The latest Newspoll showed that only 15 percent of Australians listed Shorten as their preferred prime minister, the lowest of any Opposition leader since Simon Crean in 2003, shortly before he was ousted as leader of the Labor party.
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He will announce that Labor will use the Climate Change Authority’s recommendations for a cut of 45% by 2030, based on 2005 levels, “as the basis for our consultations with industry, employers, unions and the community”.
“The Prime Minister will walk onto the aerobridge with a pathetic target in one hand and an expensive joke of a climate policy in the other”, Shorten will say in a speech delivered to the Lowy Institute today.
“Malcolm Turnbull’s whole pitch to the Australian people is “Hey, I’m not Tony Abbott” and that’s going down pretty well because there’s a spirit of relief”, Mr Bowen said.
“It gets us much closer when you combine it with their commitment to end climate pollution by 2050, to Australia’s bit in the action needed to avoid 2 degrees which is a bipartisan and internationally agreed goal”, he said.
He will also make an announcement about baseline emissions targets.
“Mr Turnbull promotes a policy he doesn’t believe”, Shorten argued. “There’s just not the appetite for that kind of culture”, Mr Bowen said.
A Labor spokesman said from 2020 onwards, the predicted increase in drought frequency is estimated to cost Australia $7.3 billion annually.
“Australia should rightly shoulder its fair portion of the global responsibility in combating climate change, but we can not support measures that are not well thought-out or that risk Australian businesses and jobs”, she said, calling on Labor to outline how the cuts would be achieved without hurting the economy.
The move is seen as a direct counter to any Federal Government plan to potentially raise the Goods and Services Tax (GST), a proposal Labor has said it will not support.
“Bill Shorten’s policy, his thought bubble, 45 per cent reduction, would require them to introduce, or re-introduce, a carbon tax at double the rate of the carbon tax before”.
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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says he’s optimistic an agreement will be reached in Paris.
