30-April-2009
Portfolio Media Releases, Emissions Trading Scheme
Topic: David Pearce Report
JOE O’BRIEN: Andrew Robb, good morning.
ANDREW ROBB: Good Morning Joe.
JOE O’BRIEN: Now, in light of this report is it possible the Opposition will opt to support a carbon tax instead of an ETS?
ANDREW ROBB: Well what the Report does is, remarkably in a sense, it confirms that the Government is rushing headlong into a scheme, insisting on something being finalised in June yet they have no idea, they haven’t done the work to establish what might be the impact on jobs in the next 20 years, they have done no work really on what might be the impact on industries or regions or whether in fact they have the right scheme and what David Pearce in this report has said is that it should as a matter of urgency, other schemes should be compared with what they have on the table to establish whether this is in fact the best way to go about it. So the onus is on the government to do some fairly heavy lifting to try and correct the very deep flaws that are in this scheme.
JOE O’BRIEN: Well the Business Council of Australia says the onus is on the Coalition as well to do some pretty heavy negotiating to ensure some sort of scheme gets up to ensure that businesses get some certainty.
ANDREW ROBB: Well the only certainty at the moment is that there will be massive unemployment generated by this scheme. We have seen now Joe, nearly every day now for the last two or three months, captains of industry coming out, people who are actually running major companies, saying that there will be tens of thousands of jobs put at risk if this scheme comes in, in its current form. Now the Government has to take heed of that, this report confirms that the Government had not done the work to find out, there is no analysis been done about what will be the impact in the first 20 years. The only analysis they have done is what will be in the impact in 50 years time. Well, in the long term we are all dead. Industry and people want to know what is the impact over the next 20 years. How will this affect their lives, how can they accommodate this, will industry be forced off shore, will we reduce emissions. Now none of that work has been done. It seems remarkable that the Government can sit there and insist that they make no changes and again, this morning we heard Penny Wong saying she accepts this report. Well this report is saying the government has got a mountain of things to do before we can be confident that the scheme will not destroy thousands of jobs and will in fact do something at all about CO2 emissions.
JOE O’BRIEN: But this Report also concludes that none of the issues raised should be an impediment to establishing a carbon price in Australia. So will you work with the Government to ensure some sort of scheme is established?
ANDREW ROBB: Well, what it does say, and we have accepted that there should be a carbon price, and there should be a carbon price around the world. In fact we were out with a scheme 12 months before the Government. You might recall before the last election.
JOE O’BRIEN: So can we tie you down now on the alternative that you are proposing. What changes do you want to the Government scheme?
ANDREW ROBB: Well we are taking this report, the Government has a major proposal on the table, the biggest structural change, perhaps in our history, is being proposed, that’s on the table. We have this Report from the Centre for International Economics to help us determine what is the best way forward. We have a major Senate Inquiry which is nearly completed. A lot of very good evidence coming through there. When we have properly assessed all of this material we will come out with our firm alternative or the changes that need to be made. In the meantime, the Government should be doing its own work to try and overcome the many problems that have been identified by industries and the many risks that are now embodied in their scheme which might mean that tens of thousands of people, their jobs are at risk at a time when we have got perhaps the worst financial meltdown in eighty years.
JOE O’BRIEN: So even this Report is calling for more modelling and analysis – will you commit to a Scheme before that subsequent modelling and analysis is done?
ANDREW ROBB: Well we will undertake by the time the substantive debate comes about on the Government’s proposal to put down what we think should be done, how it should be done. Our objective is to ultimately get a price of carbon but this Report also confirms that there is more than one tool in the climate change toolbox. The report establishes that there are a whole range of complementary measures that can be taken in the built environment or the commercial building sector and other areas, none of which are in the scheme at the moment, amongst individuals out there in the community. So much that could be done in complementary measures to reach the targets. Now all of these things are things that we are looking very seriously at and it will be part of the alternative proposals that we will put in front of the Government in the next few weeks.
JOE O’BRIEN: It seems a long time before the Government will get Coalition support. Andrew Robb in Canberra, thank you very much for talking to us this morning.
Media Contact: Stuart Eaton, 0433 298 620