This is fair enough. It seems the coalition have been quite keen to step forward and label the government's plan as a "Toxic Tax" that will cause the end of the world and businesses to go broke. Have you noticed that this is Tony Abbott's strategy - "The Unnecessary Carbon Tax". "This Toxic Tax". "This will impose more strains on everyone's cost of living". At least he keeps it simple...
It's high time some of the alternative plans were looked at. "Direct Action" is nothing more than subsidising certain companies to do very little. As Greg Hunt contends, a reduction by 5% of 2000 CO2 emission levels (our completely arbitrary target set a few years ago after Kyoto) could be achieved by "... storing carbon, it could be [by] capturing waste coalmine gas, it could be [by] cleaning up landfills. Whatever is lowest cost, we'll do that".
Nice to see such a simple solution. Pity the Grattan Institue have completely debunked these so-called solutions as being totally innefectual. What it means is that there are vested interests who will be the beneficiaries of these subsidies who are keen to see the Abbott side of politics instilled in power! If that happens they will benefit from billions of dollars in free money handed out by the government, and WILL KEEP POLLUTING with very little change to our total CO2 emissions.
Greg Hunt then went on to say "we will, over four years, for example, spend $3.2 billion on our approach. That's offset by $50 billion of savings." This is the cost of "Direct Action" over the forward estimates (budget preditions for the next four complete financial years) as stated by Greg Hunt. However less than a minute later, he is asked by Chris Uhlmann: "and $3.2 billion you are saying now will cover the cost of that increased gas price - for how long?" (I yell at the screen - "he's already answered that, four years") but Greg Hunt has the audacity to answer thus: "We were looking at a period out to 2020..."
Greg, I make that nine years, and about sixty seconds earlier, mate, you were saying four years.
The Carbon Tax is a response to a problem. Okay, governments can do nothing, bury their heads in the sand and pretend everything is okay. The UK government has not decided on this course of action. Germany plans to be the biggest renewable energy user in the world by the end of the decade. What are we going to do in Australia? If we follow the ALP's stance we will have a tax on pollution shifting the cost on to the polluters themselves, and this will then transition to a cap-and-trade system in three to five years. If we follow the coalition's stance then very little will happen, except that quite a few very large polluters will be subsidised by the government to keep polluting, and the tab to clean up that mess will be picked up by the government from a revenue stream that doesn't exist.
(If you listen to Greg Hunt (see his 7.30 interview) the funding will come from budget savings (savings=cuts) so what that means is you'll get less services from the government, and in return, the savings (cuts) will be transferred to the polluters, instead of the people that probably needed the government services in the first place).
Again, Liberal policy is to give government assistance to people who do not need government assitance. As if big power generators, steel-makers and aluminium smelters cannot pay their own way. They will close down and sack staff based on purely financial grounds, the impost of a carbon tax isn't going to make one iota of difference because of the materiality of the changes.
Speaking of materiality, on Monday, Tony Abbott went to a welding company in Queanbeyan. Here he was describing the impact of the "Toxic Tax" as "the firm will pay an extra $4,000 in power [bills per year] ... ". (It is clear he's using the annual figure because he also mentions "$1,000 a quarter" in the press conference).
Let's do the maths. The owner of the welding firm also spoke and said they employ forty people. Let's do some approximations here and estimate the annual wages bill at say $1,000 a week for 40 employees for 50 weeks a year and you're looking at $2,000,000 a year in wages alone. Plus naturally there are other expenses. This company must be paying out close to $10 million a year in total expenses, and a $4,000 increase in electricity prices is going to send them to the wall or at least put jobs at risk?? This is what Tony Abbott is seriously contending!
To look at it another way, if this business decided to give a $10 a week pay rise to TEN of its employees (cost: $5,200 annually) this would send them to the wall or they'd have to sack other staff. This is greater than the $4,000 increase in electricity costs. These contentions are just scare tactics, and if you are being suckered in by them it's only because Tony can keep a straight face as he contends absolute baloney so well.
No mention is made of the fact that with the Australian dollar sitting up at $US1.05, the cost of fuel for this company is about 30% cheaper than it otherwise would have been six months ago. Nah, you can't mention that, because that might just indicate that the government is managing the country well enough that other people are now prepared to pay a premium for the Aussie dollar.
And yes, a high Aussie dollar means our exports are less competitive, 'tis true. However since Australia has always had a balance of payments deficit (throughout our entire history) this means we import more than we export, so overall a higher Aussie dollar is better for the country than a lower Aussie dollar, plain and simple.
Nah, this incompetent government is bringing in an unnecessary toxic tax that will put jobs at risk and impose costs on us all that we can't afford.
The cost of climate change is borne by our children and grand-children. They will view us with absolute contempt and disdain if we can't solve the problem now and leave it all up to them. But perhaps maybe they'll be a less selfish generation - they'll HAVE to be in order to survive.
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