CPRS Bills 2010: Turnbull trumps Abbott in climate change debate (transcript)

Malcolm Turnbull speaking today in Parliament on anthropomorphic global warming and an emissions trading scheme, in direct opposition to his leader's new policy position:

The White Paper estimates the CPRS will result in a one off increase in the CPI by 1.1% – compared to the 2.8% one-off increase in the CPI caused by the introduction of the GST. Most households are compensated for this increase in costs either in whole or in part.

I should note that the largest component of increases in electricity prices in NSW over the next five years is, in fact, additional network charges to recognise the increased investment in the security and reliability of electricity infrastructure. Those increases, unlike the CPRS element, are not the subject of any compensation.

But given we have an apparent bi-partisan agreement that emissions should be reduced by 5% of 2000 levels, is an Emissions Trading Scheme, at a general level, the best policy to achieve the desired reduction in emissions?

Believing as I do, as a liberal, that market forces deliver the lowest-cost and most effective solution to economic challenges, the answer must be yes.

Because more emissions intensive industries and generators need to buy more permits than less intensive ones, lower emission activities, whether they are cleaner fuels or energy efficient buildings, are made more competitive.

A brown coal fired power station, for example, pumps out four times as much CO2 as an efficient gas fired one. But gas is expensive and clean and brown coal is cheap and dirty.

If there is no cost charged for emitting carbon there is simply no incentive to move to the cleaner fuel.

Until 1 December last year there was a bi-partisan commitment in Australia that this carbon price, this exercise in reducing emissions should be imposed by means of an emissions trading scheme.

At their core these bills are as much the work of John Howard as of Kevin Rudd. The policy I am supporting today as an Opposition backbencher is the same policy I supported as John Howard’s Environment Minister.

And why did we, in the Howard Government, believe an emissions trading scheme was the best approach?

It was because we, as Liberals, believed in the superior efficiency of the free market to set a price on carbon......

The ETS allows Australian businesses to make their own decisions as to how to reduce their emissions – Government sets the rules and in part sets the cap on total emission and then lets the market work out the most efficient and effective result.

Schemes where bureaucrats and politicians pick technologies and winners, doling out billions of taxpayers’ dollars is neither good policy is neither economically efficient and nor will it be environmentally effective.

For these reasons, Mr Speaker, I will be voting in favour of these Bills.

Rather cleverly Turnbull has released his full speech here ahead of the Hansard transcript.

Shafting Abbott in this way must have given him much pleasure, with the added advantage that he appears steadfast in his views when compared to Abbott's recent volte face.

A little aromatic? No, Tony - you said cr@p and you meant cr@p

ABC TV The Insiders Sunday 7th February 2010:

"BARRIE CASSIDY: You see the credibility problem for you is that you're a conviction politician. You call it as you see it. And yet you seem to be slightly half hearted about it. And then of course you have to live with the comment that you made, that you think climate change is crap.

TONY ABBOTT: I think what I actually said was that the so-called settled science was a little aromatic. Now you don't have to accept the totality of the science to still think that there is a reasonable argument for taking sensible precautions against possible risk and that's what we're doing."

A little aromatic? No, Tony - you said "absolute cr@p" and you meant "absolute cr@p".

Your blunt opinion was very well documented, you didn't deny the words when directly questioned in December 2009 and trying to fib now only shines a spotlight on your slippery political nature.

Now I know you have all but admitted that when you said that the science around climate change was "absolute cr@p" you were fronting what you thought was a hostile Liberal Party audience in Beaufort Victoria, but (unless you always tell people what they want to hear to save yourself a lynching) you were actually voicing your own opinion.

In fact the Pyrenees Advocate editor who attended that party function got the distinct impression that you were quite serious and reported; "In a wide ranging speech, Mr Abbott talked about climate change, the Liberal political fortunes and Kevin Rudd. Quote - the argument on climate change is absolute crap," he said."

The editor was interviewed by ABC Melbourne's Steve Martin and it's online for posterity here.

Of course this "cr@p" attitude to global warming means that you were telling the biggest of political lies when you told Kerry O'Brien on the 7.30 Report last October:

"Well, there may be one or two, but I think if the Government substantially accepts our amendments, that will make Malcolm, in effect, the co-author of this ETS. I think that would be a good position. It would be a rare ... it would be a great win for an Opposition. Let's face it, it's quite unusual for Oppositions to effectively be co-authors of major legislation, and if they were to accept our amendments, if they were to accept that their bill was, in important respects, very gravely flawed, I think that would be a good deal for the country, and obviously a political win for the Opposition."
I think we can all recognise the lie because as I write you are in the House of Reps getting ready to vote down the Rudd Government Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme amended bills for the second time.

Download the audio file of Pyrenees Advocate interview.

Election 2010 - What's a lamb roast?

For days Tony Abbott's been popping up all over the evening tellie talking about the cost of food and shaking his head solemnly; calling lamb the "new lobster".
I couldn't afford to eat lamb chops in 2006 under Howard or in 2009 under Rudd - so why does 'Phoney Tony' Abbott expect me to believe that he will somehow make lamb affordable to poor people post-2010 if he's made Prime Minister.
Pull the other one, Abbott - those budgie smugglers are strangling your brain!

Lucky to afford mince
Maclean

The right-wing disinformation campaign is alive and well on the NSW North Coast

The political disinformation campaign is alive and well on the NSW North Coast in The Daily Examiner letters to the editor and what passes for the party faithfull are gearing up for the next federal election campaign:

Teaching, nursing students targeted

NOT so long ago when John Howard was PM and the state of our economy was actually 'state of the art', there were some anti-government voices in the Valley highly critical of Howard and the Coalition's policy on university funding through the Hecs scheme.

Where are those voices today, now that Julia Gillard, idol of their favoured political party, is forcing teaching and nursing students to pay up to 25 per cent more to gain a degree after dumping the subsidy put in place by the Howard government?

Why single out these two urgently necessary areas of university education to begin the clawback of some of the billions of dollars, mostly borrowed, that this Rudd government has squandered since 2007?

Billions tossed around like confetti at a wedding to feed not only Rudd's massive ego but the many rorts of the so-called Education Revolution. The myriad of enquiries, committees and no brainer 'Watch' programs that cost millions but amounted to absolutely nothing.

And then vital funding assistance for teaching and nursing students gets shafted.

Like the whales in the Southern Ocean, nursing and teaching students in this country have been cut adrift by this self-serving government.

FRED PERRING, Grafton

This is what the Federal Government actually put in place according to its Going to Uni website:

If you have a HELP debt, you start repaying your accumulated HELP debt when your HELP repayment income is above the minimum threshold, which is $41,594 in the 2008-09 income year and $43,151 for the 2009-10 income year.....

In the 2009 Budget, the Australian Government announced that students who graduate from an eligible education or nursing course of study from second semester 2009 onwards will be able to apply for a reduction in their compulsory HELP repayment if they work as a teacher or nurse.

From 1 January 2010 the maximum annual student contribution amount (previously called HECS) for commencing students undertaking education and nursing units of study will be increased from the 'national priority' rate to the band 1 rate [Rate 1 set at $5,310 p.a. maximum in 2010]......

Eligible education and nursing graduates (who graduate from second semester 2009 onwards) who take up employment in these professions will be able to apply for a HECS-HELP benefit which will reduce their Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) repayments. The benefit will be available for the 2009-10 income year. The maximum benefit for that year will be $1,558.50.

An education or nursing graduate is a person who has graduated from a course of study that is required for initial entry to teaching or nursing professions.

Further information will soon be available when guidelines for the benefit for teachers and nurses are finalised.....

The maximum HECS-HELP benefit you will receive as an early childhood education teacher [working in regional or remote areas, Indigenous communities or areas of high socio-economic disadvantage] is $1,600 for the 2008–09 income year, and $1,662.40 for the 2009-10 income year. This amount will be indexed in later years.

Find out if you're eligible