Extract from The Guardian
Labor leader promises to dismantle Coalition scheme that he says
gives ‘great wads of taxpayer cash to big polluters to keep polluting’
Bill Shorten
will “axe” Tony Abbott’s emissions reduction fund if he wins next
year’s federal election, gaining budget savings of up to $4.3bn over a
decade.
Shorten will promise to honour contracts already signed with polluters by the Coalition but will then abandon the scheme, which he describes as “a waste of money built on one counter-productive idea: giving great wads of taxpayer cash to big polluters to keep polluting”.
The emissions reduction fund (ERF) offers government funds to companies or organisations willing to reduce carbon pollution through a competitive grants scheme. It was allocated $2.5bn up to 2020 and the Coalition announced this week it would continue to get about $200m a year between 2020 and 2030.
Shorten will use a speech at the University of NSW on Friday to make the pledge to end the ERF, pointing to recent research by the Reputex consulting firm which found the government’s policy would still see emissions rise 20% over the next decade, despite almost $5bn in government spending, and Malcolm Turnbull’s often-cited quote from 2010 that Direct Action in the long term was “a recipe for fiscal recklessness on a grand scale”.
Shorten will say: “There is a better, cheaper, faster and more efficient way for Australia to tackle climate change”, naming his own “goal” of reaching 50% renewable energy, but without announcing any detailed alternative policy.
Shorten has also not named the alternative long-term emission reduction target that Labor would support, after Tony Abbott announced this week the Coalition will pledge to reduce Australia’s emissions by between 26% and 28% by 2030.
The Labor leader described the government’s target as “sub-prime” and said that “without an emissions trading scheme, without renewable energy, without modernising our overall energy sector – it doesn’t matter what number the government picks – they won’t get there.”
He also directly addresses the government’s jibe that he is “electricity Bill” based on the claim that his promise to have some kind of emissions trading scheme would drive up electricity prices.
“Mr Abbott’s right. This is, partly, a debate about electricity bills. He’s just on the wrong side of it,” Shorten’s speech notes say, citing the dramatic uptake and falling costs of renewable energy and storage systems and jobs created by investment in renewables.
Business groups are also deeply sceptical about whether Abbott’s policy can meet his newly announced targets in its current form.
But they have also pleaded with the major parties to find common policy ground and avoid the debilitating uncertainty of constantly changing policy approach, and each incoming government abolishing the policies of the previous one.
Shorten’s speech also addresses the costs of not acting on climate change, including declining agricultural production, damage to the Great Barrier Reef and widespread water shortages.
Shorten will promise to honour contracts already signed with polluters by the Coalition but will then abandon the scheme, which he describes as “a waste of money built on one counter-productive idea: giving great wads of taxpayer cash to big polluters to keep polluting”.
The emissions reduction fund (ERF) offers government funds to companies or organisations willing to reduce carbon pollution through a competitive grants scheme. It was allocated $2.5bn up to 2020 and the Coalition announced this week it would continue to get about $200m a year between 2020 and 2030.
Shorten will use a speech at the University of NSW on Friday to make the pledge to end the ERF, pointing to recent research by the Reputex consulting firm which found the government’s policy would still see emissions rise 20% over the next decade, despite almost $5bn in government spending, and Malcolm Turnbull’s often-cited quote from 2010 that Direct Action in the long term was “a recipe for fiscal recklessness on a grand scale”.
Shorten will say: “There is a better, cheaper, faster and more efficient way for Australia to tackle climate change”, naming his own “goal” of reaching 50% renewable energy, but without announcing any detailed alternative policy.
Shorten has also not named the alternative long-term emission reduction target that Labor would support, after Tony Abbott announced this week the Coalition will pledge to reduce Australia’s emissions by between 26% and 28% by 2030.
The Labor leader described the government’s target as “sub-prime” and said that “without an emissions trading scheme, without renewable energy, without modernising our overall energy sector – it doesn’t matter what number the government picks – they won’t get there.”
He also directly addresses the government’s jibe that he is “electricity Bill” based on the claim that his promise to have some kind of emissions trading scheme would drive up electricity prices.
“Mr Abbott’s right. This is, partly, a debate about electricity bills. He’s just on the wrong side of it,” Shorten’s speech notes say, citing the dramatic uptake and falling costs of renewable energy and storage systems and jobs created by investment in renewables.
Business groups are also deeply sceptical about whether Abbott’s policy can meet his newly announced targets in its current form.
But they have also pleaded with the major parties to find common policy ground and avoid the debilitating uncertainty of constantly changing policy approach, and each incoming government abolishing the policies of the previous one.
Shorten’s speech also addresses the costs of not acting on climate change, including declining agricultural production, damage to the Great Barrier Reef and widespread water shortages.
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