Rudd Government running scared on emissions trading - at last |
19th February, 2010 |
Federal Labor has belatedly realised what The Nationals have been telling it for more than 18 months – that its proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is a political loser. It is a great tax on everything which will cost Australian jobs and will do nothing to help the environment.
The Leader of The Nationals, Warren Truss, said “Kevin Rudd’s decision to delay debate in the Senate on the CPRS until March was a sign the Prime Minister and Labor was losing its collective nerve. The Rudd Labor Government has never attempted to explain how its great new tax would lower global temperatures and now the people have begun to see through the empty rhetoric. Labor has no answers and it is obvious that the Government is completely rattled by the public’s rapidly changing understanding of emissions trading” Mr Truss said.
“Once this was the ‘great moral issue of our time’, according to Mr Rudd, and he was prepared to fight a double dissolution on emissions trading. The CPRS has to be law before Copenhagen, we did not have a moment to lose, he said repeatedly.
“Now it is at best a lower order issue. It is almost as if Labor wants to quickly bury the CPRS, like it has tried to do with so many of its election promises.
“It seems the only defender of this discredited bill is Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, who last night again effectively predicted Armageddon if the CPRS does not become law.
“Well, Ms Wong can hardly blame the Coalition and the people of regional Australia if they are just a bit sceptical of this Minister’s wild pronouncements.
“Australia’s environment can be improved in a practical and effective way without a great new tax. That is what the Coalition’s direct action plan is all about. Federal Labor would be wise to look closely at our policy rather than extreme versions promoted by The Greens and others,” Mr Truss said.
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