Australia’s new prime minister Julia Gillard has signalled for the first time that she will move away from her predecessor’s climate change policy and find a new way of pricing carbon emissions across the country.
Speaking late yesterday in her first interview since securing the support necessary to form a minority Labor government, Gillard revealed she was keen to scrap controversial plans for an emissions cap-and-trade scheme in favour of a new approach to curbing carbon emissions.
“I’m not going to pre judge how quickly it can be done,” she told ABC News. “But I believe there’s a determination to approach this in a different spirit to the way the carbon pollution reduction scheme ultimately ended up being approached where consensus was shattered and it was a matter of high partisanship between the major political parties.”
Gillard’s predecessor Kevin Rudd took a decision to shelve Labor’s planned carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) until at least 2013 after twice failing to get it through parliament.
The Greens and some business groups ended up opposing the scheme, saying it had been watered down and would fail to adequately curb greenhouse gas emissions.
During the election campaign, Gillard stuck to the line that she would try and re-introduce the scheme in 2013, but yesterday she acknowledged that the policy was likely to undergo a major revamp.
Last week, as part of the deal that secured support from the Green Party, Gillard agreed to create an independent climate change committee to recommend how best to put a price of carbon.
Speaking yesterday, she admitted that the new committee was likely to recommend a different approach to pricing carbon emissions to the controversial cap-and-trade mechanism put forward by Rudd.
“What I would like to see from that committee is that we can genuinely include from across parliament people who believe climate change is real and who believe we will only reduce carbon pollution and meet our 2020 targets if we price carbon,” she said. “And then with all of those people in the room we work through to look for the points of agreement.”
Options likely to be considered include a revamped carbon pollution reduction scheme, a new emission trading scheme altogether, or an interim carbon tax.
Proposals for a carbon tax are favoured by the Greens, who could threaten to destabilise Gillard’s government by withdrawing support in parliament if their demands are not met.
This week a number of Australian energy firms called for a price on carbon to be established quickly in order to provide regulatory certainty. However, any attempt to introduce a carbon tax or alternative pricing mechanism is likely to face fierce opposition from the Liberal opposition, which has consistently argued that such a move would damage the economy.
In related news, the government signalled earlier today that it could review its planned tax on mining industry profits after Tony Windsor, one of the key independent MPs who lent his support to Labor earlier this week, said he wanted the controversial proposals to be reassessed.
Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Wayne Swan told local television that the government remained committed to the tax, which is crucially also supported by the Greens, but would consult with independent MPs about the precise nature of the legislation.
“We’ve got a commitment to the minerals resource rent tax. We made that commitment at the election,” he said. “But there does need to be extensive consultation. This must pass the parliament. So, of course the independents and other minor parties will be involved in that discussion as we draw up the legislation.”
