E&OE….
Topics: Labor’s plans to bring back the carbon tax, Shenhua Watermark mine decision
ROSS GREENWOOD:
The Federal Environment Minister, Greg Hunt has been listening on the line. Hello Greg, how are you?
GREG HUNT:
Well thank you and good evening, Ross.
ROSS GREENWOOD:
So therefore, is there going to be, if there were a Labor government – is there going to be a price on carbon or not?
GREG HUNT:
There will be a carbon tax, there will be a price on carbon if Labor is re-elected and that means higher electricity prices, higher gas prices, higher cost of living, higher refrigerant costs, higher costs for pensioners, higher costs for farmers and at the end of the day, they’ve said they’ll do it, now we have a secret document that’s been leaked for whatever reason, which makes it absolutely clear they are bringing back the carbon tax. They won’t call it that, but if it works like a tax, if it looks like a tax, if it hurts like a tax and if it taxes like a tax, it’s a tax. It’s the very definition of a carbon tax in that it covers emissions and charges a price for them.
ROSS GREENWOOD:
Truth is that they might claim that an emissions trading scheme might have a floating price for those emissions and that was something that many people, including many in your own party, were in favour of previously. Now the question as whether that’s a tax or whether it’s an emissions trading scheme or whether there’s any difference at all between all those things.
GREG HUNT:
There’s no material difference. Both of them cover electricity, gas, refrigerants, goods in supermarkets, this may well cover petrol, who knows, they won’t tell people about it and their plan, as reported, is to not even tell people before the election how much they’ll be hit and the only difference is that one is a fixed price, one is a floating price. What they’re trying to do is what they did when they introduced the carbon tax – call it something else and pretend that it’s not a tax on electricity.
ROSS GREENWOOD:
See it is weird because I can’t quite work it out, Greg, because Bill Shorten has indicated that today, he said ‘our focus will be on renewable energy and there is going to be no carbon tax’. Then you go to last May and he was quite unequivocal that there would be a pricing on carbon that would be taken to the next election.
GREG HUNT:
The central element in what’s being reported today, this sort of leaked, sneaky, secret tax plan is a carbon tax. And it’s a general tax and it’s followed by an electricity tax. So people get hit twice and then there are a whole range of other measures as well. But for your listeners, what does it mean for them? Last time, on average, it was $550 a year. This time, it may well be considerably more because there’s a general carbon tax, there’s a specific electricity tax, they are then going to try to obviously ramp it up in terms of their ambitions, so this is a super carbon tax coming and its there in black and white.
It is their proposal to shadow cabinet. Obviously somebody in shadow cabinet or near the shadow cabinet dislikes the proposal so much that they’ve leaked it to the press and I don’t know whether the plan was to kill the tax or kill Bill, but it’s a pretty savage internal action which has all the hallmarks of the sort of Rudd/Gillard collapse and it’s always been the Rudd/Gillard tax.
ROSS GREENWOOD:
So you’re saying to me, Greg Hunt, that you believe this could be some form of conspiracy to expose this to try and move Bill Shorten on?
GREG HUNT:
Well it certainly doesn’t sound as if it were a friendly action. It’s somebody who doesn’t want the tax or doesn’t want Bill Shorten and that’s one part of the story. The even more significant part of the story is they said they’d bring back an ETS, which is a carbon tax, they are bringing in an ETS, it’s there in black and white.
This is their fundamental, central, pre-election internal submission for a carbon tax and now they’re trying to deceive the Australian people. I mean, if you’re caught red-handed, your hand in the till, it’s a whole lot better to say ‘sorry, I’ve done the wrong thing’. They’re just pretending they’re not doing it. We’ve always said they’d bring back the carbon tax. They are, they will and in the end, it’s the people that will pay.
ROSS GREENWOOD:
Can I take you to one other subject that has been in the news in the past week or so and that is your approval in regards to the Shenhua Watermark project which is in the Liverpool Plains, or that area around Gunnedah in New South Wales. Now much as been said, farmers, of course, have got big opposition groups. One thing I’m a little uncertain of – what is the demarcation in terms of the approval that you have granted and the approval the New South Wales government must grant?
GREG HUNT:
Sure. So we are one small part. We’re, at the Federal level, part 15 or stage 15 of a 17 stage process, believe it or not. It’s a New South Wales decision, started by New South Wales Labor. It was reaffirmed by the current government. They have all the discretion as to whether they allocate land, where they allocate land, to whom they allocate land. All of that was done and that’s part of all the other stages.
For the Commonwealth, we simply assess one component and that is what’s known as matters of national environmental significance, in particular looking at water, and there were six sets of unequivocal scientific advice – legal advice, departmental advice – which all said this project, whether you like it or don’t like it, would use about 1 in 1000 parts of the available water, it will not touch, it will be prohibited from going near the black soil plains – it’s rocky ridge country.
Those are the conditions, those are the limits and against that background, all of the advice said that this would have to be approved under Federal law and that no Federal Environment Minister could reject six sets of scientific analysis – departmental advice, legal advice – or otherwise the rejection would have been overturned by the courts and the conditions potentially stripped away. So…
ROSS GREENWOOD:
As you’re aware, farming groups have been indicating in that area that they’re worried not just about the water usage, but about the water table, the impact on the water table and even the quality of the water they’ll have for their farming purposes.
GREG HUNT:
Yes absolutely and I met with farmers and I went out there with Barnaby Joyce and we met with the community. I had other meetings with the community along the way and was always intensely aware, so much so that we did what’s called ‘stopping the clock’.
We put all of the community questions that were given to me to what’s known as the Independent Expert Scientific Committee of precisely those topics – of water quality, water use and water table and the Independent Expert Scientific Committee made an assessment under (inaudible) that I went back twice with all the community questions, I then met with the Independent Expert Scientific Committee and on each occasion they were very clear, they were unequivocal, and said that some very tough decisions we face, but right here, it’s clear that we’re looking at 1 part in 1000 and we could not be more confident in terms of the water usage and the fact that there is no risk of Federal law being breached.
ROSS GREENWOOD:
And Barnaby Joyce, the Agriculture Minister, who said he was suspicious of that advice about the water table, how are relations with him right now, Greg Hunt?
GREG HUNT:
Look, really good actually. He’s a tremendously good local member, a tremendous Federal Minister and above all else, he’s an outstanding person and human being and he’s had a long-standing view. I think the rules are a bit different here. This view has been his for many years. He’s not supported the project, but he’s always understood that his main concern is with the New South Wales land planning decision and land planning laws and he’s now focussing on the New South Wales government.
They have another major decision to make – whether or not to issue a mining licence. Ours was a very strict statutory process where there are very few discretions under Federal law. It’s simply a case if all of the information comes in a particular way and not just one or two or three or four or even five rounds of scientific analysis and advice, but six, then nobody can come to a different conclusion on the Federal law and I think he understands that. His real focus and frustration is with the original decision and the New South Wales Labor planning process.
ROSS GREENWOOD:
Greg Hunt, the Federal Environment Minister, as always we appreciate your time on the programme.
GREG HUNT:
Thanks very much Ross.
(ENDS)