Ludwig: you are spot on.

JKJ: much to my suprise I agree with you.

If we are to be honest about "mandates" for one policy, lets have a referendum on it.

Luciferase,>> When you mentioned the Carbon Tax deception I initially thought you were talking about power costs going down by 70% with its repeal (you know, the same amount it supposedly went up due to the CT?)<<

Yes a point worth making. Most state governments that had a financial interest in the grid failed to spend on infrastructure over the past 20 years and the incredible hike in electricity pricing is primarily due to that.

In the majority of cases the carbon tax and equivalency sub taxes have impacted on “components” of manufactured goods here. In particular chemicals and various gasses have felt the brunt. One example is a non inflammable gas used in a plethora of aerosol products manufactured here has risen by 28K per tonne. That is double, and the price of these products “doubled” last October.

I have firsthand knowledge of two small manufacturers who employed 30 plus people each last year and have a skeleton crew today because of the market turning to imported products that carry no tax. The strong Aussie dollar contributed to this, but the carbon equivalency tax was and is a major factor to making local manufacturers uncompetitive.

The carbon tax and the raft of “equivalency taxes that came with it have cost jobs and changed the fortune of tens of thousands of unskilled workers. It was never about all goods going up by 10%....the equivalency taxes on components of the product is far more damaging to the viability of manufacturing here.

Lucyface,

The generally accepted definition of "mandate" is a publicized pre election promise of the ruling party. Such as the "there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead" of Juliar.

Abbott has made getting rid of the carbon tax an absolute non negotiable, such that not taking action would be the equivalent of the Lie that destroyed Labor.

Given the tax's on going unpopularity, labor's resistance would be a weapon to beat it to even lower polls in the future.

No, power costs will only go down by about 10% with the deletion of the
CO2 tax.
Its main costs are what everyone who used electricity had to
add on to their invoices.

It is known as trickle down.

Labor was blamed for all power rises, and Murdoch did nothing to clarify the issue despite Labor's bleatings. It was all part of the calamity/disaster hue put on every Labor story.

Dorothy,

Now don't post lies, there was plenty in the Newscorp papers to explain the causes of power cost rises. However, note that for domestic electricity, more than 90% of the bill is for reticulation and about 8% is actually for power. For industry the proportion of power to reticulation is higher leading to a 15% power increase for small businesses to a 60%+ increase for heavy industry purely due to the carbon tax.