Climate Change Australia – What Will Desperate Gillard Spend To Buy Off The Greens?

Posted on Sat 06/18/2011 by PA Pundits - International

By Andrew Bolt

The Gillard Government’s plans for a carbon dioxide tax seem in strife, with the Greens demanding an insane price – more wasted billions on the kind of green schemes that the Productivity Commission says make no sense:

THE Greens are demanding billions of dollars of carbon tax revenue be dedicated to a renewable energy financing corporation to push technological change faster than can be achieved by the low carbon price proposed as part of the multi-party climate deal.

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and the Greens leader, Bob Brown, met yesterday along with the Climate Change Minister, Greg Combet, the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, and a Greens senator, Christine Milne, as the climate talks hit political ‘’lines in the sand’’ for Labor and the Greens.

Senator Brown issued a statement saying only ‘’talks are continuing’’… Negotiations over assistance to electricity generators, coal mining and other industries have reached a point where the Greens believe they are being asked to sign up to a scheme with the same ‘’flaws’’ as the Rudd government’s carbon pollution reduction scheme, which they voted down. Labor insists that a reduction in compensation would cause unacceptable job losses or threats to the security of power supplies.

Sources said the talks had reached ‘’a difficult place’’ but had not broken down entirely…

The three biggest sticking points in the talks are the government’s ‘’starting point’’ that ‘’gassy’’ coal mines should get $1.5 billion in compensation; whether coal-fired electricity generators need free permit compensation and loan guarantees on top of government funding for the early closure of one of the highest-emitting brown-coal fired plants; and how the ‘’default’’ emissions reduction target should be set if the Greens and Labor continue to disagree when the carbon tax shifts to an emissions trading scheme in three to five years.

God knows what a desperate government will spend just to say it’s got a deal.

Andrew Bolt is a journalist and columnist writing for The Herald Sun in Melbourne Victoria Australia.

Andrew Bolt’s columns appear in Melbourne’s Herald Sun, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and Adelaide’s Advertiser. He runs the most-read political blog in Australia and hosts Channel 10’s The Bolt Report each Sunday at 10am. He is also heard from Monday to Friday at 8am on the breakfast show of radio station MTR 1377, and his book Still Not Sorry remains very widely read.

Read more excellent articles from Andrew Bolt’s Blog . http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/