- Take far longer to achieve their objectives than originally planned
- Achieve much less than expected
- Cost far more than was budgeted.
Greg Hunt and the Coalition know this, but when you are in the business of ‘Opposition for Opposition’s sake’ you likely don’t care. Direct Action is a policy for those who aren’t serious about reducing the Carbon intensity of our economy. It has all the hallmarks of a policy which can be quietly slipped into the non-core promise basket after the election.
You’d think a non-core promise doesn't matter.
But perhaps it does matter for reasons other than the environmental.
Business is currently urging the Coaltion to rethink its policy. The Energy Supply Association of Australia (ESAA) has urged the Coalition to revisit its energy and climate change policy, which currently includes abolishing the carbon tax. They are instead supporting the Labor policy, strongly supporting a move to an Emissions Trading Scheme linked to the European market.
The Coalition response... it will not change its proposal, saying their plan will remove a tax on business.
Interesting that the Coalition is not listening to the key stakeholders, and seems to have imagined a burden that doesn't concern business.
The report reviewed a total of 61 state programs with 49 programs – or 80 per cent of the total reviewed – found to be complementary to the carbon price.
Interestingly, only half of the project reviews themselves have been publicly released.
State premiers are currently claiming that state action (on renewable incentives, energy efficiency and emissions reduction initiatives) is unnecessary because the carbon price is intended to deliver Australia’s emission reduction target.
In the same breath, they support their federal colleagues’ policy to immediately abolish the carbon price if elected in September.
If this occurs the states will be snared in the contradiction of their own rhetoric... they will, in theory, need to reinstate all the State programs they have abolished. But will they?
Although the Coalition continue to claim that the current government is dysfunctional... if elected, an Abbott government who adhered to its policy commitments would be the epitome of dysfunctionality and would extend that to the state level as well.
We can only hope that all the Coalition's policies are non-core promises and they won't enact them.
But then if that was the case, why would you vote for them?
A vote for the Coalition on Climate change policy, is a vote for inaction.