Brumby plan exposes Gillard
27 July 2010
Premier John Brumby has exposed Julia Gillard over
climate change by unveiling an ambitious plan that would require
hundreds of millions of dollars in federal support and eventually a
national carbon price. As predicted by The Age
earlier this month, the state government climate change paper, released
yesterday, includes a plan to close a quarter of Australia's "dirtiest"
power stations, the Hazelwood brown-coal plant in the Latrobe Valley,
by 2014. The Hazelwood proposal is integral to a
proposed legislated target of cutting Victoria's greenhouse gas
emissions to at least 20 per cent below 2000 levels this decade. But
the target is likely to be dependent on federal action initially
money to compensate Hazelwood's owner, International Power, and
eventually an emissions trading scheme. Mr Brumby
said the state had held initial discussions with International Power,
but a staged closure of Hazelwood would have to be a partnership with
whichever party won the federal election. Asked
if Ms Gillard had "squibbed it" by delaying action on climate change
until after receiving advice from a citizens' assembly, the Premier
declined to respond directly, but said: "We're a state government,
we're a strong economy in our own right and we've taken a decision as a
government to move forward with this today. "The reality is that the world is moving to a carbon price . . . We need to be at the front of the wave, not behind." Mr
Brumby's plan is seen by senior Labor figures in Canberra as unhelpful
and a distracting campaign intervention on an issue that will remain
politically difficult for federal Labor to manage in coming weeks. Federal
Labor figures believe partially closing Hazelwood would be
extraordinarily expensive, with no guarantee it would be replaced by
renewable sources of energy. A spokesman for
federal Climate Minister Penny Wong said the best way to cut emissions
and give certainty for new investment in power was to build lasting
consensus on a carbon price. "That's what we're focused on," he said. Mr
Brumby's plan won backing from former Labor climate economist Ross
Garnaut, who accused both major parties at federal level of promising
"that there will be no effective Australian national climate change
policy for the foreseeable future". "Early
Victorian progress on large emissions reductions in the electricity
sector . . . would place the state economy in a strong competitive
position when, inevitably at some time in the future, an Australian
government takes mitigation seriously," Professor Garnaut said. Greens
leader Bob Brown said Victoria had gone ahead of Canberra on climate
change, and called on Mr Brumby to back a Greens plan for a carbon tax.
"Hazelwood would not compete if it had to pay a fair price for the
pollution it puts into the atmosphere, but renewable energy would
prosper," he said. Federal opposition climate
spokesman Greg Hunt accused Mr Brumby of lifting the Hazelwood plan
from the Coalition's $10.5 billion "direct action" fund to buy
emissions cuts. The Abbott plan includes a promise to offer incentives
for the oldest and most inefficient power stations to cut emissions. Mr
Hunt said Mr Brumby's plan was a "slap in the face" to Ms Gillard. "The
only plan on the table to clean up Victoria's coal-fired power stations
and help their conversion to gas is the federal Coalition's direct
action plan," he said. International Power
corporate affairs manager Jim Kouts said the company was open to the
proposal, but had had only a preliminary discussion with the state. Any
deal would need to cover the phased closure of the entire 46-year-old
plant, which it bought for $2.6 billion in 1996 under the Kennett
government's privatisation program. "Over the
past two years we have consistently offered to both state and federal
governments an option that would deliver deep cuts in carbon emissions
by the early closure of some older coal-fired generating plant," he
said. The state plan includes previous promises
to create a large-scale solar power industry to generate 5 per cent of
the state's electricity by 2020, and doubling an existing energy
efficiency target. The energy efficiency program would aim to increase
the energy rating of the average Victorian home from two stars to five
stars. The government would introduce emissions
limits for new coal-fired power stations that would in effect ban them
unless they came with "clean coal" technology, and reserve the right to
give the Environment Protection Agency the power to regulate emissions
from coal-fired power stations if agreement cannot be reached on a
phased shutdown. But the state opposition said
families would bear the cost of the planned cuts to emissions and
accused the government of failing to deliver on previous promises.
"Victorian families say to us they are already struggling to pay John
Brumby's electricity bills, to heat their homes and put meals on the
table," environment spokeswoman Mary Wooldridge said. But Ms Wooldridge re-affirmed the opposition's commitment to an emissions trading scheme, putting it at odds with Mr Abbott. The
white paper won praise from environment groups, but was criticised by
the Australian Industry Group's Victorian director, Tim Piper, who said
it could place high costs on businesses and detract from investment and
job creation. Meanwhile, Coalition finance
spokesman Andrew Robb pledged to take the $394 million Labor proposes
to spend on subsidising people to get rid of their old cars and use it
to reduce debt. But given that Labor took the
money for the "cash for clunkers" program from funding for solar energy
and carbon capture and storage programs, the programs will face the
same cuts if the Coalition wins on August 21. Yesterday's pledge raises the Coalition's total cuts to climate change programs to $2.27 billion over the next four years.
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