Oh dear, the woolly headed pro labor carbon tax mob are at it again. A carbon tax wouldn't be so bad if it targeted the ultimate consumer instead of providing compensation to them. That would not be very electorally popular. The present scheme is just designed to make the rest of the world look at Australia and think that we are doing something, when in reality it won't do anything. I might also remind you that at the end of the day, the government is going to buy carbon credits from other countries and then claim that they have met their target. That is the ultimate spin which this mob seems to be very good at.

David

The carbon tax will work.

By closing down manufacturing jobs,and by making everyone poorer it will reduce the emissions in Australia.

It will not however, reduce the global emissions, as the polluting businesses such as steel will simply be replaced with overseas non taxed industry.

Bob Brown will get his wish and Australia will become like Tasmania, economically backward, and industrially barren.

There's spin and there's spin. With a comment like that, you don't understand the purpose of a carbon tax. What has taxing the end user got to do with reducing carbon. The ones that can control carbon is the manufactures and power producers.

579 and others that are illiterate with regards to power generation, there are a few home truths that need to be grasped to understand the idiocy of the present version of the carbon tax.

Truth No 1.

A power plant is designed to use a particular fuel in a particular configuration. For example the brown coal generation plants in the La Trobe valley burnt brown coal to generate power. For every MWhr they use a proportionate quantity of coal, and the only way they can generate less CO2 is by generating less power.

Truth No 2.

Power generated by brown coal (the most emission intensive fuel) will with the carbon tax, still be the cheapest source of electrical power, and this is unlikely to change before the carbon price reaches $40. So there is no incentive to change the means of generation.

Truth No 3.

Given the first 2 truths, is that the cost of power and every business activity will increase to some degree, and the only way to reduce emissions in the short to medium term is by reducing the consumption of electricity and reducing (or closing) production, which essentially means winding back the economy.

The alternative is to simply pass the costs to the consumer in and endless churn of money, boosting inflation.

Luciferase
one last go to make you see sense.

"A world-wide attack does exist.."

This is an example of the unreal world in which activists exist. There is no such attack, and it is a complete denial of reality to claim otherwise. Every time examples have been cited I have looked at the example, to find it is limited and partial. The US, for example, has a few states involved in a mild version of an ETS. There are no plans to extend it, and the US president did not even try to introduce anything more comprehensive into Congress. The list goes on - you can work out where china is yourself - yet you still have activists who insist, in the teeth of all evidence - that there is an effective, world-wide push. Time to face reality. Its over.

As for the business about fossil fuels running out, or whatever, weren't price signals meant to deal with that? The price signals should swamp any cabon tax pricing. In any case you do realise that the gas industry has been completely turned upside down in recent years.. gas reserve estimates have gone into the stratosphere in the US (somewhat different story here with, but still more gas than we know what to do with).. so the price signals may well be trending in the opposite direction to your carbon tax for some time to come.. You may impose the tax and find gas, at least, becomes cheaper. Coal prices are well up of course, but what happens in China goes bust.. The point is price singals will completely swamp your tax..

There is a lot more I could say, but I hope you get the general idea. The carbon tax will just add to consumer misery without affecting any change.. Its a complete waste of time.. forget it..

579 there are 22 million Australians using electricity. If the carbon tax made their electricity dearer, they would at least attempt to use less of it. Unfortunately, the government has decided that it will make the power generators pay the tax and compensate the 22 million consumers. Under this regime there is absolutely no incentive for them to reduce their electricity consumption, therefore the tax will not have the slightest effect in reducing carbon emissions.

David