Carbon Trading Scheme: Taxpayers Fund Focus Group Testing of Gillard Government's Carbon Price Campaign

TAXPAYERS are paying nearly $1 million for focus group testing of the Gillard government's carbon tax sales pitch.

The Australian Online has learned a major contract has been awarded to a Melbourne-based market research company to test the resonance of a planned “Clean Energy Future Campaign”.

READ ON:

Carbon Trading Scheme: Taxpayers Fund Focus Group Testing of Gillard Government's Carbon Price Campaign

Andrew Wilkie Sets out Conditions to Support Carbon Tax

JULIA Gillard can secure the final vote she needs to pass the carbon tax if she promises to protect a zinc mine in Hobart.

Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie last night met the Prime Minister to discuss his terms after she won support from the Greens and independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor for the package.

Mr Wilkie also wants to make Tasmania a renewable energy hub and guarantee compensation for low-income earners.

Should there be an election over carbon tax? Tell us below

Ms Gillard last night called premiers to postpone a planned meeting next week on health reform. It will allow her to go on a national tour to sell the carbon tax.

Government MPs and staff yesterday were briefed to be on a "war footing" for a major campaign after the package was unveiled on Sunday. The PM will make a televised address to the nation on Sunday night.

Ms Gillard said she would spend next week directly answering questions from the public.

"I will be wearing out my shoe leather, literally," she told Parliament.

Victorian Liberal Kelly O'Dwyer, from Higgins, challenged the PM to attend a town hall meeting in her electorate.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said the PM was "running away from scrutiny" by refusing to announce it before Parliament began a five-week recess tomorrow.

He wrote to Ms Gillard and urged her to recall Parliament next week.

Liberal climate spokesman Greg Hunt said: "When it comes to cost of living, this will be Sunday bloody Sunday."

Source

Taxpayers Fund Focus Group Testing of Gillard Government's Carbon Price Campaign

TAXPAYERS are paying nearly $1 million for focus group testing of the Gillard government's carbon tax sales pitch.

The Australian Online has learned a major contract has been awarded to a Melbourne-based market research company to test the resonance of a planned “Clean Energy Future Campaign”.

A second contract has been awarded to an internet design company to develop a “Clean Energy Future Website”.

The contracts, worth $927,000 and $18,000, are expected to form part of a $12 million public information campaign.

Julia Gillard has admitted she faces an uphill battle to sell her carbon tax after she unveils details of the plan on Sunday.

The language of the contracts points to the likely theme of the government's campaign - a simple focus on a clean, green future with as little confusing detail as possible.

Read full story

Carbon Price Announcement on Sunday

AUSTRALIANS will learn how the proposed carbon tax will hit their back pockets when the federal government unveils its policy on pricing pollution on Sunday.

The announcement comes 136 days after Labor, the Australian Greens and two independent MPs first formed the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee (MPCCC) to investigate carbon pricing.

"This weekend the Gillard Government plans to announce a price on pollution as the central element of a comprehensive policy to tackle climate change, cut pollution and drive the transformation of the Australian economy to a clean energy future," Prime Minister Julia Gillard said in a statement on Monday.

"After hearing a report on the discussions of the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee, Cabinet agreed tonight that sufficient progress had been made to allow an announcement date to be set for Sunday 10 July 2011."

Ms Gillard said talks between MPCCC members during recent weeks had been fruitful.

The committee comprises Ms Gillard, Treasurer Wayne Swan, Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, Greens senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne, and independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott.

"While there will be additional discussions with the MPCCC this week, followed by further Cabinet consideration, it is expected that the remaining details will be finalised in these discussions ahead of Sunday's announcement," Ms Gillard said.

The scheme will start with a fixed price on carbon emissions on July 1, 2012, followed by an emissions trading scheme with a flexible price and an emissions target starting three years later.

The news comes after Ms Gillard revealed on Sunday that the carbon tax would not be placed on fuel for cars and light industrial vehicles.

The prime minister said Mr Windsor had been influential in that development, which blunts Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's argument that a carbon tax would increase petrol prices for motorists.

But Mr Abbott and other coalition MPs questioned the government in parliament on whether trucks, buses and boats would be exempt from the carbon tax, and how long the exemption would exist.

The impending announcement of the carbon policy was a great relief, Ms Milne said.

"Now at least we are in a position to be able to go out there and deliver on what we said we'd deliver at the time we signed the agreement with the Prime Minister Julia Gillard, saying we would have a multi-party climate committee, that it would deliver a carbon price mechanism and that the emissions trading scheme would begin on July 1, 2012," Ms Milne said.

But the Greens senator would not reveal any details about the carbon price.

Ms Gillard said last week nine out of 10 households would receive tax cuts or rises in benefits, and the three million lowest paid households would be over-compensated for increases in their cost of living due to the carbon tax.

Opposition Environment spokesman Greg Hunt said the government's announcement of its carbon price policy at the start of the five week winter break from parliament was a "cynical move".

"It is deliberately running away from the parliament and it is deliberately running away from scrutiny," he told AAP.

Mr Hunt said the government would not give the full impact on the costs of living up to 2020 on Sunday.

"The only thing that matters is the full impact on electricity prices, gas prices, on grocery prices, on general cost of living between now and 2020 because each year, every year the carbon tax is going to go up and up and up."

Commenting before Ms Gillard's announcement, Mr Abbott said a coalition government would finance its $10.5 billion carbon emission reduction scheme from Budget savings and not from an imposed tax.

READ ON

Credits Trader: No Carbon Apology Needed, says PM

JULIA Gillard has declined to apologise for her pre-election declaration that "there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead" and has warned that it may take "months and months and months" to convince voters on the merits of the policy.

Asked yesterday why she didn't just apologise, the Prime Minister said: "I've explained, of course, to the Australian people that I never meant to mislead anybody during the last election campaign about carbon pricing".

She told the ABC that carbon would be priced "through a path I didn't expect during the election campaign".

READ ON:

Credits Trader: No Carbon Apology Needed, says PM

Carbon tax relief to end at $150,000

JULIA Gillard has indicated that most families on incomes above $150,000 will miss out on compensation under the proposed carbon tax plan to be unveiled next month.

This comes as Tony Abbott today will promise tax cuts from a Coalition government when it scraps the carbon tax and accompanying compensation measures.

Ms Gillard has strongly defended the $150,000 figure, saying people earning that amount are not rich but ''they're a lot better off than the vast majority of Australian families''. She pointed out that the average household income was $68,000 and only one in 10 households earned more than $150,000.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has indicated carbon tax compensation will be cut-off at $150,000. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

The Prime Minister, in comments to The Saturday Age, confirmed the compensation package would include income tax cuts and family payment increases, as well as increases in pensions and allowances.

''By providing tax cuts and increases in payments this way, we can take account of people's different family circumstances - whether they're on high or low incomes, whether they're bringing up kids or not,'' Ms Gillard said.

Mr Abbott's pledge of tax cuts is to counter the government's potentially damaging refrain that he will ''rip away'' people's compensation when he scraps the carbon tax.

By getting the promise out before the package is released, he aims to limit the government's ability to run a fear campaign on what people would lose under the Coalition. The opposition has said people won't need compensation if the carbon tax is gone.

In a speech to the Liberal federal council today, the Opposition Leader will say: ''At the next election, the Coalition will deliver tax cuts that are not just compensation. It will be a tax cut without a carbon tax. Our tax cuts will recognise the cost of living pressures that are hitting families and small business hard.

''Our tax cuts will be designed to restore people's hope, to reward harder work with higher pay.''

Mr Abbott will say voters will understand that a tax reduction to compensate for a tax increase, as planned by the government, ''is not a cut but a con''. He will say his tax cuts will be funded from ''prudent economies in government spending'' and ''policy-driven improvements in the productivity of our economy''.

Under the government's compensation package, the income threshold of $150,000 is not a precise cut-off point, but families earning more than that should not expect help for higher power bills and other costs flowing from a carbon tax.

The opposition criticised the budget for freezing the $150,000 income threshold on primary earners for eligibility for family tax benefit B, but this week allowed the legislation through Parliament.

Ms Gillard said that ''there are people in our community doing it much tougher'' than those on $150,000 and ''most of my attention is on looking after people who really need that extra bit of help''.

Pre-empting criticism about not providing compensation for those further up the income scale, Ms Gillard said: ''I want to make sure that ordinary working families can make a difference and help tackle climate change without having to make financial sacrifices along the way.

''It's people on lower incomes who spend the highest proportion of their income on energy. They are the people who most need financial help … That's why our assistance will be focused on pensioners, low-income earners and middle-income earners.''

Mr Abbott will say that his Coalition government would ''build on the Howard legacy of reducing personal income taxes for everyone and especially delivering a fair go for middle-income earners with children''.

Source http://www.smh.com.au

Australia Releases Rules for CO2 Credits from Culling Camels

Killing camels to earn carbon credits might seem an extreme way to fight climate change, but the Australian government on Thursday issued detailed rules that will help investors do just that.

Adelaide-based Northwest Carbon, a carbon project developer, has developed the rules, or methodology, governing a strict camel culling programme that would also cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Like cows and sheep, camel digestive tracts produce large amounts of methane, a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, with adults producing about a tonne of methane a year.

With no natural predators, camels now number more than one million in Australia's desert centre and the population is growing quickly.

The methodology is one of many being developed under the government's Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI), the country's first nationally regulated carbon offset programme that aims to reward farmers and investors for steps that cut greenhouse gas emissions on the land.

The government, which supports Northwest Carbon's 63-page methodology, released the rules for public consultation on Thursday.

Legislation for the Carbon Farming Initiative is being debated before parliament, and it is likely to be approved. The scheme is far less controversial than a separate carbon pricing programme the government is struggling to win support for.

Camels, introduced in the 19th century, have become a major pest in Australia. They trample large areas of vegetation, damage water holes and compete with native species for food.

Camel culling under the methodology could generate up to 18 million carbon credits, with more than 650,000 created per year during the initial three to five years, Northwest Carbon said in a statement on Thursday.

Cutting methane from landfills, better management of grassland burning and tree plantations are also approved methods under the CFI, in addition to feral animal management.

Once the CFI is running, polluters will be able to buy offsets from approved projects or they can be sold overseas. But the scheme is expected to start off slowly until parliament also passes the separate laws that put a national price on carbon emissions.
Agriculture can comprise a large portion of a country's greenhouse gas emissions. In Australia, it is about 15 percent, while in New Zealand dairy farming, sheep grazing and other activities generate about half the country's total, mostly methane from livestock. One cow can emit 1.5 tonnes of methane a year.