Court Simon; Wood MichaelSIMON COURT (ACT): So Minister you make the point that the scheme—the way it values carbon credits under the scheme—is different from the emissions trading scheme which you described as a market. One of the challenges with the emissions trading scheme and I think this legislation as well is that the price is essentially set by a Minister's expectation. So if the price of a carbon credit is set in legislation here and we know the Minister and other Ministers who are either part of the Government or support parties have extremely ambitious climate targets which they tell us often we haven't met yet—we haven't fulfilled we should be more ambitious that there's more that could be done there are more levers to pull—is it likely that a Government that this Minister was a part of would increase the carbon charge under the scheme? Because if that was the case then not only would it put up the price of vehicles being imported it would also indicate that organisations which held on to the carbon credits were quite rational in doing so because they could expect—like would there be an annual increase for example Minister? Would there be an increase in parallel with the cost of a carbon credit under the emissions trading scheme? Minister I think it's really important we understand that. Is this a one price forever fixed in the legislation and the regulations around it? Or is this carbon price—which will apply to the emissions from these vehicles or to the vehicle based on its emissions intensity factor—likely to change? Who will have the power to change it? And should vehicle importers customers and people who need these vehicles actually be concerned that they need to get in really quick and buy a petrol or diesel vehicle because the price might go up? And that brings me to a further question thank you Mr Chair which is: look isn't the risk with this legislation and with this regulation amended or not delayed or not by six months that actually imposing costs of thousands of dollars on petrol and diesel vehicles for which there is currently no substitute Minister—we're not talking about people individuals and businesses that necessarily have a choice. Currently no substitute for a large people mover at a reasonable price or a second-hand ute for somebody a tradie somebody just starting off or a young farmer a sharemilker who's not going to go and buy a brand new $60000 $70000 ute—CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): We're well off Part 2 with this question.SIMON COURT: But Minister this—CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Mr Court indulging the Chair.SIMON COURT: I'll come to the question. So isn't it likely that the sum of all of these policies whether the implementation date is delayed or not will be—it will actually delay because of cost new vehicles coming into the fleet because people won't be able to afford them. That'll be the few thousand dollars extra they won't be able to afford and it will actually make our fleet older and more emissions-intensive than it otherwise would be without this intervention. I think Minister it would be helpful if you give us your perspective on that because we've heard about the cost-benefit analysis—frankly I don't think that stacks up. So if you just tell us a little bit about: will the Government make changes to the price of carbon under this scheme and if so will that put up the cost of people—importers and organisations—importing vehicles? And will the sum effects of this policy which adds cost to petrol and diesel vehicles even lower-emissions ones second-hand ones that are currently in the fleet will it make our fleet actually older and dirtier?Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): I've already answered the first question and the answer is no. We've already set the initial price with a further price to apply from 2025. No Parliament can bind a future Parliament but it's not the Government's intention to do that. In respect of the second question that the member asked—which is more an in principle question about the Clean Car Standard per se than this particular part—the evidence is very clear that countries that apply a carbon dioxide emission standard have cleaner fleets. New Zealand is one of only three countries along with Russia and Australia that doesn't and we have one of the dirtiest fleets in the OECD. You become a dumping ground for the dirtiest vehicles in the world if you don't have a regulatory standard. That's what's happened in New Zealand and importers already report to me that having a standard in place even one that hasn't kicked in via legislation makes it easier for them to access cleaner vehicles in the future.