Antinuclear

Abbott’s Direct Action plan will cost tax-payers, not the polluting industries

Direct Action transfers emission cutting costs from polluters to taxpayers, SMH, April 26, 2014
“…..the Abbott government’s official position is that greenhouse emissions created by humans are contributing to the dangerous warming of the planet, and that it must do something about it. Precisely what this government proposes to do is a matter of great public interest.

So it was unhelpful that Hunt chose to release those details – as scant as they were – shortly before the close of business on the eve of the Anzac Day long weekend.

Taxpayers have every reason to be sceptical about his motives. They, after all, will be the ones paying for the government’s so-called Direct Action climate change strategy. Its centrepiece is an ‘‘emissions reduction fund’’, a pool of $2.55 billion of taxpayers’ money in the first four years, from which some of the nation’s biggest polluters will be paid incentives to cut their greenhouse gases.

To be clear, creating this fund will transfer the cost of cutting emissions from the polluter to the taxpayer, should the government succeed in pushing its bill through the Senate.

The fund would displace both the carbon tax and the emissions trading scheme that had been advocated not only by Labor but by the Howard government in 2007. ‘‘To reduce domestic emissions at least economic cost, we will establish a world-class domestic emissions trading scheme,’’ the Howard policy had promised.

The Liberals now in power may still believe in market forces, but not yet for carbon abatement. Instead of making the biggest emitters pay, they are asking taxpayers to reward them for reducing their pollution. This would be done by means of a ‘‘reverse auction’’. The firms proffering the lowest bids – the least expensive way to reduce emissions – would get government subsidies…….

government is asking taxpayers to relieve industry of the cost of carbon abatement at the same time that it tells Australians they must make many other sacrifices. …….

The case for shifting the carbon burden from polluters to taxpayers, however, is yet to be made. The government still needs to convince Australians and a hostile Senate.

It could have done much better than calling a news conference at 3pm on the eve of Anzac Day to produce a flimsy policy in the hope that nobody would notice. ……. http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/direct-action-transfers-emission-cutting-costs-from-polluters-to-taxpayers-20140427-zr04d.html#ixzz30DsXmZG3

April 28, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics