• Tim Colebatch

20 October 2009The government and the opposition are in a bidding war to reward polluters, argues Tim Colebatch in The Age

DAY IN, day out, Malcolm Turnbull and his colleagues have been slamming the Government for ''reckless spending'', ''spending like drunken sailors''. Every day they have demanded spending cuts - until Sunday, when they demanded more spending: tens of billions of dollars more.

The spending the Opposition objects to is going to schools, public housing, rail or roads. The spending it wants to increase would go to selected companies - mining firms, coal-fired power stations, energy-intensive manufacturing, food processors - in the form of free permits to pollute.

The Coalition is proposing 13 separate amendments to the Government's scheme. All but three would work to blunt the impact of the scheme, and increase its cost to other taxpayers. And they would increase Australia's actual emissions (though not its emissions target)...

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Picture: John Spooner/ The Age