Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The failure of the opposition to have any form of coherent policy on emissions trading has left them with only one opportunity, and we have seen that opportunity today. It is one based on misinformation, one based on fear, one based on beat-ups. It is a shame that they cannot reach a position, because we on this side of the chamber know that the cost of doing nothing now will cost our children, our community, our economy and our environment substantially more into the future. That is what we are faced with. We actually want to do something now; we want to get on with it.

I know the hallmark of the previous government was to do a lot of talking about these sorts of things but take no action. They finally got to a position, after doing nothing for 12 years, of going to the last election with a cap-and-trade carbon scheme, an ETS, but they had not done anything about implementing it. They went to the election with it. They had done nothing for 12 years, but it was their policy that they went to the election with. We had a policy which we went to the election with and we want to introduce that. They have no policy and no position; they are an opposition—absolutely divided about this crucial matter—that want us to sit on our hands and do nothing. They want us to delay, to do nothing and ultimately to cost future generations an enormous amount more than it would cost to do something today.

No-one on this side of the Senate suggests that there are not going to be costs associated with the introduction of an emissions trading scheme. Of course, through extensive Treasury modelling, we are aware that Treasury has indicated that, while it is not possible to map out the exact price increase of every type of good or service, we do know generally that household food prices could contribute up to 0.1 per cent, or around $1.50 per week on average, of the 1.2 per cent overall increase in household prices. This is equivalent to around $13.60 per week of the total expenditure for the average household over the first two years of the scheme.

The CPRS is expected to raise household prices by 0.4 per cent in 2011-12 and 0.8 per cent in 2012-13, with a $10 per tonne fixed carbon price in 2011-12 and a flexible carbon price in 2012-13. The modelling has been done on this massive program of reform. This is one of the country’s greatest reforms and needs to come into being. Senator Humphries referred to this and compared it to the GST. Unlike what you did with the GST, we have put in place compensation for low- to medium-income earners to alleviate any price increases. Instead of relying on some allegations by some grocery people who have been, quite frankly, putting prices up at quite an astronomical level recently—