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 AFFORDABLE domestic air travel will be snatched away from many
Australian families under the Federal Government's proposed emissions
trading scheme, says an airline chief.
Virgin
Blue chief executive Brett Godfrey has described the Government's green
paper on emissions trading as disappointing and its analysis on the
impact on the aviation sector as "way wide of the glide path".
"To
suggest that Australian domestic airlines 'will generally be able to
pass on carbon costs because their competitors will face similar cost
increases' ignores the current economic stresses the entire industry is
already experiencing," he said.
"Exceptionally high fuel costs have already forced all airlines to raise fares and withdraw some services."
Last
week Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon warned that domestic air fares
would rise and tourism be shackled unless the aviation industry was
given free permits.
Mr Godfrey said Virgin Blue would wait
for the modelling from Treasury to determine the full impact on the
airline, but he rejected the Government's suggestion that the aviation
sector was not a "strongly affected industry".
"Aviation is
an industry that operates a delicate balancing act between price,
available capacity and demand," he said. "The burden of requiring
airlines to account for 100% of their emissions, thereby
cross-subsidising other sectors of the economy, from scheme start-up
could put an unacceptable financial burden on an already economically
stressed industry.
"It will also have the end result of
taking away from average Australian families the ability to easily
access affordable domestic air fares."
The Federal Government has been accused of "scare tactics" over carbon's impact on climate change.
The
Australian Retailers Association said the "science doesn't back up the
theory behind the emissions trading scheme". Executive director Richard
Evans called on Climate Change Minister Penny Wong to "show us the
science" that carbon emissions are causing global warming. Source
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