It’s been revealed! Labor has a secret plan to bring back a carbon tax, according to News Corp.
It’s so secret, in fact, that Bill Shorten announced it publicly a year ago. As reported on News Corp’s own news website way back then, Labor wants to establish an emissions trading scheme for carbon, with a price set by the market. We even knew that Greg Combet was working with the opposition to design it.
And an ETS, of course, is not a tax (although given News Corp’s fondness for tax-dodging, it’s unsurprising its journalists don’t understand the difference).
The coverage reveals the deep irony that News Corp, along with Fairfax, is currently sponsoring a “national reform summit” to advance the cause of reform at a moment when, by common consensus, we are governed by a parliament that is incapable of undertaking sensible debate and policy change.
An emissions trading scheme, which encourages firms to work out their own most efficient way to meet their carbon abatement responsibilities and rewards firms that innovate and invest by allowing a trade in emissions permits, is the best, most economically rational (and most capitalist) way to address the challenge of curbing carbon emissions.
A carbon tax — dubbed by Tony Abbott in 2009 as “the intelligent sceptic’s way to deal with minimising emissions” — or an ETS with a price set by the government is the next best way, but not as good as a floating price ETS. And both are much better than the Renewable Energy Target, which imposes abatement by regulation, or direct commercial investment by government — as per the Clean Energy Finance Corporation — that risks displacing commercial investment.
Worst of all is government handing money to industry merely to do things they were already going to do and pretending that somehow buys carbon abatement. That’s why there isn’t a single supporter of the government’s “Direct Action” scheme — a scheme that Malcolm Turnbull correctly noted was devised by climate denialists.
We wonder if that fairly simple contrast will make it onto the “national reform summit” agenda.
It will be a difficult situation for the Liberals.
On the one hand, an ETS provides an opportunity for all sorts of financial industry escapades that will enrich the 1% at the cost of everyone else. A neoliberal wet dream. They should be all over it like a rash.
On the other hand, it was the policy of Gillard and Rudd.
I would like to dispute your assertion there is not a single supporter of the governments “direct action” scheme. Tony Abbott & Greg Hunt both support it and anyone who got a free handout for doing what they should already have been doing supports it.
Doc – Bullturn’s ‘vision splendid’ would be the ETS schemes extended. And then wondrous glory of the Everlasting Arbitrage.
What’s not to lurve for a mercantilist mind?
The Daily Telegraph’s front page has Labor bring back the “failed Carbon Tax”.
Did it actually fail, or was it just axed by the current government?
Yes, Wayne, all the actual evidence points to the fact that carbon pricing was working, but of course, evidence and reality is something that much of News Ltd seems to have scant regard for. I also noticed that they called it a “failed green tax”, which I assume was to link failure with green policies, or to insinuate that Labor are a fair bit more radical than they actually are.
And I do find this week’s performance by News Ltd and other elements of the media, another abundantly clear demonstration of just how badly they inform the Australian public: especially in regards to climate policy. That is, earlier in the week, we had Tony Abbott lying his way through a media gathering, where the main topic was another Coalition attack on renewable energy. Firstly, he claimed that his government, “fully supported renewable energy”: despite almost all of their actions being to the contrary. He then had a go at rewriting the history of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, by claiming that it was actually set up to back the more risky and experimental technologies, and not wind or solar. This was despite the fact that the legislation that Greg Combet put through Parliament, specifically stated that it was to invest in commercially viable and well developed green energy technologies. So, with a these blatant untruths, did the media pack give Abbott an aggressive grilling? Was there any tough questions on his government’s relentless attacks on the sector? Or even any polite enquiries on what cutting edge technologies he might have in mind?
No, just more of Abbott’s relentless dishonesty being allowed to go straight through to the keeper.
And later on in the week, had anyone at News decided to fact check Tony’s performance and realised after a small amount of diligence, that he wasn’t really telling the truth? Well, not as far as I know? Or was there any frothing at the mouth front pages about government dishonesty? No, just another beat up, where they duly instigated yet another scare campaign, through the tried and true method of deliberately confusing a policy discussion paper. with actual policy