Was Greenland really a green land? I had always been taught that it was a marketing con following the disastrous response to Erik the Red's colonial plans in Iceland.

Roses1,

The subtle difference with the GST is that when imposing the tax, Howard gave an equivalent amount of rebate on other taxes. The point was to change the method of collecting tax not increasing it.

With the carbon tax, this is not replacing other taxes, it simply increases the tax load. While promising subsidies to low income earners, it does not reduce the tax load for the majority of people, nor does it replace the jobs lost in the steel and aluminium industry to China.

Roses1,
I suppose your hot summers have been offset by the coldest winters in 60 years in the Northern hemisphere. My wife is English and her 66 year old sister still lives in England and she sent us pictures of Ice around her home and conditions she has never before witnessed. Our friends in the USA were locked in for weeks with huge falls of snow. Has anynoe factored in the effect the volcanos in Indonesia and Iceland have caused to global warming?

No! It is all an innacurate science of impressions just like your impressions of the heat in Perth.

Shadow Minister

A carbon price is not 'subtly' different to the GST in terms of rebates/ offsets by reducing other taxes. These can be provided in exactly the same way, as has been stated will be done by the Government for low and middle income earners.

With regards effects on industry and the economy, here is a contribution to some informed debate.

As one who has professionally assessed energy and emissions of dozens of companies, I can say that:
- energy comprises around 1% of energy costs of most manufacturing and retail industries.
- Light industry and and retail businesses purchase electricity at tariffs of around 18c per unit. A $25 carbon price would only increase these by less than 3c or 15% and fuel price by less than 6c or 5%.
- The businesses I audited could easily reduce energy use by 20% for transport fuels and 10% for electricity by implementing low or no cost efficiencies (<12 month payback time)
- These companies can pay a carbon price, implement efficiences and not increase their energy bills, which is precisely what the carbon price is intended to do. Reductions in company tax is likely to more than offset any costs that a minority may incur.

The smelting and petroleum industries you mentioned are a special case as they have high energy use(around 20% of their costs or more in case of aluminum smelting). They contribute a huge portion (about 40%) of Australia's energy related emissions, are a relatively small part of the ecomomy and have great potential to reduce these emissions if paying a carbon price

roses said..
"“97% of the world’s climate scientists” accept the consensus,

This number..will prove a new embarrassment
to the pundits and press who use it.

The number stems..from a 2008 master’s thesis..by student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at the University of Illinois,under the guidance of Peter Doran,an associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences.

The two researchers obtained their results
by conducting a survey of 10,257 Earth scientists.

The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers

in the end,they chose to highlight the views
of a subgroup of just 77 scientists,

75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change.

The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout.

That left the 10,257 scientists in such disciplines as geology, geography,oceanography,engineering,paleontology and geochemistry who were somehow deemed..more worthy of being included in the consensus.

The two researchers also decided..scientific accomplishment should not be a factor..in who could answer..those surveyed were determined by their place of employment..(an academic or a governmental institution).

Neither was academic qualification a factor
about 1,000..of those surveyed did not have a PhD,
some didn’t even have a master’s diploma.

To encourage a high participation..among these remaining disciplines, the two researchers decided on a quickie survey..that would take less than two minutes to complete,and would be done online,saving the respondents the hassle of mailing a reply.

Nevertheless,most didn’t consider the quickie survey worthy of response..just 3,146, or 30.7%.. answered the two key questions on the survey:

1 When compared with pre-1800s levels,..do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen,fallen,or remained relatively constant?

2 Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

The questions posed to the Earth scientists
were actually non-questions.

From my discussions with literally hundreds of skeptical scientists over the past few years,I know of none who claims the planet hasn’t warmed since the 1700s,

and almost none..who think humans haven’t contributed
in some way to the recent warming..

quite apart from carbon dioxide emissions,..
clearly the OTHER greenhouse gasses have THEIR guilt..

just dont be claiming any 97% concen-SUSS
its a lie

Roses1

"A carbon price is not 'subtly' different to the GST in terms of rebates/ offsets by reducing other taxes. These can be provided in exactly the same way, as has been stated will be done by the Government for low and middle income earners."

It could but, it should be, but it's not!

There are no taxes reduced, what the government is planning is a cash hand out to low income earners, and businesses.

Tax and spend, the old Labor mantra.

The smelting industry only contributes a few percent to Australian emissions, but employs thousands. When the supply of steel and Aluminium moves overseas the net emissions will not change, and the only impact will be on Australian families.