) :Turnbull's demolition job on broadband could be coalition's climate change wrecking ball
September 15, 2010 - 1:22PM
Malcolm Turnbull's arguments on Labor's fast broadband network equally apply to the coalition's climate change policies. Photo: Glen McCurtayne
COMMENT
Malcolm Turnbull has laid out clearly why the Federal Government needs to do more to show that its planned $43 billion National Broadband Network is not a waste of taxpayer funds.
Back in the saddle as a senior Opposition frontbencher for the first time in nine months, Turnbull lost no time in carrying out the riding instructions of his leader Tony Abbott - to ''demolish'' Labor's political and policy case for the NBN.
But there is just one problem for Abbott.
The Turnbull critique about taxpayer funds needing to be spent in the most cost-effective and economically efficient way applies just as forcefully to the Opposition's stance on climate change as it does to Labor's NBN.
If it is wasteful for Labor to subsidise the NBN without a cost-benefit analysis, then it is also wasteful for the Coalition to seek to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases through subsidies - rather than a market mechanism like a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme.
In Day 1 in his new role as the opposition's communications spokesman this morning, Turnbull did something quite unusual for the coalition in recent months.
Rather than mouthing simple election slogans, he pursued a political argument - but backed it up with a solid policy rationale.
The logic of his argument, outlined on ABC Radio National's Breakfast program, was that before spending billions of dollars on the fast broadband network, the government should estimate what the asset that it is building will be worth once it is up and running as a commercial operation.
If it is worth less than the cost of building the network, then there is a government subsidy.
That might well be justified - but to know whether this is the case, we need, first, to know the size of the subsidy and, second, to compare the benefits this subsidy would generate to those which could be generated by directing the taxpayer funds towards alternatives like hospitals or schools.
This critique is impeccably based on mainstream economic, investment and policy concepts like opportunity costs, cost-benefit analysis and allocative efficiency.
And these concepts apply just as forcefully to the policy debate over climate change and Labor's preferred solution of an emissions trading scheme.
The basic rationale for emissions trading is that it will deliver any given level of greenhouse gas emissions reductions at the lowest cost to the economy. By capping emissions and letting market mechanisms determine the price of carbon, a cap and trade scheme provide incentives for emitters to pursue the lowest-cost avenues for cleaning up their acts.
The coalition's ''direct action'' plan on climate change flies in the face of this logic.
It seeks to achieve emissions reductions by government regulation and the use of taxpayer-funded subsidies for electricity generators and other businesses which reduce their emissions.
Mainstream policy analysis - using the same concepts and tools deployed so effectively by Turnbull in this morning's critique of the NBN - suggests this approach will impose larger costs on the economy to achieve the environmental benefits of emissions reductions.
So while Turnbull has made a forceful start on his national broadband network demolition job, Abbott should be careful that the wrecking ball does not swing back through the rickety economic edifice that is the coalition's climate change policy.
Mark Davis is the national editor of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
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Sorry for your loss
You have my best wishes, The Australian! And those of the nation! Things will get better for you, I promise! (Thinkstock)
Dear The Australian,
By Marieke Hardy
First of all I'd like to say how sorry I am that in the long run your very nice friend Tony Abbott wasn't able to throw enough cash dollars at Rob Oakeshott's big fat mouth* to win him over and then had to stand on stage like a gracious second-place beauty queen smiling stiffly and singing the national anthem. Election 2010 was a big mess, all of it, and you have every right to feel aggrieved and I am hereby sending this sympathy card to let you know that I understand your pain and I Am Here For You.
It's hard, isn't it, when you want something so very badly and it's taken away from you at the last minute? It's like being offered the breast of the roast chook and only ending up with the giblet part usually reserved for waving around menacingly and making your sister shriek with horror. And it's not that you haven't been very good at hiding your seething aggravation, you have. It's all been very admiringly what-ho/stiff-upper-lip/let's-just-get-on-and-pretend-nothing's-happened 'round your way. We need, however, to talk about that time you recently dropped the ball and stated rather rashly that you wanted to 'destroy' the Greens. ...<cont>
Dear BHP: would it have caused you too much trouble to say this BEFORE THE FRACKING ELECTION? http://is.gd/fc9lN
Move on climate, BHP Billiton urges
Adam Morton, Tom Arup and Philip Wen
September 16, 2010
THE world's biggest mining company has urged Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott to act on climate change ahead of other countries, warning that Australia's economy will suffer unless it looks to a future beyond coal.
In a dramatic intervention into the stalled climate debate, BHP Billiton chief executive Marius Kloppers yesterday called for ''a clear price signal'' on carbon dioxide emissions, possibly including both a carbon tax and a limited carbon trading scheme covering power plants.
While BHP Billiton once preferred that Australia act only as part of a binding international climate deal, Mr Kloppers said his company now believed it was more likely individual countries initially would act separately - and those that moved first would benefit when a treaty was signed. ... <cont>
:Labor wins two-party preferred vote
Posted 6 hours 13 minutes ago
The final count in the federal election campaign shows the Government has won the two-party preferred vote.
The Australian Electoral Commission says after preferences Labor has 50.12 per cent of the vote compared to the Coalition's 49.88 per cent.
Labor has a lead of 30,490 votes.
