LF,

I take your silence combined with your simplistic and flawed analysis to mean that you have no economic qualifications whatsoever.

The compensation does not assist all consumers and thus cannot by your logic cover all the increase in prices. Likewise partial export assistance is provided for a small number of businesses, and no import protection is provided at all.

Businesses make profits on the margins between costs and sales, so while the costs go up by small amount compared to total costs, the percentage by which profits are eroded are much higher. Cost savings need to be made and inevitably people lose their jobs. (for which there is no CT compensation)

Other articles show that much of the emission reductions that Labor was counting on in their modelling (ie carbon capture and storage CCS) has produced no results even after hundreds of millions being thrown at it. Figures from Europe show that the ETS has so far made little to no reductions in emissions. So all we can expect from this Labor Green adventure is a further erosion of manufacturing, and a scattering of Greens/labor white elephants.

Lexi,

I think the carbon tax is wrong on so many levels, but concisely:

(1) If you don't believe in AGW, it's absurd
(2) If you do believe in AGW, it's ineffective.

The so-called carbon leakage that will result from taxing only about 350 companies in a single small country is beyond comprehension. And the carbon leakage will prove to be damaging at all scales (except to insolvency lawyers who are rubbing their hands together). The only thing the CT will achieve is to increase the cost of living.

However, by taking another swipe at Tony Abbott in your last post, you have inadvertently hit on a very important element of this whole farce – it will be difficult for his government to undo this CT imbroglio. One of the reasons is the structure – the main offsetting compensation for low income earners will be achieved by raising the tax-free threshold from about $6k to $18k. This not only affects the people in this bracket but everyone with a taxable income up to $80k (ie. over 50% of taxpayers & voters, hmmm).

Amongst many other measures that will have to be taken is that to cut out the CT, TA will also have to re-adjust the tax brackets back to where they were – no tax means no extra costs means no need for compensation. But we all know that it’s not that easy (as OUG pointed out). Even if the extra costs were taken off every product and service overnight, there will be a hue and cry that the coalition hate poor people and want these poor people to subsidise the rich.

They have been set up for a fall in this regard – I would like to think this has been unintentional but I may be naive.

I liken the carbon tax to those tricky little fish that live in the Amazon – there is some effort to get in, but once it’s in it is very uncomfortable and the host must get it out. Getting it out will be very, very painful but we must!

Dear Peter Mac.,

I'd like to have this conversation with you in
12 months from now - after the Carbon Pricing has been
implemented and up and running
and see whether you still feel the same way as
you do today.

The following link may be of some interest:

http://www.surfcoasttimes.com.au/news/environment/2012/06/21/businesses-urged-to-learn-carbon-footprint/

Peter Mac, you wrote:

<< I think the carbon tax is wrong on so many levels, but concisely:

(1) If you don't believe in AGW, it's absurd
(2) If you do believe in AGW, it's ineffective. >>

I beg to disagree.

The carbon tax should be all about peak oil, with climate change as a far distant second motive.

The supply rate of oil can’t keep meeting the still-rapidly-increasing global demand. Not at least without a big increase in price.

So we would be well-advised to get right into developing renewable energy sources so that we are not totally addicted to oil and it will be easier to make large-scale changes away from oil when the crunch hits.

It shouldn’t matter whether you believe in AGW or not! We should all be supporting a CT regardless of this.

Yes it will be ineffective if it is left as is. It should be a small first step towards a greener society.

But we’ve got to make that first step. And that is what is so important about the CT. We’ve got an essentially never-ending-expansionist strongly antisustainability-oriented government actually trying to do something sustainability-minded!

Let’s cherish that and support it all the way!

Actually, it is possible that our government can see the folly of continuing down the traditional oil-fuelled rapid-growth path and is trying to make a small step to steer away from it…. as hard as it is with big business bearing down on them and a large portion of the general community simply denouncing any more tax impositions upon them without giving a hoot about the reasons behind them.

Interesting thought. Hmm. I think I’ll start up a new general thread on that theme!

Hi Lexi – I look forward to keeping in touch and discussing various topics as we do and I’m sure this one will feature.

Your link discusses how businesses can save money by using resources more efficiently. Guess what? – this has nothing to do with the carbon tax per se but should be a principle that all businesses and householders apply all the time. Some do it well & some do it poorly. The implied message in the article that the carbon tax can present an opportunity for businesses to save money is just silly. But then the article is essentially just an advertisement. As my old dad used to tell me, “Believe nothing of what you read and only half of what you see.”

However, an important line from the article is: “Most business in Australia will not be directly impacted by the carbon tax. Small businesses will only be impacted by the flow-on effects.” If the word “only” is deleted, and this is cunningly placed to get the emphasis, this perfectly describes our future.

Dear Peter Mac,

It is interesting the impact of words and where
they are placed, I agree. For example when a
politician is asked whether he knows anything
about his party's involvement in certain matters and he
replies - "I have no specific knowledge of any
involvement," the key word is "specific."

The link I gave previously was merely to attract
attention to the fact that on issues which require
radical solutions that are likely to harm vested
economic and political interests are likely to be
looked upon as threats. In other words new ideas,
instead of being welcome for the opportunities
they opened up for the improvement they could offer,
were threats to those who had become comfortable in
their ideologies - and the way they did things. The
link was merely a suggestion to look at things in
another way - at the opportunities that could be
opened up for the improvement they could offer.