Carbon brochures returned to Climate Change Minister Greg Combet
Gemma Jones | The Daily Telegraph | September 16, 2011
Thousands of angry voters have posted the Gillard government’s glossy brochures promoting the carbon tax back to Climate Change Minister Greg Combet.
His office has been inundated with the Clean Energy Future pamphlets sent out in a $4 million nationwide letterbox drop last month.
A spokesman for Mr Combet said thousands were being sent back but he estimated fewer than 10,000 had been received.
“While thousands have been returned, millions would have been binned. This was a huge waste of taxpayers’ money,” opposition climate spokesman Greg Hunt said.
Defence Materiel Minister Jason Clare yesterday told parliament during debate on the carbon tax legislation that one in six coalition MPs had bought shares in resource companies since the tax was announced.
“These are the people who are going around saying it’s going to destroy the coal industry, destroy the economy,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Combet defended plans for Australia to pay to reduce pollution in other countries.
The carbon tax will move to an emissions trading scheme in 2015 when Australia will be able to pay to reduce a tonne of carbon in another country and have the same amount taken off Australia’s ledger.
Mr Combet claimed international carbon trading would keep Australia’s carbon pricing scheme at “least cost” for Australian businesses.
“The atmosphere knows no national boundaries. A tonne of pollution reduced overseas, credibly done, has the same importance as a tonne of pollution reduced in our own economy,” he said.
The opposition quizzed the government on a UK study that found for each green job created, 3.7 existing jobs were lost. Prime Minister Julia Gillard said modelling showed 1.6 million new jobs would be created by 2020.
