Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Environment Victoria has criticised today’s attempts by the Baillieu Government to alarm Victorians about the proposed price on carbon.
The Deloitte report released today on the cost impacts of a carbon price for Victoria ignores key elements and funding programs of the Federal Government’s Clean Energy Future package and so fails to present an accurate picture of the impact of the carbon price.
Environment Victoria Campaigns Director Mark Wakeham said today:
“The state government’s report is fundamentally flawed and seems to serve the sole purpose of fanning the flames of Tony Abbott’s price on carbon scare campaign.
“By leaving out key facts the report presents warped conclusions and misleads the public on the impact of a price on carbon on the Victorian economy and jobs.”
“Victorians deserve a more constructive attitude from the State Government towards the carbon price, particularly given that the Baillieu Government has no climate change policy of its own.”
“Either the State Government doesn’t understand the detail of the carbon price package, or the Coalition is willing to deliberately confuse Victorians by releasing this misleading report.”
There are a number of clear flaws in the modelling:
- It fails to incorporate compensation for Victorian households including tax cuts which are central to the price on carbon package. For instance Victorian households earning $100,000 will receive compensation of $679 per year. This extra money in Victorian’s pockets will be spent on goods and services that support jobs that the Premier’s study ignores.
- It fails to factor in industry compensation when predicting the decisions that trade exposed industries are likely to make. For instance Victoria’s aluminium refineries will receive 94.5% of their pollution permits free of charge and therefore are unlikely to reduce production as a result of the carbon price. It also fails to include the Federal Government’s $350 million compensation package for the steel industry which would support operations like the BlueScope Steel plant at Hastings.
- It fails to acknowledge that Victorian power generators will receive the lion’s share of $5.5 billion worth of electricity sector compensation, which again leads the report to massively overstate the impact on the Victorian economy.
- It fails to include the $10 billion clean energy fund which will support the creation of new jobs and projects in Victoria, assuming the Baillieu Government does not introduce further barriers to clean energy deployment in the state.
“However, the report does show that the price on carbon will be extremely successful in reducing Victoria’s greenhouse pollution, cutting pollution by 36 million tonnes by 2020, similar to what is required to achieve Victoria’s legislated target to reduce greenhouse pollution by 20 percent by 2020.”
More resources
Catch the coverage of this issue in The Age
Read about the carbon price package here
Take away our summary of it here
We’re keeping an eye on the state governments environmental performance. Check it out