Labor has accused Energy Minister Angus Taylor of rehashing past “climate scare campaigns”, challenging him to release government modelling that he claims shows electricity price rises would have a “devastating impact” if Labor was elected, The Guardian reported.
News Corp newspapers published stories on their front pages claiming government modelling showed consumers would on average be $560 a year worse off by 2032-33 under an ALP policy to accelerate the construction of new electricity transmission links.
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Taylor issued a press release making the same claim, but the statement did not explain how the numbers were reached or who did the analysis.
Labor’s Shadow Energy Minister Chris Bowen said Taylor’s release was a “desperate attack” and “just the latest in more than a decade of climate scare campaigns from the Liberals”.
Labor’s policy involves the creation of a $20 billion “rewiring the nation corporation” charged with making decisions on new transmission paths to allow a faster energy transition to wind and solar in regional renewable energy zones.
Bowen said the Coalition’s attack showed it did not believe solar and wind were the cheapest form of energy, or that the world’s climate emergency was “Australia’s jobs opportunity”.
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“It also shows that the Morrison government’s last-minute conversion to net zero is a fraud,” he said.
“If the Morrison government is so proud of its so-called ‘modelling’ it should release it publicly for scrutiny, not selectively quote from it and keep it locked away. Where is the modelling? Who conducted it? What are its assumptions?”
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