ETS Will Rip Regional Communities Apart

The heart will be ripped out of regional Australia by the Rudd Labor Government’s Emissions Trading Scheme and I will not be voting for it, said Senator Fiona Nash, NSW Senator and Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Senate. “A link between the ETS and supporting a cleaner, healthier future for the environment does not exist, except in the minds of Mr Rudd and Minister Wong,” Senator Nash said. “Many people who have been caught up in the Labor spin on all of this, are under the impression that if they support an ETS they are supporting a better environment. This is simply rubbish. “Any solution to reduce emissions has to be global and we cannot simply do this from Australia which produces only 1.4 per cent of global emissions and we cannot do this by implementing a new tax. The cost of implementing the ETS will be huge. Two-thirds of unemployment that results from the ETS will occur in regional Australia. The mining industry is facing decimation but the biggest loser will be agriculture, whether it is included in the ETS or not. “Our food producers are at the bottom of the food chain. They are at the end of the line and the buck stops with them. Everything flows down to them. We know that as a result of the ETS there will be enormous imposts and huge increases on things like transport, fuel and electricity and inputs for farmers such as fertiliser and packaging. “All those costs are going to be dropped in the laps of the farmers in those communities. So, even if agriculture is not included, our regional communities and our agricultural industries will still have to deal with the enormous negative impacts. To simply say, ‘Agriculture might not be included,’ is not good enough. It is not good enough because the difficulties they are going to face are still there and they have no capacity to offset the costs. “Farmers know that if they do not look after the land then the land will not look after them. They are getting kicked in the guts by Labor’s ETS. Labor could not care less about our food and fibre producing communities. They simply do not care.”

Source:

Post Comment

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Enter the code shown above in the box below

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail