25-June-2009
Portfolio Media Releases, Emissions Trading Scheme
The Coalition and Independent Senator Nick Xenophon have today committed to carry out the additional modelling on the Rudd government’s emissions trading scheme after the government failed to provide adequate modelling of alternate schemes.
The research, to be undertaken by experienced economic modellers Frontier Economics, will examine the economic and environmental impact of the Rudd Government’s emissions trading scheme and compare this with various scenarios and alternative ETS models, including an intensity scheme.
This research will be completed before Parliament resumes on August 11th.
“This is the work that the government should have already done,” the Hon Andrew Robb AO MP, Opposition spokesman on Emissions Trading Design, said. “The Government wants us to vote on a scheme that has been rushed and bungled. Yet they haven’t released the real costs of what the scheme will mean for the environment and for jobs.”
“The government has been acting like a used car salesman who will only let you test drive one model, and then insists on you buying it,” Senator Xenophon said. “We need to look at the costs and benefits of all the models.”
Mr Robb argued the current global economic situation only made it more important to fully investigate all available approaches.
“The Government has not modelled the impact of the global financial crisis and they haven’t revealed the 20-30 year transitional costs,” Shadow Minister Robb said. “They also haven’t looked at what happens if other countries don’t apply a tax on emissions for many years as opposed to the Government’s unrealistic assumptions that the US will have a scheme in 2010, China in 2015 and India in 2020.”
“This is the biggest deliberate structural change in the history of the Commonwealth of Australia, “Senator Xenophon said. “We must get it right. The economy and the environment are depending on it.”