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Monday, 4 July 2011
Page: 7320

Carbon Pricing

Mr TEHAN (Wannon) (14:21): My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Small Business. I refer to the Prime Minister's promise that petrol will be exempt from her carbon price. Will Allen Transport, a business with 22 local employees operating in Portland and Warrnambool with 10 trucks, have to pay the carbon tax on the fuel they use?

Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation) (14:22): I would like to thank the member for Wannon for his question. All fuel—including petrol, diesel and LPG—for passenger motor vehicles and light commercial vehicles will not be subject to the carbon price. The member for Wannon will also know that in the last four months the Leader of the Opposition no fewer than 20 times has said that the cost of petrol will rise. This just exposes what has really been going on in this country in the political debate—

Mr Pyne interjecting—

Ms Julie Bishop interjecting—

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Sturt and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition are warned.

Mr SHORTEN: We have seen in the last four months the Leader of the Opposition trying to run a strategy which says that fear will triumph over hope. He has been trying to make it very clear that there will be a carbon price on petrol for passenger motor vehicles and for light motor vehicles.

We have also agreed that there should be—

Dr Stone: Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order on relevance. The question was about large trucks. It was: what is going to be the cost impact on large motor vehicles? Trucks were what were referred to by the member for Wannon.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Murray will resume her seat. The Assistant Treasurer is aware of the need to directly relate his answer to the question. The Assistant Treasurer is responding.

Mr SHORTEN: In terms of the question that was asked, I was asked about Allen Transport. In terms of the trucks that were spoken about, there was not the specification that the member for Murray says there was. Perhaps if she had written the member for Wannon's question it might have gone a different way. But returning to the question that was asked about a carbon price on petrol, we have been very clear in the last 24 hours that there will not be a price on carbon put on petrol for passenger motor vehicles and for light commercial vehicles.

In terms of the rest of the detail of the carbon package, I know that the opposition is greatly interested in what the price on carbon should be. In the very near future more detail will emerge. But let us go back to what has been put on the record already. We have agreed to a Productivity Commission review on fuel excise. We have said that there will be a Productivity Commission review on fuel excise. It is anticipated that this review will include an examination of the merits of the regime based on carbon content or energy content of fuels. The Henry review looked at this in some detail. It recommended replac­ing the revenue raised through fuel excise with direct charges for road use. The review noted that this would actually result in a reduction in fuel tax paid.

I am not going to pre-empt the rec­ommendations of the Productivity Com­mission's review, which has not even started, but let us be very clear when it comes to fuel excise policy in this place. The government is not afraid of good policy. That is why as recently as two weeks ago we finished the job which the opposition should have done. I know that Mr Minchin is no longer here, but he recognised that for excises in the fuel tax policy it was important to include alternative fuels such as LPG. We finished the job which should have been done by those opposite many years ago. If they actually want to engage in a proper policy debate then they will have to do more than just oppose ideas.

Mr Pyne: Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I request that the minister table the notes from which he was so clearly reading every word.

The SPEAKER: Was the Assistant Treasurer reading from a document?

Mr Shorten: It is confidential.

The SPEAKER: The document is conf­idential.