Last week Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced he would be transitioning to an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) a year earlier than expected, lowering the current carbon price from more than $25 per tonne to about $6 per tonne.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott trashed the idea last week, labelling it a “so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one”.

The Coalition prefers a Direct Action Economics approach to address climate change.

Locally, both Labor candidate for Hume Michael Pilbrow and the Liberals’ Angus Taylor are standing firmly by their parties’ stance.

Mr Pilbrow supports the government’s decision.

He has always advocated a market based solution and said the move would provide relief to families and small businesses while continuing to cut carbon pollution.

“Treasury modelling tells us that this will reduce pressure on consumers,” he told the Post.

“The modelling shows that in the 2014/15 financial year, a family on an average income will receive cost of living relief to the value of $380 (per year or $7.30 a week)... We will make up for the lost revenue with savings in other government programs.”

When asked if the government was simply engaging in populism, scrapping an unpopular policy to help its chances of re-election, he responded by saying: “Well it’s a popular move…” “Clearly the community has been concerned about the carbon tax even though people had for quite a while, even back to John Howard’s time, been in favour of doing something about reducing emissions,” Mr Pilbrow said.

“In 2006/2007 both John Howard and Kevin Rudd put up a scheme that wasn’t dissimilar to the one we’re talking about now. So, I think yes the government is responding to community views but they are doing what they have always said they would do. They’re just doing it a year earlier.”

The Labor candidate argued that his party had always wanted to introduce an ETS and the carbon tax was the result of bipartisan negotiations with the Greens. The carbon tax was also designed as a fixed carbon price which would eventually transition into a market mechanism.

He recognised that while action needed to be taken immediately, responsible emissions reduction was a relatively slow process.

“I’d like it to be as fast as possible but I think we need to be realistic about the huge energy need of the country and it will be something that is done over time,” he said.

“The current generation of electricity – including coal – is providing Australians with their electricity needs and we all like to go home at night and turn on our lights and watch the TV. So, they are part of the mix at the moment but we need to move toward having much more of our energy produced by renewable sources and that is something Labor is very strong on.

“Over time, as we see more renewable energy being produced and renewables becoming more efficient then we’ll have a more sensible transition away from non-renewable sources. But, it has to be done in such a way that people’s electricity needs are still being met.”

Mr Pilbrow categorised Mr Abbott’s comments about carbon trading as “bizarre” and questioned why the Coalition stated that in a parliamentary vote on the proposed package they would vote against it, especially given their long stated and vocal opposition to the carbon tax.

Relieving the burden 

WHEN asked, Mr Taylor said he would vote for an ETS tomorrow if it meant repealing the carbon tax. However, he would replace it with Direct Action at the earliest possible convenience.

“Families out there are struggling to make ends meet and to keep an impost like this at this time is just extraordinary,” he said.

“I’m opposed to having an impost on electricity prices at a time when families are struggling – full stop! So we believe we can achieve the same carbon reduction objectives in a cheaper, more effective way through Direct Action. It’s as simple as that.”

Mr Taylor described carbon trading as creating “a huge market” that was “complex” and “essentially overkill for the stage we’re at.”

The biggest point of difference between the Coalition’s plan and the government’s is that an ETS helps to both promote and create green industries, making them more economically viable than the dirty alternatives. Direct Action does not. However, this isn’t a point of concern for concern Mr Taylor.

“The objective of the exercise here is not to create new markets but to change behaviours and the question is: What is the fastest and cheapest and easiest way to change behaviour? That’s what we’re trying to do here,” he said.

The Liberal candidate said the government’s position on this issue was “schizophrenic” whereas his party had held the same policy position since Mr Abbott was elected leader. Before that, the Liberals favoured a scheme similar to the ETS.

However, Mr Taylor says the 2009 Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen had changed their mind.

“What happened at Copenhagen was the world realised that this was going to be a slow grind, not an overnight transformation and it changed everybody’s perspective including Kevin Rudd’s, so, you shouldn’t be surprised that we changed our policy after Copenhagen,” he said.

“We’ve had that consistent policy for a long time now…and time is proving we were right… To very aggressively impose a tax of $25 (per tonne) this early in the global process has proven to be the wrong thing to do.

“It has pushed up electricity prices. The question is: How much more will it push up electricity? On treasury’s own modelling the impost will be $3000 over the next six years for the average family.

So, you tell the average family that $3000 over the next six years is trivial. That is a significant figure for any family struggling to make ends meet at the moment.”