Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

If we had more than 26 minutes for the whole chamber to debate this bill, maybe I would. Given that this bill has been gagged for 26—

Opposition members interjecting—

No, it was debated cognately with 11 other bills. It is a very interesting question, and maybe the member and I can have a talk about it after.

From 2015 the CEFC starts returning money to the budget. The cost of abatement is actually a negative cost. It is a negative cost of about $2.40 per tonne of carbon pollution. I am sure the point will be made by members opposite that this is somehow a bizarre and unique experiment on the part of the former Australian government. Nothing could be further from the truth. For example, the United Kingdom has the Green Investment Bank that is ramping up to invest for a commercial return—in the same way that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is doing—the equivalent of more than $A6 billion to start to drive technologies in that country. The United Kingdom has just overtaken Australia in the Ernst & Young renewable energy country attractiveness index. Germany is doing the same with over 100 billion euro being deployed from government through the commercial finance sector.

We will oppose this bill. It was a bad bill when it was first introduced and it remains a bad bill.

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