Paul,
Amazing, Gillard sells her soul for power and you try to excuse it as
a change of circumstances ?

If circumstances had changed and she originally meant not to introduce
the tax, and circumstances really had changed, you might just, just,
get away with saying it was not a lie, but to change it to get
political power is indeed making a pact with the devil.

Gillard got everything she deserved, a pact with the devil always
results in betrayal, Machiavellian plots and political murder.

Shakespeare and many writers of opera have used that plot very sucessfully.

There was no "never ever" statement about the carbon tax from Gillard. The Libs lied. Lying's in their DNA. Only a pathological liar would lie his country into war. See what Gillard really said:

“There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead, but let me be clear: I will be putting a price on carbon and I will move to an emissions trading scheme.”

http://fairmediaalliance.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/there-will-be-no-carbon-tax-under-a-government-i-lead-but-lets-be-absolutely-clear-i-am-determined-to-price-carbon/

[I would call a government-imposed price on a commodity a tax, but econowonks have different terms for what I would call taxes: duty, tariff, excise, price, levy etc. I think they all differ from "tax" when their primary function is other than simply to raise general revenue (like the GST). Whatever, it was lies the mindless barrackers were bellowing when they persistently called her "Juliar". Pity the Labor crowd didn't have the sense to call them on it.]

let juliar be absolutly clEAR HEAR

i will not be taking your labors..I WILLONLY BE TAKING YOUR WAGE

i will not be hurting you
only breaking your leg

i will not be taxing your wage
only your spending

thing is too clever by half=an other NAME FOR LIAR

john howARDS WAY..IS the same same..HE SAYS NO GST EVER
then when we say phew..he changes his mind[SHE STATES no carbon tax..but we will be taking it by another WAY..but its not a tax its a levy

ps i never heard the full statement
thUS MEDIA COMPLICITY..the system is set up to rape us by blindING us.
when we set it up to help us..not them.

LAWYERS SPIN LIES
the poLLS SAID..no way she COULD WIN
she knew greens would want it..so gave in to it..by lying.

THEY ALL DO..[FULL STOP]
EACH AS DIRTY AS THE OTHER.

The Emperor certainly has no clothes, but no matter, the whole argument
is irrelevant anyway, it is just a way to waste money and if they did
not waste it on AGW they would have no problem to find another sink hole for our taxes.

Re the GST, I cannot make up my mind whether it is a good thing or not.
The flat percentage tax seems attractive and the transaction tax also
but we have learnt a lot about unintended consequences in recent times.

I wonder if anyone can judge such complex matters, and the only way to
resolve it is to try it for say five years.
You can see where computer modelling has got us !

If people are paying more in GST - they can be paying for themselves. Last year my brother very badly hurt himself playing local basketball. After surgery he had take 6 weeks of work. All he could do was lay on his lounge at home. It was terrible. He had to receive "tax" payer funds to live. With a percentage of increased GST funds set aside, he could have been somewhat covered - but with what so many have said, a lot of the activity seems to be around John Howard or Julia Gillard telling lies. I'd rather be questioning what their getting in taxpayer funded allowances - after being Prime Minister.

Bazz
A transaction tax requires only the banks to be tax collectors, not millions of businesses.
The money is collected instantaneously, there is no avoidance, no evasion. There is no deduction or exemption claim. No forms to fill out, no lies to be engineered.

The more you transact the wealthier you are the more you pay. The poorer you are the less you transact the less you pay.

It ticks the equity box, it ticks the universal box, it ticks the ease of administering box.

What is the problem? Well one, it captures a huge part of the untaxed economy, namely speculation in derivatives, stocks, commodities and a raft of financial transactions in and between corporations.

The modelling numbers are huge. A half to one percent transaction tax would virtually eliminate the need for any other taxes.

No further need for income tax, gst, excises, payroll tax and their administration
No annual tax returns, no quarterly bas statements, no creative need for trust funds, or holding companies.

In short, all the incentives to create complex machinations to minimise tax is removed. Business and workers can focus on business and work.

The tax code could be reduced to 10 pages.
It is impossible to measure the sheer volume of unproductive, administration, accounting, lawyers and posturing which would be removed in one single swipe.