Coalition climate policy forced big polluters to pay $15m for carbon credits in past year

Scott Morrison says Labor wants to use government safeguard mechanism as a sneaky carbon tax' but it is already making big business pay for offsets

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The Coalition last year required polluting businesses to buy 419,000 carbon credits at an estimated cost of $15m using a policy that Scott Morrison now falsely describes as Labor's sneaky carbon tax".

Government data released last month shows that, under the Coalition's so-called safeguard mechanism, major polluting companies had to buy 70% more carbon credits last financial year than in 2019-20.