AUSTRALIA
PRIME MINISTER ANNOUNCES ELECTION FOR 14 SEPTEMBER 2013
The Prime Minister Hon. Julia Gillard, MP, in a surprise break with the approach used by
previous Prime Ministers, has given advance notice of the date for the next Federal election.
Section 28 of the Australian Constitution states that “every House of Representatives shall
THIRD READING: AUSTRALIA
Clean Energy Amendment (International Emissions Trading and Other Measures) Act 2012 This act is part of a package of legislation which links Australia’s carbon pricing mechanism to overseas emissions trading schemes from 1 July 2015. The Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Hon. Greg
Combet, MP, commented that “the Australian government accepts the advice of climate scientists that greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to climate change and that this poses great risks to our environment, our economy and our society”. He noted that “Australia is in fact one of the top 20 greenhouse gas
emitters internationally, and the highest per capita emitter amongst the advanced economies”. The legislation provides that from 1 July 2015, the Australian carbon price mechanism will link to the European Union’s emissions trading scheme. The Minister stated that “the fixed carbon price will end on 30 June 2015 and that we will move to a fully flexible emissions trading scheme where the Australian carbon price reflects the price in the largest carbon market in the world”. Mr Combet commented that “overall, linking the Australian emissions
trading scheme with the European ETS is good for Australian industry, good for our economy and good for our environment”. The Minister noted that the linking will reduce the cost of the emission
reduction effort to the Australian economy. Mr Combet stated that “as Treasury modelling clearly demonstrates, without the ability to access international carbon markets, without the ability for Australian businesses to purchase international permits, the cost of reducing emissions in our economy would double in order to meet Australia’s bipartisan unconditional emissions reduction target”. He noted that the opposition is opposed to linking “which means that their policy will cost at least double if they were to genuinely pursue the emissions reduction effort they say they are committed to”. The coalition is opposed to the government’s clean energy pricing mechanism and took the opportunity to further criticise the policy. During debate in the Senate, the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment, Senator Simon Birmingham noted that “we know that the carbon tax is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, backflips in Australian political history”. Senator Birmingham commented that “having implemented that carbon
tax, having struck deals with the Greens and the crossbenchers to get it through, we now find, months later, that the government is introducing significant changes to the carbon tax”. Senator Birmingham criticized linking the Australia emissions trading
scheme with the European ETS commenting that “handing over of complete control” is really in many ways what is occurring—because it has become clear that this is “very much a one-way street”. Senator Birmingham added that “more significantly, because of the nature of the European scheme and the nature of the deal being struck, we see a situation where effectively the price of the carbon tax in Australia in future will be determined by decisions in Brussels rather than decisions made in Canberra”. Senator Birmingham referred to committee evidence that suggested
there were integrity problems with the EU scheme. He noted that the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia “highlighted concerns and indicated that in the EU emissions trading scheme there had recently been various instances of integrity issues around registry security and fraud”. Senator Birmingham concluded that “whether it is in debates about
lowest cost abatement, floor prices or the like, we see once again through this legislation a government in chaos, changing this big policy just after a few months, and doing the opposite in so many instances of that which they promised”. Senator Christine Milne, Leader of the Australian Greens, noted that the
Greens supported the legislation and criticized Senator Birmingham for his “disgraceful performance”’ She commented that “at some point Senator Birmingham ought to have acknowledged that the whole point of the legislation that we have before us, the whole point of the emissions trading scheme which we have—and he persists in calling it a tax; it is an emissions trading scheme—is to try to reduce greenhouse emissions, consistent with the challenge we have with global warming”. Senator Milne argued that it was essential to provide business with certainty. She noted that “the Greens were concerned that, if we went with the
hybrid model and we had the fixed-price period, we did not want the price to completely collapse at the end of the fixed-price period. You had to give some certainty into the future about a price trajectory for business so that they could start making decisions based on that”.
The Parliamentarian | 2013: Issue One | 83
continue for three years from the first meeting of the House, and no longer, but may be sooner
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