Fat cat polluters' compo pleas immoral

Today, Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson will meet with representatives from the Greenhouse Mafia as they attempt to extract even more taxpayers’ cash from the Federal Government ahead of the introduction of a price on carbon.

“Big business has known that carbon emissions damage the climate for 20 years, but they are here today crying ‘woe is us’ and asking for more free handouts,” Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Trish Harrup said.

“Giving millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to rich companies to allow them to continue polluting is immoral and uneconomic - and it will come at a cost to ordinary Australians.”

The Federal Government must make polluters pay for the damage they do to the environment otherwise we will never succeed in reducing carbon emissions to safe levels.

“We didn’t compensate tobacco, we didn’t compensate asbestos when we knew the damage that those products did,” Ms Harrup said. “Why on earth would we compensate coal?”

Last week, the Business Council of Australia began leaning heavily on the Federal Government to amend the already weak proposed emissions trading scheme by demanding more compensation for big polluters.

To support its call for more compensation, the BCA has been using its hysterical self-serving report which alleges high-polluting businesses would be negatively affected by the emissions trading system.

The whole point of an emissions trading system is to send a signal that it is uneconomic to emit carbon and to support the development of clean and sustainable industries. Climate change is a global problem and Australian
businesses need to take responsibility for their fair share of the climate change fight.

“The Federal Government should be consulting with renewable energy businesses about how they can create new jobs and markets around clean products for the future, and not listening to cashed-up corporate fat cats
who are relics of the coal age,” Ms Harrup said.

“Companies, such as BHP Billiton, Xstrata, Exxon Mobil, Cement Australia and Rio Tinto - which post billion dollar profits - should be the last on the list to receive government handouts.

“When emissions trading is introduced, it is certain companies will pass on price hikes to consumers irrespective of whether they receive compensation.

“Every cent that is spent on those companies is money that is not being directed to helping ordinary Australians deal with climate change.”