Sunday 25 July 2010

$2000 cash for your old(ish) car "another Labor lemon" says Warren Entsch

Labor’s plan to pay $2000 for Australians to upgrade their old cars is just another lemon of an idea from Julia Gillard and Labor, LNP Candidate for Leichhardt Warren Entsch says.

Warren Entsch says the scheme encouraged motorists to take on debt they couldn’t afford, pushed up the price of old cars and did little for the environment.

“What this makes very clear is that Julia Gillard and Labor have learnt nothing from their disastrous pink batts policy,” he said.
Labor has announced a $2000 rebate to encourage people to get their "old, polluting cars" off the road, when they purchase a new, lower emission, fuel efficient vehicle.

Senator Kim CarrImage via Wikipedia

This is a program that has already been rejected by the Labor Industry Minister Kim Carr as being “extremely expensive” and as a Labor ‘green’ project it is sure to have unintended side effects and cause havoc for the industry.

“In Far North Queensland, and around the rest of the nation, there are businesses still waiting for the government to pay outstanding bills for the insulation scheme that had to be abandoned once people started dying and houses burnt to the ground," Warren Entsch says. "Now the Government is handing out more taxpayers money for another green farce."

“This scheme is nothing but a lemon — Kim Carr knew that last year but the Prime Minister is moving forward with this disaster anyway.”

A similar cash for old cars scheme in Germany has resulted in a surge in the number of new cars bought, followed by a big drop that resulted in job losses.

“The $400 million taxpayers are paying for this scheme will only cause motorists to upgrade their car today instead of tomorrow,” Entsch says. “In return the industry will suffer a huge hangover, when car sales that would have been spread over several years are squeezed into a short period.

“What I am very concerned about is how many people will be tempted to buy a new car when they can’t really afford it? This scheme will also force up the price of older vehicles, making it harder for teenagers to purchase their first car and putting the price of second-hand vehicles out of reach for families who are doing it tough," Warren Entsch says.

“This recycled policy idea is just a waste of $400 million and another green lemon from Labor.”
Households will be able to receive a $2,000 rebate towards a new vehicle by trading in their pre-1995 car for scrapping.

The rebate scheme is part of Labor’s plan to make "positive changes to how we live, work and travel."

According to Labor, from 1 January 2011 to the end of 2014, the Cleaner Car Rebate is expected to result in significant cuts in Australian fleet emissions as close to 200,000 pre-1995 vehicles are taken off the road and replaced with more fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly cars.

The Rebate will be capped over its four years of operation at 200,000 vehicles.

9 comments:

Curious said...

How ridiculous, people who drive pre-1995 cars can't afford a decent car, let alone a new one.

The only new cars anywhere near affordable, the small cheap shit, are all built overseas anyway, what good is that to the Australian automotive industry?

If the government wants an effective way to get old wrecks off Queensland roads, introduce a tough inspection every year, along the lines of the British MOT Certificate, that'll do the job more efficiently, and a lot cheaper, than this stupid idea.

KitchenSlut said...

Blog posting today from prominent left wing economist John Quiggin who intends to vote Green in the forthcoming election! The green economics of the proposed 'cash for clunkers' are exposed as rubbish even on the Guvmints own press release although as stated Abbot's direct action proposals are also in this economically delusional category. This is the current populist policy stance almost everywhere including even more so the 'alternative independents' etc. Is it too late to draft Malcolm Turnbull again? So called 'direct action' is a highly inefficient big tax compared to a simple carbon price compensated by a lowering in the general tax rates elsewhere!



Votes for clunkers
July 25th, 2010 jquiggin Leave a comment Go to comments
Julia Gillard has announced an Australian version of the cash for clunkers program of the Obama Administration. Reader Ben Elliston writes



read an article some months ago by Jeffrey Sachs evaluating a
similar policy from the Obama administration:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-clunker-of-a-climate-policy

It turns out that the Gillard proposal is even worse than Obama’s.
Sachs calculated the greenhouse gas abatement value of Obama’s scheme
at US$140 per metric tonne. Gillard’s policy will reduce emissions by
1 million tonnes at a cost of $394 million dollars ($394/tonne).



My only observation is that Ben’s estimate is taken directly from the government’s press release, which is almost certainly overoptimistic. For comparison, at about $25/tonne, brown-coal electricity generation becomes uneconomic compared to gas and black coal. At $100/tonne, just about all the alternatives (including wind, nuclear, CCS, and solar) look pretty good. Cash for clunkers is, as Sachs concludes, a clunker of a policy.

And just in case anyone has forgotten, Abbott’s anti-policies are even more focused on this kind of nonsense/

P Rappi said...

What Australian automotive industry Curious? We don't even make car tyres in this country anymore. The last factory closed down recently and the plant and machinery moved overseas. The small cheap shit you mention usually comes from Korea and China these days as we could never compete with our 'Australian' overseas owned models like Holden and Ford. It may not seem much to you but a two grand rebate is better than nothing and I didn't have to breed kids to get it.

By the way in Singapore, your rego goes up higher the older your car gets. Maybe you would prefer that approach?

CRAG said...

News Flash ... when the Community Independents assume Power there will be a $2,000 rebate to every one who didn't vote for a political party candidate.


:John: Babet Community Reformation Action Group (CRAG) www.crag1.webs.com

Syd Walker said...

Good post kitchenslut.

I think the ALP policy is to be able to afford expensive tokenism because of the unending growth of our export-oriented mining sector.

The greenhouse savings in this sceheme are said to be in the order of a million tonnes of carbon. Compare that with the growth of Queensland's coal industry (following extract is from http://www.sixdegrees.org.au/content/queensland-coal-industry-overview - the mob protesting oin Friday when Gillard launched Labor's non-policy at the Uni of Queensland)

_______________________

In 2008, the state’s 54 coal mines produced a record 188 million tonnes of coal. We are a major player in the international coal market, with Queensland coal exports accounting for some 20% of the global trade. The industry generated $22.6 billion in export revenue, and is expected to generate $3.22 billion in coal revenues for the state government for 2008-09. Royalties from coal account for around 8.7% of the total anticipated income of the Queensland Government for the 2008-2009 financial year.

Around 85% of Queensland coal is exported. Queensland supplies around 45% of coking coal to the world market, and 6% of global trade in thermal coal. Queensland coal exports are roughly equal to those of Canada, the USA and China combined. Queensland exports to 33 countries worldwide, with major consumers Japan (24%), India (12%) and Korea (8%), which combined accounts for 45% of Queensland coal sales.
Coal and Climate Change

The coal industry is Queensland’s leading contributor to climate change. The greenhouse footprint of the emissions generated by the burning of Queensland coal amounts to around 394 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year. To put this in perspective, these emissions are 2.3 times the combined domestic emissions for the entire state, which stood at 170.9 million tonnes in 2006, including power generation, transport, agriculture and industry. Additionally, the mining, processing and transportation of coal contributes enormously to greenhouse gas production.

The Queensland Government’s commitment to coal expansion has the direct consequence of reducing our ability to prevent climate change. The 2008-2009 budget commits $700 million to expanding the coal industry, but in comparison only provides $35 million for investment in renewable energy and only $30 million for all of the government’s climate change initiatives.

Plans for Coal Expansion

With current expansion plans, the Queensland Government is looking to more than double our coal production and exports by 2030. Even at conservative estimates, this will emit an additional 460 million tonnes of CO2 per annum into the atmosphere – equivalent to the annual emissions of 65 average coal-fired power stations.

The Government has committed $15.6 billion of public funds to provide infrastructure required to meet the needs of the Queensland coal industry over the next 20 years under the Coal Infrastructure Plan.

Russ of Trinity Beach said...

Don't you just love these knee-jerk, policy-on-the-run gems that they come up with around election time?

Just what the hell is so wrong about driving a well maintained 20 or 30 year old vehicle? Have these clowns stopped to consider the energy used and the greenhouse gasses and so on created with the manufacture of each one of these you beaut super efficient new car? No - didn't think so.

Will a candidate with some realistic policies and sensible ideas please stand up - I'd like to give you my vote!

Paul said...

"Cash for Clunkers" has been a feature of stimulus packages in other countries worse hit by the Global Financial Sabotage (GFS) than Australia. It didn't really provide much stimulus suggesting there are better ways of spending other people's money.

Al said...

Settle down you lot. It is not compulsory, it is just an INCENTIVE. If you want to keep your old clunker; fine. If you want to trade to a new car and get two grand; also fine. Nice to have the choice.

Curious said...

@ P Rappi

Did you even read my post?

"What Australian automotive industry Curious?"

Ford, Holden, Mitsubishi, and all the supply companies.


"We don't even make car tyres in this country anymore."

Try telling Bridgestone that.


"The small cheap shit you mention usually comes from Korea and China these days"

Isn't that what I said?


"It may not seem much to you but a two grand rebate is better than nothing"

No it isn't, it's a scam.


"By the way in Singapore, your rego goes up higher the older your car gets. Maybe you would prefer that approach?"

No thanks, I prefer testing every year to get the dangerous, polluting wrecks off the road.

Is that OK with you?
.