Australia celebrates Christmas 2009 free from the shackles of a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and its Emissions Trading Scheme. It was a close call but the Senate managed to defeat this ridiculous new tax that the Prime Minister was so insistent on taking to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.
Mr Rudd went empty-handed to Copenhagen and he has returned to Christmas in Australia with nothing but a plan to reintroduce this legislation in the Senate on February 2.
The Copenhagen talks whimpered to a close with a non-binding agreement. There are no emissions reduction targets and no timeline to do anything of any consequence. Instead, developed nations will submit their pledges of emissions reductions by February 1 then go behind closed doors to discuss them. This is called the Copenhagen Accord, or as my Senate colleague Barnaby Joyce said on ABC Radio on December 21: “Well, I don't know whether it's an A-chord. I think it's kind of a D-flat. What it is, is a farce.”
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has extended an invitation to the Prime Minister to debate him on the ETS. Mr Rudd has declined but his government insists that the ETS legislation will be back. Even if hoping that it is third time lucky, the Nationals will continue to oppose this new tax. They have opposed it from the beginning. You have to ask why Mr Rudd is so insistent on reintroducing this flawed legislation. No other country took a CPRS to Copenhagen. No other country insisted in putting its industries and farmers at a disadvantage with other developed nations. No other country thinks it can have such a big influence on the world when it emits only 1.4% of the world’s carbon dioxide.
If we are to fight an election on the ETS, let’s fight it. The Government needs to convince families why they will have to pay hundreds of dollars in extra costs every year, it must convince business why they should pay more and it needs to convince farmers why their input costs on everything from fertiliser to packaging to concrete to transport will go up but their returns will diminish.
The world stage is no longer set for a Rudd masterstroke. The CPRS has been defeated and it will be defeated again. The voices of the people were heard loud and clear. They do not want this legislation. We will fight it again.
May you all have a Happy Christmas and good health, joy and prosperity in the New Year.
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