ANGUS TAYLOR: Well good morning, everybody. Today, we've seen independent modelling released by BAEconomics showing us that Labor's 45 per cent emission reduction targets will be a wrecking ball for the economy. This report was authored by Brian Fisher, a former advisor to the Hawke and Keating Governments. It's been peer reviewed by a Stanford academic, and it tells us very clearly what the impacts of Labor's policy will be. It shows that those policies, at best, will slash wages by $9000 a year - wages by $9000 a year - and will slash 336,000 jobs from the economy. And that's if they use the Kyoto carry-over credits from the successful emission reductions we've seen in Australia in recent years.

The paper, the report also demonstrates at a sector level what the impacts will be. This will have a devastating impact on some of our most important sectors: our manufacturing sector, our mining sector, agriculture, transport, flow-on impacts to construction. It will be a wrecking ball down at that local level and a sector level. If you're a truckie, if you're a farmer, if you're a tradie, if you work in manufacturing you should be worried about Labor's targets - $9000 hit to wages; 336,000 jobs and a wrecking ball to some of the most important industries in our country. And that's simply because those industries provide us the wealth that allows us to buy cars, to buy iPhones, to enjoy the standard of living that we've come to know in this great country.

Labor wants to see those sectors slashed. They want to see a reduction in wages. Despite all of their talk, we've not seen a policy with the sorts of impacts in this model any time in the past. This is devastating and Labor has some critical questions to answer, not only with respect to the carry-over Kyoto credits, but with respect to some of the policies they intend to implement in order to achieve this target, because it does mean taking out almost half the emissions in the economy within just over 10 years from now. Labor must answer these questions. The Australian people deserve to know.

JOURNALIST: On wages, what impact could reducing the migration intake to 160,000 potentially have on wages, as well as the economy?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well I'm not going to make an announcement about our policy today. I'll leave that to the relevant minister. What I will say is that we have seen a reduction in the permanent intake in recent times down to around the 160,000 mark, and most importantly, we've got to get the balance right here. People living in the outer suburbs of our cities understand what the impact of fast rates of immigration means for congestion, access to services, for access to jobs within reasonable timeframes from where they live. We've got to get the balance right here, and I know the relevant ministers will have more to say in the coming days and weeks.

JOURNALIST: Minister, do you think there is any link between immigration and far-right extremism?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Look, you know, I think the Prime Minister made a very good point yesterday in his speech, and that was: we shouldn't turn this into a tribal war; we shouldn't turn this into a tribal debate. There was an individual that should be held to account for what he did - those heinous, heinous acts in Christchurch. We should have a sensible debate about whether that kind of activity should be live streamed and I firmly believe it shouldn't be and that the social media platforms need to take account for that. Accountability needs to sit at the right place; turning this into some kind of tribal warfare is completely inappropriate.

QUESTION: Mr Taylor, back to energy: Doctor Fisher was part of the Warburton review under the renewable energy target, which got it spectacularly wrong on the wholesale power price. He said they were going to go down. You were the leading critic of that, and in fact you convinced your colleagues, you know, the other way - that prices went up. Why was that report a pile of rubbish and this one's wholly real?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well I'll just remind everybody that Doctor Fisher was an advisor to the Hawke and Keating Governments...

QUESTION: That's not my question.

ANGUS TAYLOR: He's made a contribution to the IPCC report and he didn't do that modelling. So he is a highly credible, highly credentialed economist - well-respected. He worked for ABARE for a long period of time and it's predecessor to BAE, and he knows more about this area than almost any other person in Australia - and the world. He's a highly credentialed academic.

QUESTION: So he's right on renewable energy, was he? He was right on the REG? He was going to lower the wholesale power prices.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Phil, I've answered your question...

QUESTION: No, you haven't.

ANGUS TAYLOR: ...which was you asked me about the modelling in that report. He didn't do that modelling.

QUESTION: He also makes a series of assumptions about the Labor Party policy - gaps which are yet to be filled - so you can't really come to the high-end conclusion, can you?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well you know, Labor has to answer these questions. You're quite right in asking the question you just did. Labor hasn't come clean. Will Labor use the Kyoto carry-over credits? What's Labor's policy with respect to international credits? What's Labor's policy with respect to agriculture? We know they're going to rewrite the FEBC Act, but what does that mean for farmers? What does that mean for farmers' control over their land? What are their policies with respect to vehicle emission standards? How much are they going to ask manufacturers to reduce their emissions over and above what they can naturally achieve through efficiency gains that they have been achieving? What does this mean for the construction sector? Because the flow-on impact for the construction sector in Fisher's modelling is very, very significant. What does it mean for a tradie? What does it mean for someone who just wants to buy gas or electricity in their household? They have not answered these questions; we have laid out a very clear plan to reach our targets - our 26 per cent emission reduction target - which is responsible- which is a responsible target at the international level. Labor has serious questions to answer and they have not even begun to answer.

QUESTION: Wouldn't it make more sense to wait until Labor announces its policy and then to model it? Then there wouldn't be such a variation in the assumptions.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well Phil, they've had this target since before the last election and they haven't actually answered the questions. I think it's time for them to come clean. It's time for them to actually explain to the Australian people what the policies are. Are they going to use the Kyoto credits? Are they going to use other international credits? What does it mean for agriculture, manufacturing and mining? Look, there's a lot of people who work in these industries in my electorate and many right across Australia who need these questions answered. The tradies in my electorate who drive a Ford Ranger or a Toyota Hilux - what does it mean for them? We've seen modelling that shows that their vehicle emission standards - they haven't confirmed but they've indicated how we'll go to - will raise the price of an average car by $5000; what about a car like a Hilux? They have a lot of questions to answer here and they need to answer them soon because we are not far away from a federal election, as you all know.

QUESTION: Minister, can you see why skilled migrants get upset when the Government links issues like congestion and hospital waiting lists to migration? Aren't they policy failings of a different area? These aren't immigration failings. They're infrastructure spending failures, rather than the fault of skilled migrants who come to Australia and make a contribution.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well again, our skilled immigration program has been an enormous success over a long, long period of time. As someone who grew up in one of the great immigrant towns of Australia - Cooma - I saw the power of our skilled immigration programs growing up. We need to get the balance right in immigration. We will always be a strong immigrant country, but the balance has to be right, both in terms of the total numbers and where they go. And that's a debate which has to be rational, has to be sensible. We need to take the emotion out of it and we need to get the balance right. Thank you very much.