CASH FOR CLUNKERS - ANOTHER OF LABOUR'S JUNKED ELECTION PROMISES?

23-September-2010

During the election campaign,Julia Gillard touted Cash for clunkers as a solution to the problem of climate change.

More than a month after the poll, there's conspicuous silence in Labour ranks about the fate of the much pilloried scheme.

Industry Minister,Kim Carr, whose enthusiasm at the prospect of giving more subsidies to the car industry usually knows no bounds, has been deadly silent.

"The reality is that Labour's Cash for clunkers scheme is a disastrous and expensive policy - and should never have seen the light of day" said Shadow Industry minister,Sophie Mirabella.

"It's ridiculously expensive - with one tonne of carbon abatement costing $394, compared to the price in the Government's own shelved ETS of less than $30 per tonne.

Other problems include:

distortion of the car market and the broader economy;

artificial inflation of the value of used cars;

preference to cheap imports over locally made cars and the accompanying threat to Australian jobs;

encouragement of widespread rorting; and

ofsetting through cuts to other environmental programs.

"The idea has already been rejected by Mr.Carr's own Department, and there's also ever-mounting evidence that demonstrates that similar schemes have failed in those countries in which they have already been implemented."

"Ms.Gillard was clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel for climate changestrategies during the election campaign as a cover for her real agendaof a carbon tax - and her Government is now paralysed in knowing how to deliver them."

"Mr.Carr must come clean and reveal if the $394 million Cash for Clunkers program has been scrapped. If not, he must detail how and when it willbe implemented"