http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2788496.html

That the Gillard government would have the audacity to claim that the carbon tax would meet their 2020 goal of 5% below 2000 levels, when treasury's projected levels are 13% higher than 2000 levels is breath taking.

The target is reached essentially with an huge renewables direct action plan (supposedly rejected by the economists) and buying vast quantities of carbon credits from overseas. This is tantamount to admitting that the carbon tax in itself does very little to reduce carbon.

Secondly the modelling on the increase in costs to the consumer only includes the carbon tax, not the huge renewables program, which is estimated to double the impact of the carbon tax, and for which there is no compensation.

awe...no fair minester
its no fun..revealing how the majic was done

watch the hand..
play the man..not the game
so many topics..so many with nothing new to say

great of the pm to reveal some new spin
yes emmisions will increase..but..nz has half price carbon credits

we can buy them
even the eu has cheaper credits
so lets buy them

i recall hearing yesterday
how if you bought them...you cant sell them
but if you got em for free...you can sell them

so dont pay
allow govt to give us them
only then can we sell them

its so sad ol mate
but lets be fair..if it was howard selling HIS sceme
would we still be on the same side?

i recall [the red rad queen of oz]..pm
said last night..[admitted it was thatcher
that first thunk it publicly...[because of cooling]

it failed cause then there came warming
so howard picked it up....[and it started coolling again]
so it became clim-mate change..[cause thats what climate does]

if we spin it right
at the right time
with model/bling

we can get a big new tax
well lets build in a revieuw mechanism to text the science
the month prior to implimentation..just incase its cooling again

but know..no we wont do that
the up/shot is oak/shot sold out..
to the very bunkum he said he wouldnt allow...
[income churn]..lol..its so sad its pathet-trick

SM,

The following website may be of interest:

http://newmatilda.com/2011/07/11/carbon-tax-we-had-have

And please do read it before you criticize anything.

Lexi please.

In his second paragraph he's talking about Australia's excessively high pollution level.

Everyone knows CO2 is plant food. Only a lefty idiot would still be talking about it being pollution.

Dear Hasbeen,

You're wrong. Not only a "lefty idiot," thinks that way but people like Margaret Thatcher and other conservatives all agreed that over the past quarter century, pollution of the environment has begun to threaten the ecological balance and the health of many of its species, including ourselves. As a result of burning fuels and wastes and the razing of forests, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is steadily increasing. This gas creates a "greenhouse effect" on the planet, for it allows solar rays to reach the earth's surface but prevents heat from radiating back into space. Anyway, I won't attempt to educate you here, I don't see that as my place to do. - You can Google "Greenhouse Effect" yourself and read up on it. The main point is, after decades of carelessly dumping noxious gases and particulates into the atmosphere, most of the industrialised societies are now enforcing clean-air standards. Anyway, read the entire website I gave you - don't just nit-pick on what you see as a
"leftie" point of view simply because it doesn't agree with the spin you've been given. Have an open mind - you may actually learn something.

Lexi,

My point was that according to government modelling, the carbon tax is not going to work, if the target is to reduce carbon emissions by 7.5% from today, but actually increases it by 6%.

If this has no effect on global emissions why do we have to have this tax?

Lexi, it has been said that our contribution to the global co2 is about one single hair on the gateway bridge.

Also, it is suggested that if we achieve our target, then what we save in a full year, china and India will omit in about 2 days as they are tipped to increase outputs by 500&350%respectfully

What is it with this governments obsession with wanting trophies?

How any clown out there can think we can cut emissions, while at the same time meet the demands from developing countries simply defies lodgic.

With china and India tipped to increase emissions by 500&350% the demands for raw materials must increase to feed that growth.

So, we have two choices.

1. We sit back and watch someone else provide their needs, or
2. They simply fail to develop.

Now considering the latter is unlikely to happen, what do you clowns who support this 'go it alone' emissions reduction plan suggest we do to sustain our way of life, or, do you suggest we ruin the prospects for our future generations?

Cutting pollution is not a left-wing issue:

"The Ross Garnaut-commissioned CSIRO’s report Australians’ views of climate change last year polled 3096 Australians and found that the biggest single predictor of whether Australians believe that global warming is caused by humans is their voting intentions. The CSIRO found that 82 per cent of Greens voters and 63 per cent of Labor voters believed climate change is occurring largely due to human activity, while 59 per cent of Liberal/National voters think it is a normal fluctuation in the Earth's climate. Voting intention would seem to be a strange thing to correlate with an issue that is essentially scientific.

Does that make climate change a left wing issue? Not if we go back a bit into history. Margaret Thatcher was one of the first world leaders to take the threat of climate change seriously. In 1990 she committed to reversing the rising trend of greenhouse gas emissions and bring emissions back to 1990 levels by 2005. Back in Australia in 1990 Andrew Peacock faced off against Bob Hawke in a general election. The Coalition under Peacock committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2000 if they won office. Peacock lost the election but the commitment was kept under the new Coalition Leader John Hewson who took it to the 1993 election.

Early commitments to reducing emissions came from the conservative side of politics. John Howard promised to introduce an ETS to cut emissions. Brendan Nelson, who followed Howard as Liberal leader also thought that an ETS was the best way to deliver emissions cuts. Next was Malcolm Turnbull, who also thought that an ETS was the best way to go. Even Tony Abbott has previously said the best way to cut emissions is an ETS, as well as supporting a carbon tax."

https://www.tai.org.au/?q=node/336

Australia will be left behind if it does not get on board with sustainable technologies.

At the same time China and India are becoming industrialised, they are also working on sustainable technologies. What this means for Australia is that relying on coal exports as an economic driver is as short term as it is exporting pollution.

"4. Both sides agree that the relationship between India and China, the two biggest developing countries in the world, is of global and strategic significance. Both countries are seeking to avail themselves of historic opportunities for development. Each side welcomes and takes a positive view of the development of the other, and considers the development of either side as a positive contribution to peace, stability and prosperity of Asia and the world. Both sides hold the view that there exist bright prospects for their common development, that they are not rivals or competitors but are partners for mutual benefit. They agree that there is enough space for them to grow together, achieve a higher scale of development, and play their respective roles in the region and beyond, while remaining sensitive to each other’s concerns and aspirations. Strategic partnership between the two countries with a similar worldview is consistent with their roles as two major developing countries. With the growing participation and role of the two countries in all key issues in today’s globalising world, their partnership is vital for international efforts to deal with global challenges and threats. As two major countries in the emerging multi-polar global order, the simultaneous development of India and China will have a positive influence on the future international system.

5. In order to promote the sustainable socio-economic development of India and China, to fully realise the substantial potential for their cooperation in a wide range of areas, to upgrade India-China relations to a qualitatively new level, and to further substantiate and reinforce their Strategic and Cooperative Partnership, the leaders of the two countries have committed themselves to pursuing the following “ten-pronged strategy”:I. Ensuring Comprehensive Development of Bilateral Relations:

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=22168

Hasbeen

Increasing levels of CO2 explained:

"Would it surprise you to know that the scientific community has been investigating the link between CO2 and global warming for more than 175 years? Scientists are born skeptics, and by no means accepted the theory as fact the first time it was proposed.

The idea that gases in the atmosphere could trap heat and warm the earth was first proposed in 1827, in an essay by French mathematician and physicist Joseph Fourier. He was trying to explain why the earth was warmer than physics would predict based just on distance from the sun.

The topic came up again 30 years later when Irish naturalist John Tyndall found clear evidence that glaciers once covered the Alps. The Earth had experienced ice ages. But how could the climate have changed that much? Tyndall was familiar with Fourier's essay, and in 1859 did some experiments that showed water vapor and carbon dioxide (CO2) could both trap heat.

Nearly 40 more years passed before another scientist fascinated with ice ages did some investigating. In 1896, Swedish Nobel Prize winner Svante Arrhenius computed that halving the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would lower the temperature by 7°F or more – ice age temperature. But he didn't see how CO2 concentrations could change this much.

It was a colleague of Arrhenius, Arvid Högom, who discovered that burning fossil fuels could add significant amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere – as much as natural geochemical processes. But both he and Arrhenius saw this as something that could only cause warming over thousands of years – at first.

In 1908, when coal-burning was more widespread, Arrhenius published a book where he theorized that global warming might take centuries rather than millennia, but no one paid this much mind. It wasn't the main point of the book, and no one believed it anyway.

For the next three decades, most scientists dismissed these ideas. The theories were often flawed or oversimplified, and in any case they thought that excess CO2 would be harmlessly absorbed by the ocean.

Cont'd

Cont'd

"Then in 1938, an English engineer named Guy Stewart Callendar took another look. People had been talking about a warming trend, so he checked the record and found that CO2 concentrations had increased 10 percent over the last hundred years. His observation spurred further research.

Finally, in the 1950s, thanks to increased government funding for research after World War II, experiments confirmed the suspicions. There was an unmistakable connection between CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and global warming....

...So you see, the greenhouse effect is not something scientists cooked up a few years ago, or even a few decades ago. We have been studying it for almost two centuries! After painstaking measurements and calculations by generations of scientists, the scientific community has reached a consensus: Global warming is caused by human activities. In the next posts in this series, I'll tell you how the measurements and calculations lead us to that conclusion."

http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2007/06/14/human_cause-1/

SM and fellow anti-CT campaigners.

Please, quit your whinging. It's gonna cost you a few bucks a week to contribute to the protection of the quality of life of future generations.

If you're truly not up for sacrificing a cent for future generations, when the rest of the country is celebrating ANZAC day next year, get on OLO and tell us all why sacrifice is not your thing.

If you really just don't believe there is a risk to future generations at all, if you think that the mass of evidence backed by every single significant scientific organization in the world is not enough to suggest any risk at all, I really have to question your ability to assess risk. Please, don't become a financial advisor.

And if you don't believe a carbon tax will do anything, maybe you should be teaching economics at out universities as it seems most reputable economists disagree with you. But perhaps you'll be too busy teaching science with your superior knowledge.

Ammonite,

If you are trying to convince us that carbon dioxide causes climate change, then we are convinced before you start.

However, 2/3 Australians believe, and rightly so that they will be better off without the vote buying "compensation" of the carbon tax, so Juliar has failed to convince the electorate that she is telling the truth this time.

For example Juliar promised that this tax would be revenue neutral. Then on Sunday, we realise that there is a shortfall of $4.3 bn that is funded from existing taxes, that Whine Swan called "broadly revenue neutral" (What BS). Now we find that there is a hit on our taxes for at least another $3bn to close the brown coal power stations.

Finally, the claim that emissions will decrease are bogus, and will actually increase by 5.5% over the next 8 years. Instead we will donate more than $3bn per annum to buy carbon credits overseas, many of which have been shown to be bogus.

This plan is rotten to the core.

SM,

The legislation is going to be passed whether you like it or not.
Australia has always been behind the rest of the world by about 30 years. Fortunately, this time we have a leader who will take us into the 21st Century. Make us competitive, ensure jobs, a strong economy,
invest in renewables, and do the right thing by our children and grandchildren. Of course there are risks involved - but any innovation involves risks. There is no longer an excuse for inaction.
Except by the narrow-minded-short-sighted greedy people who only think of their own interests and their own pockets - first and formost.

SM

1. People like Hasbeen are still in the 19th century as far as understanding science.

2. It is merely you opinion that the Carbon Tax Plan is rotten to the core, many economists beg to differ:

A survey of 145 economists released today found that 60% believe the Gillard government’s carbon tax is good economic policy.

The carbon tax package, announced on Sunday, penalises 500 heavy polluters for their greenhouse gas emissions and will create $24.5 billion over its first four years. It will be replaced with a market-based emissions trading scheme in 2015.

The policy has been fiercely opposed by the Coalition, which favours a suite of direct action policies instead to tackle climate change.

However, the survey of economists found that 85% of respondents who had a view on the Coalition’s plan did not think it was sound economic policy....

...“We asked two questions. Roughly how much are you in favour or against this carbon tax package announced by the government? And what is your reaction to the direct action plan of the Coalition?,” said the Economic Society of Australia’s president, Professor Bruce Chapman from the Crawford School of Economics and Government at ANU.

“The results were fairly clear cut. Something like 60% were in favour of the governments approach and 25% were against and 15% had no opinion.”

Professor Chapman said the results were not surprising.

“One of the basic tenets of economics is that if people are engaged in an activity which is seen to be harmful to society, then the role of government is to tax that activity to diminish that type of behaviour,” he said....

......The survey coincided with the release of another poll of 500 members of the Economic Society of Australia on a range of policies, including the mining tax and middle-class welfare.

Around 70% of respondents to that survey said they support a national excess profits tax on miners and two-thirds of want middle-class welfare cut so that more assistance can be given to the disabled and severely disadvantaged."

http://theconversation.edu.au/economists-back-carbon-tax-package-2313

Lexi,

If this tax is passed, Labor will suffer as NSW labor did. A DD election fought on the carbon tax will remove the green block, and there will be a coalition government for as long as Labor's incompetence remains fresh in voters' minds.

If the tax proves to be as toxic as I think, the labor caucus might well pull the pin on Juliar, and the tax will die. I think she desperately needs the next few months to recover support or she may well be for the chopping block.

Tman not many of us are complaining about a few bucks a week as we see the big picture.

What concerns us is that we become anti competetive and we loose out way of life. we are already struggling with a record high dollar.

Lexie, I admire your support for this crowd, I just hope you don't find some excuse if you are proven wrong as you are in the depleting miniority who accually think this lot is doing a good job.

And once again, in true incompitent form, she has announced that the top 500 will be targeted, only she won't tell anyone who they are.

Obviously she is capable of more stuff ups.

Oviously

SM and Rehctub,

Let's wait and see what develops. 2013 is a way off yet.
We'll have to wait and see who amongst us was right and who was wrong.
To me from all that I've seen, and read, and observed - I wouldn't
discount the PM winning the next election. I mean, look at the alternative - can you really put your hand on your heart and say that
you'd really want Mr Abbott as the next PM - or would you prefer Barnaby Joyce? Come on. Julia Gillard has taken everything rather well. What with personal attacks, and all the negativity she's had to cop. And why - because Mr Abbott wants to be PM. He doesn't give a stuff about anything else. But as I said - let's wait and see. Perhaps reason will prevail. Australian voters usually get it right in
the end. They certainly made their views felt at the last election.
They will again at the next one.

rehctub, you're seeing a small portion of the big picture only. In the long term we will be gaining a competitive advantage as the rest of the world continues to move towards ETS type systems.

It's better to take a hit now, which is what you refer to, while our economy is so strong, rather than being forced to make these changes later when the economy may not be in such good shape. The pain would be a lot worse and we'd have lost the opportunity to get ahead of the pack.

BTW I guarantee the polls will turn around within the next few months, if not weeks. Industry and unions are starting to get behind the tax already and people will soon wisen up to Abbott's lack of credibility.

Tman, this is where you are wrong. Our economy is not strong, our mining industry is.

Apart from mining there is literally nothing else that is making the wheels turn.

Speak to any tradie and they will tell you unless they have government contracts, they are screwed. Ironically, a large portion of gov contracts are fixing stuff ups.

Then there is the increases confusion caused by an incompitent pm who can't, or won't tell the 500 biggest poluters just they are.

The best way to stall an economy is to install concussion and uncertainties.

rehctub,

"Nope, the reality is (and as most tier one data shows), the Australian economy is doing very well indeed. The idea that the non-mining economy is in a recession is pure fiction, as shown by the strong growth in domestic demand in the first quarter and the surge in full-time jobs growth in both New South Wales and Victoria..." Adam Carr, Senior Economist writing for Business Spectator July 11, 2011.
Available here:
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Carbon-tax-emissions-inflation-economy-clean-energ-pd20110711-JMT4L?OpenDocument&src=sph

It's actually a really good critical analysis of the economic implications of the CT package.

Lexi,

Abbott is trying to bribe labor MPs. Now that is a wild assertion, I doubt you can back that up.

I would take Abbott over Juliar any day. Juliar's sole motivation behind the carbon tax, pokie tax etc is to satisfy those upon whom she depends for power. She will say and do anything.

Trash,

Firstly we can't open the document, and secondly your comment flies in the face of the terrible retail, tourism, and manufacturing numbers.

I work in heavy industry, and I can't name one that is not hurting.

@ SM:

The document opens fine for me, and Trash's comment is perfectly consistent with Carr's analysis. Why are your figures better? At least Trash provided an authoritative reference - from your side of the political fence, at that.

Tman, obviously you are one of the lucky ones who has a job provided to you at the cost of a risk taker.

Madam PM would also have us believe that we are at full employment.

Now there's a joke and a half. Try telling this to someone seeking work.

As SM says, try telling your success story to the real world.

Like it or not, we have a two stage economy and the second stage is in recession. The carbon tax may just prove this. The hard way!

http://www.startupsmart.com.au/planning/2011-07-08/manufacturing-tourism-and-retail-worst-hit-by-jump-in-collapses.html

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-04/retail-market-still-flat-despite-lift-in-turnover/2782038?section=business

http://www.smh.com.au/business/figures-point-to-big-increase-in-corporate-insolvencies-20110707-1h4ow.html

http://www.switzer.com.au/business-news/news-stories/two-speed-economy-on-show/

THE pace of corporate insolvencies has reached its highest since the global financial crisis, with retailers, manufacturers and transport players feeling the squeeze from the slump in consumer spending and a high dollar.

All three of these sectors will be punished under a carbon tax, and employ far more than the mining sector.

Nice try SM but insolvency rates are, among a great plethora of variables, more a result of increased risk taking during economic good times. The insolvency rates have been rising steadily since the early 90's; Hardly an era of recession.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/unprecedented-slump--retail-gloom-grows-20110714-1hf5w.html

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/retailers-slump-on-djs-profit-warning/story-fn91v9q3-1226094475556

Both from today's paper. Hardly the height of economic health. Insolvencies are strong indicator, but are not the only figures quoted. Tourism numbers are at a record low. Manufacturing companies profits are at a record low.

You can ask any shop owner. Most of Australia needs this tax like a hole in the head.

The Australian Government Carbon Emmissions Strategy seems a reasonable comprise between direct action and market based approaches. Similarly the carbon price is a compromise between what is needed to change behavior and what it is feasible to get through parliament.

Assuming the government can stay in office long enough to bring the scheme into operation, it should be successful, both in political and environmental terms:

http://blog.tomw.net.au/2011/07/australian-government-carbon-emmissions.html

Assuming that

Dear Tom,

Another election isn't due until 2013. Whereas the carbon tax will be introduced in July next year. The only thing to be assumed is whether it will be dismantled by the Opposition should it win the next election? (At a great cost to us all).

"Carbon price battle is lost, say experts"

"Political experts believe the battle to sell the carbon tax to the Australian public has been lost and the Prime Minister can do nothing to change voters' minds on the issue. A poll by ReachTel has shown a week of public campaigning on the climate change reform by Julia Gillard has failed to sway voter opinion on the tax in the past seven days. Despite the issue dominating the news cycle for the past week, support for the carbon tax (32.4 per cent) remained 28.6 points behind support against the reform (61 per cent) over the past seven days."

As I mentioned in another post, the Labor heavy weights have already abandoned the cause, allowing Juliar and Whine Swan to carry the message on their own. Most labor back benches are also notably absent, protecting their tenuous hold on their seats from the ferocity of the debate.

Juliar cannot even shepard all the unions onto her side, the ETU has condemned the carbon tax, and the AWU Paul Howes has endorsed it in spite of the objections of many of his members.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/union-breaks-ranks-rejects-gillard-carbon-deal-20110719-1hn8n.html

If the rumours are true, and Juliar has about 6 months to turn this around before she gets the tap on the shoulder, and if she does the carbon tax is dead.

- if everybody is so worried about the economy just wondering why it appears few on here seem to be actually working.

Patterns of people going back for yonks day after day posting on olo in business hours- just an observation. I admit posting can be addictive and i have posted in biz hours sure.

Mostly however I have posted late & if i have posted in working hours I *have made it up. Its a bit hypocritical crying about the economy and all being arm chair experts under those circumstances.

Anyway just a passing observation. As for the carbon tax the entire forum is full of it.

There is little difference from one thread to another and the issue has become a bore- Well in here anyway.

One can not think about this topic going on and on for another two years.

Whatever cheers!