Interview with ABC NewsRadio - Rio+20 Summit and the Carbon Tax
June 21, 2012
E&OE….
Topics: Rio+20 Summit, Carbon Tax
INTRODUCTION:
Well world leaders and Environment Ministers are gathering in Brazil for the Rio+20 Environmental Summit. The meeting’s been hailed by some as an historic meeting which comes twenty years after the world first met in Rio to coordinate global action on environmental issues. But with many world leaders not attending and the final communiqué reportedly already settled the summit’s being dismissed by many as an empty exercise. At the same time here at home the Carbon Tax is gathering pace with the tax itself now just over a week away. For an Opposition view on those issues, Marius Benson speaking here to Shadow Climate Change Minister, the Coalition’s Greg Hunt.
MARIUS BENSON:
Greg Hunt, the Rio environmental summit is opening. It’s reported that the final communiqué has already been prepared and that really nothing much is coming out of that. Is that your expectation with this summit?
GREG HUNT:
Look unfortunately I don’t think it’s going to be the global agreement on reducing emissions which the Government has been pledging will come, promising will come, imagining will come. What that means is of course that the Carbon Tax is increasingly isolated, increasingly obvious as the biggest, broadest system in the world.
MARIUS BENSON:
I was asking you there about the Rio Summit. Within seconds you introduced the Carbon Tax and the Carbon Tax is clearly going to be a dominant issue in the coming weeks as the tax itself comes in. But is it reasonable to say that not much truth can be expected from either side? The Government will be saying ‘no problem’ and ‘the world is with us’ and you’ll be saying ‘everything bad is due to the Carbon Tax’.
GREG HUNT:
With respect, I disagree. And I disagree because there are real consequences that will start on day one. On day one when people get up in the morning, what’s going to happen? Their electricity, in NSW for example, will be 18% higher. So when you open the fridge door you’ll be paying more, when you turn on ...
MARIUS BENSON:
Okay, I can see the logic of that argument because you’ve put it before. How much has power gone up, power prices gone up in NSW in the last five years?
GREG HUNT:
Well I think that’s the problem. We’re already looking at power price rises of over 70% and on top of that to then add a massive Carbon Tax which is going to keep increasing. It doesn’t just start at $23 and finish at $23, it continues to go up.
MARIUS BENSON:
The Government’s argument is that their compensation will pay for the Carbon Tax and meet the costs of the Carbon Tax on a continuing basis. That’s the Government’s argument. The industry, the electricity generating industry, says that the rises you’ve seen in the past will continue into the future are issues independent of the Carbon Tax.
GREG HUNT:
We have a range of factors and what you see is to add the Carbon Tax on top of it is the worst possible thing that you can do.
MARIUS BENSON:
Is there an air of unreality about this whole discussion because the action that is proposed by the Government, the action that’s proposed by the Opposition and the action proposed by the world, by general agreement, by universal agreement, won’t meet the needs to curb the emissions to prevent a temperature rise of two degrees or more? It seems an exercise in unreality.
GREG HUNT:
Well I think it’s all about taking practical steps. What we’re...
MARIUS BENSON:
But your practical steps, according to the science, won’t prevent a dangerous temperature rise. Why take them at all?
GREG HUNT:
With great respect, you begin by taking significant steps, which we are proposing, but it’s all about being effective. The problem with the Government system is not only does it cost an enormous amount, but it doesn’t actually reduce emissions. Australia’s emissions under the Government system go up. They go up from 578 million tonnes in 2010, to 621 million tonnes.
MARIUS BENSON:
Was your colleague George Brandis right this week when he blamed the 1900 job losses at Fairfax, the publisher, on the Carbon Tax, saying “Does the Minister in the Senate accept any responsibility for the loss of thousands more Australian jobs as a direct result of this toxic tax based on a lie?”
GREG HUNT:
Well it was a legitimate question to ask, whether or not there is a contribution. I’ll let the companies speak for themselves.
MARIUS BENSON:
The company gave its reasons for the job losses and they didn’t mention the Carbon Tax.
GREG HUNT:
But what’s absolutely clear is adding a tax on paper - and of course the major paper manufacturers are right at the top of the Government’s hit list - adding a tax on electricity, adding a tax on gas and adding a tax on off-road diesel all adds to the costs of companies, which are facing difficult times.
MARIUS BENSON:
Greg Hunt, thank you very much.
GREG HUNT:
It’s a pleasure.
Related Files