The Hon Greg Combet AM MP
Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency
Abbott papers over the facts
Media release
07 June 2011
GC 160/11
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The Opposition Leader Tony Abbott continued his mobile scare campaign by visiting a Visy Pulp and Paper plant at Gibson Island in Brisbane this morning.
Once again Mr Abbott has tried to alarm workers at Visy and to frighten the wider Australian public by making deliberately misleading claims about the Gillard Government’s carbon price.
If Mr Abbott was interested in the truth, he would have acknowledged that Visy will be assisted under the carbon price mechanism to support jobs and international competitiveness.
Under the former Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), Visy would have qualified for “emissions intensive and trade exposed” assistance at a rate which would shield it from 94.5 per cent of the carbon price.
Industry data published for the CPRS shows that under a $20 carbon price, this level of assistance would reduce the cost impact on Visy products to just $1 per tonne of product.
To put that into perspective, that would be a cost increase of $0.0003 (three hundredths of a cent) for a standard 0.3 kg beer carton box.
Alternatively it would be a $1 cost increase on enough boxes to hold 72,000 stubbies of beer.
That amounts to 60 cubic metres of packaging – enough beer cartons for quite a BBQ but not nearly enough to contain Mr Abbott’s massive scare campaign.
The truth is that less than 1,000 big polluters will pay the carbon price. Those that are emissions intensive and trade exposed will be provided with assistance to support jobs and competitiveness.
Every cent of the revenue raised from the carbon price will be used to assist households with any price impacts, to support jobs and to invest in clean energy and climate change programs.
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