IS ANYONE ELSE STILL LISTENING TO PROFESSOR GARNAUT? ‐ OAKESHOTT

INDEPENDENT MP for Lyne Robert Oakeshott today endorsed Ross Garnaut’s warning that compensation for polluting industries under Australia’s emissions trading scheme would contribute to the “dangerous global rise of green protectionism”.
Mr Oakeshott ‐ the sole Lower House MP to vote against $99 million to the Carbon Storage Institute, $37 million for ethanol grants, and a $14 million advertising campaign on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme – said Professor Garnaut’s comments reinforced his own objections to Parliament earlier this month (see attached Hansard extract).
“Whether increasing free permits, or through various other grants and subsidies to experimental concepts like ‘clean coal’ or ‘carbon storage’, we are seeing the vested interests sink their claws deep into climate change policy within Australia,” said Mr Oakeshott.
“And vested interests are always at the expense of someone or something. The flipside here is that plenty of private sector investors are eager to put dollars into renewables in all their forms but are finding it hard because of the Government’s policy loadings towards polluting industries.
“As a result, we end up with the illogical situations whereby on our sunniest days in places like Sydney, where we live on one of the sunniest countries in the world, we blow our electricity network through use of air‐conditioners!
“Where’s the policy encouraging solar investment and discouraging this happening again in the future?”
Mr Oakeshott said countries succeeding in dealing with these climate change questions were those embracing renewable industries and engaging people at the most local of levels to help provide solutions, citing Germany with its national feed‐in tariff system as a lead example for Australia to follow.
“Even Governor Schwarzenegger and California’s focus on household efficiency and Australian‐based technology like AUSRA’s solar thermal technology is making proven gains, he said.
“The fiscal stimulus package acknowledged household efficiency as an important step, but why no national feed‐in tariff scheme?
“We now have a national electricity market called NEMCO after all, and a feed‐in tariff scheme can and should be a part of our policy response.
“Under the ‘transitional arrangement’ banner we have a Government in Australia which is becoming increasingly deaf to its own Climate Change adviser in Ross Garnaut, yet is listening loud and clear to vested interests in brown industries who are continuing to present green protectionist arguments for grants and subsidies, and seem to be getting away with it.
Robert Oakeshott – Independent for Lyne
Media Release
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Mr Oakeshott said this was at the direct expense of an emerging renewables response and at the direct expense of engaging local people and local communities to be more efficient.
“I have already mentioned in Parliament similar views to those expressed by Ross Garnaut in today’s Australian and this is very much in line with views expressed on ABC Four Corners two weeks ago,” he said.
“Australian policy is at its own ‘tipping point’, where unless it recognises the true science, and unless it provides real answers to real problems, then our country will be poorer because of it, we will have less jobs, less growth industries, less of a commitment to climate change, and greater cynicism towards political processes – none of which are welcome.”
ENDS
Media contact – Garth Norris: 6584‐2911, 0418‐537709.