They’re trading blows, not carbon

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The proposed emissions trading scheme is too important for the future of this nation to become the victim of petty political squabbling. That said, the Senate has a legitimate role in conducting an inquiry to scrutinise the scheme and listen to alternative viewpoints about its design and targets.

The Coalition seeks to embarrass the Government by making the terms of reference identical to those of the Government’s own inquiry, which was cancelled last week, and now says it supports a more ambitious but undefined target.

The Government has been widely criticised for its low targets and been warned that Australia will be a laughing stock at the international climate change conference at Copenhagen this December.

Australia has one of the world’s most carbon-intensive economies. The task is to convert that to a low-pollution economy in a reasonable time frame with the maximum impact on pollution and the least effect on business.

The cost of polluting must go up but this impost on business will be passed on to consumers and could lead to job losses in traditional industries. There is an added political problem for the Government in gauging what rate of change the public will bear. Australia has a high per capita rate of pollution but generates a small fraction of the world total, an output dwarfed by that of the massive economies of China, the United States and India.

So dire is the situation that Professor Ross Garnaut, the Government’s climate change adviser, predicted the demise of the Great Barrier Reef in the absence of decisive action. The message was clear: Australia had to raise the bar with exemplary leadership which would mean imposing costs on domestic industries for very little short-term improvement to the planet.

But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd took a very cautious approach, settling on a target of a minimum 5 per cent reduction in carbon pollution by 2020 despite previously agreeing with the UN’s Bali conference in 2007 that the world needed to reduce its emissions by an amount between 25 per cent and 40 per cent of 1990 levels.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said yesterday that the longer the delay in introducing the emissions trading scheme, the longer the business community would have to endure uncertainty. But it is critically important to get the design of the scheme right rather than rush it through Parliament, and there are many competing demands to consider.

The business community wants the Government to ease the cost of the scheme in the first few years because of the global economy’s woes. The Greens say the design of the scheme is faulty. They will call scientists before the Senate inquiry to prove their hypothesis.

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull says the scheme is badly designed, ignores agriculture and will cost business too much. He wants it broadened to include policies such as reforestation and now supports a more ambitious pollution reduction target than the Government but will not say what his target is.

We know climate change is the most important challenge in a generation. That means the Senate inquiry is a key ingredient in framing the policy. We are relying on all federal MPs, perhaps idealistically, to focus on the challenge without endless point-scoring.

Political cover

The global economic plunge will force governments to curtail many programs as their budgets go into debt. Doubtless the downturn will be used as cover by some administrations to break promises they never intended to keep. The Federal Government has already committed itself to an increase in the age pension. A review to be handed to the Government this week is expected to recommend at least a $30-a-week increase in the pension. That would cost $6 billion a year as the budget is already going into the red to fund the economic stimulus package.

Despite the competing pressures on the budget, the Government should follow its decisive action on the stimulus package by proceeding with a taxpayer-funded maternity leave scheme. The Productivity Commission proposed an 18-week scheme costing $450 million a year. Now, with the commission’s final report due, the Government is playing down expectations that paid maternity leave will be included in the budget. To counter this spin, the ACTU will today step up its campaign for paid maternity leave to be given the go-ahead on May 12.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the Government understands the importance of paid maternity leave and will consider it during the budget process. We can only hope she is not trying to soften up working parents for the breaking of a promise.