The Australian Greens have backed in the momentum for the treasurer to abolish the billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies given to mining companies as an urgent measure in the upcoming budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reports today<\/u><\/a> show even Labor\u2019s own Environment Action Network have come on board with a policy the Greens spearheaded 29 years ago, when Bob Brown first used a 1997 National Press Club address<\/u><\/a> to call on the government to cap miners\u2019 fuel tax credits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Independent analysis of the Fuel Tax Credit scheme shows<\/u><\/a> major miners receive large sums of taxpayer money, BHP around $627 million a year and Rio Tinto around $416 million a year, that should be redirected into electrification and regional transition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Greens took a policy to the last federal election that would see the end of all taxpayer handouts contributing to the climate crisis, including these Fuel Tax Credits which are bankrolling highly profitable coal, oil and gas companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This would free up around $8 billion a year\u00b9 which could be repurposed to provide cost of living relief to households. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Leader of the Australian Greens, Larissa Waters:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf these handouts to coal and gas corporations survive the budget chopping block this year, that\u2019s a clear red flag that Labor is prioritising corporate profits over people.\u201d said Senator Waters on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAustralians are being told to tighten their purse strings while the government gives wealthy coal and gas companies hundreds of millions of dollars to buy diesel. It\u2019s not good enough and it shows exactly where Labor\u2019s priorities lie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt the last election the Greens were clear: taxpayers should not be propping up the pollution and profiteering of the coal, oil and gas industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Greens first called for an end to the diesel fuel rebate for mining 29 years ago. Our 1998 policy called to scrap the handouts to fossil fuels – they were unjustifiable in 1998 and they are indefensible now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEven those within Labor agree we shouldn\u2019t be throwing taxpayer money at the multi-billion dollar fossil fuel sector. Jim Chalmers needs to make this a priority in the upcoming budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Greens want to see real reform that ends these fossil fuel handouts, not tinkering that leaves subsidies for wealthy mining corporations intact.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Australian Greens have backed in the momentum for the treasurer to abolish the billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies given to mining companies as an urgent measure in the upcoming budget. Reports today show even Labor\u2019s own Environment Action Network have come on board with a policy the Greens spearheaded 29 years ago, when Bob … Continue reading “Pressure building on Labor to ditch billions in fuel tax credits in budget”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37171,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37170\/revisions\/37171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}