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

In relation to the first issue, all of the price estimates are based on five per cent because that is the unconditional offer. Obviously there were some carbon price estimates in the Garnaut modelling and the Treasury modelling from 2008, but I do not have further modelling on those figures to provide you. You could extrapolate though—it is just a calculation of multiplication on what the carbon price estimate under the Treasury modelling is. But those are the figures which are in the Treasury modelling. Perhaps I was not clear when I was explaining what the low-emissions transition incentive was. That is not an additional payment; that is a change to the eligibility requirements that enables a generator to invest in replacement low-emissions capacity as a requirement for continuing to receive their existing ESAS allocation. So it is not an additional payment; it is saying that you can continue to receive this if you invest in low-emissions technology.

Finally, I think the senator postulated what the whole point of an emissions trading scheme was. I say that it is a scheme that enables the lowest cost transformation of the Australian economy. That is a transformation over time and I have outlined previously the policy rationale for the ESAS.