Environment minister says it would be untenable to repeal carbon pricing and not implement Coalition's direct action plan

Australia must not be left without an emissions reduction policy, the environment minister says, as the government prepares to bring forward the carbon pricing repeal debate when the new Senate sits for the first time on Monday.



Asked on Sunday whether Australia could be left in the untenable position of having repealed carbon pricing and not implemented the Coalition’s Direct Action plan, Greg Hunt said the government was “closer than ever” to achieving its goals, and it made no sense to leave Australia without a “primary mechanism” to reduce emissions.

“I’m not accepting that outcome of nothing,” Hunt said during an interview with Sky News.

“We won’t stop until we have both the carbon tax repealed and our approach to emissions reduction implemented. I think we can work through with the Senate and I’m open to working with any and all parties. There are lines of communication open with the crossbench which have been extremely constructive.

“There’s also the potential to work with the Greens and the ALP because I find it hard to believe that they would wantonly take an act of vandalism to really practical measures such as the work of Indigenous communities, the work of cleaning up power stations and the work of maintaining existing waste coal-mine gas and landfill operations … we can build on them.”

The government has indicated it wants the abolition of the carbon tax to be the first item of business once the new senators are sworn in on Monday morning.

This is likely to require procedural motions because the Senate’s environment and communications legislation committee is not due to present its report on the repeal bills until 14 July.

Such motions to bring on the matter early are expected to be opposed by Labor and the Greens, which no longer have a combined majority in the upper house, and would require support from the crossbench, including Palmer United party’s three senators.

The government’s Senate leader, Eric Abetz, who is at the forefront of negotiations with the new crossbench, confirmed the government would seek to bring on the repeal debate immediately. He argued the Coalition’s “overarching pledge” was to scrap the carbon tax in the interests of cutting the cost of living and protecting jobs.

“Trying to defer it was the last hurrah of the Labor-Green majority in the Senate, which no longer represents the will of the Australian people as of 7 September, but they abused their numbers in the Senate to try to defer consideration of the carbon tax,” Abetz told the ABC on Sunday.

“We said before the election that the very first item of business we would put to the new parliament was the repeal of the carbon tax. We did that over six months ago. It therefore is absolutely consistent for us to put it up as the first item for the new Senate.”

The government appears to have the numbers in the Senate to abolish carbon pricing, but it is believed to lack support for its alternative emissions reduction policy of direct action. Under this policy the government would create an emissions reduction fund allowing businesses, state and local government bodies, community organisations and individuals to apply for federal funding for emissions reduction projects.

Funding was included in the budget appropriations bills, but the operation of the emissions reduction fund is set out in the Carbon Farming Initiative Amendment Bill, which is yet to pass the Senate.

The opposition environment spokesman, Mark Butler, said Labor continued to support an emissions trading scheme with an immediate move from the current fixed price to a floating price.

Butler told the ABC direct action was not the most appropriate way to deal with pollution, as it involved giving billions of dollars in taxpayers’ money to big polluters with no firm cap on emissions.

The Greens leader, Christine Milne, speaking at a “bust the budget” rally in Sydney, said the government’s alternative was flawed.

“We need to be keeping the carbon price. It makes no sense for the big end of town to pollute for nothing and for the community to pick up the costs,” Milne said.

The government must attract support from six of the eight crossbench senators to allow the passage of legislation opposed by Labor and the Greens.

Hunt said the government would “add additional legislative safeguards and guarantees that all of the savings from the abolition of the carbon tax will go back to consumers” – in line with a demand from the Palmer United party as a condition of supporting the repeal.