Page 4929 - Week 11 - Thursday, 21 October 2010
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MRS DUNNE: He was actually saying it is six per cent and it would cost us about $50 a tonne. Now he has resiled from that. But the back-of-the-envelope calculation based on what Mr Corbell said in question time today tells the people of the ACT that they are facing every year, year on year, an increase in costs—electricity and other things—of about $1,000. Mr Corbell has not justified that to the people of the ACT. The Greens have not justified that to the people of the ACT. What that does is take money out of the economy that ACT taxpayers could spend on other things that would stimulate the economy.
It will be a drain on our economy. There is no antidote to that from Mr Corbell or Mr Rattenbury. This is why the Canberra Liberals have chosen a more moderate path, one that will be not as expensive for the people of the ACT because we understand what it is like to be a middle income public servant with a couple of kids at school. We know what that is like. They may have forgotten, but we know what it is like for those families. We know how hard it is and we are not about making it even more difficult than it already is.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Minister for Energy and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (5.39): There are some issues that have been raised during the debate about the appropriateness of the figure which bear some analysis. The Liberals seek to mount their argument on the basis that because 30 per cent is somewhere between 25 and 40, it is a legitimate figure. What they fail to understand is that that range was designed to take into account both developing and developed economies. Developing economies are expected to adopt less of a greenhouse gas emissions reduction than developed economies are, because obviously developed economies are wealthier, have more capability and share a greater level of the burden in terms of their contribution to the overall level of carbon emissions in the atmosphere.
It is completely misleading, again, for the Liberals to argue that because 30 per cent is between 25 and 40 per cent, it is acceptable. They are effectively saying that we should adopt a target for a developing nation. That is essentially their position. Their position is this: “We believe that with all our relative wealth globally, with all our relative affluence, with all our relative knowledge and expertise, we should adopt a target which is the type of target expected of a developing or an emerging nation rather than the target for a fully developed Westernised economy which has had the opportunity and the benefit of unrestrained carbon emissions for centuries.” That is their position. That position is morally bankrupt. They need to understand that that is the position that they advance.
The government does not accept their position, because it is morally bankrupt. We do not accept that you should adopt a greenhouse gas reduction target equivalent to that of a developing or emerging economy. We accept that we should adopt a greenhouse gas reduction target of an emerged, established, Westernised, fully developed nation, such as we are. We are relatively one of the most affluent cities within this nation, and we should adopt a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target commensurate with that.
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (5.42): I will be supporting the amendment; it makes sense. I was doing some other work in my office before and I heard the raucous
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