Carbon tax

[Golliwog]

So Wagga Wagga can budget for it, but Brisbane can't?

And if Quirk is whinging about BCC already offsetting their emissions, I'm pretty sure things like that are taken into account. Or if they aren't, stop paying for those and use those funds to pay the Feds instead.

[ozbob]

Couriermail --> ALP hits panic button over carbon tax fears

[#Metro]

Is it because BCC runs a PT system? Are you sure that's why?

[SurfRail]

Is it because BCC runs a PT system? Are you sure that's why?

I suspect they would be caught anyway, and a number of other SEQ councils probably would be as well.  The sheer number of employees and all that paper and energy, coupled with municipal waste operations, virtually guarantees it.

Tom Tate campaigned on the basis he would "refuse" to pay.  (Good luck with that.)

[Jonno]

Each and every one of these negative analysis of impacts assumes no change in energy use behaviour or source.  They assume it just hits.  60% of CO2 reduction can come from changing behaviours and energy use.  It is these changes that can avoid the tax and this is one of its key purposes of the tax.  Further these changes will help make alternative energy and low carbon business more cost effective and drive their costs lower. 

I am sick of the "we will not even try and it is going to hurt us attitude".

Not say tax is perfect as it is far from it the do nothing and whinge approach ticks me off.

[SurfRail]

Each and every one of these negative analysis of impacts assumes no change in energy use behaviour or source.  They assume it just hits.  60% of CO2 reduction can come from changing behaviours and energy use.  It is these changes that can avoid the tax and this is one of its key purposes of the tax.  Further these changes will help make alternative energy and low carbon business more cost effective and drive their costs lower. 

I am sick of the "we will not even try and it is going to hurt us attitude".

Not say tax is perfect as it is far from it the do nothing and whinge approach ticks me off.

That's the thing.  The notion of everybody simply passing on the cost of the tax is not an inevitable outcome - it in fact represents a serious failure of what capitalism is all about. 

Competition improves efficiency and reduces costs.  The producer who can produce a given product for the lowest base cost is at an advantage - that means investing in cleaner energy and wasting less of it to lessen the cost impact of the tax to begin with.  Simply jacking up the price is not effective commercial behaviour.

[somebody]

The smelter may be good but Australia's power generation is in general rather inefficient.  Is China's any good?

Tom Tate campaigned on the basis he would "refuse" to pay.  (Good luck with that.)

This sounds a bit like anachy, but if enough councils got together say the entire state of Qld, then things may change. Wouldn't this be a major embaresessment to the govt if literally dozens of local councils and even a few states refused to pay. Would could the Fed govt do, take them to court one at a time. Then you still don't pay and then what? Plenty of insurance companies have been taken to court to force the payment of compensation and then simply not paid.

If this happened on a large enough scale, it would bring down the govt and the incoming new govt would be forced to act accordinly.

regards
Shane

If Qld acted to prevent the Feds from taxing?  Well, they'd just cut their payments to Qld.  Simple.

[SurfRail]

Tom Tate campaigned on the basis he would "refuse" to pay.  (Good luck with that.)

This sounds a bit like anachy, but if enough councils got together say the entire state of Qld, then things may change. Wouldn't this be a major embaresessment to the govt if literally dozens of local councils and even a few states refused to pay. Would could the Fed govt do, take them to court one at a time. Then you still don't pay and then what? Plenty of insurance companies have been taken to court to force the payment of compensation and then simply not paid.

If this happened on a large enough scale, it would bring down the govt and the incoming new govt would be forced to act accordinly.

regards
Shane

Yes, take them to court.  Why not?  Governments sue each other all the time, in case nobody has noticed.

If the legislation requires them to pay, and they do not, then they would be required to pay up unless the tax was struck down as being unconstitutional.  I cannot see how that would be the case on even the most far-fetched grounds. 

If anything, it would destroy the local council's credibility when somebody rocks up to Evandale with a writ of execution and garnishes council's revenue.  The State would not be able to protect them.

Insurers have a much easier time of it because you can argue until you are blue in the face about entitlement to a payout - you expect them to do that because they need to maintain the fund.  Here the question would probably not even turn on the law, only the mere fact of non-payment.

[Jonno]

Well we are doing a very good job at the moment of increasing carbon emissions and creating the least efficient economies around.  Interested in your alternatives because doing more of the same and blaming China and India is a total cop out!

[justanotheruser]

Ok, thats just aluminium for which I know a bit about. Think about other industries, steel, car manufacturing etc. All fighting a high dollar, high local salaries (Aussies need to take a 20% pay cut to be competitive) and now a tax on something that currently has no alt. Please tell me when the bulk of the eastern seaboard will be running on green energy because of this tax, answer, not in next 20 years. In reality the Greens have blocked many such proposals, Hydro in Tassie and Wind in Vic.

So what happens if the other countries say we need to cut pay to become more compoetitive now that Australia has. We will be back to 10 year olds working in the mines.

This sounds a bit like anachy, but if enough councils got together say the entire state of Qld, then things may change. Wouldn't this be a major embaresessment to the govt if literally dozens of local councils and even a few states refused to pay. Would could the Fed govt do, take them to court one at a time. Then you still don't pay and then what? Plenty of insurance companies have been taken to court to force the payment of compensation and then simply not paid.

If this happened on a large enough scale, it would bring down the govt and the incoming new govt would be forced to act accordinly.

I'd just cut funding. you know all that federal government funding councils are asking for. just say no we won't consider it untill you cough up the money. The money saved would not equal what they miss out on.

[#Metro]

I support a price on carbon (I'm not going to call it a tax, any more than being charged to have garden waste removed from your yard is a 'tax').

The basic idea is that you set a charge against the waste that you want to minimise. All downstream products then incorporate this price signal into their product. In this way, the charge gets passed through out the entire economy. It saves having to make a gigantic list of absolutely every product that exists and working out how much carbon dioxide went into making it, transporting it and blah blah. By simply whacking a charge on it at a few major sources, all of this impossible work is automatically avoided.

The basic outcome will be this: Carbon intensive products will become more expensive relative to less carbon intensive products. This will cause people to start looking for efficient and effective ways of reducing their carbon footprint without the government actually having to specify how to perform the reduction. People will be free to choose whatever method works for them to reduce their carbon generation because they want to avoid the charge. Funnily enough, this mechanism also works for full car parks at train stations... a charge forces people to think about alternatives...

The BT bus fleet is carbon neutral at the moment, so I'm guessing that a lot of emissions must be coming from the BCC's dumps?

[somebody]

4) Why are the lower income earners being compensated? Surely their CO2 is just as evil as less poor?
5) Why is the PT and rail systems being hit harder than non PT/truck?

Absolutely agree with these points!  Once you start exempting anything it undermines the tax's reason for existing.

[SurfRail]

As I said before this is moving towards corporate anachy and would surely force an election.

If it would have, it would have by now.  I doubt she is that worried.

[#Metro]

The assumptions here are
1) It is a tax

It is a price.

2) There is actually alternative. As I said what is the alt for base load power in CQ, not just now but in 5 years? Same for Aluminium

A charge gives people an incentive to find alternatives, develop them or use less of things that generate high CO2.

3) Its applied equally, ie all downstream products, the world is far from equal and currently only a small minority is doing this and most of the economies involved are in some form of negative or flat growth for 2011/12. We are taxing domestic and not even taxing export coal

Any downstream derived products will automatically incorporate the price signal / charge.

4) Why are the lower income earners being compensated? Surely their CO2 is just as evil as less poor?

When the money goes to the Government, it doesn't disappear. They are being compensated because social welfare goals must be met. The charge will increase prices for these people. Refunding the money in other ways doesn't alter their behaviour at the margin (i.e. they will still seek to avoid the charge).

5) Why is the PT and rail systems being hit harder than non PT/truck?

The system isn't perfect because another goal of politics - pragmatism - exists. A perfect system would not pass parliament. This is democracy.

6) Why does the money need to be channelled via govt? How does Canberra reduce/improve CO2 reduction especially when its channelled off into social welfare? surely its better off to stay in the industry to be reinvested in greener technology.

Well the answer to this is obvious. If you live in poverty and your prices for stuff go up due to this charge, you won't be able to eat, hence the need for compensation.

[justanotheruser]

Ok, thats just aluminium for which I know a bit about. Think about other industries, steel, car manufacturing etc. All fighting a high dollar, high local salaries (Aussies need to take a 20% pay cut to be competitive) and now a tax on something that currently has no alt. Please tell me when the bulk of the eastern seaboard will be running on green energy because of this tax, answer, not in next 20 years. In reality the Greens have blocked many such proposals, Hydro in Tassie and Wind in Vic.

So what happens if the other countries say we need to cut pay to become more compoetitive now that Australia has. We will be back to 10 year olds working in the mines.

The other countries have not had their currency surge 15-20% in recent years. Only with high demand in mining boom, its made many other non mining related industries less competitive + the dollar rise.

Many of the Engineering outlets in Australia are now struggling to get work OS or like one Aussie contractor from Geelong we deal with, very little is actually done in Australia, most overseas because the salaries are too high, the dollar is too high and the skill base in other cheaper countries is not as low as it was.

Well tell the mining industry to stop making things worse. The mining industry is rushing in opening whatever they can rather than having to actually think what is the best place to mine first. then they complain they can't get enough workers and have to ship them in from overseas.

you still did not address my question. if we drop our expenses so we can compete what is there to stop other countries from droppingtheir expenses so we once again will not be able to compete? it could just end up in a downward spiral where we have 10 year old kids working in the mines for $1 a day.

[#Metro]

Its a tax, just like GST as its a charge on wealth. And when some of that revenue is used for social equality its a classic example of a tax system.

Disagree. Companies are receiving a measured right to pollute in exchange for money.
Even if it were a tax, not all taxes are bad either.

Incentives are great when there are alternatives. In CQ (for example), right now today this is no alt to the coal fired power apart from gas and thats only a minor improvement. Unless a alt is available when the tax is in place on the day the goods/services are purchased. Then its not reducing CO2 for that product. No alt, no tax, simple.

Disagree. An incentive makes people look for alternatives or substitutes them. Even in the absence of these, it makes them use less of that particular good. For example, there are no alternatives to water in households, but we still levy charges on that (is that a tax too? No it isn't) which reduces consumption and makes sure people don't waste it.

Any downstream products from a hand full of nations will have the tax incorporated for domestic use. Australia having some of highest tax. Products derived from our resources manufactured overseas will not have the tax, hence makes the system uncompetitive and encourages more manufacturing off-shore to what is effectively a lower tax threshold and wiping out control the govt may have had on reducing CO2 in that area.

But this isn't an argument against the idea of carbon pricing, it is simply an argument against a particular implementation of it, and in future amendments to the scheme this may change.

When the money goes to teh govt it disappears into general revenue. If money from CO2 tax is used for social equalisation it embedds the concept the CO2 tax is actually a tax on wealth.

Disagree. The money doesn't disappear any more than money you get deposited into your bank account from work "disappears". It is no more a tax on wealth than picking up garbage from your house is "a tax".

It doesn't change the behaviour of the lower income earners as their incentive is now gone or greatly reduced. If CO2 is so bad, then its problem that is transparent through the classes. Yes the upper end will in general produce more and they will pay more on those services, but paying more again to account for the poorer end makes it a social equalisation tax.

Social welfare goals must be met - you cannot have someone starve! People on lower incomes incentive will not be significantly altered because people always try to avoid charges, and if you are on low income, trust me, you this effect will be even more so pronounced for you.

The system isn't perfect agree and never will be 100% but it could be far less pathetic than what they have introduced and what is so blindly obvious that a tax on pollution should not be levied on sectors that are historically known to reduce pollution, ie PT and rail freight. Doing what they have done has distroyed much of the credibility of what they are trying to achieve. The CO2 tax and ETS now is "toxic" on the population and hence they will get voted out and the incoming party will be almost forced to drastically scale back the CO2 tax.

Democracy demands compromise because control and power is distributed. That's just democracy.

Any CO2 tax or ETS that encourages off-shoring to non CO2 Tax/ETS countries of manufacturing must be considered a failure and acted upon accordinly. The best way to reduce emissions from a plant producing X widgets a day is to keep the production within Australia. Remember the 80's when factories from developed countries closed because of non CO2 emissions where considered too tough only to start up in SE Asia with little or no emissions? Made the local Environment better, but really helped the world on the whole didn't it!

This isn't necessarily a bad thing and there may be other reasons as to why certain industries move overseas, such as cheaper labour. Labour, safety and environmental standards in many overseas countries are much lower than over here, hence their lower standard of living...

[somebody]

What is with the semantic argument tax vs price?

Combined cycle gas is significantly lower carbon than coal.  There other alternatives: geothermal, solar, wind, nuclear (albeit unlikely).

[Golliwog]

Don't forget hydro (both dams and waves). Another source is gas from landfill. Brisbane already does it a bit down at Rochedale, pretty sure they're expanding that as well. IIRC, it qualifies under the RECS scheme.

[somebody]

Don't forget hydro (both dams and waves). Another source is gas from landfill. Brisbane already does it a bit down at Rochedale, pretty sure they're expanding that as well. IIRC, it qualifies under the RECS scheme.

Yeah, but very little of that in QLD.

Wave power has never been commercially exploited to my knowledge.

[justanotheruser]

When the money goes to teh govt it disappears into general revenue. If money from CO2 tax is used for social equalisation it embedds the concept the CO2 tax is actually a tax on wealth. It doesn't change the behaviour of the lower income earners as their incentive is now gone or greatly reduced.

i disagree. lower income earners do their best to save money as it doesn't go far. I can assure you of that as someone who had a combined couple income of over 90k and now after divorce and losing my job is on benefits. As I attend a funeral this weekend I did not choose to take the more comfortable flight at $88 each way but rather i am taking the much longer train trip using pension entitlement of $12-50. I would much rather take the plane but I just can't justify the cost. Before I would have taken the plane without hesitation so i would suggest the wealthy are the ones with no incentive to change and maybe this is a good incentive for them.

I didn't answer your question on 10 year olds working in mines for $1 a day because I was being polite. Seriously how do you expect me to treat that? Who said anything about trying to compete against that sort of labour?

Essentially I'm just trying to make the point that is we drop our wages to be more competitive then there is no guarantee it would work as other countries might just drop their wages and we will be back at square one.

[ozbob]

Queensland Times --> Council carbon tax bill soaring

[ozbob]

http://statements.cabinet.qld.gov.au/MMS/StatementDisplaySingle.aspx?id=79398

Treasurer and Minister for Trade
The Honourable Tim Nicholls

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Labor's carbon tax whack on Queensland

THE devastating impact of the Gillard Government's carbon tax will be more pronounced in Queensland than any other state in Australia, Treasurer and Minister for Trade Tim Nicholls said today.

Mr Nicholls said the carbon tax, which comes into effect on July 1, would impact all areas of the state's economy and could see up to 21,000 Queenslanders lose their jobs.

"This toxic tax will harm Queensland's economic growth, reduce living standards of everyday Queenslanders, increase electricity bills and significantly harm our State Budget to the tune of $1.2 billion over the next four years," he said.

"Our State Government expenses will jump by $148 million next year alone, and reach a whopping $198 million by 2015-16 which will make the task of balancing the State's books even harder.

"Queensland Government Owned Corporations (GOC's) will be forced to pay about $700-750 million in carbon tax costs, which will hurt households through higher utility charges.

"Unlike Victoria, whose polluting brown coal generators will receive assistance, Queensland generators will receive no Commonwealth assistance, meaning the costs of the tax will have to be passed on to consumers.

"This tax will also hit businesses, especially those servicing the resource sector, and Queensland local councils including Brisbane, Maranoa and Gladstone.

"The plain and simple fact is Queenslanders would have received a reduction in their electricity bills this year, had it not been for the carbon tax."

Mr Nicholls said modelling from Queensland Treasury and Deloitte Access Economics, which used the Commonwealth Government's own assumptions, found that by 2020:

• As many as 21,000 Queensland jobs could be lost
• Real wages could be reduced by up to $2,940
• Queensland's Gross State Product could take a $9.6 billion hit

He said it was disappointing to see the Federal Labor Government introduce a tax which would drive up the cost of living for Queensland families at a time when the Newman Government was taking measures to ease the upward pressure on household budgets.

"It is disappointing to see this tax introduced at a time when Queensland families and businesses are feeling the effects of cost of living pressures which skyrocketed under the former Labor Government," Mr Nicholls said.

"This LNP Government has already started delivering relief with the introduction of the Cost of Living Amendment Bill, which Labor Members tried to delay, and we will continue to deliver our commitments in spite of this toxic new tax."

ENDS

[SurfRail]

^ Yawn.

[justanotheruser]

http://statements.cabinet.qld.gov.au/MMS/StatementDisplaySingle.aspx?id=79398

Treasurer and Minister for Trade
The Honourable Tim Nicholls

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Labor's carbon tax whack on Queensland

THE devastating impact of the Gillard Government's carbon tax will be more pronounced in Queensland than any other state in Australia, Treasurer and Minister for Trade Tim Nicholls said today.

Mr Nicholls said the carbon tax, which comes into effect on July 1, would impact all areas of the state's economy and could see up to 21,000 Queenslanders lose their jobs.

"This toxic tax will harm Queensland's economic growth, reduce living standards of everyday Queenslanders, increase electricity bills and significantly harm our State Budget to the tune of $1.2 billion over the next four years," he said.

"Our State Government expenses will jump by $148 million next year alone, and reach a whopping $198 million by 2015-16 which will make the task of balancing the State's books even harder.

"Queensland Government Owned Corporations (GOC's) will be forced to pay about $700-750 million in carbon tax costs, which will hurt households through higher utility charges.

"Unlike Victoria, whose polluting brown coal generators will receive assistance, Queensland generators will receive no Commonwealth assistance, meaning the costs of the tax will have to be passed on to consumers.

"This tax will also hit businesses, especially those servicing the resource sector, and Queensland local councils including Brisbane, Maranoa and Gladstone.

"The plain and simple fact is Queenslanders would have received a reduction in their electricity bills this year, had it not been for the carbon tax."

Mr Nicholls said modelling from Queensland Treasury and Deloitte Access Economics, which used the Commonwealth Government's own assumptions, found that by 2020:

• As many as 21,000 Queensland jobs could be lost
• Real wages could be reduced by up to $2,940
• Queensland's Gross State Product could take a $9.6 billion hit

He said it was disappointing to see the Federal Labor Government introduce a tax which would drive up the cost of living for Queensland families at a time when the Newman Government was taking measures to ease the upward pressure on household budgets.

"It is disappointing to see this tax introduced at a time when Queensland families and businesses are feeling the effects of cost of living pressures which skyrocketed under the former Labor Government," Mr Nicholls said.

"This LNP Government has already started delivering relief with the introduction of the Cost of Living Amendment Bill, which Labor Members tried to delay, and we will continue to deliver our commitments in spite of this toxic new tax."

ENDS

maybe the Honourable Tim Nicholls could actually do something productive rather than play political point scoring games. The increase in expenses for the state is nothing. A drop in the ocean compared to what governments spend on various things. 

[ozbob]

ABC News --> Carbon tax a factor as regional flights cut

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> Carbon tax is here to stay, says Combet

[somebody]

An interesting paper on sustainability here: http://s3.amazonaws.com/zanran_storage/www.ces.vic.gov.au/ContentPages/51704852.pdf
Has a Victorian focus.

[somebody]

Haven't read the Vic thing yet, but Vic could make a step forward by simply importing some decent coal from Qld or NSW. Don't have to look at 100% replacement, start with 10% and ramp up to 25% by 2015.

The CO2 tax credits they get for this should help off-set the cost. But the power stations will have lower internal operating costs buring real coal, rather than the wet mulch cr%p they have now.

Is it just a matter of switching the coal though?  I would have thought their plants are designed for the low quality coal.

Far better to go combined cycle gas.

[ozbob]

From the Melbourne Age click here!

Carbon tax marks biggest overhaul since the GST

Carbon tax marks biggest overhaul since the GST
Clancy Yeates
June 23, 2012

HOUSEHOLDS and businesses face the biggest tax shake-up in more than a decade in just over a week, as the carbon price and major changes to tax rates and family payments take effect.

And unlike the back-to-back tax cuts of the Howard years, the upcoming changes will overwhelmingly benefit low and middle income earners while taxing higher income households more.

Under compensation for the carbon tax, everyone earning less than $80,000 a year will receive a tax cut.
Advertisement: Story continues below

For someone with an annual salary of $65,000 the tax saving is worth $303 a year. People earning $25,000 or less will receive the biggest tax cuts, of between $500 and $600 a year.

Households receiving Family Tax Benefit Part A will get extra support, while pensioners, students and some families have recently received increased cash payments.

People earning more than $80,000 will not receive any income tax cuts, though everyone who earns more than $50,000 will no longer pay the temporary flood levy.

Tax increases on superannuation will target higher income earners, while people earning less than $37,000 will effectively pay no tax on compulsory super contributions.

In health care, private health insurance subsidies for individuals earning more than $84,000 will be cut. The Medicare levy surcharge will rise for people who don't take out private health insurance.

Tax experts said the changes represented the most significant overhaul in tax since the GST was introduced in 2000.

The general manager of policy at the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Yasser El-Ansary, said a carbon price and associated changes would indirectly affect every taxpayer.

''I would say this is the biggest agenda of tax change for both individuals and businesses since the GST was introduced,'' Mr El-Ansary said.

''Call it whatever you like, in the end a carbon price or a carbon tax represents a major broadening of our indirect tax base,'' he said.

A partner at the accounting firm Pitcher Partners, Scott Treatt, said the changes redistributed income from high to low income earners more than previous Labor budgets and the tax cuts of last decade under the Howard government.

''This budget brought about tax cuts which didn't benefit the higher income earners - not that you can really call someone earning $80,000 a year in the Australian economy a high income earner - and gave the benefits solely to those earning less than that amount,'' he said.

The chief executive of the Australian Council of Social Service, Cassandra Goldie, said the changes ensured people who needed support were the ones receiving benefits or tax cuts. But, Dr Goldie expressed concern the compensation for people on the Newstart allowance was too low. ''Dollar for dollar they will get less than people who are on the pension. But in fact their spending requirements are the same,'' Dr Goldie said.

The 1st of July marks the starting date for major tax changes.

with PETER MARTIN

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/carbon-tax-marks-biggest-overhaul-since-the-gst-20120622-20tu6.html

[ozbob]

Couriermail --> Meatworks may shut Queensland plant for three weeks to avoid carbon tax

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> The Abbott effect: most say pollution price too high

[justanotheruser]

Brisbanetimes --> The Abbott effect: most say pollution price too high

Another part of the CO2 tax joke. In this case Industry shutting down for a few weeks to avoid the tax, pity many will shut down permanently!

but will they? thats what labor was saying about the GSt when Hewson was proposing it. now we have a GST and i don't see that impact that the scare campaigners told us would happen. What makes this different?

[ozbob]

Couriermail --> Federal Government tells pensioners that aged care providers will hike fees the day carbon tax kicks in

[curator49]

The Carbon Tax is just a redistribution of wealth and will not do anything to reduce CO2 emissions in Australia. The so-called rich will not receive any compensation whereas the Government keeps saying they are only taxing the "big polluters". Just because they will pass that increased cost on to their consumers makes no never-mind to them for local sales but on a world market factoring in the added cost will make Australia even less competitive than we now are.

When Howard went to an election promising a 10% GST I was (personally) not in favour of it although I voted for Howard but I voted Democrat in the Senate as they said they would oppose the GST. In the end their illustrious leader had her palm suitable greased and they (the Democrats) "rolled over" and voted in favour of the GST as did a certain Senator in Tasmania who also asked for some significant funding for his State. While, I do not now mind the GST it has NOT done all that it was supposed to - abolishing a whole raft of State taxes (which the States said they would do - but Queensland didn't). It was also supposed to stop the "Cash economy" but didn't succeed there either. There were however other benefits from the GST as personal tax rates were reduced over a period of time.

The Carbon Tax will have a significant effect on house prices, building and construction costs (high-rise buildings, roads, bridges, railways) due to the high pollution costs for the manufacture of cement, steel and aluminium). The sky might not necessarily fall in but many costs to the ordinary person in the street as well as to industry will rise.

[justanotheruser]

When Hewson proposed to introduce a 15% GST, the ALP were very sucessful with the scare campaign and along with LNP arrogence at the time of winning the election along with not knowing the price of a cake under a GST, the public reluctantly gave PK an elected term as PM.

and this is why we don't have politicians who tell us the truth! anyone with half a brain would realise that it isn't a straight forwaward question about how much GST will you pay on a birthday cake. Sadly most don't have hald a brain to be able to understand that. PK was a master at the scare campaign and putting others down. He helped do a nice job on defeating Howard at an election so don't think he was more succesful. He did not have the same opposition to contend with. Hewson also tried to raise the stabdard of behaviour in parliament but was rejected by the public so it is no wonder they play games in parliament! Sure Howard did some things better but we  don't sem to condemn him for breaking his promise of no GSt while he was in charge the same way we have condemned other politicians on these boards for far less. Just an observation.

However, in this case the scare campaigners are not the ones I am listening to. When I go to a conference half way round the world, with CEO's of multi nationals going through their business direction and listing their global stategy and then saying Australia, high salaries, rising dollar (where will it stop) and CO2 tax. Australia at the bottom of the world is becoming the place not to invest unless you want black or red rocks. Some say a CO2 tax is not end of world, but introduced in Australia as inequibale compared to other countries and discourages heavy industry. When GST came in Aussie dollar was <80c.

however companies still said GST would be a bad thing so simply saying companies are arguing carbon tax will be a bad thing is meaningless.  The dollar being higher in value is great for certain sectors of the economy and the dollar being lower is great for other sectors. So who do we look after? Can't have it both ways. The value of the dollar is one of those things that changes and should not be a consideration. There are certainly things that will suffer if the dollar goes down just like some things suffer while it is higher.

Scrap it now, go away, have a rethink. Introduce only a tax that will have a positive impact on CO2 emissions and not harm the economy, especially the manufacturing sector.

So what tax  proposal can you suggest that will have a positive effect. Certainly i would be happy to pay more for electricity if I had the option of choosing a fully enviromentally friendly way of producing it. many don't have a choice and shouldn't be punished. Companies however do have a choice. They can help invest in R&D like they often do.

[somebody]

Sure Howard did some things better but we  don't sem to condemn him for breaking his promise of no GSt while he was in charge the same way we have condemned other politicians on these boards for far less. Just an observation.

This doesn't really count as a broken promise.  While he did state after the Hewson loss "A GST will never again be part of Liberal party policy", he changed his mind but took it to an election before implementing it, which is very different from implementing it without allowing the public to vote on it.

[verbatim9]

Personal households dont have to pay the carbon tax it's a tax for carbon intensive companies to  encourage them to move to more environmental ways. When and if they do it's their choice the carbon tax will not apply to them anymore. My electricity company put my rate up only .05c per kw hour, it's actually quite insignificant really.

[#Metro]

Personal households dont have to pay the carbon tax it's a tax for carbon intensive companies to  encourage them to move to more environmental ways. When and if they do it's their choice the carbon tax will not apply to them anymore. My electricity company put my rate up only .05c per kw hour, it's actually quite insignificant really.

Just to show you how wrong your above statement is. My last employer in Australia is Australia's largest single site power consumer. ~8million MW/hr per year. Based on your "insignificant" charge they would pay $4mpa in CO2 tax for their power use only, then their is gas, fuel and raw materials much of it produced in Australia that would incur upstream charges. So $4mpa, = 40 jobs including overheads, assuming company can find 40 jobs to cut without impacting on production. Its also chewing up available OPEX that would otherwise be used on improving safety, productivity and environmental performance keeping the business viable for the future. Their CAPEX budget is about $25mpa, so this $4m either comes off CAPEX or OPEX. Both limiting the plants potentially future.

I'm going to disagree with both, and here is why. There is no such thing as company tax.
Outrageous statement? Not at all. Only people pay taxes. Any increases to the price of something will result in an increase in the price of that good - which the end consumers will have to pay.

End consumers (households) are going to be re-reimbursed anyway, but this will not affect them trying to minimise cost because people only care about relative , not absolute, prices.

By charging for CO2 at the industry level, the price of carbon becomes incorporated into all their goods and derivatives thereof and filter across the entire economy - right down to things you and I buy off the supermarket shelf.

[somebody]

And I'm still waiting on someone to explain why coal burnt in Australia is considered evil and taxed, but coal exported is not?

That is one of the major flaws with the tax, I agree.  I guess the argument becomes that it is the burning country's responsibility, but I do not think that argument can be sustained.

And exempting petrol is positively stupid.

[justanotheruser]

Back to your house, well averaging 15kW/day per house for 10,000,000 houses in Australia = 54million MW/hr or nearly 7 x what my former employer uses. So where is the real oppurtunity and why is one lot of CO2 worth taxing and others are not?

So you think comparing every single household in the country to one business is a fair comparison do you? Really? No for it to be a fair comparision you would have to compare every single household against the total of every single business in the country.