Carbon tax repeal defeated again, as Palmer Senators cry foul

The Abbott government’s bid to repeal Australia’s carbon tax has again been defeated in the Senate, this time stymied by Clive Palmer, who this morning warned his United Party senators would not vote with the government, after its “violent reaction” to the PUP’s proposed legislation amendment.

True to his word, Palmer’s PUP Senators Glenn Lazarus, Jacqui Lambie and Dio Wang joined Motoring Entusiasts’ Ricky Muir, Labor and the Greens to vote down the repeal bills 37 votes to 35 in the Upper House of Parliament at around 12.30pm on Thursday.

It’s yet another setback for the government’s anti-carbon price crusade, one which offers up yet another double dissolution trigger, but it is still widely expected that the repeal bill will be voted through the Senate – quite probably next week – depending on how negotiations with Palmer & Co progress.

In a press conference after the vote, Senate Leader Eric Abetz and federal environment minister Greg Hunt said the government would now introduce a set of amended bills to repeal the carbon tax to the House of Representatives on Monday.

Negotiations, however – as Labor’s Anthony Albanese has noted today on Twitter – are not Abbott’s strong point – nor indeed his preference, when it comes to cross benchers.

Screen Shot 2014-07-10 at 12.46.10 PM

The PUP claims to have agreed with the Coalition on planned amendments to carbon tax repeal legislation to ensure the resulting savings were passed onto consumers. But Palmer told reporters this morning that the federal government had “double crossed” his party on the changes: “That’s a bit of news you can put on the twitter,” he said.

Subsequent reports revealed that frantic last-minute talks between the Coalition, Palmer and cross-bench senators failed to break the stalemate.

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PUP Senator Lazarus speaking in the Upper House today. Australian Motoring Enthusiasts’ Ricky Muir looks on.

Speaking in parliament before the vote, the former Canberra Raider turned PUP Senate leader Lazarus said he supported removal of the carbon tax, but only if it was inclusive of his party’s “historic” amendment, a measure he argued would stimulate the Australian economy and “assist those most in need”.

Lazarus stressed that there was no point removing the carbon tax unless Australians genuinely and directly benefited from the move – benefits that included the PUP’s call for a “toughened obligation” for suppliers of electricity and gas to pass on all cost savings resulting from the repeal, as well as a “clear explaination” of how these had been calculated and passed on to consumers.

Lazarus also stressed that the Palmer United Party was devoted to “common sense solutions”, both to addressing climate change and lowering energy costs for consumers.

“And if the day comes, that our major trading partners, China, the United States of American, the European Union, Japan and Korea set up an emissions trading scheme, then they will know that Australia can act together with these countries to implement a global solution without disadvantaging our people.”

Palmer & Co are also thought to have saved the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, or ARENA, from Abbott’s swinging axe – albeit with previously flagged, and as-yet unquantified, cuts to its budget.

The PUP have also shown their colours on renewables, in general, and the Renewable Energy Target in particular, after Palmer joined former Liberal Party leader John Hewson Thursday morning to help launch the new Australia Institute report Fighting Dirty on Clean Energy: The case for the RET.

TAI’s report argues the RET has been used by the Coalition as a scapegoat (see chart below) for Australian power price rises, when it had only contributed 3-4.5 per cent – and would eventually lead to a fall in overall medium and long-term power prices, due to the effect of increased supply.

TAIscapegoatRET

Comments

9 responses to “Carbon tax repeal defeated again, as Palmer Senators cry foul”

  1. James Fisher Avatar
    James Fisher

    The coalition doesn’t appear to be very good negotiators 🙂

  2. Genevo Avatar

    Really not the right #climate for arcane bills like this to be passed through the senate! The battle has been won for today, but the war is not over! My great admiration and respect go out to those senators that voted this amendment down today!

  3. John McKeon Avatar
    John McKeon

    “The coalition doesn’t appear to be very good negotiators”

    Maybe that is because the coalition’s attempts to destroy sensible policies for decarbonising our economy – in line with a decarbonised world economy – to avert the climate crisis – is just too criminal for words.

  4. Blair Donaldson Avatar
    Blair Donaldson

    I’d love to be a fly on the wall in Sir Pository’s office. I bet Abbott, Hunt and a few others in the NLP bandwagon are suffering elevated blood pressure problems as they wait for the next wheel to start wobbling. I really did not think that Palmer would be such a roadblock, it might just be that Abbott has outsmarted himself by upsetting Clive. It would be ironic indeed if Abbott’s anti-climate change legislation fell over courtesy of a coal miner.

  5. Tony Pfitzner Avatar
    Tony Pfitzner

    The problem for Abbott is that every time the repeal is delayed, the whole concept gets reexamined by the media. The main stream media are now starting to cotton on to concepts such as stranded assets, the grid component of charges and the real effect of renewables on power bills in the short and intermediate term. With sites like this and social media amplifying the message, awareness among the punters is increasing rapidly.

    Also I don’t think the PUP 250% thingy is actually going to survive scrutiny by business and maybe even the House of Reps.

    If I were Abbott I’d be very, very worried.

    1. Blair Donaldson Avatar
      Blair Donaldson

      It’s about bloody time the mainstream media woke up to those issues of stranded assets, component charges, goldplating etc. It’s not like they hasn’t been plenty of warning from informed commentators. Hopefully these delays will put more and more pressure on the Murdoch press as well. Sooner or later the penny will drop that Murdoch and his media outlets have been telling lots of porkies, hopefully people will start demanding to know why they were hoodwinked. Again, I won’t be holding my breath but I hope it will happen.

  6. John Silvester Avatar
    John Silvester

    With his natural reconciliatory style, with his ability to pragmatically deal with issues of ideology, and his inclusive management style will allow this government to work closely with the minor parties in this new Senate to work through any differences they may have.
    Sorry, I forgot we were talking about Tony Abbott. He may have difficulty dealing with this new Senate.

  7. Alen Avatar
    Alen

    Very smart move by Palmer, at this rate people will remember and think foremost of Palmer as the saviour from the ‘dreaded carbon tax’, all the hype and fear campaigns will now boost Palmers popularity. LNP you have your work cut out to hold on to pure conservative voters

  8. Alberto Avatar
    Alberto

    Maybe some mining companies are finally realizing that building the renewable energy infrastructure will increase the demand of most mineral commodities, as is shown for example here:

    http://copperalliance.org/benefits-of-copper/societal-benefits-of-copper-renewable-energy/

    Every mining company (well almost every one, see below) should support renewable energy just because it will increase greatly their profits , like the World Copper Alliance do.

    Maybe Palmer is thinking about joining them.

    Nota bene: The obvious exception are obviously coal miners. However, it is an historic fact that hazardous material extraction and use are completely backwards and is doomed to be phased out and then even banned. For example, we have asbestos (now almost universally banned) and mercury (phased out of most uses, now however highly demanded by the black market for illegal gold mining mafias) extraction. Just as is crazy to mine asbestos and mercury due to their toxic nature, is also crazy to mine fossil carbon to burn it releasing its toxic components (including mercury, by the way).

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