It is almost beyond comprehension that our government would embrace a policy that is designed to hurt every single Australian - making everyone pay more for their power, and deliberately destroying jobs....Terry McCrann -- Herald Sun
IT’S still not too late to abandon your carbon tax madness. Your tax promises to be the single most destructive thing that any government in Australian history has ever done.
It is almost beyond comprehension that our government would embrace a policy that is designed to hurt every single Australian – making everyone pay more for their power, and deliberately destroying jobs….
All, to absolutely no point, as you should be finding out right now in Rio de Janeiro.
Nothing could be more certain than the tax will have to be dumped at some point in our future – when we wake from the nightmare. When the damage it is doing will become so painfully obvious.
It would be much, much better, even at this late stage, if you stopped it before it started.
UPDATE:
Tim Wilson was at the Rio+20 summit at which 50,000 delegates jetted in to talk about lessening man’s footprint on the environment. What sort of carbon footprint does 50,000 seats on airplanes create? Here’s what Tim observed:
Cars waiting to transport delegates from Cococabana beach to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development. Not hybrids. Meanwhile, buses run only a few metre away.
UPDATE:
Read the final draft document of the Rio+20 conference. You will be astonished by its utter vacuity. It is 49 pages of pap, expressing nothing but platitudes and mawkish sentimentality, with a dose of health-spa green religion. The only thing to interrupt the droning is the occasional vigorous shake of the collection tin for the United Nations and its army of bureaucrats. And prime ministers are sitting there, nodding, clapping and signing this drivel?
Just check out this cheap New Age green mysticism in the final draft:
39. We recognize that the planet Earth and its ecosystems are our home and that Mother Earth is a common expression in a number of countries and regions and we note that some countries recognize the rights of nature in the context of the promotion of sustainable development. We are convinced that in order to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environment needs of present and future generations, it is necessary to promote harmony with nature.
40. We call for holistic and integrated approaches to sustainable development which will guide humanity to live in harmony with nature and lead to efforts to restore the health and integrity of the Earth’s ecosystem.
UPDATE:
The trip used a lot of carbon flying there, the deal was done before she arrived, but Greens Senator Larissa Waters was still in Rio and finding ways to have pointless fun:
Taxpayer-funded flights to Rio where politicians create even larger carbon footprints to talk about reducing carbon emissions and eat pistachio ice-cream!
Of course, these wonderfully brilliant and talented intellects who do not mind spending others’ money, never considered implementing this Summit (code for junket) by teleconference so as not to create such enormous carbon emissions themselves!
Hi Ric,
You know I think the opposite!
However, quoting Terry McCrann is not the best. He is a noted right-wing ideologue, with a very poor grasp on economics, and always looking for an anti-government slant to every piece he writes. He is ofter laughed at by the wider economic community for his hard-line conservatism.
Don’t forget the Price on Carbon is actually a move to a more direct ETS, and it is a “tax” that will be around for only 1-2 financial years, unlike the very regressive GST (now there is a ‘great big new tax’ that was clearly misaligned, poorly planned and implemented with the shoddiness of a five-year-old bricklayer). And it is in line with some of the other major economies who are doing exactly the same thing (most in line with Kyoto – though I agree that Rio didn’t eventuate in anything), with a price that is not anywhere near the most expensive, as Tony Abbott consistently lies to the Australian public about (actually, it should be noted that the most fiction about this legislation is coming from the Opposition, who clearly have not got the ability to speak the truth at any point).
There is no evidence to Terry McCrann’s incredibly duplicitous statement -especially when price impositions as a direct result of the Price on Carbon will be somewhere in the vicinity of $0.06 per week, with ample compensation to cover it. To me, an incredible overhaul of the tax system has been the single biggest benefit from this whole thing.
For the long-term readers of my blog: Scott and I have a very good relationship where we can openly share our conflicting views without taking it personally. That is one of the true gifts of intelligence, maturity and strength in relationships.
___________________
Calling it “A Price on Carbon” is two more lies:
Firstly, a tax is a compulsory levy on production, consumption, income or expenditure.
A price is the amount voluntarily offered, paid or received for real goods or services.
Therefore the “Price on Carbon” is a tax.
Secondly, carbon is a solid element rarely found isolated in nature. Diamonds and graphite are examples. Carbon is usually combined with other elements forming coal, oil, gas, plants, animals and all foods they eat.
Any form of carbon when burnt or digested produces a colourless harmless natural gaseous plant food called carbon dioxide. This gas is what they will tax.
Therefore what is being imposed on Australia is not a “price on carbon”, it is a “tax on carbon dioxide”.
Both deceptions are deliberate. What is the Commissioner for Deceptive Advertising doing?
Whilst my views on the carbon tax have been spread amongst a variety of forums, I’m still yet to have someone explain to me exactly how this TAX is going to help the environment. Not “projections” or “treasury guess-timates”. I want evidence. It won’t change the habits of business. It won’t stop them from polluting. It’s nothing more than a socialist redistribution of wealth. And one that Gillard said we would never have under a government she leads. The only thing that saves her is she doesn’t lead the government, the greens and independents do.
“It won’t change the habits of business. It won’t stop them from polluting.”
I certainly think that it will change the habits of business and stop them polluting, Mick: by putting them out of business! No business: no pollution. Problem solved! Pure genius.
Kudos to the real driving force behind the plan, though: the former Senator for Tasmania, Dr. B.D.B. Brown, whose actual (stated) aim has been to shut down industries, obviating the need for any of those really-hard-to-work-out tax-then-”compensate”-thingies. Just close them down, right now.
Gillard’s plan is immeasurably more convoluted and protracted but ultimately will achieve the same result.
The “last to leave, please turn out the lights” sign won’t be required – it’ll already be dark.
That is all about to change regarding the Greens; and the independents are disingenuous. Wayne Swan in his attempts to support Julia Gillard is only transferring the ridiculousness of his own ineptitude onto her, making things worse.
—Ric
From the Brisbane Courier-Mail newspaper:
Meatworks may shut Queensland plant for three weeks to avoid carbon tax
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/meatworks-may-shut-to-avoid-carbon-tax/story-e6freon6-1226406402891
A MAJOR meatworks could shut one of its Queensland plants for three weeks to side-step a carbon tax bill expected to cost millions.
Teys Australia Meat Group is one of 295 names on a preliminary list of companies to be slugged the $23 a tonne carbon tax from July 1 after its carbon emissions were estimated as being above the threshold of 25,000 tonnes a year.
The group, which has its head office in Beenleigh, south of Brisbane, was expecting its carbon tax bill to exceed $2 million a year.
But the meat processor could dodge part of the bill by closing down its second-biggest plant at Beenleigh for several weeks to reduce its annual emissions at the location to just below the Government’s 25,000 tonne tax threshold.
It is believed other meatworks with emissions above the threshold could also be considering temporary shut-downs to avoid the tax.
“We could close this plant for a period of time in the year – one or two weeks – and therefore our total emissions for the year would potentially be below 25,000 (tonnes),” Teys spokesman Tom Maguire said.
“We are talking to the Government about ways of avoiding that but to this date we haven’t come to any resolution.
“Given some of our competitors don’t have the same tax, we won’t be able to pass the costs on.”
The company will also pay a carbon tax on emissions from its Rockhampton plant but says a temporary closure there was not an option.
Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said the Government’s $1 billion Clean Technology Program provided grants for new equipment and technology to reduce emissions.
The potential shutdown comes as Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan moves to reassure voters that carbon tax compensation will reach much higher up the income threshold than people realised.
New Treasury analysis reveals half of all families earning up to $150,000 a year will be over-compensated for the carbon tax, with tax cuts and welfare changes equivalent to 120 per cent of the expected cost.
But it might not stretch as far in Queensland as other states, with residents here facing a $3.70 a week rise in electricity prices directly related to the carbon tax.
That compares with a rise of $3.30 a week in NSW, $2.48 a week in Tasmania and $2.50 a week in Western Australia.
Prices will rise by double those amounts in some states but those increases are not as a direct result of the carbon tax.
The first of many closures Ric. I’ve had 6 clients in the last 3 months I have been working with to try and determine exactly how the TAX will impact their business financially, and how this will in turn impact their employees job security. Sadly 3 have said they will have to cut staff within the last half of 2012 just to make their own mortgage repayments.
Immediately preceding the Rio+20 Earth Summit, the (now) annual G20 Leaders’ Summit was held in Los Cabos, Mexico. This was obviously the warm-up for Rio…(sorry)
An example of the nebulous, inanities that emanated from that fun-filled talkfest:
“…support the intention to consider more concrete steps toward more integrated financial architecture.”
We can look forward to experiencing the scalpel-like precision of these wordsmiths up close as the Australian tax-payer hosts the event in 2014.
I don’t mind paying for these world government thought-fests if something positive, worthwhile and valuable comes of it.
I have no such confidence in any of the world governments and their leaders, currently. Obama being one such disappointment. There’s only two things he’s been successful at in his presidency: getting elected in the first place, and reading an auto-cue.
It seems to be the Modus Operandi for politicians of all flavours: spin over substance. “Yes Minister” is alive and well.
A book I would recommend to demonstrate how ingrained this attitude is in modern society is Simon Carr’s “The Gripes of Wrath.”
Stay tuned for manoeuvring by Rudd and Shorten. Therese Rein has already begun doing some of her husband’s dirty work for him.
—Ric
McClelland has got some surprises in store for Julia Gillard.
LEGAL advice from a torrid union corruption scandal in the 1990s sheds new light on how the solicitor who would become attorney-general, Robert McClelland, and the woman who sacked him, Julia Gillard, were pitted against each other in a costly battle over her former boyfriend – and on claims that he had misappropriated $400,000 of union money.
Details of Mr McClelland’s strategy to hold the Prime Minister’s then client and boyfriend, former one-time Australian Workers Union Victorian boss Bruce Wilson, and others accountable are revealed in archived documents obtained by The Weekend Australian.
Mr Wilson strenuously denies the claims and the allegation against him was not prosecuted after police received legal advice that there was no offence…
Mr McClelland further raised the stakes in an interview with The Weekend Australian yesterday when he said for the first time that a “third party” might have benefited from the alleged union wrongdoing in the mid-90s.
One of the documents obtained by The Weekend Australian is a six-page legal advice by Mr McClelland in August 1995 when he was a solicitor at Turner Freeman lawyers in Sydney.
Mr McClelland’s advice urged his client, Ian Cambridge, then national head of the AWU, to take a raft of immediate actions to identify and recover the missing funds… Mr Cambridge also swore in an affidavit that was filed in the Industrial Relations Court in 1996 that he was “unable to understand how Slater and Gordon, who were then acting for the Victoria Branch of the Union, could have permitted the use of funds which were obviously taken from the union, in the purchase of private property of this nature, without seeking and obtaining proper authority from the union”.
Mr Cambridge was referring to a house in Kerr Street, Fitzroy, purchased with union funds in 1993, used by Mr Wilson, and sold in early 1996. Proceeds from the sale were not returned to the union.
Watch this space, there’s more to come!
—Ric