2016-09-15
MR BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — Labor, you have got a bit of a problem. One of your coal-fired power stations plans to expand its capacity and burn an extra 400 000 tonnes of coal a year. This is now going to go for public comment and before Environment Protection Authority Victoria for approval. It would be better, I think, if we closed down part of another coal-fired power station to net out the effect; however, that would be an emissions trading scheme, and despite your own investigation actually recommending it, you ruled it out on the day you released that report. Four years in opposition and two years in government and you still have not got a response to global warming, and yet there are moves afoot to actually expand coal-fired pollution in the Latrobe Valley. Maybe you simply want to do what you have been doing a bit of lately, which is borrow the Greens policy, introduce a law and get on with a plan to respond to global warming rather than just keep dithering while various polluters put their proposals on the table.
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