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Opposition will vote against ETS, Turnbull

The Opposition will vote against the Emissions Trading Scheme when it reaches the Senate, Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull said.

Turnbull yesterday stepped up his attack on the scheme, saying it would cost thousands of jobs and billions of dollars.

“The Government’s bungled emissions trading scheme will lead to the loss of 1000 existing jobs and 4000 future jobs, almost all of which are in the state of Queensland, as well as the loss of up to $7 billion of future investment,” he said.

Queensland Resources Council Board president Nicole Hollows told MINING DAILY that while she supported the cause to lower emissions, now was the wrong time to implement a trading scheme.

“The Emissions Trading Scheme is still in its infancy stages and is therefore too wide ranging,” Hollows said.

“We don’t fully understand the consequences it will have. We don’t know how much it is going to cost per tonne and we don’t know how to measure it.

“As an industry, we are all committed to developing technologies that reduce emissions. We do not disagree with implementing a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, we just disagree about the way that it has been packaged and delivered to date.”

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who wants to have the draft legislation passed in the Senate by July, accused the Opposition of ‘flip-flopping’ on their support for the scheme.

“What we have seen through the pirouettes of policy which have occurred over the course of last weekend by the Liberal Party and its leader is again flip, flop, flap on climate change policy,” he said.

“Nine months ago the emissions trading scheme was the central mechanism to decarbonise the economy.

“Nine months later, because of some political pressures from the right wing of his party, he now says ‘well it’s just one tool of climate change policy and it’s not a necessary tool.

“What rank inconsistency and hypocrisy.”

Meanwhile the Mayors of Newcastle, Gladstone and Mount Isa are urging the Federal Government to hold off on its trading scheme, due to the impact on regional economies and jobs.

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