Fri, 4th July 2008
Nelson Press Conference
The Hon Dr Brendan Nelson MP
Leader of the Opposition
E&OE
DR NELSON:
Well the Opposition welcomes the release of Professor Garnaut’s draft report into climate change. There are a number of key principles for Australia and indeed for the Opposition. Climate change is real and we take the view as does Rupert Murdoch that we have to give the planet the benefit of the doubt.
Whilst Australia alone and acting alone can’t solve climate change we can if we get it wrong do enormous damage to our economy and also to our environmental future. There are a number of principles that are absolutely essential for the Government and certainly for the Opposition. The first is that Australia must be part of a genuinely global response to climate change which involves the key emitters throughout the world, particularly the United States, China, India and the other large developing and developed nations.
It’s also extremely important for Australia and Australians that we go into the new world of climate change with our economic eyes wide open. We support an emissions trading scheme. As Liberals and as Nationals we believe as far as we can in market solutions to the problems that face our generation. An emissions trading scheme is subject to its design and how broad it is a sensible way to address the challenge of climate change which is significant in the extreme.
What’s important is that we have a realistic, a practical and a sustainable approach to climate change. The policies that Mr Rudd chooses to implement to address climate change on Australia’s behalf need to be environmentally credible and economically sustainable and responsible. It’s extremely important that whatever we do as a nation that we realise that with about 1.4 per cent of global emissions that Australia in itself can’t solve the problem of climate change but we can destroy jobs and industries in our country and we can do enormous damage to our own environment if we act in isolation from the rest of the world.
We believe it’s extremely important that in implementing policies for climate change and an emissions trading scheme in particular that Australian motorists be protected with no new taxes on petrol. $1.70 a litre is a significant price signal for the average Australian motorist and to further increase taxes as a result of climate change policies without some other kind of off-set is something that will be opposed by the Opposition.
Professor Garnaut said that he doesn’t see any particular reason why you would want to cushion Australian motorists from higher petrol prices. All I can say is that it’s absolutely essential that all of us realise just how much pressure Australians are under at the moment with petrol at $1.70 a litre. Anyone that doesn’t think that $1.70 a litre is a price signal is living on a different planet from the one that the rest of us are trying to drive around on at the moment.
We also think that it’s very important that Mr Rudd be very careful about the policies that are implemented to deal with climate change and the emissions trading scheme. It is very important for this nation’s future that we get this right. If Mr Rudd is able to botch something as relatively simple as solar panels on our roofs it’s hard to have confidence that he is going to be able to completely redesign Australia’s economy to deal with climate change.
Mr Rudd needs to also give us some clear timelines in terms of when he is actually going to release the detail for his policies for climate change. An emissions trading scheme is generally the right way to go for Australia but we’ve got to make absolutely sure that in the process we protect Australian motorists; we protect family households and pensioners. And importantly we protect jobs and we don’t send jobs and industries off the other parts of the world.
QUESTION:
Mr Nelson Malcolm Turnbull says it’s impossible to begin an emissions trading scheme by 2010. Is the Coalition’s policy to delay the scheme till 2012 or later?
DR NELSON:
Well last year in government the advice that had been given to the previous government that at the earliest that you could start to introduce it was 2011 and to get it running by 2012. The most important thing for us is that we get this right. We owe it our children. We owe it to our future. We owe it to the jobs of Australians today to make sure that we get this right. And Mr Rudd seems to be in a hurry to push through an emissions trading scheme very quickly, and in the process risks botching it in the same way that he’s botched other things such as solar panels on roofs or Fuel Watch.
It’s very important that we get his right. We need to make sure that we have our economic eyes wide open, that we don’t rush the implementation of an emissions trading scheme which will transform the nature of our economy and the way our country does business. And Mr Rudd seems to be very steadfast in believing that in some way he’s got to rush it through.
Mr Rudd needs to reassure Australia that indeed he will have it right and that if he does introduce it in 2010, that Australians will not suffer adversely from him making a major mistake.
QUESTION:
So you would delay it till 2011?
DR NELSON:
Well the most important thing is that it be introduced when the Government is confident the system is sufficiently robust and well developed to be able to see an emissions trading scheme be undertaken in Australia.
There is nothing magical about the year 2010, the most important thing is that Australia gets it right. And Mr Rudd, against the advice that had been given to the previous government, thinks that he needs to rush it in. We think it is most important that we get it right, that we protect Australian jobs, Australian industry, pensioners and households in the process of developing this brand new system for our economy in dealing with climate change, and that’s the emissions trading scheme.
Yesterday’s announcement in relation to COAG and the Murray-Darling Basin essentially, again, is Mr Rudd and the premiers announcing they have a plan to have a plan. And we don’t see that there has been any significant move other than to announce money that had already been allocated under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in the $10 billion package that had been announced by John Howard last year. The most important thing that’s got to happen at the moment is that we get real action in terms of water saving efficiency on farms, particularly in irrigation. And Mr Rudd has also consigned, by yesterday’s agreement to have a plan, consigned the Coorong and the Lower Lakes ultimately to a death.
I’d also like to express my sympathy for Alan Jones, greatly admired and respected not only in the Sydney community but across Australia. And wish Alan every success in the treatment of his prostate cancer and an early return to very good health.
And the other observation I make is that one of the most respected diplomats in Asia, Barry Desker, the former Singaporean Ambassador to Indonesia, has belled the cat in relation to Mr Rudd’s plan for Asia and some sort of Asian union. In other words, it has no support in Asia, it should not have been announced with a megaphone here from Australia. There should have been a degree of cooperation and consultation with other countries in the region. And the real concern that we have is that if Mr Rudd just invents ideas and puts them out into the public arena without actually thinking them through, if he does that in relation to the Asian union, if he does that in relation to so called Fuel Watch, what’s Mr Rudd going to do with an emissions trading scheme which will significantly change and reshape the Australian economy.
QUESTION:
Just quickly Mr Nelson, the Greens say that a 2010 to 2012 transition is meaningless because it delays a start date and there are no incentives. Are you concerned that the Greens are going to seek to strengthen the Government’s legislation in the Senate on the emissions trading scheme?
DR NELSON:
Well, Mr Rudd is now beholden to the Greens in the Senate and our primary concern, the Coalition’s primary concern is to see that we have a credible long term environmental strategy to deal with climate change, but it’s also economically responsible and sustainable. We need to make absolutely sure that in facing up to the reality and the challenge of climate change that we don’t close down Australian industries, that we don’t see Australians lose their jobs and have them go to other parts of the world and that we protect motorists, pensioners and families in relation to petrol and electricity.
It is very important that Mr Rudd get this right and that he not allow himself to be hostage to extreme elements in his own government, whether it be Peter Garrett, or whether it be the Greens in the Senate. Mr Rudd needs to stand up to the plate, he needs to be careful, he needs to think this through and he needs to implement the emissions trading scheme when it’s ready to be introduced and Australians know that it’s been fully thought through.
We will be carefully examining the 550 pages of Professor Garnaut’s interim report. We will carefully examine the Green Paper. We will be taking independent advice and I will be announcing in due course a fully developed, comprehensive response to climate change and one which is consistent with our view that Australia does need an emissions trading scheme but we must be part of a genuinely global response.
The average Australian, whilst strongly supporting action to deal with climate change, does not yet fully appreciate the economic consequences to Australia of what Mr Rudd is about to do. If Mr Rudd can’t get solar panels on roofs right, I doubt that we have confidence in him to get this major transformation in our economy right.
Thanks very much.