Julia Gillard has put imposing a carbon price in the league of the historic economic reforms of floating the dollar and cutting tariffs, as she steps up the government’s effort to win support for change.
In an article in The Age today, the Prime Minister presents a ”stark” choice to Australians. Without a carbon price, ”electricity prices will spiral, big investment decisions will remain on hold. Our power supplies will begin to run short. And clean energy jobs will be lost offshore.”
But if price signals are reset, ”we will open the door to a new era of investment and innovation, creating thousands of jobs for Australians in the industries of tomorrow”, she says.
Australians want action on climate and that means cutting carbon pollution, with ”a gradual shift away from carbon-intensive power generation” - moving from coal to cleaner forms of energy.
Ms Gillard is using the carbon price question to highlight her determination to deliver economic reform and to show the government is not deterred by the United States abandoning the quest for carbon trading.
In question time, ministers concertedly pushed carbon pricing in reply to Dorothy Dixer questions from Labor backbenchers. Ms Gillard seized on a comment by Liberal frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull, a strong supporter of carbon pricing: he said the government could be confident that the Productivity Commission, which is looking into effective carbon prices internationally, would say a market-based approach was the most cost-effective way to cut emissions..
Ms Gillard says ”a carbon price is the only prudent answer because it unlocks one of the most powerful forces on earth - the genius of the free market”. She writes that ”just because the dominance of coal has been the status quo, it does not mean it should remain the status quo”.
The electricity sector contributed more than one-third of Australia’s national carbon pollution, with about 82 per cent of power in the national electricity market coming from coal, 10 per cent from natural gas and 8 per cent from renewable sources..
Mr Gillard is pushing hard the argument that it is the absence of a carbon price, rather than the imposition of one, which is worse for electricity prices.
