Newspoll shows Labor maintaining its 55-45 two-party lead from last fortnight. Kevin Rudd has gained a point and Brendan Nelson lost one on the question of preferred leader, Rudd now leading 65 per cent to 14 per cent.
UPDATE: The Australian has not published a graphic this time, but you can read all about it at the Newspoll site. The paper also reports on an Essential Research survey on emissions trading, but we are told only that “58 per cent of Coalition voters believe Australia should take action even if other countries do not”, while “only 25 per cent of the 1700 voters polled believed Australia should act only when other major economies agreed to do so”. The West Australian has also published results on the subject from last week’s Westpoll survey of 400 respondents in WA, showing “two-thirds of the poll’s respondents agree that a carbon trading regime should be introduced according to the Prime Minister’s timetable”. However, 69 per cent believe the US, China and India “would need to adopt their own trading schemes if Kevin Rudd’s plan for an Australian ETS by 2010 was to be effective”, and “47 per cent of respondents were not prepared to pay more for petrol”.
UPDATE 2: Full report from Essential Research here. It includes a 59-41 result on federal voting intention based on two weeks of data, with a 3 per cent shift denoting that the week past was quite a lot better for the Coalition than a fortnight ago. There were also questions on the Catholic Church’s response to child abuse by priests and religious affiliation in general. Results were obtained from a targeted online panel of 1013 respondents.
844 Comments
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“Actualy , i’m diasppointed Garnaut did not look more at the clean nuclear option”
Ron
I caught the tail end of a story that said India was moving away from nuclear towards solar power, did not catch exactly what it was about but story below might be it. Talks of using solar power from space, previously thought prohibitive, but with rising fuel costs not so now.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/05/30/space.solar/index.html?eref=edition_space
Side interest was that Howard and the libs wanted to sell uranium to Inida and bring the waste back here for storage in the NT.
Ron another thing worth considering is that it is the major nuclear powers who lead the world as Greenhouse gas emitters. China, India USA, Russia etc. Also some who have been there and done that are getting rid of them like Germany with a twenty year plan to scrap the lot of them.
It’s a big day for the Rudd Government and the Nation.
I think this a very good move already, renaming the scheme to: “carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS)”, rather than the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS). The former is more meaningful and relevant to the punters whereas the later sounds like something that has been dreamed up by the investment bankers. You got to get the brand right.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24027312-601,00.html
Does anybody know how the government is intending to deal with the international factors? For example, if a product is made overseas then sold in Australia and its production causes CO2 emission will it be included. Likewise if it is made in Australia and sold overseas will it be excluded.
Also does anybody know how the scheme is going to be inforced?
Stephen @ 154
Obviously haven’t seen the paper myself – but in the EU ETS, emissions count at point of production. Consequently, a few factories have been moved to Northern Africa to allow compliance.
I’ll have what Codger had.
Yo ho ho @ 155
It would be a pitty if that happens here. It will give countries without a scheme an economic advantage and therefore less reason to come onboard.
#155/#157
Reminds me of the old shipowners’ trick of registering ships in certain countries for various legal and financial loopholes, ‘tax havens’ for ship owners,
I used to live in a ship building city and we would often see a ship that we built [cos I worked in the shipyards for a while] turn up a few years down the track registered at Monrovia or Freetown flying a flag of convenience.
A mate of mine ended up heading the transport division of a major Australian company and his brief, his job, was to ensure that the company paid no taxes on its shipping. He achieved this by ‘leasing’ assets to shell companies, subsidiaries of his company, in foreign countries that favoured big business for nominal fees.
I presume these practices, and similar in other fields, still continue.
You can be assured that if someone can think up a tax, another person can think up a way of avoiding that tax.
One minute Ruddie is saying he can do nothing more about petrol, and he is making fun of a Liberal 5c cut to excise as being irresponsible.
The next minute, he says he will remove GST of 4c
2 minutes later, he says he will cut excise by more than the Liberals and he can do something about petrol prices
Wow he is a man of many hats
He never said he would remove the GST. He said that the tax review would consider applying the GST before the excise. The previous Government voted to put the GST on top of the excise, which means the GST in cents terms increases much faster as the price of petrol increases.
The excise cut would only compensate for including petrol in carbon trading.
But I think that policy is wrong. You should leave it in, let the price of petrol increase, then compensate low and middle income earners through other means.
“The next minute, he says he will remove GST of 4c” – Please provide the evidence for this false statement.
I think Dovif is disappointed that Rudd has politically neutered the opposition on the introduction of the ETS.
I’m very pleased with the ETS finally being recommended for the planets sake. Saying that it makes no difference till China and India sign is beside the point. No doubt the same arguments were raised when the first countries started banning slavery in the 18th century. “This will just move the cotton industry offshore”. That campaign took time, as will this one. But that is no excuse for inaction. If an activity is wrong, everyone doing it doesn’t make it right. The sooner more countries commit to an ETS, the stronger will be the case to persuade USA, China and India. In the end, the outsiders might face economic sanctions.
Also, I think this will benefit the government politicaly, more than it will hurt. Many of those opposed have probably never voted Labor in their life anyway. Failure to act on this issue would have deeply alienated green preferenecs, if not many actual votes.
As for the rebate on fuel taxes vs ETS, I can live with that. The current taxes are actually higher than the ETS cost on fuel would be anyway. The real culprit in Australia is coal.
“As for the rebate on fuel taxes vs ETS, I can live with that. The current taxes are actually higher than the ETS cost on fuel would be anyway. The real culprit in Australia is coal.”
Not only that but this fuel excise cut will be reviewed in 3 years so further adjustments can be made when necessary. This is politically astute. There is no advantage in taking on political water, as it were, and sinking before the ship sets sail.
Do anybody know a good website to get the greenpaper from once it has been released?
Gary @ 165
I think they should have made it four years. By making it three they have put it right before a likely election which is not a good idea.
Rudd didn’t have a choice!
The alternative would be the Liberals and the MSM bleating for months about the government letting down struggling motorists.
“I think they should have made it four years. By making it three they have put it right before a likely election which is not a good idea.”
Depends on whether you’re a glass half full person. The conservatives will wedge themselves big time over this one leading up to an election – that’s my cynical political point of view. Sooner rather than later is better for the enviornment is my honest position. And those MM hacks say that Rudd hasn’t shown courage as a leader.
True.
But he could’ve OVER compensated (in terms of $s) low and middle income earners by just using some of the surplus.
In other news, the AUD$ is at $0.98
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,24028828-31037,00.html
Dovif
Seems to me that Rudd has to ster a course between a politics , economics and CC , otherwise the Libs will run a massive 2010 care campaign on CC costs So “dovif” i don’t agre with your comment , what the Rudd man is only cnsidering is exempting GST from the exercise content only , and only as CC compensation so we address CC & consumers get some cost relief Whereas what Nelson is offering is a petrol price cut for no CC benefit at all , except for him to cynically win votes Do you support Nelsons approach ?
Rod
that solar energy satellite link you provided is quite exciting in theory , but seems engineering challenges make it a long term thing & seems very disappointingly no great urgency to persue it I only brought up Gartnaut’s lack of ‘clean’ nuclear vs CC “dirty” coal , as these seem the only energy sources available by the 2020 ‘CC tipping’ point , because I assumed other alternative sources are insufficent for energy demannd Both seem a devils choice without ‘clean’ coal carbon capture techno
Live blog green paper
http://media.news.com.au/multimedia/2008/07/carbon_tax_blog/
The reduction in petrol excise for 3 years is I believe Mr Rudd trying to bypass the Greens who would want too much from an ETS
Green paper
http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/greenpaper/index.html
Rod
I agree that space power sounds fascinating, but I’d like to see some evidence of the energy efficiency of it. Launching even small payloads into high earth orbit requires huge amounts of energy (fuel). To get a modest sized international space station up there has been a challenge. Getting many tonnes of solar power equipment up there wouldn’t just be expensive, it would use a massive amount of energy. So is this thing a net winner in terms of energy in vs energy out?
The article talks about wanting freer access to space, but the fact is access to space is incredibly costly to achieve; giving it to something for free is not realistic. Also, I noted in the article it changes from a reference to a NASA conclusion fo a trillion dollar price tag to “needing at least a billion”. Yes, a thousand billion is at least a billion. I can’t see this being a solution in the time scale within which we must resolve climate change.
Rod
Forgive my pervious skepticism; the energy efficiency is pretty good – it would pay off in about 3 weeks assuming the lift rockets are only 3% efficient. In that case its just the sheer complexity and cost. I’d still say it requires too much development time to be feasible within 10-15 years, and we must act now.
Still, its sobering to think that not invading Iraq would have actually saved enough money to get a system like this working.
So petrol heads…
Is the excise reduction measure as part of CPRS a reaction, or was it always a possibility in terms of strategy?
Was fuelwatch always going to be required, even if just as a measurement mechanism for benchmarking the excise reduction?
Wong just made a nice little joke at David Speers’ expense – the room laughed, but he didn’t appear to see the funny side. He was chasing an ‘i’ without a dot on it as usual.
Wong’s presentation has just concluded. She was certainly able to hold the journo’s attention till the last question. A very cool calm presentation that seemed to ooze rationalism from what I saw – at least someone is confident they’ve done the work.
Watching Wong at NPC and the Q&As, i got a feeling that the journos are a bit cranky that there are no juicy stuff-up from the Green Paper & Wong, namely there appears to be no victims in sight that the journos can hang their headline on.
I think the Government has successfully defused the petrol, low/fix/middle income and the Energy sector with compo. It is almost a non event. Wong did well, she even managed to smile often and crack a joke.
Can you imagine the scare campaign the opposition could create during an election year if the Rudd government decided to put off doing anything till after the next election. At least in doing something before the election the Libs have to show their hand and say what changes to the new ETS they would make, the easy politically popular changes and the politicaly unpopular changes.
As I said earlier, a very politically astute document.
Greg Hunt will be on Agenda this arvo. Will he claim the Govt. has stolen his policy?
Gee I’m not so sure! The Government is committing to reviewing the tax offset on petrol excise FOUR times a year! That means FOUR times a year the Liberals are going to argue in favour of cutting fuel excise, while the Government – at best – will have to argue in favour of leaving the excise unchanged.
The better solution would’ve been to include petrol in the scheme, but then debate a tax cut, or tax rebate, or other transfer payment four times a year. This would work to Labor’s strength, because they can argue in favour of tax cuts for people on low and middle incomes.
Instead Question Time is going to be filled up four times a year with the opposition asking inane questions about cutting petrol excise by five cents – you know, like what we have been hearing all year so far.
“That means FOUR times a year the Liberals are going to argue in favour of cutting fuel excise, while the Government – at best – will have to argue in favour of leaving the excise unchanged.” Not if it can be justified. Of course the easy answer there is to take it out of government hands. Have an independent body determine these things.
Ron Socrates
From what I read and understood of the solar power from space idea it has only gained more fresh impetus because of the high cost of oil.
Ironic in that whilst the cost of the Iraq war would have easily paid for this scheme it is the efect the Iraq war has had on oil prices that is now making this scheme more feasible.
One way to head off ideas like this is for the oil price to drop and new reserves be “discovered” so that the idea again becomes economically unfeasible.
184
exactly; and besides – arguing about fuel can hardly be said to have done the opposition any good.
“The better solution would’ve been to include petrol in the scheme, but then debate a tax cut, or tax rebate, or other transfer payment four times a year. This would work to Labor’s strength, because they can argue in favour of tax cuts for people on low and middle incomes.”
Two problems with that solution – firstly, people would expect a tax cut everytime. The moment they didn’t receive a a payment or whatever watch out. At some time you would expect the payment to stop wouldn’t you? The whole idea is for such “help” to be phased out.
Such a system would mean the government has to make the hard decision, being a budget measure.
Rod
I don’t believe the oil market will follow the nice little economic mantras of supply and demand economics any more.
We all believe it’s a finite resource now, and it will be priced accordingly. If you think we’ve got problems with balance in our economy, go take a look at the oil suppliers. I wonder why they’ve been building infrastructure like madmen in recent times?
If you really want to gauge how politically astutue this ETS green paper is just take a look at the headline of the article in The Advertiser online.
“Carbon trade won’t hit families”
http://business.theage.com.au/business/households-carbon-blow-to-be-cushioned-20080716-3fsm.html
A midsize sedan with average driving emits about 3.5 tons of CO2 per annum, so the cost to pollute per car is about $70 pa. Maybe the rego cost should have a CO2 tax component to reward the more efficient and small cars accordingly, and guzzlers pay more. This will hit home to the punters that the polluters will have to pay.
On Sky Noos site – “The Rudd government has opted for a softly, softly approach to emissions trading which will likely lead to an increase in the cost of living of less than one per cent.
The government’s options paper on emissions paper, released in Canberra today, will see Australia ease into a relatively gentle scheme on July 1, 2010.”
Yep, politically very astute. Get it in place then gradually “turn up the nasties”. No joy for the opposition there. So they can say “you copied!” That will get them nowhere.
That is an excellent idea. I would also add a reduction in the business taxation rate as an incentive for those manufacturers that can produce cars that have zero emissions.
If you take it to a logical conclusion, no emissions means no air pollution, thereby reducing health problems and ongoing health costs caused by smog.
190 Finns
No need to reinvent the wheel (again and again). We’re not leading the pack here.
Why not just tag on to the back of the Japanese or Europeans?
There are many solutions on offer, and surprisingly cars are pretty similar from one country to the next.
The resurgence of turbocharging is one of the ways that manufacturers are squeezing marketing and taxation together in Europe at present, as their taxation is capacity based.
As we’ve discussed here many times, our taxi building industry is in for a shock. The government has marked the line at 5 years at the latest.
When is that hybrid Camry plant due online?
191 Gary
Classic strategy indeed – herd the extremists and scaremongers on to the end of the branch and just chop it off. Just take a look at how many times no denial was offered in the last few months when the extremists were screaming the end of the world was nigh.
I did notice that someone got up to ask the ‘can you guarantee…’ question at the press club though.
It might not answer all the environmental concerns, but it looks like the beginning of the slickest structural change to the economy we’ve ever seen.
onimod – It was Malcolm Farr from the Terror who asked the “can you guarantee…” question. After ruling out a cut in excise in his blog yesterday.
One agument I have with what I have seen so far is that more things seem to be excluded than included. What do people think, will it work in the structure that has been put forward or just increase administrative paperwork?
196 Stephen – how about you list the things that have been included beside those that have been excluded so we can test your assumption.
The Green paper seems to have missed the mark in a couple of major areas where they could have learned from the European experience rather than copying the failings of that system.
“But on trade-exposed industries, it proposes to allocate free permits. For instance, if you emit a large volume of greenhouses gases per unit of revenue earned, you will receive 90 percent of your permit requirements (based on projected or actual output — it is hard to say) for free. At least this what will occur until 2020.
On my reading, this gets the economics of the situation completely wrong.”
http://economics.com.au/?p=1646
Gary @ 197
My comment was more of a general observation than based on hard facts but your idea is very good. I will try to have a look over the green paper in full tonight and comment on it tomorrow. If anybody else is interested in doing the same it would be nice. William could I ask for an open thread for people to discuss the green paper.
onimod @ 178 ?
A very cool calm presentation that seemed to ooze rationalism from what I saw – at least someone is confident they’ve done the work.
& @ 194
It might not answer all the environmental concerns, but it looks like the beginning of the slickest structural change to the economy we’ve ever seen.
I only caught the first 30 minutes of the press club speech today, but I agree that this seems like solid, coherent policy, that covers the main issues on climate change. I am particularly impressed with Wong’s clear, logical, plain language presentation.
Said it before, say it again: Wong is one of the most articulate, realistic, and competent ministers I have ever seen. As with Gillard, those who underestimate her do so at their peril. Rudd made an excellent choice putting her in charge of arguably the most important public policy in decades.
From a purely political perspective, the opposition have now been very effectively sidelined on this issue.
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