming into effect? How did this compare with earlier predictions? And, Minister, what does this say about the need for the facts on climate change and carbon pricing?

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

I thank the member for Deakin for the question, because carbon pricing has now been in place, as he indicated, for just over six months, and it is an immensely important reform that has been made. It is economically responsible, it is environmentally effective and it is socially fair and equitable—and the facts on that are becoming perfectly evident. What is also becoming perfectly evident is the extent of the mendacity in the campaign that has been run by the coalition against carbon pricing. It has been one of the most deceitful campaigns we have ever seen, and it has demonstrated with absolute clarity that the Leader of the Opposition cannot be trusted on major public policy issues. Every statement he made in relation to this important reform has been demonstrated to be false.

The opposition leader forecast unimaginable price increases, yet the CPI rose just 0.2 per cent in the December quarter. The annualised rate is just 2.2 per cent—at the bottom of the RBA parameters. The Leader of the Opposition also forecast the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, yet unemployment stands at 5.4 per cent and over 29,000 jobs have been created since the introduction of carbon pricing. He said the carbon price would be a wrecking ball through the economy—a wrecking ball—yet Australia's annual economic growth rate, the rate of growth in GDP, is around three per cent. In the United Kingdom it is zero. In the US it is a bit under 1½ per cent. In Australia it is three per cent. We have introduced this reform that the opposition leader forecast would destroy the economy. He said that the carbon price would not work; it would not reduce emissions. Yet, now, after its first six months in operation, emissions in the National Electricity Market actually fell by 8.6 per cent—a reduction of 7½ million tonnes in pollution. There is more renewable energy being sold into the market and there is greater investment in renewable energy.

There are a host of other statements, false, that have been made by the Leader of the Opposition on this issue, all of which demonstrate that he cannot be trusted. In fact, he has run the most negative, vicious, aggressive and destructive campaign for two years but he now claims to be Mr Positive—actually a sensitive guy, very sensitive, with a positive plan for the future. No amount of meaningless platitudes about non-existent positive plans can disguise the fact, and no image makeovers can disguise the fact, that the Leader of the Opposition cannot be trusted.