Tony Abbott took Australia to the cleaners today, visiting the NSW town of Queanbeyan to meet with a dry cleaner operator who it is claimed will be worse off under the Australian Government’s planned emissions trading scheme legislation.
Mr Abbott continued to drive home the Coalition’s message that the ETS will be a “great big tax” on business that would never be part of the Coalitions climate change policy. This is despite the Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) being based on the framework developed under the Howard Liberal Government when it was in power.
This was highlighted in a lengthy speech in parliament today by the ex-Liberal party leader Malcolm Turnbull where he undermined the Coalition’s message that the CPRS was a “great big tax”, with the impact on prices less than that when the GST was introduced by the Howard Government, with the CPRS not intended to as a tax but as a mechanism that would actually return the “tax” revenue to households and businesses.
Turnbull also claimed the CPRS was the “only policy on offer that will enable us to meet 5% emissions target”, with the ability to scale to higher targets in accordance with future obligations to reduce carbon emissions.
Malcolm Turnbull intends on crossing the floor to vote with the Labor party in favor of the CPRS legislation when it comes up for a second vote later this year.
