SHADOW MINISTER FOR CLIMATE ACTION, ENVIRONMENT AND HERITAGE

Topics: Combet concession on Carbon Tax budget black hole, Obama speech, draft dams discussion paper

Overnight we have seen a concession from Greg Combet that the Carbon Tax figures are in chaos. We’ve had mining tax figures collapse despite repeated protests from the Government that everything is fine, now we have the Carbon Tax in chaos and Mr Combet must stop the name calling and start re-doing the figures and being honest with Australians.

We have warned for a long time that the Government’s figures were unreliable, we’ve seen a blowout in the deficit, we’ve seen a blowout in the mining tax and now we have a blow out in the Carbon Tax. This Government seems to be making it up as it goes along.

It’s very significant. The tax isn’t doing its job but now we are appears that we are either going to have skyrocketing electricity prices or collapsing revenue. The Government must re-do its figures, they have to be honest about it and instead of the name calling it’s time for honest figures.

President Obama’s speech suggests perhaps a carbon price mechanism in the United States.

We actually welcome the speech by President Obama because it is all about the United States engaging in a deep way on climate action and hopefully the United States and China can reach an agreement.

The Government of course has strongly misrepresented what President Obama said. Since the election, on four occasions the White House has ruled out a Carbon Tax. The thrust of the speech was to recognise that the likely direction for the United States is through practical action such as competitive energy efficiency grants for the states, through cleaning up gas, the sorts of practical things that we have

My clear view is that the United States is not about to have a Carbon Tax, it won’t have a Carbon Tax in three years, won’t have a Carbon Tax in five years. For the Minister, Mr Combet, to suggest that the United States is about to have a Carbon Tax is not only a misrepresentation of what was said, it’s a complete misrepresentation of the facts. Stop the name calling, start being honest with the Australian

No, I think we are progressively setting out not just policy but in particular vision. Obviously you are talking about the draft discussion paper. It’s a draft discussion paper. It sets out a vision which is complementary to the northern development proposal of water security, Australia being a food bowl for Asia and also about protection against floods for our cities, practical things, clean energy, clean food, better protection for the cities. It’s got a list of submissions, but that’s all, but draft discussion papers deserve to be aired and I don’t think that it’s in appropriate at all.

So it was a deliberate leak?

Actually I’ll let others comment on that, but my focus is on the policy. We have a northern development process which is underway, we have a discussion as to whether or not there may be a need for new dams, primarily across northern Australia in the way in which we’ve had the great success of the Ord River stage one and stage two, questions such as is now the time to consider a stage three. But these are submissions from other people. And our job, our job is to present a vision of what Australia could be and to engage the community in a legitimate discussion. It is the difference between being open and saying one thing before an election and doing the opposite afterwards.

Well those are actually submissions from the public, they are suggestions from the general community. I wouldn’t want to speculate on any level or all of them, it is simply a list of submissions. The real point here is that ask the question and I think that is what we should be doing.

Ok, thanks very much.
Greg Hunt