Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Sorry, Senator Milne; I will respond very quickly to Senator Xenophon, who has been waiting for some time—and I do not think he wants to keep getting up and down. I would make a couple of points. There have been a range of energy efficiency measures already implemented by the government. An example of that is the rollout of insulation, which is a simple but extraordinarily important policy mechanism in terms of reducing energy use. There is also the national energy efficiency strategy which has been endorsed by COAG. But we know that we need to do more.

We think not so much that it is two sides of the same coin as that we need a whole range of policies to reduce a nation’s contribution to climate change. One of them—and we think a central one—is that you have to have a price on carbon. The reason for that is that it is a way of making clear the costs of climate change throughout our economy. Currently those costs are invisible, so it is cheap to pollute. We need to make the costs of climate change clear, and that is what a price on carbon does—because we, of course, know that the costs are always there.

As part of the changes the government have proposed—and at the request and lobbying of various environmental stakeholders—we have given a commitment to develop a new energy efficiency mechanism next year. We have given a commitment to establish a prime ministerial task group on energy efficiency. That will advise on the most economically and environmentally effective energy efficiency mechanisms that could be considered by the government to complement both the CPRS and the renewable energy target.

On the white certificates issue, I would just make the point that the International Energy Agency have suggested in the discussions I have had with them that there may be other, and potentially more effective, ways of achieving energy efficiency outcomes. That is one prescription. It is possible this task group may recommend that, but there may well be other leading-edge mechanisms to increase energy efficiency, and we are keen as a government to do more work on that front.