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

In an effort to try and expedite debate I thought I would not traverse again the very many debates we have had about ET assistance but I will if the senator wants me to. I want to make it clear again—because of the way in which the senator postulated it—that I did not indicate, in any way, any move from the government’s targets or gateways at 2020. So nothing I said should be taken as suggesting we are altering our bipartisan agreement—it was bipartisan until this morning; I do not know if it still is—around the targets.

If you want me to go through in detail why we do not agree with the emissions-intensive, trade-exposed provisions here I can. Is that what you would like? In relation to certainty we do not think it is sensible, when you are trying to encourage business to make the transition, to not have a notice period for change to the assistance. This is a recognition of how business decisions are made. They are not made in terms of investments, looking at only one or two years worth of assistance; these are often long-term investments and long-term decisions. We do not think it is sensible, when you are trying to encourage investment, and when you are trying to encourage certainty, to have a situation where you can unilaterally alter the transitional assistance with no notice. We do not think that is an economically sensible proposition. The carbon productivity contribution of at least four per cent per annum is certainly higher than the government’s unconditional target. Effectively, if there was no action by the rest of the world and the government only implemented its unconditional target, you would be asking this traded sector of the economy to do more.

If you look at the review provisions the government has in place, we have committed to drawing upon the Productivity Commission reference and thorough reviews of the EITE assistance program by the expert advisory committee. We have, yet to come before the chamber, amendments for an automatic review in the context of a new international agreement. I think I have dealt with the review of the EITE program, the five-year notice period and the carbon productivity contribution, which were the three issues raised.