Responding to the Climate Change Commission’s latest report providing advice on the direction of policy for the Government’s second emissions reduction plan, the Taxpayers’ Union is backing the ACT climate change spokesperson, Simon Court, in his calls for the Commission to be scrapped.

Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said:

“The latest report from the Commission reveals their incoherent obsession with gross emissions reduction rather than simply reducing the country’s net emissions – a viewpoint that will do nothing more than make the fight against climate change more challenging and expensive to no material gain.

“The Commission has recognised that if they can’t demonstrate why they should exist they will be scrapped, so with emissions reduction already dealt with under the ETS they are scrambling to find any other reason to justify their jobs, regardless of whether or not this has any relation to climate change. The Climate Commission has no business wading into road injury policy and social equity. We already have tens of thousands of bureaucrats in other government agencies dealing with this stuff, the Climate Change Commission adds no value whatsoever and therefore must be scrapped.

“The new Climate Change Minister must restore confidence in the ETS by making sensible changes that allow it to function as a free and open market. Removing arbitrary minimum and maximum price controls, along with allowing international offsets and introducing a universal carbon dividend would all work to make emissions reduction cheaper and more politically durable.”

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