Rudd breaks the wrong promises

phill Parsons

The jury may still be out as the Garnaut Climate Change Review and the other inputs including that of Treasury and other unspecified parties [most likely the coal and oil industry and the associated unions] are still to be made the Labor government has moved from a pre-election light shade of green back to the grey suits of business as usual Howard years.

Having promised to spend $3B on policies to stabilize the climate the first budget cuts 23.4% from that costed pre-election figure.

The government has claimed a need to fight inflation to save working families from the economic effects of price increases and thus a justification for continuing with another of its promises, tax cuts.

They claim that the spending thus generated will not fuel inflation by generating demand in an overheated economy but got to helping meet the rising costs of living.

However, with emissions trading very likely to price carbon either all prices will rise depending on their carbon content or a complete review of how government intervenes in the economy to deliver a low carbon outcome without price rises will be needed.

A carbon tax across the board replacing income tax as a revenue source is unlikely although government would be able through policy to spend its tax revenue to encourage a low carbon economy modern economic theory is to leave those decisions to the market.

It could have given that encouragement in the budget.

What would have been wrong with investing the budget surplus into taxpayers superannuation accounts, a future fund that could have also been encouraged to take a low carbon investment road through policy instruments such as an abolition of taxes on the income so invested.

And for those investing from outside such a diversion of the budget surplus a change from Managed Investment Schemes destroying forests and/or communities for plantations to that tax write down applying to low carbon energy systems such as solar, wind and geothermal would see the economy change and carbon biosequestered rather than MIS policy contributing to emissions and reducing biosequestration.

Then there are the changes in support of the installation of domestic solar units, moving from a flat rebate to a loan that does not cover the full cost of installation of photovoltaics and does not mandate a buyback scheme across Australia.

These Rudd Wong Garrett changes have caused the domestic solar energy business to collapse with those able to afford the additional costs of installation of a solar unit excluded by an income threshold whilst those unable to afford it excluded by the measly support of government.

How poorly thought through when a policy like the Greens EASI loan scheme was there to steal.

The jury may still be out as the Garnaut Climate Change Review and the other inputs including that of Treasury and other unspecified parties [most likely the coal and oil industry and the associated unions] are still to be made the Labor government has moved from a pre-election light shade of green back to the grey suits of business as usual Howard years.

Unless the coming year shows a marked turn around those concerned about climate instability will turn the defacto climate criminality of Wong and Garret, declared by the Huon Environment Center, into a dejure triumvirate of criminals as Rudd is tarred with the new deniers brush, those who believe changing the economies to low carbon can be done slowly

This will only see humanity done over slowly.

In Tasmania once your rooftop system has the capacity to generate more than 3kw the payment changes from offsetting the purchase cost of the electricity to you being paid at the wholesale purchase rate.

In effect this means once you generate more than $750 worth of power as a homeowner you need to become a large power station to make it worthwhile or disconnect from the grid and install a storage system or have a complex of sources such as water and wind.

In other states electricity generated by small producers has a mandated price to encourage investment in larger schemes so systems can feed power in, even if that is small amounts from each system.

I fail to see why if you are a domestic or small business user the energy produced is not purchased a price that would encourage your production to exceed your consumption.

This would be both an incentive to install other energy saving devices on top of supplying power to the grid over the year

There are about 250,000 domestic and small business users who might through encouragement reduce demand and thus reduce Bass Strait cable importation of power.

Rainfall is predicted to decline further and so the demand on the existing hydro system needs to be reduced if that investment in dams is ever to return to a point where it can repay the debt incurred in its construction let alone provide an income for the state.

Its typical next election thinking by the State government and the other old party to view this matter as deferrable because power needs can be met by sending money out of the state’s economy to purchase power or a strange belief that more [empty] dams is the answer.

The long-term trend line for storage projected from their performance over the last 5 years is for a decline, the maximum fading faster than the minimum levels due to the propping up of the system by imported energy, eventually making the system of dams a run of river one simply unable to meet the current demands of industry with surety.

Reinvestment by Comalco and Temco is threatened when the capacity of the system to supply cheap power falls. Further investment is unlikely to occur unless that investment can also generate its own power cost effectively.

Besides planning for and addressing the other costs associated with climate instability the supply of energy to Tasmanians is a core function government needs to ensure continues relatively seamlessly to support our modern society.

Government failure extends to transport fuels as it is giving no obvious support to the development of supply of existing alternative fuels.

Failure to act to address the predicted outcomes beyond Lennon’s makeover window dressing of a grand 60% reduction in Tasmania’s current GHG emissions by 2050, insufficient to make the necessary per capita difference to global outcomes, is a failure of government to fulfill its basic responsibility to protect life and property.

phill Parsons can see this failure by Labor as another indicator it is the party of business as usual for fossil fuels and thus full of fossil fools attempting another guise.