13 November 2013

Federal Member for Hume Angus Taylor said Hume household costs would come down by an average $550 a year when the carbon tax was gone.

As a package of legislation to repeal the tax was introduced into parliament today (Wednesday) Mr Taylor said that power bills alone would be an average $200 lower next financial year.

“Today we are keeping our commitment to the people of Hume to introduce this repeal legislation as the first order of business. It is part of our plan for families to get ahead, to build a strong economy and cut unnecessary costs,” Mr Taylor said.

“The tax has forced up electricity bills right across the community - from schools, to local councils, to family homes to small businesses.

“We want to bring power prices down and use other effective means to reduce carbon emissions.

“We remain committed to a five per cent reduction in emissions by 2020 and we will achieve this through our Direct Action Plan. We will create a $3 billion Emissions Reduction Fund to allocate money to projects designed to reduce emissions and we will strongly support sequestration technologies - ways to store carbon in the soil and use that carbon to make farmland more productive.

“Direct Action will work for two clear reasons: because it’s broad based not just an electricity tax and because it’s incentive-based not penalty-based. Today has been the start of the process to scrap the carbon tax and clear the way for effective emission reduction strategies. We are committed to seeing this process through.”