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Carbon tax debate needs future focus: Milne
Selasa, 19 April 2011 00:00
Carbon tax debate needs future focus: Milne
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 19/04/2011
Reporter: Ali Moore
Deputy Greens leader Christine Milne joins Lateline to discuss the concerns over the Federal Government's proposed carbon tax.
Transcript
ALI MOORE: And now back to our top story, the carbon tax.
There were a number of meetings on the topic in Canberra today. In the afternoon, business leaders put their case for compensation. But before that it was the turn of the Greens and Independents as part of the multi-party climate change committee. The committee's co-deputy chair is the deputy leader of the Greens, Christine Milne, and she joined me a short time ago from our Parliament House studio.
Christina Milne, welcome to Lateline.
CHRISTINE MILNE, DEPUTY LEADER OF THE GREENS: Thank you.
ALI MOORE: The multi-party climate change committee, you've had your sixth meeting today. Are you any closer into working out exactly what this carbon tax is going to look like?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well we've certainly gone through a lot of detail but we're really waiting on the productivity commission and also the modelling before we can make final decisions. But we are certainly aware of the complexities of each component of where we need to go. Particularly on things like assistance to the energy intensive trade exposed, looking at the generators and also looking at what else we have to pay for including research and development and land sector. So there's a lot to be thinking about.
ALI MOORE: It all depends, I guess, on where you start, what price you start with. Would $20 a tonne, as used by Greg Combet to work out a few calculations last week, is that an acceptable starting price for the Greens?
CHRISTINE MILNE: We haven't had the discussion about where the starting price will be. I'm certainly aware that the Minister has been out there using $20 as an example on quite a few occasions. Equally Professor Garnaut has talked about a range of between $20 and $30. We also are cognisant of the fact that whatever we adopt here will have to intersect with the international price when we go to flexible schemes. So we're looking at all of those things and considering it but certainly the Greens want to make sure that this time we have an environmentally effective as well as economically efficient scheme.
ALI MOORE: Does that mean $20 is too low as a starting point in your mind?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well, it's a matter of negotiation and the committee hasn't really discussed where the price will end up and that looks at a number of issues including how we need to spend the revenue.
ALI MOORE: Are you close to talking about price? I would have thought that's sort of central to the whole game of your starting point?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well it's certainly important but we also need to have the Treasury modelling to give us a sense of price. We are looking at what's going on around the world. We want to make sure that we give to investors a long-term signal, something that's transparent, something that is certain and that means we have to be very careful and we are being careful because this is a major reform that will transform the Australian economy and that's very exciting too because it gives us a bright and different future out to 2050.
ALI MOORE: So if you haven't talked price in that committee and you acknowledge Greg Combet has been using $20 a tonne, when you talk about steel only being affected to the tune of 0.6 per cent on the steel price, what price on carbon are you talking about?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well that was a Deutsche Bank analysis that basically went with, as far as I recall, a mid-20s price but it was saying that 0.6 per cent would be all it would be added to, or a percentage of, the steel price. So what the point that was being made there was that for all industry's special pleading, the reality is that the Australian dollar is a bigger issue for steel than a carbon price is likely to be.
ALI MOORE: At the same time the Australian Workers Union has made it very clear one job lost and this tax will lose its support and indeed just today the union said that Whyalla and Port Pirie will be wiped off the map because thousands of jobs will be stripped. Bottom line, will jobs be lost? Will new jobs be able to be created as quickly as old jobs potentially will go?
CHRISTINE MILNE: That's where we have to make sure we get a good transition, a just transition and also make sure that we set in place a policy that gives investors certainty so that we can get the new jobs. A Climate Institute report came out fairly recently saying that there's likely to be a net jobs increase of somewhere up to 34,000, for example.
ALI MOORE: But over what period? That's the key, isn't it?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well yes, but the issue is you can't simply say that not one job will be lost because you have to talk in net jobs, you have to talk about an industry policy for the future and that's the big gap in the current debate. People talk about the industries we have but they don't talk about the big opportunities that are there for transformation and you only have to look at what's happened in the information technology revolution to see that 20 years ago the jobs that are there in their hundreds of thousands now were not there or wouldn't have been imagined.
So our main focus here is to make sure we are creating the jobs of the future and that we're making sure that the trade exposure of industries is taken into account while setting those investment parameters for things like research and development and renewable energy.
ALI MOORE: When you look at compensation, you made it very clear that industry should not expect the same compensation as under the now scrapped CPRS which was agreed with Kevin Rudd. Now you thought the compensation there was too generous but Greg Combet has repeatedly made the point, and this is a quote, a lot of good work was done under the CPRS and we're working on the basis of that initial proposal that was put forward. Is there a gulf a mile wide between where you start on compensation and where the Federal Government's starting?
CHRISTINE MILNE: There's certainly a difference of opinion. For example, the last package had a global financial crisis buffer. I don't think that that needs to be there anymore. I also think that some of the aspects of that compensation, for example, if industries were shown at the period of review to be over compensated, they were to continue to get that over compensation for a further five years, well that doesn't make any sense either. In terms of energy security, we want to make sure there are changes to the national electricity markets so that demand-side management comes in and we can look at shaving off the peaks, if you like, with a variety of strategies including demand side.
ALI MOORE: What about steel though? Would you put on the table exempting steel all together?
CHRISTINE MILNE: We want to see evidence-based information from the steel industry. What they've managed to do is try and change the debate from one about their level of trade exposure to one about the Australian dollar and the input costs. Well there are many industries that are suffering because of the high dollar caused essentially because of the incredible minerals boom. They include industries like education and agriculture and tourism and nobody's talking about giving them a buffer for the Australian dollar. So we need to do this on the basis of trade exposure and that's the work that the Productivity Commission is doing for our committee and that will be very important in shaping our thinking.
ALI MOORE: Greg Combet also says that more than 50 per cent of the money raised will go to compensating households, how much more than 50 per cent is being talked about?
CHRISTINE MILNE: That's the position that the Government has put and there's general agreement around the table that the key thing has to be that the polluters pay for their pollution, they will pass through some of that cost and that is where we will help households to meet those costs. So we are agreed that low-income households, also people who are on pensions, who are on income support, they will get this assistance and that is critical that that happens.
ALI MOORE: And is it through a tax cut?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well we are discussing how it might happen. We had a very good presentation from one of our experts, Patricia Faulkner, today who made the point clearly that if you go for percentage compensation you are going to seriously disadvantage those who are on the very lowest of the benefits and so we need to be looking at how we can help people on an almost sectoral area basis rather than looking at just one size fits all because it won't in this sector. We are really focused on making sure that actual dollars are compensated.
ALI MOORE: So could that more than 50 per cent mean 60 per cent because of course businesses then looking at what's left in the kitty, how much more than 50 per cent could end up going back to households?
CHRISTINE MILNE: That's a really key point because last time the Government was going to subsidise the carbon price scheme they had from the general revenue in the Budget to the tune of an extra 2 per cent in the first year and 13 per cent in the second year. This time one of the principles is that it has to be Budget neutral. So there will be no subsidising it and out of the remaining 50 per cent you're talking about assistance for energy intensive trade exposed, assistance for generators, you're talking about whether or not petrol is subsidised, looking at research and development, renewable energy and assistance in the landscape sector.
So we have to turn over every dollar very carefully to determine what is in the best interests of Australia, how do we build the low carbon future and invest in the exciting frameworks that we need to have to bring that on whilst at the same time looking after householders and compensating industry.
ALI MOORE: But there's two points there, isn't there? First of all it may not be 50 per cent that's left on the table. If it's more than 50 per cent that goes to households it's whatever is left and then business can't assume that's all going to them, they could end up with just 30 per cent of compensation, is that possible?
CHRISTINE MILNE: I'm not going to put any figures on what is possible in terms of that break down but I certainly encourage the community to think about the fact that with 50 per cent assistance going to households, there are all those other calls on the money. So as soon as you get some big industries making a lot of noise about compensation, people need to think yes, but do we want to invest in research and development, commercialisation, do we want to put some money into the landscape sector so that we see money flowing out to regional Australia? I think the answer to that will be yes, and so this time there will not be politicising, if you like, of the compensation.
There will be an evidence-based approach which has a much more visionary aspect to it in terms of what we're building, not just what we are trying to compensate from the old economy.
ALI MOORE: It sounds wonderful in theory, of course, that it won't be politically based but bottom line if the Greens are not happy with what ends up on the table, would you prefer nothing than a deal that you don't like as was the case last time?
CHRISTINE MILNE: I think if you look at the evidence, last time our problem was that there was a ceiling on action, it was nowhere near what was need either to address climate change or to transform the economy. This time it was the Greens who put this on the table after the election, it's part of our agreement with the Prime Minister and so this is something we are working very hard on, we've got the experts around the table, we're taking evidence from right across the community and from industry and this time we're determined to get an outcome, to have a scheme in place by 1 July 2012.
ALI MOORE: But what if it's an outcome that you don't like, that the Greens don't like? That the Government has to negotiate with other players, it's got enormous political pressure from virtually every industry you could name right now. If it's something you don’t like what happens then?
CHRISTINE MILNE: We have a committee that's around a table including the independents, the Greens, the Government, there was a place for the Coalition, they chose not to take it. We know that there will have to be compromise, of course there will, in order to get a scheme through the parliament and in place. The important thing is that that scheme is flexible enough so that there can be increased ambition on what we try to do on climate change over time.
ALI MOORE: You won't contemplate failure at this point?
CHRISTINE MILNE: I'm not going to contemplate failure because I want to see Australia take its place in the international community doing something on climate change and actually preparing for the low carbon economy, preparing to give us a competitive place in that low carbon global economy otherwise if we go with Tony Abbott's plan we will be left behind.
ALI MOORE: Senator Milne, it's going to be a long few months, I think, many thanks for joining us.
CHRISTINE MILNE: Thank you.
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