Shorten turns up heat on Coalition
BILL Shorten has lashed out at critics of his climate policies, calling them “climate change deniers” and allies of a “coalwielding” Prime Minister.
A feisty Labor leader yesterday punched back after days of failing to answer questions about the cost of his emissions reduction target, hitting out at the Coalition for a “malicious and stupid scare campaign”.
It comes as he prepares to launch an all-out assault on the Federal Government’s tax cuts, seizing on reports that high-income earners will receive at least $77 billion from the Coalition’s 10-year income tax package.
Mr Shorten will ramp up fears Prime Minister Scott Morrison would be forced into massive spending reductions to pay for his tax cuts
“Let me explain how they pay for it — cuts, cuts, cuts,” he said.
“I never lose sight of the fact that the current Prime Minister was the treasurer for the last three years. He’s the cutter in chief of schools, cutter in chief of hospitals, cutter in chief of services.” Asked about a report that Australian businesses would be forced to spend $25 billion on international carbon credits to meet Labor’s emissions reduction target of 45 per cent, Mr Shorten said it was “a big lie”. He labelled Mr Morrison a “climate-denying cave dweller” and hit out at News Corp Australia’s coverage of the Opposition’s climate policies.
“The $25 billion figure is a lie … You can make any number work for you if you pump in the assumptions you want to,” Mr Shorten said.
Mr Shorten’s outburst came as Mr Morrison made his first significant policy misstep of the campaign by discrediting the economic modelling he used to attack Mr Shorten’s climate change policies.
He used the same excuse as Labor to dismiss a report which found the Coalition’s policy would be a $89 billion hit to the economy.
Mr Morrison had claimed that the Coalition’s 26 per cent emissions reduction target would have no impact on the economy.
He dismissed a BAEconomic report which found the Coalition’s target would cost the economy $89 billion over the next decade and 78,000 jobs because it assumed “an economy wide carbon price”.