Wednesday, January 03, 2018

Never accuse Tony Abbott of being quick on the uptake

So The Oz reports this morning that Tony Abbott has 'slammed the government’s in-­principle support for including international carbon credits in Australia’s energy policy.'

We are told that Minister Frydenberg announced the new stance when 'releasing the final report of his 2017 review of climate change policies on ­December 19.'

The same story tells us 'In recent days, the Prime ­Minister has hailed his government’s national energy guarantee as a “real breakthrough” and key achievement in 2017' and that the government won support for the guarantee in the Coalition partyroom.

It all gets very confusing because he advice from the Energy Security Board that constituted what was agreed by the partyroom clearly said 'Australian carbon credit units (ACCUs) and international units could be permitted to meet a proportion of the retailer’s guarantee.'  The conditional 'could' here refers to the hypothetical state of the guarantee being implemented, not something subject to another decision.

The biggest issue of course is that the prospect of trading in carbon credits flows two ways. The way we are heading it is more likely that Australian businesses would be sellers of carbon credits, not buyers.

But never allow logic or economics to get in the road of Our Tone's ability to try to turn something into a slogan. The Oz quotes him saying 'I don’t support carbon trading, which is a carbon tax under a different name.' 

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