TREASURER Joe Hockey today bungled a key fact about Australia’s dirty emissions to a British television audience. The Treasurer described his interviewer’s statement that Australia was the worst emitter of harmful gas amongst industrialised nations as “ridiculous”. The trouble for Mr Hockey is that, per head of population, Australia is the worst. On the BBC’s “ Hardtalk” show, a program of vigorous political interviews, it was put to Mr Hockey that Australia was “one of the dirtiest, most greenhouse gas-emitting countries in OECD group of developed countries”. That is the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development. “The comment you just made is absolutely ridiculous,” Mr Hockey replied. “We’ve got a small population and very large land mass and we are an exporter of energy, so that measurement is a falsehood in a sense because it does not properly reflect exactly what our economy is. Australia is a significant exporter of energy and, in fact, when it comes to coal we produce some of the cleanest coal, if that term can be used, the cleanest coal in the world.” “The nation’s most senior economic leader has embarrassed himself on international TV over a fact most school students would know.” He said the latest OECD Greenhouse Gas Emissions Index ranks Australia as the highest emitter per capita, leading Canada, the United States and nearly three times higher than the EU. “So far Joe Hockey’s contributions to the global climate change debate have included petty remarks about wind turbines’ aesthetics, refusing to put climate change on the G20 agenda and now rejecting unambiguous facts about our carbon pollution as ‘ridiculous’,” he said. Australia is a significant exporter of energy and, in fact, when it comes to coal we produce some of the cleanest coal, if that term can be used, the cleanest coal in the world.” “So far Joe Hockey’s contributions to the global climate change debate have included petty remarks about wind turbines’ aesthetics, refusing to put climate change on the G20 agenda and now rejecting unambiguous facts about our carbon pollution as ‘ridiculous’,” he said. Labor’s climate change spokesman Mark Butler said the Treasurer didn’t know facts about his own country. “What’s ridiculous is that Australia’s Treasurer doesn’t know this about Australia,” said Mr Butler. news.au/technology/environment/joe-hockey-gets-confused-about-australias-harmful-gas-emissions-on-bbcs-hardtalk-show/story-fnjww010-1227090269883
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 08:07:40 +0000
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