Extract from The Guardian
Leader corrected candidate's support for renewable energy target and said focus should be on reducing nature's carbon emissions
- Lenore Taylor, political editor
Clive Palmer has said his two elected senators have reached the
“unanimous” conclusion they will vote to repeal the carbon tax and
insisted efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions should focus on “nature”
rather than “human enterprise”.
The leader of the Palmer United party (PUP), who has been campaigning on behalf of his near-invisible candidates in Saturday’s rerun of the West Australian Senate election, also insisted his lead candidate (and employee) Dio Wang had not “meant” a statement he released earlier in the campaign in which Wang backed the existing renewable energy target (RET).
Interviewed on the ABC’s Lateline program on Thursday night, Palmer said “his” senators had told him “that unanimously they want to vote to get rid of the carbon tax. Unanimously. That's their view. And I'm just conveying that to you as their spokesman.”
“So the carbon tax is definitely going. It's a fait accompli,” he said, despite having always insisted his party would demand the repeal be retrospective.
Wang issued a statement on 18 March, saying: “I believe the RET scheme should remain as it is. It worries me when the government says everything is on the table in reviewing the RET… it is the right scheme for maintaining and improving Australia’s environment”.
But then Palmer held a radio interview in which he said he didn’t believe the RET should be mandatory. The RET policy requires electricity retailers to buy a certain number of renewable energy certificates each year, and could not exist or operate at all if it were not mandatory.
Contacted by Guardian Australia, Wang said he was trying to “clarify” his own policy and had not yet spoken to Palmer. Since that time his only campaign appearances have been in far flung parts of the state and he has made no further comment.
Palmer told Lateline what Wang had meant to say.
“I think Dio means it should be voluntary too. We think it's a commendable target to have and we'd encourage people to do it, but we don't think you can make people do these things or mandate how they do these things,” he said.
In an interview in which he became angry and told host Tony Jones to “shut up”, Palmer also suggested “human enterprise” should not be the main target of efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions.
“What I'm trying to say is that CO2 is a problem generally. So if 97% comes from nature and 3% comes from man and we say we've got to reduce it by 1%, we shouldn't just look at the 3%, the minority section coming from human enterprise; we need to look at the whole concept. If one or two per cent comes down from nature, surely that's a good thing and that brings us back into a balance. It's the total carbon balance you have to look at. But we're just focusing on this 3%.”
“There's been global warming for a long time. I mean, all of Ireland was covered by ice at one time. There were no human inhabitants in Ireland. That's how the world has been going over millions and billions of years … so I think that's part of the natural cycle.”
When Jones sought to interrupt an answer, Palmer snapped "Well, I'm sorry. Why don't you shut up for a while and let me finish?”
Palmer has entered an undisclosed voting alliance with the Australian Motoring Enthusiast party’s senator-elect, Ricky Muir. Palmer’s party won two Senate seats in last September’s election. If he wins another seat in Western Australia, the government will need PUP support in the Senate for every piece of legislation opposed by Labor and the Greens.
As reported by Guardian Australia, PUP has outspent the major parties on advertising during the campaign by at least a factor of ten, and has used the ads to promise things the party cannot possibly deliver – primarily a bigger share of GST revenue for WA. Changing GST distribution requires the approval of all states.
The leader of the Palmer United party (PUP), who has been campaigning on behalf of his near-invisible candidates in Saturday’s rerun of the West Australian Senate election, also insisted his lead candidate (and employee) Dio Wang had not “meant” a statement he released earlier in the campaign in which Wang backed the existing renewable energy target (RET).
Interviewed on the ABC’s Lateline program on Thursday night, Palmer said “his” senators had told him “that unanimously they want to vote to get rid of the carbon tax. Unanimously. That's their view. And I'm just conveying that to you as their spokesman.”
“So the carbon tax is definitely going. It's a fait accompli,” he said, despite having always insisted his party would demand the repeal be retrospective.
Wang issued a statement on 18 March, saying: “I believe the RET scheme should remain as it is. It worries me when the government says everything is on the table in reviewing the RET… it is the right scheme for maintaining and improving Australia’s environment”.
But then Palmer held a radio interview in which he said he didn’t believe the RET should be mandatory. The RET policy requires electricity retailers to buy a certain number of renewable energy certificates each year, and could not exist or operate at all if it were not mandatory.
Contacted by Guardian Australia, Wang said he was trying to “clarify” his own policy and had not yet spoken to Palmer. Since that time his only campaign appearances have been in far flung parts of the state and he has made no further comment.
Palmer told Lateline what Wang had meant to say.
“I think Dio means it should be voluntary too. We think it's a commendable target to have and we'd encourage people to do it, but we don't think you can make people do these things or mandate how they do these things,” he said.
In an interview in which he became angry and told host Tony Jones to “shut up”, Palmer also suggested “human enterprise” should not be the main target of efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions.
“What I'm trying to say is that CO2 is a problem generally. So if 97% comes from nature and 3% comes from man and we say we've got to reduce it by 1%, we shouldn't just look at the 3%, the minority section coming from human enterprise; we need to look at the whole concept. If one or two per cent comes down from nature, surely that's a good thing and that brings us back into a balance. It's the total carbon balance you have to look at. But we're just focusing on this 3%.”
“There's been global warming for a long time. I mean, all of Ireland was covered by ice at one time. There were no human inhabitants in Ireland. That's how the world has been going over millions and billions of years … so I think that's part of the natural cycle.”
When Jones sought to interrupt an answer, Palmer snapped "Well, I'm sorry. Why don't you shut up for a while and let me finish?”
Palmer has entered an undisclosed voting alliance with the Australian Motoring Enthusiast party’s senator-elect, Ricky Muir. Palmer’s party won two Senate seats in last September’s election. If he wins another seat in Western Australia, the government will need PUP support in the Senate for every piece of legislation opposed by Labor and the Greens.
As reported by Guardian Australia, PUP has outspent the major parties on advertising during the campaign by at least a factor of ten, and has used the ads to promise things the party cannot possibly deliver – primarily a bigger share of GST revenue for WA. Changing GST distribution requires the approval of all states.
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