Labor’s scattergun ETS hits efficient transporters
20th July, 2008
Labor’s rushed Emissions Trading Scheme will have bizarre consequences, the Leader of The Nationals and Shadow Transport Minister, Warren Truss, said today.“The ETS will hit some of the nation’s most energy efficient transport sectors such as rail, coastal shipping and aviation with much higher energy taxes while less greenhouse friendly transport will be tax free”, he said.
“Electric passenger rail services will be slugged with new taxes on the electricity they use but those who go by bus or drive their own car to work will not.”
“If you need the Royal Flying Doctor Service to take you to hospital you will incur a new tax but if you go by ambulance it will be tax free.”
“Those who fly to North Queensland for their holiday will pay Labor’s new emissions tax, but if you go to Vanuatu or Fiji or the United States you will not.”
“If you put a container on a diesel truck from Melbourne to Sydney you will get an ETS exemption, but if you put it on a coastal ship you don’t – unless the ship is on an international voyage.”
“If you live in remote Australia and need to fly to the city you will be taxed but if you can drive to the shops it will be tax free.”
Mr Truss said that operators like the Royal Flying Doctor Service, domestic airlines, coastal shipping and electric rail services are among those to be slugged with new taxes on their use of avgas or electricity,
“Underlining how hurriedly the new Rudd tax on everything and everyone has been thrown together, it is now clear that some of the cleanest and most efficient transport sectors are going to pay more than the dirtiest,” Mr Truss said.
“This defies logic and commonsense. This is an Amateur Hour performance from the new Labor Government.
“Labor has already been caught out when it overlooked LPG and had to scurry to exclude motorists from paying a new tax on gas, after they had gone to the expense of converting their fuel systems to this cleaner and greener fuel.
“But how does the Federal Government compensate public transport users – such as those catching electric trains to work every morning in our capital cities – from its new 16 percent tax on the electricity sector?
“How does Labor propose to compensate ships moving around the Australian coast. Foreign-flagged vessels are unlikely to pay, thereby placing Australian industry and its employees at a major competitive disadvantage.
“For tens of thousands of Australians, the only way to travel long distances is by air. Yet regional airlines are also going to be targeted by a new tax on avgas, which will inevitably flow through to ticket prices.
“It is this mishmash of inconsistencies that could actually see greenhouse emissions rise rather than reduce them.
“The Coalition supports an emissions trading scheme. But it is clear that Labor has made some incredible blunders in trying to rush a scheme through before doing its homework, and before the world’s major emitters have their own plans in place.”
