PUP senators will vote to repeal carbon price but back emissions trading

Extract from The Guardian

Clive Palmer announces new policy at press conference with former US vice president Al Gore

• Lenore Taylor, political editor
• theguardian.com, Wednesday 25 June 2014 18.43 AEST

Clive Palmer, right, with former US vice president Al Gore at their Canberra press conference. Photograph: Mike Bowers for The Guardian

Clive Palmer’s three senators will vote for repeal of the carbon price but legislate for a floating price emissions trading scheme sometime in the future, announcing the new policy at a bizarre press conference with former US vice president and climate change campaigner Al Gore.
Palmer appears to be saying that a temporarily “frozen” emissions trading scheme – with a price set at zero until trading partners developed similar schemes – is a condition of his support for the carbon tax repeal.
Environment minister Greg Hunt said that any kind of emissions trading scheme “has not been and is not our policy” but the government would nonetheless negotiate with Palmer over his precondition for carbon tax repeal.
“This is a vindication for the government...the news that the new Senate will now support repeal in its first two weeks is unambiguously good news for Australian families,” Hunt said.
Hunt said the government had been unaware that Gore was in Canberra. Prime minister Tony Abbott will meet Palmer on Thursday morning.
Palmer announced PUP will also vote against the abolition of the $10bn “green bank”, the independent Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the independent climate change authority, meaning the government does not have the numbers to axe either body.

Clive Palmer says he will vote to repeal carbon tax – video:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/jun/25/clive-plamer-carbon-tax-video

And PUP will not support any changes to the renewable energy target, which is also likely to thwart government plans to dramatically wind back that program. Palmer said his senators would also vote against Abbott’s alternative “Direct Action” scheme because it was a waste of money.
Palmer said his senators would vote to “abolish the carbon tax” but then said they would also move an amendment to separate legislation to “provide for the establishment, by parliament, of an emissions trading scheme, which will only become effective once Australia’s main trading partners also take action to establish such a scheme”.
It appeared it could mean the legislative architecture for emissions trading stayed in place, but with the price set at zero.
PUP went to the election strongly backing the repeal and arguing it should be made retrospective. More recently PUP has said it would back the repeal providing there were unspecified “guarantees” power price reductions were passed on to households, in addition to the legislated powers the government is proposing to give to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to make sure the benefit of the tax repeal is passed through.
On Wednesday Palmer said his senators would be moving amendments to “insert provisions to ensure the full savings power companies receive … are handed to everyday Australians”.
Hunt said the government was convinced it had already ensured benefits would be passed through, but added said he was “happy to go further” and had discussed “other legislative options” with the ACCC.
As recently as April Palmer indicated he did not accept the findings of the latest intergovernmental panel on climate change report and thought countries should be concentrating on reducing “the 97% of carbon dioxide emissions that come from nature”.
On Wednesday Palmer said his discussions with Gore “enabled me to reconsider important issues facing Australia and the rest of the world”.
Gore, who is in Australia for a Climate Reality Leadership Corps training program in Melbourne, said the Palmer announcement was “an extraordinary moment in which Australia, the US and the rest of the world is finally beginning to confront the climate crisis in a meaningful way”, saying many countries were beginning to take significant action to reduce emissions.
He said “all these developments add up to the world moving to solve the climate crisis and that is why it is so significant that Clive Palmer has announced his party will support a continuation of the renewable energy target and Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the climate change authority and that he has announced he and his party will fight to re-implement an emissions trading scheme under the conditions he has described to you”.
The policies now likely to be retained are:

• The $10bn Clean Energy Finance Corporation, or “green bank”, which supports renewable energy and energy efficiency projects through commercial loans and generates a return on the government investment while reducing emissions. The Senate has already twice rejected the government’s attempts to axe it. It is backed by Labor, the Greens, independent senator Nick Xenophon and DLP senator John Madigan, so the PUP stance means it will also survive the new Senate.

• The independent Climate Change Authority which does research and makes recommendations to government about greenhouse gas reduction targets and policies.

• The renewable energy target, originally introduced by the Howard government and now requiring 20% of energy to be sourced from renewables by 2020. The government is reviewing the target. It has appointed businessman and self-professed climate sceptic Dick Warburton to head the review and is under strong pressure from business and its own backbench to “grandfather” it so that its incentives are only available to existing renewable projects and no new projects can be built.

The clean energy industry was ecstatic that Palmer would keep the RET. The clean energy council welcomed the move and the solar industry peak body, the Solar Council “called on the Abbott government to put a halt to its ideologically driven review of the RET, and accept that its work to abolish the RET is doomed to fail in the Senate.”
But Greens leader Christine Milne said “when it comes to pricing pollution, Mr Palmer appears to be having it both ways. The fact is, we already have an emissions trading scheme. Mr Palmer’s proposal is extremely vague. I’m not sure if that is intentional or if he doesn’t understand that we already have an emissions trading scheme”.
And a spokesman for Labor said “whether or not Clive Palmer’s proposal delivers an effective scheme remains to be seen”.
The Coalition has 33 votes in the new Senate, Labor has 25 and the Greens have 10. If Labor and the Greens oppose a bill they need another three votes to get the requisite 38 votes to block it. The Coalition needs six crossbench votes to achieve 39 votes to pass a bill that is opposed by Labor and the Greens.
The independent senator Nick Xenophon, told Guardian Australia this week he wanted a vote on the carbon repeal delayed until the government provided more information about its alternative Direct Action scheme. Also, the Motoring Enthusiast senator, Ricky Muir, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the PUP, but has also indicated he will vote independently on some issues. Muir’s advisers have also indicated he could support the retention of the CEFC.
Palmer wholly owns a nickel refinery in Queensland that is liable to pay the carbon tax. He has now paid its outstanding carbon tax bill in full, and abstained from the vote on the carbon tax repeal in the lower house because of his conflict of interest.
The government has been ramping up pressure to get the carbon tax repeal through the new Senate within two weeks of its first sitting day on 7 July.
Speaking during question time Abbott said Labor had to take responsibility for “the world’s biggest carbon tax which just goes up next Tuesday by 5%, unless of course it is repealed in the meantime”.
Under existing law, the fixed carbon price is set to rise to $25.40 next week. A floating price would mirror the international price which is about $8.