Senator MILNE (2:46 PM) —My question is to Senator Minchin, representing the Prime Minister, and concerns the report of the Prime Ministerial Task Group on Emissions Trading. Given that the overseas experience demonstrates that an emissions-trading system on its own will not generate a price signal strong enough to stimulate further investment in renewable energy, has the government investigated the potential for renewable energy feed-in laws? If so, which department is overseeing the analysis, and when will it be made public? If the government has not been looking at renewable energy feed-in laws, why not?

Senator MINCHIN (Leader of the Government in the Senate) —I thank Senator Milne for drawing attention to the excellent report by the Prime Minister’s Task Group on Emissions Trading. I hope Senator Milne and everyone over there has read it. It is an outstanding analysis of the use of emissions-trading schemes to put in place a market for CO emissions—

Senator Conroy interjecting—

Senator MINCHIN —and how a market can most effectively work to put a price on carbon in order to achieve a reduction in CO emissions. It is an outstanding report. The Prime Minister announced at the federal council meeting of the Liberal Party the government’s response to that report.

Senator Conroy interjecting—

Senator MINCHIN —He did say quite clearly that we will move towards a domestic emissions-trading system beginning no later than 2012. Senator Milne says that these emissions-trading schemes do not work and international experience suggests that they do not fully produce the outcomes desired of them. I think it is true—and part of our commentary on emissions-trading schemes, and why we have been cautious about going down this path to this point—

Senator Conroy interjecting—

The PRESIDENT —Senator Conroy! Interjections are disorderly!

Senator MINCHIN —is that the European scheme has been a monumental failure. The Europeans have demonstrated that you do have to be careful; you do have to plan these things with great care and consideration if you actually want them to achieve the objectives you seek without doing enormous damage to your economy. The European system has not worked because they handed out too many permits, and therefore it has achieved none of its objectives. It is universally regarded as a joke.

We have taken advantage of the experience of Europe to ensure that we do plan properly and carefully to put in place a cap and trade system that not only achieves the objectives of containing our emissions but does so in a way that does not trash the Australian economy in the way that the Labor Party and the Greens overtly intend to do. The proposition that you come out and say, in the Labor Party’s case, ‘Let’s just cut emissions by 60 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050’ or, in the case of the Greens, by 80 per cent by 2050, is absurd. They have no idea how they would achieve that objective. They have had no idea of the economic implications of such propositions, which anyone can tell would do enormous damage to this economy and the workers that the Labor Party professes to represent in so many energy-intensive industries across this country.

So it is our view that if you set up an emissions-trading system carefully, properly and with sensitivity to the structure of the Australian economy, it should let the market determine and bring forward the supply response in terms of renewable energy, nuclear energy and geothermal energy. The point is that if you put a price on carbon and allow the market to work, that will render viable the alternative energy sources that can then come on stream to meet demand for energy at the price that is set according to the operation of the emissions-trading scheme. So we have great confidence that, carefully planned—and in the capable hands of the coalition government, which has proved itself a capable manager of the Australian economy—an emissions-trading scheme can be safely and securely put in place that will not do untold damage to the Australian economy.

Senator MILNE —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I thank Senator Minchin for his answer. He demonstrated that he has no idea what a feed-in law is, because he did not mention it once in that response. What I particularly asked was: ‘Have you looked at the potential for renewable energy feed-in-laws? If so, which department has done that?’ So I ask again: given that the spectacular growth in renewable energy generation in European nations has been driven by feed-in laws, a national target and an emissions-trading system, will the government now examine feed-in laws as a complementary initiative to an emissions-trading system and a renewable energy target so that we do achieve a rollout of renewable energy? Senator, What do you understand by ‘feed-in laws’?

Senator MINCHIN (Minister for Finance and Administration) —What I understand is that your policies would trash this economy and put thousands of Australians out of work. You do not care about the workers of Australia; you just want to pursue your blind goals to trash the Australian economy in the name of your Green purity. We actually do care about Australia’s economy and the jobs of thousands of Australians, and we are not going to put them at risk.

Senator Bob Brown —Mr President, I rise on a point of order. The minister’s bombast does not obviate his need to—

The PRESIDENT —Senator Brown, what is your point of order?

Senator Bob Brown —Mr President, the minister did not answer the question because he did not understand what it was about. How hopeless is that?

The PRESIDENT —There is no point of order.

Senator MINCHIN —I have given you my answer. What I said to Senator Milne, through you, Mr President, is that the government believes, on the basis of the advice provided to its task group on emissions-trading, that a properly constructed, well-planned emissions-trading scheme with a cap and trade scheme, with the appropriate issue of permits and a market for the price of those permits, will bring forward the energy responses required, whether it be renewable or nuclear. The Greens and the Labor Party will not have a bar of nuclear power, claiming, ‘We’re pure on greenhouse, but we mustn’t have nuclear power.’ How utterly absurd and hypocritical! We believe that those energy responses will be brought forward by the operation of a properly planned market based emissions-trading scheme.