Extract from The Guardian website:
Labor leader says party will take its plan to voters in 2016, based on the ‘principle that climate change is serious and real’
- Lenore Taylor, political editor
- theguardian.com,
Labor will take a “market-based system” to reduce greenhouse
emissions to the 2016 election, the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, has
confirmed.
Labor has been firm in its intention to vote against the Coalition’s proposed repeal of the former government’s carbon pricing scheme, but less clear about the policy it would adopt should that repeal be passed through the new Senate which sits from July.
Pressed about the starting point for a new policy in an interview with Guardian Australia, Shorten said it would be based on the “principle that climate change is serious and real and that we need to do something real in response. We will be guided by best science and best economic argument, which is a market based system.
“We will vote against the repeal if the alternative policy is Direct Action.
“I am not going to reveal my 2016 policies in March of 2013 … the principle is we need to do something serious about climate change.”
There is a strong view within Labor that a market mechanism to deal with greenhouse abatement is both the best policy and the only political option given how hard Labor fought to introduce the carbon pricing scheme during the Rudd and Gillard governments. But there are also Labor MPs who argue that going to the next election with a policy that could be labelled by the Coalition as “another carbon tax” would be politically disastrous.
The stance is similar to the one Labor is adopting with the minerals resource rent tax. Shorten clarified this week that Labor would vote against the repeal of the tax which it brought in, despite the fact that its design has been widely criticised and it has raised far less revenue than forecast.
But should the repeal succeed – as appears likely – Labor’s new policy would be “based on the principle of a profits-based resources tax” but developed after extensive consultation with the mining industry.
In both cases Shorten’s position leaves wide discretion to modify policy as Labor reworks its policies before the next election.
Asked by Guardian Australia to describe himself as a leader, Shorten said: “I would say I was a consensus builder, I am middle of the road, I am pragmatic, I am future focused and I would use as an example of that approach the NDIS [the national disability insurance scheme, for which he doggedly built a case as a junior minister].”
He has also said he will be more constructive than Tony Abbott was as opposition leader.
“I’m a new opposition leader, people are still getting to know me. Not everything the government does is wrong. Not everything in life involves a black and white answer.”
As examples of where Labor had taken a “constructive approach”, he said his party “hasn’t given [the government] a hard time on their relationship with Indonesia that some would have expected, on drought relief we have been clear we will speed it through, so there are plenty of issues where we work together.”
The final make-up of the post-July Senate will be determined by the West Australian Senate rerun on 5 April. The fate of the carbon tax repeal is likely to be determined by a voting bloc controlled by the Palmer United party. Clive Palmer, whose company Queensland Nickel owes $8.4m in carbon tax, says he supports a repeal but believes it should be retrospective.
Labor has been firm in its intention to vote against the Coalition’s proposed repeal of the former government’s carbon pricing scheme, but less clear about the policy it would adopt should that repeal be passed through the new Senate which sits from July.
Pressed about the starting point for a new policy in an interview with Guardian Australia, Shorten said it would be based on the “principle that climate change is serious and real and that we need to do something real in response. We will be guided by best science and best economic argument, which is a market based system.
“We will vote against the repeal if the alternative policy is Direct Action.
“I am not going to reveal my 2016 policies in March of 2013 … the principle is we need to do something serious about climate change.”
There is a strong view within Labor that a market mechanism to deal with greenhouse abatement is both the best policy and the only political option given how hard Labor fought to introduce the carbon pricing scheme during the Rudd and Gillard governments. But there are also Labor MPs who argue that going to the next election with a policy that could be labelled by the Coalition as “another carbon tax” would be politically disastrous.
The stance is similar to the one Labor is adopting with the minerals resource rent tax. Shorten clarified this week that Labor would vote against the repeal of the tax which it brought in, despite the fact that its design has been widely criticised and it has raised far less revenue than forecast.
But should the repeal succeed – as appears likely – Labor’s new policy would be “based on the principle of a profits-based resources tax” but developed after extensive consultation with the mining industry.
In both cases Shorten’s position leaves wide discretion to modify policy as Labor reworks its policies before the next election.
Asked by Guardian Australia to describe himself as a leader, Shorten said: “I would say I was a consensus builder, I am middle of the road, I am pragmatic, I am future focused and I would use as an example of that approach the NDIS [the national disability insurance scheme, for which he doggedly built a case as a junior minister].”
He has also said he will be more constructive than Tony Abbott was as opposition leader.
“I’m a new opposition leader, people are still getting to know me. Not everything the government does is wrong. Not everything in life involves a black and white answer.”
As examples of where Labor had taken a “constructive approach”, he said his party “hasn’t given [the government] a hard time on their relationship with Indonesia that some would have expected, on drought relief we have been clear we will speed it through, so there are plenty of issues where we work together.”
The final make-up of the post-July Senate will be determined by the West Australian Senate rerun on 5 April. The fate of the carbon tax repeal is likely to be determined by a voting bloc controlled by the Palmer United party. Clive Palmer, whose company Queensland Nickel owes $8.4m in carbon tax, says he supports a repeal but believes it should be retrospective.
No comments:
Post a Comment