Excluding agriculture an improvement; Labor’s CPRS still bad
16th November, 2009
The announcement today of changes to the treatment of agriculture under Labor's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme offers some potential relief, but still leaves Australian farmers with major extra costs that will not be imposed on their competitors around the world.The Leader of The Nationals, Warren Truss, said the concession from the Climate Change Minister Penny Wong was always inevitable because there is no reliable science to measure farm and animal emissions.
No ETS in the world proposes to include farm emissions. Australia’s draft CPRS did not include them until 2015 at the earliest anyway.
However, today's announcement is still well short of an exemption of agriculture from Labor's CPRS.
“Farmers will still face higher CPRS imposed costs on all farm inputs, including fuel, fertilizer, chemicals, electricity and machinery,” Mr Truss said.
“The food processing sector does not appear to be covered by Senator Wong's announcement, and this was a key demand by the Coalition in the negotiations.
“Labor's CPRS will add greatly to the costs of dairy processing, sugar refining, abattoirs and food processing making Australian food less competitive on export markets.
“The flood of cheap foreign food coming into Australia will accelerate because it will not be subject to emission taxes. More closures and job losses in the Australian food industry are certain.
“The Government's announcement that it will work towards allowing farmers to claim credits for carbon abatement and sequestration achieved on their properties is unconvincing.
“United States farmers can claim these credits now through their voluntary Carbon Trading Exchange, even though the US does not have an emission trading scheme. Why can't the Federal Government do the same here now?
“Improvements to the treatment of agriculture will not of themselves be sufficient to persuade The Nationals to support Labor’s CPRS.
“Labor's scheme will still add massively to the cost of everything we do in this country. It will still cost Australian jobs - especially in regional Australia - and it will still fail to deliver any reductions in global CO2 emissions,” Mr Truss said.
