With five days to go in the Australian Federal Election, the Liberal National Coalition Party has been caught out on misleading the public with their claims about carbon. The LNP has continued with their tactic of defrauding the public of proper information so as to win the election.

The Penrice Soda Plant in Adelaide decided to stop producing soda ash in January this year. While visiting the the leader of the LNP Tony Abbott said that the decision to stop the production was down to the Labor Government putting a price on carbon to combat climate change.

The reality for the Australian economy is that carbon pricing had very little effect of the economy, in a negative way or a positive one. The major impacts on the Australian economy has been the high Australian dollar, international competition and the current global recession – which Australia has been able to avoid.

the General Manager of Chemical Operation at Penrice, Adrian Piccinin said back in January 2013 that the plant would have stopped soda ash production even if there had been no carbon price. The LNP has conveniently forgotten the fact the the Federal Australian Labor Government had assisted Penrice with its carbon price liability because it has high emissions and faces international competition. For 2012-13, Penrice received $7.03 million in assistance (in the form of 305,573 free carbon permits).

The realty of the carbon pricing is that nine months after the introduction of the pricing scheme, Australia’s emissions of carbon dioxide due to electricity generation had reduced to a 10 year low, with coal generation down 11% from 2008-09.Landfills will have to pay a carbon price on new waste deposits from 1 July 2012 to encourage them to capture their methane emissions.

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