PASIN SUPPORTS FARMERS OVER UNREALISTIC EMISSIONS TARGETS
Member for Barker Tony Pasin has strongly condemned the Labor Party’s policy of zero emissions by 2050 warning it would cripple Australia’s agricultural industry.
“The CSIRO Australian National Outlook 2019 report that Labor points to in order to back up their policy actually shows that to achieve a target of zero emissions by 2050 sheep, crop and cattle production would fall drastically, decimating regional towns, and hurting Australian families and businesses that rely on agriculture for their livelihood,” Mr Pasin said.
“Even our friends across the ditch have recognised the detrimental impact on agriculture a target like this would have, which is why the Ardern Government has exempted Agriculture from their target.”
Mr Pasin says none of the world’s largest emitters – China, the United States and India – have made any zero-carbon commitments and New Zealand is only targeting net zero by 2050 for part of its economy.
The EU has also committed to net zero but has exempted Europe’s largest coal generating country, Poland where around 60-percent of the country’s energy comes from burning coal.
“Labor’s net zero emissions target by 2050 is a target without a plan to get there, and it would put our agricultural industries at a major disadvantage,” Mr Pasin said.
“We just wouldn’t be able to compete with New Zealand agricultural commodities under Labor’s ill thought out policy.
“We wouldn’t send our Wallabies out onto the field to play the All Blacks with one hand tied behind their backs. That’s effectively what Labor is proposing to do to Aussie farmers.
“They haven’t stopped to consider the devastating impact this sort of policy would have on our Agricultural industries,”
“In contrast, our Government’s position is clear – we won’t set new targets without being able to look Australians in the eye and tell them how we’ll get there, and how much those policies will cost.
“The pathway to lowering emissions is in new technologies. Not taxes,” Mr Pasin said.
