Adelaide Advertiser
Wednesday 11/3/2009 Page: 15
CLIMATE Change Minister Penny Wong has unveiled the Government's long-awaited legislation for an emissions trading scheme, vowing to stick to the ambitious 2010 start date despite the economic downturn.
She said the draft Bill - nearly two weeks overdue - faithfully reflected the carbon pollution reduction scheme as already laid out. "This legislation ... gives effect to the policy position set out in the White Paper," she said. "This is a whole-of-economy reform, which will for the first time put a price on carbon. "It will encourage major polluting businesses to lower their emissions, and it will encourage investment in the new clean, low-pollution technology."
The release of the Bill sets the stage for the parliamentary battle to begin over the highly charged reform. The 490-page "exposure draft" will now be referred to at least one and possibly two Senate inquiries before facing what looks like a torrid negotiation period in the Senate. In a thinly veiled entreaty to the Greens and independents, Ms Wong said her colleagues should not be tempted to throw something away just because they would rather have everything.
The Government needs their support or the Opposition's, but neither can be assumed at present. Yesterday the Opposition, which thinks the CPRS goes too far, clubbed together with the Greens, who think its targets are far too mild, to set up their own two-month inquiry.
Opposition spokesman Andrew Robb said the scheme was plain wrong. "I don't know anybody who supports the scheme ... it will cost jobs, it will kill investment, and will not do anything of any consequence about CO2 emissions," he said in a joint press conference with the Greens' Christine Milne. "The Government has said that their legislation is as big as a Canberra phonebook; but what we know is that it's full of wrong numbers." Ms Milne said.
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