Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

asked the Minister representing the Treasurer, upon notice, on 18 August 2011:

With reference to the Treasury Carbon Tax modelling report, Strong growth, low pollution: Modelling a carbon price:

Given Treasury has released additional domestic electricity sector modelling reports by consultants, to supplement the Strong growth, low pollution: Modelling a carbon price, and press coverage of these reports suggests that they show that regions such as the Latrobe Valley will not be adversely affected by the carbon tax/emission trading scheme, with power generation capacity in the region actually increasing.

(1) Is this correct over the period out to 2020, rather than just out to 2050; if so, does it take into account the Government’s announced plan to spend some unspecified billions of dollars to shut down 2000 MW of brown coal power generation capacity by 2020.

(2) More generally, how reliable does Treasury regard the modelling of these sorts of regional level claims to be.