How is business meant to plan investments, when the Gillard Government changes its mind so abruptly on taxes and mad multi-billion schemes? Dennis Shanahan:
The decision to end the negotiations to buy and close down Australia’s “dirtiest” brown-coal power plants is not just a shift in policy that might ultimately save the budget billions; it is another shift in the goalposts that sends the wrong signals to industry and investors.Apart from the fact the government’s purchase and closure of the high carbon-emitting power stations was instrumental in reaching its target of cutting greenhouse gases and would cost hundreds of jobs, it was a core element of agreement with the electricity suppliers about the long-term conversion to “cleaner” gas-powered stations….
From the beginning of the closure negotiations, it was clear there was a yawning gap between what the suppliers wanted to close down their plants and what the government could afford to pay…
Sovereign risk – where companies began to compare Australia unfavourably with African dictatorships – began when mining companies felt betrayed by Wayne Swan over a tax they did not know was coming. It has continued with the MRRT…
It’s continued with the introduction of a $23-a-tonne carbon tax, cost-cutting on green car industry funds, the freezing of federal grants in this budget, which covers clean energy projects, and dropping the $15 floor price for carbon after 2015.What is striking in that list of policy reverses is how many involve global warming policies. It’s another sign of how global warming ideology has swamped rational decision making. Only at the point of implementation – or, disastrously, after – does the pain return the government to semi-reason. As for the journalists who cheered on this lunacy…
