ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, good morning everybody. This morning, we've seen independent economic modelling released, which tells us that Labor's 45 per cent emission reduction target will be an economic wrecking ball. The modelling tells us that we're going to see wages for the average worker reduced by $9000 a year; that's $173 a week for the average worker. It tells us it'll be a $473 billion hit to the economy and it will trash 336,000 jobs in our energy intensive sectors. It also tells us that it'll raise electricity prices by 58 per cent. It's time for Labor to fess up about their policies and about their emission reduction targets and the impact of those emission reduction targets for critical sectors in the economy.

They've told us that they want more control over farmer's land. Well, they've got to come clean on what that means for every farmer in Australia. They've told us that they want to impose draconian emissions standards on vehicles - vehicles like the Toyota HiLux, the most popular vehicle in Australia and widely used by tradies. They need to come clean on what that will cost to every tradie in Australia. We know that they intend to get rid of some of the most important manufacturing and mining sectors in this country and Matt will have more to say about that in a moment. They need to come clean for the workers in the aluminium sector, in the mining sector, in the coal sector, about the future of their jobs. Australians deserve a clear choice at this election, where both sides of politics are clear about their policies and where Labor ‘fesses up to the impacts of their 45 per cent emission reduction target.

MATT CANAVAN: Thanks, Angus. Thank you. Well, these results today are just common sense. The common sense is that if we have dearer energy prices, we'll have lower wages. Where our country has a choice - we have a choice between cheap wages or cheap energy. If we've got cheap energy, that means we can provide jobs. It means that businesses have money to pay higher wages that we'd like to see continue in this country. If we push up the price of power, industries will become less productive; there'll be fewer jobs; and wages will fall. So the data here today is just exactly what you'd expect to happen. It's exactly what would happen if the Labor government came in and pushed a unilateral target of a 45 per cent reduction in carbon emissions.

Now, the other thing I want to comment on today, as Angus said, is that it will be regional Australia that will be in the crosshairs of this policy. The greater the distance, the greater the cost. The further away you are from a major city or a major centre, the more you have to spend in fuel and electricity and energy to get around your day-to-day business. And the Labor Party's policy will mean you'll have to spend more to go about your day-to-day activities in regional Australia. It's also the case that our major energy-using industries like aluminium smelting, metals manufacturing, a lot of the manufacturing industries itself, are the ones that are located in regional areas, and it's these industries that will be hit hardest by these increases in power prices. All the previous modelling shows that the biggest impact of putting on a carbon tax is on the jobs in regional Australia, the jobs in North Queensland, the jobs in Central Queensland, the jobs in the Hunter Valley, the jobs in the Latrobe Valley - they're all in the crosshairs of Labor's policy because we need cheap energy to provide jobs in regional Australia.

The other thing to say is that this is just a tax. What Labor is doing is putting in another tax, another great big new tax, on your power bills, on your job, to make it harder for businesses to operate in this country. And what happens when you put up taxes? You get lower wages. You get fewer jobs. That's exactly what this modelling shows. And regional Australia is once again being deserted by a Labor Party that's obsessed with themselves and their issues in inner city electorates and not focusing on the real world issues of families in regional areas who just want to have a job, provide for their family, and get on with their lives.

JOURNALIST: Angus, you've called for some expressions of interest from energy companies about getting some more projects, to get some competition back in. The ACCC today has said that the Government needs to make sure none of that money's going to the big three energy companies. Are you going to make sure that we see some actual competition instead of government funding going to those big companies?

ANGUS TAYLOR: While we understand the ACCC's point, their recommendation was that we bring new reliable generation into the market, that we make sure that it adds to competition in the market; we are absolutely committed to that. We're working through the 66 proposals. But let me make it very clear - we want to see more competition in this market. We want to see more players in the market. We want to see reliable affordable electricity for all Australians being delivered into the marketplace and we want more independent players in that market. So we welcome the comments from the ACCC.

JOURNALIST: Will you decide- will you fund any- like will you rule out [inaudible]-

ANGUS TAYLOR: We are working through the 66 proposals now; we'll have more to say about this in the near future. But we are absolutely committed to more competition in this market, in contrast to the Labor Party who, 12 times now, 12 times, have rejected legislation to hold the big energy companies to account. The real question you've got to ask yourself is who is Labor protecting here? They're protecting their mates in the Queensland energy companies, owned by the Queensland Government, who are delivering $1.65 billion to the Queensland Government, reaping from the families and small businesses of Queensland in order to try to make ends meet. Why is Labor doing this? Why are they running a protection racket for big energy companies and their mates in the big energy companies?

JOURNALIST: Minister Canavan, just on the future of coal and Glencore - what is the future of coal when these big companies are saying they're stepping away from investing in coal and what do you say to the banks and investors who are sort of putting the pressure on in this regard?

MATT CANAVAN: Okay. Well there's two main questions there Ben. The first point to make is that last year Glencore finalised one of the biggest purchases of coal mines in the world's history. So I hardly think you can characterise Glencore's position as stepping away from coal. Call me cynical, but I think their announcement overnight appears to be much more to do with the self-interest of Glencore than the planetary interest of trying to save the climate. They obviously want to maintain their dominant position in the, particularly, seaborne thermal coal market; good luck to them. What I'd like to see is that Australian coal and Australian mining companies and Australian jobs capture  as much of the world coal market as possible. And that market is booming, that market is absolutely booming. Prices are at near record levels. We've seen a record amount of electricity generated from coal-fired power last year, and the projections are for continuing growth in coal of around 400 million tonnes every year extra by 2040. We produce around 250 million tonnes of thermal coal today. So the future is very bright for Australian coal.

In terms of your question around international financiers, look, my discussions with the companies here in Australia, is there's plenty of people wanting to fund coal mines. They're often obviously not the traditional houses that seem lockstep into some kind of Atlantic alliance against coal-fired power. But, in our region, hundreds of coal-fired power stations are being built all the time. They need fuel and the economies of Vietnam, of Indonesia, of Japan, of India, of China – they're going to want to proceed. And by 2030, half the world's middle class will be in this region and I think it's going to overcome any European antipathy towards coal.

JOURNALIST: What impact, if more companies follow Glencore's lead, what impact will that have on jobs for the industry and the Treasury's budget bottom line?

MATT CANAVAN: Well, as I said earlier, don't quite accept that characterisation of that question. I don't think Glencore's leading at all. The only thing Glencore are leading with is buying more coal and investing in more coal. Good luck to them. They've done that last year. They're hardly stepping away from it.

JOURNALIST: They're critical of organisations that aren't signing up to the Paris Accord. The governments [inaudible] on that point. Isn't that a suggestion that investors in coal companies are further ahead than the Coalition Government on this question?

MATT CANAVAN: Well we have signed up to the Paris agreement. On that front, I haven't seen those comments from Glencore there as you described. We're absolutely in agreement with Glencore. We would encourage all countries to be signatories to the Paris agreement and we are one, and I'd also make the point that 30 countries under the Paris agreement have outlined that they will seek to invest in modern coal-fired power stations to meet their Paris commitments because modern coal-fired power stations generally deliver about 25 per cent lower emissions than old coal-fired power stations. So they're meeting their targets through doing that. Those 30 countries represent around 60 per cent of the world's carbon emissions, including the big countries like China and Japan in our region that we supply. So the Paris agreement is a boon for coal demand across the world, particularly for Australian coal demand because it is our coal that will go to supply those modern high-efficiency, low-emission coal-fired power plants.

JOURNALIST: We had one of the bank bosses on the radio this morning saying that it was looking at limited exposure to coal. Just wondering what your message is to the banking sector about its investments in this area?

MATT CANAVAN: Well look, the Australian banking sector has never been a large or significant funder of resources in this country. Their level of investment has always trended far below the share of the resource sector's investment in the wider economy. So, it's not an overly important avenue for capital from our resources sector, and that's not just coal specifically; that's across the whole of resources. I mean, a lot of that goes to the different risk profiles that resources have relative to the banks' appetite for risk. This situation is not limited to the growth of Australia's resource sector in the last couple of decades and I certainly don't think it will in the future.

JOURNALIST: Does it still make economic sense for the Government to invest in coal projects if there are more investors who are being told [inaudible]?

MATT CANAVAN: Well, we're not investing in coal mining projects. We've never done that and it's not something on the table if you're referring to coal-fired power generation, that's more around the issue of power supply. I'll let Angus say a few words on it.

ANGUS TAYLOR: We have brought forward an underwriting new generation program late last year. We've had 66 proposals come forward. It's a technology-neutral program, as recommended by the ACCC, because we want to see more reliable power in the system. What happened in Victoria a few weeks ago, where 200,000 houses lost their lights, where the Portland smelter went out, should never happen, and so reliable power from competitive players in the marketplace that's keeping the price down and keeping the lights on is what we need; and we're working our way through that process. It's a technology-neutral process. We're focused on the outcomes. You mentioned our international obligations earlier. We are committed to a 26 per cent reduction target. We're down to the last tonnes that we need to abate - 10 per cent of what it was 10 years ago. But Labor has a 45 per cent target and this is the real difference. A 45 per cent target, which is a great big electricity tax, a great big energy tax, a 58 per cent increase in electricity bills, they need to answer some hard questions about their policy and the impact it's going to have on every Australian.

JOURNALIST: But modelling also says your policy comes with a $70 billion hit. Is that a great big energy tax?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, we've been very clear about our policies in this area. Twenty-six per cent is a balanced target. It's an achievable target. It's 10 per cent of what it was 10 years ago because of the hard work that's been going on across our economy from those small businesses, big businesses, as well as households, who are all doing work to reduce our emissions. We've never pretended that reducing emissions is free. The emissions reduction fund, a very successful program under this Government, has costs attached to it. They're low costs. But what we know is that, over the last five years, we've created over a million jobs. We are credible on this because we've achieved exactly what we said we would achieve in the lead-up to the 2013, election. And we know we will achieve another 1.25 million jobs in the coming five years.

JOURNALIST: Senator Canavan, does the Labor Party need to put forward a definitive position on where it stands on Adani, whether or not it supports it without putting any caveats on the situation before the election?

MATT CANAVAN: Well, I think the Labor Party has a pretty definitive position on coal and Adani. They don't like it and they've got a war on it. They don't want to see it happen. That's what the people of North and Central Queensland have heard from the Labor Party this week, a senior Labor Party frontbencher say that it'd be a good thing if global coal markets were to collapse. That's what we've heard in North and Central Queensland. That's the Labor's Party position. They don't want coal to be there. So, if you want to support jobs in Australia, if you want to support Australia's biggest export, you can't support the Labor Party.

JOURNALIST: The Attorney-General this morning said that the Parliament, the Government, is struggling to pass legislation through the Parliament. Does that mean it's time to call an election if the Government can't pass legislation?

MATT CANAVAN: Well, the election is not due – or certainly, the House of Representatives election – is not due until later this year. There's obviously a need for a half-Senate election before the middle of the year, before July 1. And I think most Australians want governments to serve their term, they don't want to see early elections if they're not necessary and they're not necessary right now.

JOURNALIST: Minister Taylor, you didn't have any blowback from your own colleagues on the backbench about the potential for the Government to underwrite new investment in coal?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well Phillip, our Underwriting New Generation Program is a technology-neutral program as recommended by the ACCC. It's about outcomes. It's about outcomes. And we are obsessive in focussing on the outcome and what is the outcome we want? As I said earlier, more competition, more supply, more reliability, lower prices while we keep the lights on and I will obsessively focus on that, relentlessly focus on that in everything I do. And that means adopting the ACCC's recommendations, technology-neutral approach to underwriting new generation into the market. Sixty-six proposals, we're working our way through these; we didn't expect anything like that kind of response, it has been an absolutely fantastic response and it means we have the options there to get prices down and to keep the lights on.

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible] Minister, do you rule out the possibility that one of those projects might be a coal project?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, Paul, as I say, our focus is technology neutral. Now, we have a commitment to a 26 per cent target. That's what we're committed to. And we know we can achieve that with sensible balanced policies. But I tell you, you can't achieve a 45 per cent target with sensible balanced policies and we've seen this modelling come out today that makes that clear: a $9000 hit to the wages of an average worker in a year – that’s $173 a week. And, as Matt pointed out, the reason that's happening is the only way you achieve that target is to slash industries which are the backbone of this great country. It means you've got to slash the mining industry. It means you have to hit agriculture. It means you have to hit transport. It means you have to hit manufacturing. The very jobs that are the backbone of the whole country, not just regional Australia, of course they're the backbone of regional Australia, but the whole country. We won't stand for that, that's why our 26 per cent target is our focus. We will achieve it, we'll achieve it well ahead of time in the electricity sector and that's why we can focus now on reliability and ensuring that this program, the Underwriting New Generation Program, is technology-neutral and will deliver the outcomes.

JOURNALIST: Senator Canavan, you said that an election for the House of Representatives wasn't due later this year and an election for the Senate was needed obviously for May to get it done in time for July. Why May, are you suggesting that the Government [inaudible]…

MATT CANAVAN: Not at all. The Government's been clear in its statements on this matter that we expect the election to happen sometime around May and before 1 July.

JOURNALIST: Have either of you ever had any free travel from Hello World Travel?

MATT CANAVAN: No.