Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Labor will not be supporting the Democrat amendments, and not because we do not understand the sentiment behind them or concur with some of the remarks made by Senator Allison in support of them. I want to bring her back to the contents of the legislation. We are having a wider energy debate, which is fine; it is an important debate, in which the parliament ought to be engaged. But I have more modest ambitions today—to stick to the bill. However, on other occasions, I am happy to have a broader debate. Obviously it is up to senators today to do so.

This legislation is a small and fairly tentative step for the government. It is one that Labor has endorsed because it is a positive first step. My sense of the debate today is that the Greens and the Democrats would like the government to go further. I would like the government to go further. Am I going to use this bill as a means to try to achieve that? No. Why? In part because I think it is important we get the bill through and we start to make the scheme work. If we identify problems in the original act, those problems need to be fixed. I accept that. Is the government going to accept broadening the scope of the bill? No. Labor is happy to accept this bill, if you like, as a non-controversial bill because of what it does. The Greens and Democrats amendments tend to reflect the wider debate, which is fine. It is sought, in some part, to make other provisions mandatory, to broaden the nature of the scheme and to require more compulsion to implement energy savings.

We support the current bill. There is mandatory assessment of energy efficiency operations. The bill and the original act hope that the price signal will drive company behaviour but there is some evidence that that has not been enough in the past. That is why we have the act and this amending bill. Despite what should be a cost driver, there is an economic behaviour driver. Industry does not seem to have been, in many cases, as focused on that. There is now a greater focus on energy efficiency, partly because the cost is going up and the cost will go up more. People are much more sensitive to their energy usage and the costs of that.

We support the scheme. We are going to look to have it assessed fairly early. Some of the points about assessment are appropriate. Senator Allison was asking some legitimate questions about how this will work in practice. I suppose my bottom line is that the legislation is a small step. We are going to support it. I know people want to go further. The reality is that this bill is not going to take it further. It is part of the much wider debate. This reflects the government’s reluctance to take bold steps. It is very tentative in approaching these energy and climate change issues. But we say it is a worthwhile initiative. The government is not going to go further at this stage, and I am not sure that with this scheme we would want to go further at this stage. It is about trying to get business to cooperate within the framework. It does identify the main energy users and some important points are made about concessions on the price of energy.

I have some concerns about the attempt to exempt certain industries from carbon trading regimes that may occur in the future. That undermines the potential of the schemes. The real debate here is that the government is unwilling to take on the cost of CO₂ emissions. One of the drivers of energy efficiency is to put a price on carbon. The government is in denial about that challenge. Senator Minchin still remains a sceptic and the government has not quite made up its mind. It seems to be split internally on acceptance of the challenge of CO₂ emissions and climate change. What we should be debating and focusing on much more in the parliament is the whole question of the introduction of a carbon cap scheme which does focus industry on its energy decisions.

Since taking on the portfolio of resources and energy for the Labor Party I have been struck at how far in advance of the government and the parliament business is. It is way in front of us. We are about five years behind. The government is 10 years behind. Business is preparing for a carbon trading scheme. It is focused on these issues. It operates internationally and it is planning for that reality. All that needs to happen in Australian politics is for the government to be dragged, kicking and screaming to the acceptance of the world moving to carbon trading schemes and putting a price on emissions. This is a very small step in focusing on energy efficiency, but the big driver of a change in behaviour will be a price on carbon.

While I accept the desire to have a broader debate—it is a very reasonable thing and it is a good opportunity for people to make some of those broader arguments by way of considering amendments—we will not support the amendments because we do not think they are appropriate in terms of this bill, which is a small step. We are prepared to give it a go. We supported the original act. The slowness of the implementation is concerning. We think that tackling the issues of energy efficiency for these large energy users is important. The mandatory reporting requirement as contained in the bill is an important first step. At this stage we are not going to support moving to the more regulatory and more prescriptive measures that Senator Allison proposes, although I understand the sentiments behind them. We will not support the amendments but we will support the bill.