Senate debates
Thursday, 17 March 2016
Motions
Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme
12:42 pm
Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave granted.
The carbon tax increased household electricity prices and gas prices, reduced business competitiveness and did not reduce emissions to any significant extent. The government is implementing policies that actually work to address climate change. We are on track to meet and to beat our 2020 emissions target and have set an ambitious target of a 26-28 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030. Our renewable energy target will see a doubling of renewable energy generation by 2020. The emissions reduction fund has already achieved 92.8 million tonnes of emissions reduction by supporting businesses to be more energy efficient, to reduce waste and increase recycling and to adopt programs involving reafforesting degraded land and indigenous fire management. The government does not support fossil fuel subsidies.
Tibor Majlath
Posted on 21 Mar 2016 8:29 am
They just keep repeating the same lazy and unverified nonsense.
Prices did go up, but they were dishonestly confused with general price rises in electricity. While service charges did not attract the carbon tax on electricity and gas the increases in service charges contributed the most to those rises in energy costs. Of course no one in the Coalition ever explained that to the public. The Coalition's GST is a much larger impost on an electricity bill since it is a tax on the whole bill - electricity usage plus network charges, yet there is only silence on that tax. Why is that?
As to reducing emissions, expecting instantaneous reductions from the carbon tax in just two years is as ridiculous as claiming that the Coalition's ERF has already reduced 92.8 million tonnes of emissions. That figure is what is expected in reductions from issued contracts over the next three to ten years. It hasn't happened yet!
"The government does not support fossil fuel subsidies." Only if one is playing with semantics. It costs Australia something like $7 billion mainly on tax breaks for fuel costs. Apparently if you declare that the fuel tax credit granted to industry is not a subsidy then it is not a subsidy.