Talking carbon tax is all the rage in Canberra at the moment, and the temperature of the debate is steadily rising.
Proving good to his “we’ll fight this every second, every minute, every hour, every day…” rhetoric, opposition leader Tony Abbott is doing his darnedest to whack the government with the “great big new tax” stick (though Labor may argue it’s more shtick than stick) and early opinion polls suggest the Coalition may be gaining traction.
As reported by The Daily Telegraph, a NSW opinion poll of 1200 people (ran by the NSW Coalition) suggests voters “have overwhelmingly rejected a carbon tax”, with only 18% saying they were in favour of it.
That may prove a grim harbinger for Julia Gillard, and she’s not the only politician with much at stake in the climate change debate. According to polling conducted for the NSW Nationals, Independent MP Rob Oakeshott is feeling the heat in his electorate, with 52% of sampled citizens in the seat of Lyne now viewing him unfavourably.
Meanwhile fellow “Three Amigo” MP Tony Windsor has reportedly received death threats he links to Abbott’s “people’s revolt” rhetoric, and political commentary has emerged from an unlikely source: cricket superstar and Liz Hurley’s Johnny-come-lately, Shane Warne, who tweeted to his 390,000-plus followers that the PM should “reduce taxes for all the hard working people in Australia… PLEASE !!!!!!” It’s hard to ignore a plea with six exclamation marks.
Here’s a snapshot of what the pundits are saying and how many tangents of this vexed issue are being reported:
Sydney Morning Herald
Phillip Coorey: MPs to ignore climate belief and attack on tax
“…independent MP Tony Windsor — one target of Mr Abbott’s call for a ‘people’s revolt’ — revealed he had received death threats.
“Mr Windsor told the Seven Network that unless the harsh language of the debate so far was toned down, inside Parliament and on talkback radio, there could be another shooting like that of the Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.”
Jacqueline Maley: Abbott leads his troops into battle and gets ambushed by Stanka
“…if anything Abbott seemed to gain momentum. He hijacked question time for the third time in a row, with a motion to suspend standing orders which meant he got a full 10 minutes to harangue the Prime Minister on her climate tax volte-face.”
The Age
Tony Wright: Warnie’s sledges better than the politicians’
“…in the current political atmosphere nobody would be entirely dumbfounded to discover that Daryl Somers had ventured a view.”
The Australian
Peter van Onselen: Hollow political rhetoric breeding cynicism
“The inability of our leaders — and some commentators — to understand a few basics about English is more than a little frustrating in the debate about Labor’s broken promise on a carbon tax.”
Imre Salusinszky and James Madden: Nationals polling shows Rob Oakeshott’s support is shot
“Voter support for Rob Oakeshott has fallen through the floor according to confidential polling conducted for the NSW Nationals since the independent MP pledged his support for Julia Gillard’s carbon tax.”
Geoff Carmody: Doing nothing is preferable to this
“Australia’s official analysis of greenhouse gas mitigation policies assumes away the most insuperable problem, getting a global deal, rather than assessing why we’ve failed.”
The Drum
Annabel Crabb: Taking confidence in the certainty of the uncertain
“For the PM, the thrilling money-or-the-box promise of what might be in her carbon tax should — for right-thinking Australian captains of industry — prove far more compelling than the bleak and unremitting tedium of not having to pay one at all.”
Herald Sun
Phillip Hudson: Brotherhood of St Laurence favours carbon tax
“The surprise support from the charity that fights poverty is a big boost for Prime Minister Julia Gillard as she battles Opposition claims the tax will hurt consumers.”
The Daily Telegraph
Simon Benson: Carbon tax is poll poison for NSW
“In a sign of the battle ahead for Julia Gillard in selling the new tax to voters, only 18 per cent said they were in favour of a tax. About the same number said they had not yet made up their mind.”
The Mercury
Peter Boyer: We we need a carbon price
“Last week’s announcement by Julia Gillard that Australia would impose a price on carbon pollution from July 2012 was as predictable as its opponents’ response that the move was a betrayal of the people’s trust. What isn’t so predictable is how this is going to pan out.”
There is an easy solution to this, call it a levee. A carbon levee, and link it to carbon consumption. ie if you use x amount of electricity or petrol its free and for each x plus y amount you pay. That way those of us who use little electricity and don’t drive 4wds or v8s don’t pay much while those who are wasting our resources and environment can pay for it.
Geoff Carmody’s piece requires closer reading by anyone who wants the carbon tax to really work.
[The government seems determined to adopt an emissions policy that taxes our exports (when our major competitors do not), and taxes our import-competing producers (but not the imports with which they compete) … This is like saying we’ll unilaterally introduce a GST that taxes our exports and zero-rates our imports.
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One response will be to reduce output and shift to competitor countries not imposing a carbon price. This includes agriculture, due to carbon pricing of its inputs, despite its proposed exemption.
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This does not mean Australian consumption of greenhouse gas emissions declines relative to business as usual. Our consumption of emissions will increase. We’ll buy more imports from countries to which our economic activity shifted. We’ll be economic losers and environmental hypocrites.
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This seemingly is the European story. Last Sunday (Bluescope Steel chief executive Paul ) O’Malley noted that, since 1990, European Union consumption of emissions was up 47 per cent, even though emissions production was flat.
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The second downside is more serious. We’d encourage our trade competitors not to mitigate their own emissions. How so? Our trade competitiveness loss is their gain … We’d strengthen incentives that make a global deal less likely.
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Special deals and arbitrary classification of industries qualifying for them, the CPRS route, are the antithesis of a market-based approach to this problem.
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There is a better way. Focus on reducing national consumption of emissions. This employs all the information used under a production approach. It does one other thing. All costs (for example, permits) incurred by producers are treated as input tax credits, using the existing GST system. Exports and business sales receive full input tax credits. Border tax adjustments apply to imports at the same rate as their locally produced competitors. Trade neutrality is preserved. Carbon leakage is avoided. No special deals are warranted.
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All emissions permits should be sold, whether the price is fixed or floating. Net revenue raised should be used to cut other taxes.]
Julia Gillard has mis-played this whole thing, perhaps fatally, we’ll have to wait and see. This is what she should have said:
“We are going to deliver some tax cuts, but don’t start celebrating. We are going to replace the tax cuts with a tax on the consumption of CO2 emissions–a carbon tax. If Australians are going to continue to be burdened with long-standing tax distortions, we may as well put those distortions to good environmental use.”
Geoff Carmody writes for the OO and his piece is not worth the time reading.
For a start the initial sentence copied by FC suggests that our exports will be taxed!
It has already been suggested that 1, exports can be subsides to remove the tax and
2, that imports will be taxed to an equivalent measure.
Reading any more of his tripe would simply be a waste of time and effort as the Australian has no credence or balance whatsoever when it comes to political matters.
Good to see Oakeshot support has collapsed. A wake up call. I understand that his health is not the best, so I hope the extra stree does not take its toll.
Interesting comments today, that Gillard is planning a huge department to manage the carbon tax collection and payments. I wonder what percentage of the carbon tax will get eaten by public servants and waste?
Twobob,
If having “already been suggested” (by whom?) makes it government policy to apply the tax to consumption of emissions, taking into consideration international trade, then Carmody and the ALP are in agreement, and there is no harm in brushing up on the reasons. If, on the other hand, no such intention exists, then there is an urgent need for voters to understand that one model will work while the other model will only appear to work, and Carmody’s explanation is the best I’ve seen.
Either way, to urge readers not to trouble themselves with details is the height of foolishness. There is no such “suggestion” in the Climate Change Committee Agreement posted by the Greens here (( greens.org.au/files/MPCC_carbon_price_mechanism.pdf )) other than a vague acknowledgement that “the overall package should take appropriate account of impacts on the competitiveness of all Australian industries”.