The Labor Government’s carbon pricing plans have come under fire again, with polls showing most Australians think they’ll be losing out - but does the Liberal Government have an alternative plan? Last night Q and A showed a clip of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott convincingly arguing that a carbon tax could work… Here, Amanda Rishworth casts her eye over Tony Abbott’s Direct Action Plan.
In recent weeks Tony Abbott has stepped up his hysterical tour of dry cleaning services, cereal factories, fish markets and even nappy factories to tout the potential increase in cost of living pressures under a carbon price. However, during these visits he pointedly avoids making any mention of his own climate change policy - a policy which Professor Ross Garnaut has said in his recent report will cost more and do less.
Tony Abbott continues to mount his fear campaign about the Government’s plan to price carbon in the Parliament, and yet you would be hard pressed to recall him ever mentioning his own plan.
A number of respected scientists from organisations including the CSIRO and the independent Climate Commission have challenged the scientific foundations of Mr Abbott’s Direct Action plan, stating that it would be insufficient to bring about the long-term reduction in carbon pollution needed to effectively tackle climate change.
Indeed it has been exposed that because Tony Abbott’s Direct Action plan is so environmentally ineffective, it will deliver just a quarter of the carbon pollution abatement required to meet the bipartisan 5 per cent reduction target. As a result, in order to meet the target the Coalition will need to spend an extra $20 billion on purchasing international permits - money that will subsidise abatement programs and green industries in other countries rather than our own.
It is clear that Mr Abbott’s Direct Action policy will actually cost over $30 billion rather than the claimed $10.5 billion, and he has failed to indicate where this $30 billion will come from. It’s time that Mr Abbott came clean about how he will fund his environmentally inefficient and costly Direct Action plan.
Given Mr Abbott’s silence on this crucial point, we can only assume that his plan will be funded directly by Australian taxpayers. Figures reveal that under Mr Abbott’s plan the average Australian family’s tax bill will increase by $720 every year. Unlike the Government, at no point has Mr Abbott committed to providing householders with any form of assistance for this added pressure on their budget.
While Mr Abbott huffs and puffs about the potential for a carbon price to contribute to cost of living pressures he is very quiet about the fact that his plan will directly tax Australian workers without providing any form of financial assistance for those who are already doing it tough.
You might understandably be left wondering why it is that Mr Abbott continues to stand behind such an environmentally inefficient and costly policy. Perhaps it is as Malcolm Turnbull says - that the Direct Action policy is easy to wind back and the sort of plan you put in place when you never truly intend to implement a plan for tackling climate change.
But if Mr Abbott really does believe in taking action on climate change, he should stand up and debate the merits of his own plan. If Tony Abbott wants to be taken seriously, he needs to start arguing for his own plan for tackling climate change instead of hiding behind an unconvincing scare campaign.
But then again maybe Mr Abbott is finding it all a little too hard to come up with arguments in support of his own Direct Action plan.
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