Coalition dissenting report on the CPRS changes with additional comments by
Senator Joyce,
Leader of the Nationals in the Senate
on behalf of the National Party
Foreword
Coalition Senators firstly wish to express their objection
to the impossible timetable imposed by this government for this Inquiry and
also to voice their strong protest at the biased list of witnesses the
Government called to appear. As a result the Coalition Senators on the Senate
Economics Committee regard this Inquiry as a farce.
The amended Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) Bills
were referred to the Legislation Committee on 14 May 2009 with a requirement to
report to the Senate on 15 June 2009. The month overlapped the two-week period
of Senate estimates, widely known to be the most intensively busy period of the
Senate year. Furthermore, hearings were concluded on 29 May before the closing
date for submissions had been reached on 4 June.
The Economics Committee could not expect to conduct a
rigorous assessment of these changed Bills with these deadlines.
On the choice of witnesses to give evidence, Coalition
Senators’ efforts to have input into the witness list was stonewalled by the
government majority on the Committee. The government appeared only reluctantly
interested in balance. The Coalition submitted a list of representative groups
from industries and agriculture who will be adversely affected by the
introduction of the Rudd/Wong CPRS and whose input we considered essential to
the deliberations of this Inquiry, but save two changes, our efforts to have
this Inquiry hear a range of views were blocked.
However the Rudd government will not prevent the Coalition
from continuing the robust debate on this matter of vital importance to the
Australian public.
Introduction
The Coalition believes a badly designed scheme is worse than
no scheme at all.
As a country producing only 1.4 per cent of the world’s CO2
emissions, there is no Australian solution to climate change, there is only a
global solution. The design of any Australian emissions trading scheme (ETS)
must be responsive to what is happening in other countries.
Australia and the United States are countries with similar
economic profiles yet there are stark differences emerging between the Rudd
government and the legislation endorsed by US President Obama. This is a wake
up call for Mr Rudd and Senator Wong.
Amendments made in May to the draft US emissions trading
legislation, include very specific provisions providing 100 per cent protection
to US export and import competing industries in any future ETS until 2025.
What is more, the draft US Bill now says that a reduction in
protection of these industries will only occur after 2025 when more than 70 per
cent of global output for that sector is produced or manufactured in countries
that have a scheme equivalent to that operating in the US.
Australia has to look to the US proposals and any global
agreement before committing our people and our industries to this monumental
shift. Introduction of a flawed design will seriously damage the competitive
position of many of our industries, and see Australian jobs, investment and CO2
emissions being exported to countries where no price is being imposed on
carbon.
Overview
The Coalition believes climate change is best tackled from a
position of economic strength.
Mr Rudd promised before the election to introduce an ETS
which would produce deep cuts in CO2 emissions, but would not disadvantage Australia’s
export and import competing industries. Mr Rudd’s other election promises
included establishing an ETS by 2010, ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and setting
a target of 60 per cent reduction by 2050 from 2000 levels.
Coalition Senators are of the opinion the government’s
immensely complex ETS will damage our export and import competing industries,
cost thousands of jobs, stifle investment and yet not produce any meaningful
reductions in CO2 abatement.
In the opinion of Coalition senators, to rush the introduction
of this scheme without knowing the outcome of the December 2009 global climate
change summit in Copenhagen, without knowing what President Obama will do and
without knowing the impact of the global financial meltdown on our real economy
is reckless in the extreme.
With the economy in the greatest downturn since the Great
Depression this is not the time to proliferate undue costs for major Australian
industries.
Global industries
If Australia moves out of step with the world, any cuts in
Australia’s emissions will not necessarily have a global impact. There may be
adverse consequences on emissions.
For example, Australian aluminium and zinc production pumps
out 50 per cent to 60 per cent less CO2 than similar industries in China.
Another example is that with LNG industries alone, the
proposed scheme will perversely prevent up to 180 million tonnes of CO2 (one
third of Australia’s emissions) being avoided each year because of gas projects
that won’t go ahead. For every tonne of greenhouse gas associated with the
production of LNG in Australia, between 4.5 and 9 tonnes are avoided in the
Asia-Pacific region when this gas is substituted for coal in generating
electricity. LNG is part of the global solution, not part of the problem yet
the scheme significantly penalises LNG exports.
Coalition Senators recognise these outcomes make no sense
and urge the Rudd government not to legislate an Australian ETS out of step
with the global objective.
Flaws in government CPRS
Treasury Modelling
The Treasury modelling was months overdue, did not factor in
the global financial crisis, and made the critical assumption that the entire
world would sign up to be part of any scheme.
The Treasury was not permitted to model any alternative
scenarios or methods. The exercise has been self-serving, misleading and
irresponsible.
The design of the Rudd government scheme assumes that our
major competitors will move to put in place a major new tax on carbon across
their economies, including their export and import competing industries, in the
early years. The government assumed the US would begin an equivalent scheme by
2010, China by 2015 and finally India by 2020.
In the opinion of Coalition Senators this is extremely
unlikely to eventuate.
Costs
The Rudd Scheme involves generating permit revenue of nearly
$13 billion from year one – a massive increase in taxation.
This will see a huge administration set up to churn these
billions of dollars back through the economy, with the government picking who
gets compensation and who doesn’t.
In the years ahead no new resource projects in Australia
will get off the ground without companies coming cap-in-hand to get a quota of
free permits from the government to make their investment competitive. It will
foster a nanny State, mendicant attitude.
In many cases the best placed companies to develop and fund
the migration to cleaner energy processes, including renewables, are the big
emitting companies. The CPRS, by putting a hole in the balance sheets of these
companies, will stifle this activity.
On top of this the Government has made little or no attempt
to allow for the impact of the global financial meltdown on the capacity of
companies – either administratively or competitively – to cope with the
transition to one of the biggest structural changes in our history.
Even the ability of companies to source the finance to buy
$13 billion worth of permits is highly problematic in the middle of the worst
credit crunch in 80 years.
The Coalition believes the community has been given a totally
false and misleading impression on the real costs of the CPRS by the
government’s misleading presentation of the Treasury modelling.
Regional Impacts
Research commissioned by the NSW Government into the
regional impacts of the Government’s scheme found that regional centres across
Australia, such as Gippsland, Geelong, central-west Queensland, the Hunter
Valley, central Western Australia, the Kimberley region and Whyalla / Port
Pirie, would shrink by over 20 per cent under the Rudd government’s scheme.
Work presented at the recent Farm Institute Conference
showed that the average dairy farm will face a new annual indirect tax impost
of $6,000 to $9,000, with no capacity to offset this cost.
Similarly, the beef and sugar industries will each see a $60
million tax passed back in the price they receive for their cattle and sugar
cane.
The grains industry, a very low emitter, will face annual
indirect costs of $ 500 million. This emissions tax would sit on top of
tariffs faced by our grains industry.
The latest proposed US legislation, explicitly excludes
agriculture from the cap but explicitly includes agriculture in the
opportunities to develop offsets, as a means of creating a revenue stream for
farmers.
This is a clear indication that the US is heading towards
the development of a market-based scheme, in concert with voluntary, regulatory
and incentive-based measures. Such possibilities have been totally ignored
here in Australia in the frantic rush to get legislation before the Parliament.
Critical areas such as agriculture and Australia’s huge
commercial building sector are not in the scheme and are effectively ignored as
sources of abatement.
The Rudd scheme involves a tax that indirectly and
significantly hits the bottom line of these sectors, with no incentive to abate
or achieve offsets.
Certainty
Providing “certainty to business” is one of the Rudd
government’s most repeated reasons for the passing of the legislation.
However, businesses have said they don’t want the certainty
of not being able to compete. They want a scheme which preserves their
international competitive position.
Anglo Coal Australia CEO Seamus French has said that
certainty was not preferable to getting the design right for business.
"We don't want the certainty of a bullet," he said.
Nothing undermines certainty more than the bullying tactics
that have been on display from the Rudd government in recent weeks when it has
threatened business with the removal of any assistance under an ETS and
attempted intimidation to get support for its badly designed model.
The government’s arguments that its emissions trading
legislation needs to be rushed through Parliament have been undermined by the
Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC), Yvo de Boer, who revealed that the UN does not require
countries to have legislation in place before the Copenhagen meeting.
The Opposition has recognised the imperative is that
Australia goes to this conference with a united position on targets, not a
flawed scheme.
Changes to the CPRS announced 4 May 2009
The changes announced by the Rudd government on 4 May 2009
are nothing more than tinkering, largely arbitrary, with a flawed ETS likely to
damage the economy. There is still no credible demonstration that the
government’s scheme is the most cost-efficient or effective way to reduce
carbon emissions.
In our view the proposed changes make the government’s
scheme even more complicated and fail to address several of the key objections
levelled by business and community groups, namely:
There is still no forecast of the near-term impact of the
ETS on jobs and economic growth.
Australia’s trade-exposed industries are at a disadvantage
to their competitors, (although the disadvantage is less severe than in the
original scheme).
There is still no assurance that overall emissions will be
reduced by investment in complementary abatement measures such energy
efficiency. The energy efficiency measures that the government has proposed
are largely tokenism.
Australia’s largest export earner, the coal industry, is
still treated anomalously.
Productivity Commission
Coalition Senators believe the start date is less
important than getting the scheme right.
Delaying the passage of the legislation through the
parliament provides the Rudd government the opportunity to refer the design of
their scheme to the Productivity Commission to assess whether it meets the
nation’s economic and environmental objectives.
Such an assessment would provide an objective external assessment,
free of political bias, of the proposed Rudd/Wong CPRS on the Australian
economy.
Coalition Senators urge the government to refer the CPRS
legislation to the Productivity Commission for an independent assessment.
Pearce Review
The Coalition has evaluated the Government’s legislation,
and its impact on jobs and emissions.
To assist our policy review the Coalition commissioned an
independent review of the government’s White Paper by the Centre for
International Economics, a review which received nearly 50 submissions from
industry and organisations.
The CIE report (Pearce Review) was released on 30 April 2009
and backs the Coalition assessment that the Government is rushing ahead with a
scheme that will tax Australia’s largest exporters and employers, damage their
competitiveness and put jobs at risk, without any analysis of the immediate
costs, without any analysis of alternative approaches, without considering the
impact of the global financial crisis and without considering the actions or
inactions of major competing countries.
The Pearce Review findings included:
- The proposition that the CPRS generates abatement at lowest
possible cost has not yet been demonstrated;
- There is no clear understanding of the transitional costs of the
CPRS and there is a risk that, if these are not properly understood, unexpected
transitional costs may derail the policy;
- The non-trade neutrality of the CPRS poses a major challenge for
a number of important industries — this non-neutrality brings no environmental
benefit;
- The scheme potentially threatens the balance sheets in a number
of key industries;
- It is not clear that the proposed CPRS will produce higher net
benefits than will other available alternatives;
- At the very least, more consideration should be given to
complementary energy efficiency measures; and
- Many of the major aspects of the CPRS have not been modelled and,
therefore, neither have the tradeoffs inherent in particular design choices.
The Pearce Review also recommended that a Regulatory Impact
Statement (RIS) should be prepared for the CPRS legislation. A RIS is required
by the Australian government when a regulatory proposal is likely to have
significant impact on business, individuals and the economy. Coalition
Senators are surprised a RIS has not been carried out on the government’s CPRS
and consider it is essential that this be undertaken as soon as possible.
Senate Select Committee on Fuel and Energy
The Senate Select Committee on Fuel and Energy released its
interim report on 7 May 2009 entitled ‘The CPRS: Economic cost without
environmental benefit.” The report assessed the impact of higher petroleum,
diesel and gas prices across the economy. In particular the report found:
- The proposed CPRS will be ineffective in reducing global emissions;
- The government has not addressed the concerns raised about the
short and medium term impact of the CPRS on the economy and jobs;
- Australia's trade exposed industries will continue to be
disadvantaged compared with their competitors (unlike in the much cited
European ETS); and
- Many other flaws explored in some detail in the Select
Committee's report have not been addressed.
Similarly, the Coalition Senators on the Senate Economics
Committee had grave misgivings about the appropriateness of the extravagant
Rudd/Wong CPRS model and recommended that the government go back to the drawing
board and consider alternative models more appropriate for Australia’s needs as
a small nation generating only 1 per cent of world GDP and emitting a mere 1.4
per cent of global emissions.
The Rudd government has said Australia should play its
"fair share" in this global endeavour. This raises the question of
what is a "fair share" for Australia.
The Coalition Senators believe that a "fair share"
for Australia should match the reality that Australia produces a very low
proportion of world emissions and any Australian carbon emissions reduction
scheme should be balanced and not zealously overcompensate for Australia’s
contribution to global carbon emissions at great cost to our economy and
people's welfare.
Proposed amendments to the CPRS legislation
Given that the Coalition Senators’ view is that the
structure of any Australian carbon reduction scheme should be informed by the
outcome of the Copenhagen conference, there is little point in detailed
discussion of the government’s proposed amendments. However, it should be
noted that the Coalition does support recognition of voluntary action and
encouragement of the development of renewable energy sources, including solar power.
This is because solar is one renewable energy source Australia is blessed with
in abundance. Coalition Senators accepted the case made to limit the
eligibility for inclusion of greenhouse gases emanating from landfill.
Coalition Senators are surprised that the government did not
heed the amendments proposed by Griffith Coal to correct a disadvantage the
legislation imposes on the Western Electricity Market (WEM). The WEM is
largely gas dependent in comparison with the Eastern Electricity Market (the so
called “National Electricity Market” in the parlance of Treasury). Coalition
Senators recommend that the government instruct Treasury to reconsider Griffith
Coal proposed amendments to avoid WA producers being selectively disadvantaged.
Coalition Senators regard the evidence given by the Minerals
Council of Australia at the hearings conducted in Canberra on May 29 as sending
serious warning signals to Australia about the potentially devastating impact
of the Rudd/Wong CPRS on the Australian economy.
The Minerals Council raised a number of issues about the
impact of the proposed CPRS in the Australian economy which require answers, as
is shown in the Hansard record of the May 29 hearings of questions put to Mr
Hooke:
Senator EGGLESTON—You also mention that China, Japan, our
regional trading partners, and India are unlikely to introduce an emissions
trading scheme, yet that is one of the fundamental predications on which this
proposal by the government is based. For that reason, if these other countries
do not come on board, it seems obvious that Australia will be bearing a higher
cost from the Emissions Trading Scheme and the price of carbon if it cannot be
traded off. Given that scenario, what do you think will be the impact on
investment in Australia?
Mr Hooke—We are operating in a global economy, the minerals
sector globally is probably one of the most globally integrated sectors and
there is no shortage of global resources; therefore, Australia has to be very
careful that it does not get carried away by its own rhetoric about our
comparative advantage in the endowment of natural resources. In addition, we
have seen significant rationalisation and consolidation of the minerals
industry globally over the last decade—so much so that the top five companies
in any of the product sectors is doing somewhere between 40 and 80 per cent of
the business and probably more of the inventory. That means that these guys
will strategically deploy capital where there is the best opportunity to
realise it.
What Australia is doing, wittingly or unwittingly, is
increasing the sovereign risk associated with those investment decisions. If we
impose a tax or a price on carbon that, in effect, becomes a tax, because we do
not have the technologies to adjust, if our competitors are not facing the same
kinds of costs and if we saddle our industry with costs they cannot either
adjust to or absorb, you do not need to be either a Philadelphia lawyer or an
economist to know that they will move their activities to where they do not have
those costs. That is known as carbon leakage. That may well be, in an economic
sense, a most efficient way to go; but essentially, to correct one externality,
we are intervening with another that goes straight to the bottom line if we do
not have the technologies to adjust and if we do not have the profit to adjust.
The day before yesterday, one of our member companies at the Minerals Week
seminar put on the record that, had this scheme existed in the preceding five
years, it would have knocked 65 per cent of their pre-tax profit and he made
the statement that his headquarters in London would have shut down their
operations here in Australia.
Senator EGGLESTON— Are there any other specific examples of
industries where you think companies might reconsider their future in Australia
if this scheme is introduced as is?
Mr Hooke—Across the minerals sector, there has been a lot of
attention and focus on coal. But this is not just a coal story; this is across
the board. The gold industry will be looking at a $700 million hit to the
bottom line over five years. Then there is anybody who is in the business of
smelting and refining across all of the minerals, which are emissions intensive
activities. Much is made of the assistance to ‘big polluters’, but I would make
the point that 90 per cent of Australia’s minerals exports—and we are
predominating exporting, as you know—will receive no shielding from the full
impact of this scheme, while their competitors will face no impacts.
The Minerals Council presented a report by Dr Fisher of
Concept Economics which suggested that the introduction of the CPRS could
result in serious job losses in the mining sector of some 24,000 direct job
losses and another 100,000 indirect job losses.
It was held by other witnesses that jobs lost in the
minerals sector would be compensated for by the creation of so-called green
jobs. However it was stated that such compensatory green jobs would be
relatively lower paid that those in the mining sector. Senator Fisher
questioned Dr Fisher of Concept Economics on this matter:
Senator FISHER—Dr Fisher, drawing on your extensive
experience in matters economic and indeed beyond our really important mining
sector, given the prediction about job losses in the mining sector and the
consequent damage to the mining sector, together with the views by others that
there will be an increase in jobs in the green sector and a beneficial impact
on the green sector as a result of the CPRS legislation, what is your view as
to whether or not the economic benefits in terms of predicted jobs and so on to
the green sector, should it eventuate, will compensate for the economic damage
done by the CPRS across the rest of the economy?
Dr Fisher—The answer to that can be short, but it is also
long in the sense that what we have done in the modelling and what the Treasury
has done is to make an assumption that, if we take the full economy, for every
job that is lost in one place there will be another job of some description
elsewhere. The high paid workers in the minerals industry, for example, will be
displaced and that is what we have been talking about today, and in the long
term there will be a job somewhere else in the economy. That is the way the
modelling has been set up. But to make that work what both the Treasury and I
have done in the national modelling is to allow the real wages of workers to
fall. We have held total employment constant, but to allow that to occur we
have allowed real wages to fall.
What is happening here is that real wages have to be lower
than they otherwise would have been to maintain everybody in a job. Nobody is
being very forthcoming about that particular assumption. In the debate
everywhere it has been dressed up as what is called model closure.
Model closure is a technical term for the way in which you
make these models work effectively.
Senator FISHER—Both you and Treasury are saying that in order
to stop job losses you are going to have to incur pay loss?
Dr Fisher—Yes, reduce real wages.
Senator FISHER—Keep your job by reducing your take home pay?
Dr Fisher—That is correct.
At the hearings on 29 May 2009, Senator Joyce questioned Mr
Price from Frontier Economics about the impact of the proposed CPRS on regional
Australia:
Senator JOYCE—I just want to talk about the regional issue
there. The model still assumes full employment; therefore it assumes the
transferability of the employment workforce from Mackay to building wind chimes
in Nimbin.
Mr Price—That is not to suggest, though, that these models do
not actually indicate regional effects. Some studies that we did before were
widely reported in terms of the regional effects of these types of schemes.
Even if you have the modelling that I think was reported by the Minerals
Council in the paper today, which talks about there being an aggregate effect
and which talks about a loss of jobs, you have to understand that that does not
necessarily imply that employment and absolute value are going down; it is just
that the growth of employment is lower than it would have otherwise been. So,
on the one hand, you have the government saying, ‘Our modelling shows that
employment will grow,’ and, on the other hand, you have the Minerals Council
saying that employment will shrink. They are actually saying the same thing but
reporting different numbers, so you have to understand that. But, even if our
aggregate employment stays the same under an emissions trading scheme, there
will be regions which involve very carbon intensive activity which will be in
significant decline.
Senator JOYCE—Where are those regions?
Mr Price—It is not hard to imagine: wherever there is major
industrial activity.
Senator JOYCE—Such as?
Mr Price—Central Queensland, the Latrobe Valley, the Hunter
Valley, the Kimberleys—anywhere that you have major energy using, particularly
industry. Coalmining is an example. Of course—and I have said this before in
this forum—if you did not have an adverse effect on those regions, the scheme
would not work. You have to actually cause a reduction in those industries to
achieve a reduction in emissions. It depends on what the government’s policy
objective is. That may make sense if they can manage the structural adjustment
from one industry through to another and manage the flow of resources from,
say, Central Queensland to South-East Queensland, where new jobs are found for
the green industry.
Low income groups
Coalition Senators were concerned that low income groups
would be subject to increasing costs of electricity and consumer goods on lower
relative wages. Coalition Senators believe the organisations representing the
low income sector of the community should reflect more deeply about the
implications of the CPRS for the groups they represent. It is clear that those
at the lower end of income scales in our society who will be most disadvantaged
by the impact of Labor’s CPRS.
Sadly, while compensation may be planned all too often it is
those relatively powerless people at the bottom end of the income scale whose
interests are compromised when conditions change.
Conclusion
The Coalition will offer bipartisan support to the
government for the carbon abatement targets Australia takes to the Copenhagen
climate change conference in December.
This means the government can go to the conference with a
united Australian position in seeking a global commitment to addressing climate
change. That united position is for an unconditional reduction in emissions of
five per cent from 2000 levels by 2020, and a reduction of up to 25 per cent in
the event of a comprehensive global agreement.
In light of the fact that the Copenhagen conference is only
six months away, and the Obama Administration and US Congress are well advanced
in finalising US legislation for an ETS, the Coalition believes that it would
be premature to lock Australia into an ETS that is out of step with the rest of
the world.
The Coalition therefore will move in the parliament to defer
a final vote on the government's proposed ETS until after the Copenhagen
meeting.
In order to enable immediate action on climate change, the
Coalition proposes the establishment of a Government-authorised voluntary
carbon market from 1 January 2010 based on the Chicago Climate Exchange. This
would enable the immediate involvement of individuals and communities,
agriculture and bio-sequestration, the commercial building sector, energy
efficiencies by business, and other complementary measures in creating bankable
offsets.
These voluntary measures will enable immediate action on
achieving Australia's 2020 targets and will create an opportunity for
individuals, communities and firms to help Australia deliver larger abatement
than the government targets once a full scheme is in place.
The Australian Climate Exchange predicts that “at least five
per cent additional reduction by 2020 could very easily and conservatively be
achieved through voluntary measures.”
The government has already chosen to delay the effective
start date of its own ETS to 2012. This is an appropriate acknowledgement of
the current economic climate, and offers Australia a window to get our scheme
right and ensure it does not export jobs, investment or emissions.
In particular, it is clear that the emerging Obama plan will
offer 100 per cent protection for US export and import-competing industries
until 2025. The Government's current plan would therefore leave many of
Australia's most successful industries (and largest employers and taxpayers) at
a crippling competitive disadvantage.
It is critical for Australia's treatment of these industries
to align with the treatment received by their competitors.
The deferral in start date also offers an opportunity for
the government to allow the Productivity Commission to assess the efficacy of
its proposed scheme, and its impact on jobs, regions and agriculture if
competing economies adopt comparable measures many years later than expected.
The Coalition will augment its support for emissions
reduction targets with a significant renewable energy support package in the
near future.
The Coalition's overall approach will allow Australia to
take a unified commitment to emissions reduction to Copenhagen. It also enables
an earlier start to emissions abatement and the potential to build on 2020
targets, via voluntary action. In the meantime it allows Australia to get its
ETS right – saving tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in
investment by ensuring our scheme is in step with the rest of the world.
Additional Comments by Senator Barnaby Joyce, Leader of the Nationals in
the Senate
My additional comments must be seen as a caveat on the
concluding comments of the report.
The National Party believes that any agreement that
Australia should sign up for must be fully assessed against the ramifications
to our major exports which are based in regional Australia. Therefore, the
support for a 5 per cent reduction would be conditional upon this effect, and
support for any global agreement would have to be genuinely global, in a
mechanism that was not disproportionately detrimental to Australia’s economic
position.
Our belief is that decisions regarding a CPRS go beyond sole
focus on an ETS, as we see an ETS as one of a whole range of solutions
encompassed as carbon pollution reduction schemes.
The current further investigations into the economic effect
of carbon pollution reduction schemes, and the premise of their accountability
as spelt out by such as Lord Monckton should be fully examined in the devising
of future schemes.
All schemes should take into account the capacity of further
science and further analysis being able to change the aspects of delivery of
any package. It should absolutely be acknowledged that those who don’t have
the capacity to pass costs on will be the ones who have to pay the cost. After
all subsidies are finished, the questions all Australian citizens have to ask
themselves is “am I in a position to pass this cost on or do I have to pay the
costs, and am I prepared to pay these costs in the long term, and does my
nation have the capacity to carry these costs with its desires for other
expenditure alternatives?”
The creation of an overhead is never a stimulant and the ETS
in its current form is a definite overhead.
It also must be acknowledged that the current scheme
regardless of what may be the public belief will do absolutely nothing to
reduce global carbon emissions.
It is a political gesture and there is an imperative that
the political house must be extremely sceptical of voting for poll-driven
gestures. Otherwise we put our nation on a slippery slope of a whole range of
possibly popular but not completely well founded ideas.
Senator Alan
Eggleston
Deputy Chair
Senator Barnaby
Joyce
Member
Senator David
Bushby
Participating
Member
Senator Jo Fisher
Participating
Member
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