Apart from the extraordinary back-flip from the undertaking by the Prime Minister before the last election that she would not introduce a carbon tax if re-elected, the justification put forward by the Government, and the Greens, is at best misguided, at worst, a sham. Will the tax result in any meaningful carbon reduction? No. Will it hurt our economy? Yes.
The main justifications they give for the introduction of the carbon tax is they do not want Australia to be left behind and be seen to be doing nothing about reducing our emissions, and secondly, Australia has the highest carbon dioxide emission per capita (per person) in the world. That could well be true. The fact that we should do something about this, I absolutely agree. I will come back to this a little later, suffice to say, tax is not the answer.
The reality is that Australia produces about 1.4 per cent of world carbon dioxide emissions and, as each day goes by, the proportion of our emission becomes less and less as China and other countries grow their economy at extraordinary rates. Any reduction in carbon dioxide emission from Australia will have negligible effect on the world scene. However, a tax on carbon will have a significant cost of living impact on ordinary Australians and will cost jobs as our manufacturing and agriculture industries become less and less competitive.
The irony is that it is the policies of both Labor, and even more so the Greens (with their no mining of uranium policy) that have exasperated the situation in Australia. Even today, despite all the evidence that nuclear energy for power generation is very effective at producing electricity economically, with reduced carbon dioxide emission, they still maintain their old flawed policy of simply ruling nuclear energy out as an option. They will not even put it on the table to debate. I note that some high profile ex Labor leaders believe Australia should consider nuclear power. Even Greenpeace recognise the benefits of nuclear energy in reducing carbon emissions. Worse still, if the Greens had their way, they would ban export of uranium. France, which I believe has the smallest carbon footprint per capita of any developed nation, relies heavily on nuclear energy for its electricity generation. Imagine if France and all those countries using nuclear energy for power generation did not have nuclear power, how much more carbon dioxide would be in the atmosphere.
By all means, other sources of power generation, such as solar and wind, should also be considered. But the reality is they are not yet economically viable. A lot of research and development is required, as well as investigating other environmental impacts they may have. Already, there is evidence that high frequency waves from wind turbines pose a health risk to both humans and animals. (Interestingly, I understand the Federal Greens Senator, Christine Milne, refuses to entertain that there may be a health issue with the wind turbines. Could this be an inconvenient truth?) I believe we should vigorously pursue carbon capture technology, if for no other reason than Australia has one of the world’s largest reserves of coal. Making the burning of coal “clean” by carbon capture will benefit Australians for generations to come. The alternative is to simply give up on clean coal technology and make this valuable asset economically useless. This seems to be the direction in Labor, and certainly the Greens want to head.
There is much in our everyday way of life in Australia that we can do to reduce our carbon footprint, without the need of any new carbon taxes. We just need direct action. As an example, we live on the east coast of Australia, in NSW. We have some of the best fish available off the NSW coastline. Yet, how often do you go to a restaurant, or local fish supplier, and see fish selection that includes Barramundi from the Northern Territory, and salmon from Tasmania, but not local fish? Salmon and Barramundi are good eating fish, but do we really need to have these in a Port Macquarie restaurant, when we have so much local choice? NSW has some of Australia’s (and the world’s) best lamb and beef. Why do we need to import lamb and beef from SA, or Queensland? Do we really need to import cherries from America in our off season? Imagine the carbon footprint of these cherries.
The NSW government, with Greens’ (and some independents’ support) have done their level best to shut down the NSW fishing industry, rather than help develop a larger sustainable industry.
The same applies with our timber industry. Australia, and NSW in particular, has some of the best timber in the world. Timber is a magnificent renewable product. Rather than work with the industry to ensure sustainable practices, successive Labor governments (the process started with Neville Wran’s government) have virtually shut down the timber industry of NSW, and much of Australia. As a result we import massive quantities of timber, which is often harvested with little regard to the environment and sustainability of those countries (out of sight, out of mind). This decision has not netted any environmental gain (actually the reverse), but has hurt Australia financially, and increased our carbon footprint. Little by little, we are going from being a net exporter of food produce, to a net importer of food produce as people move off the land as they become (unnecessarily) less and less viable. Already our manufacturing is disappearing off shore. Apart from the social repercussions on many communities, and the negative impact on our balance of trade, this all leads to a bigger carbon footprint
Governments need to invest more in infrastructure, such as better public transport in our cities. You just need to look at peak hour traffic in our cities to see large family cars, and 4×4 recreational vehicles carrying one person to work. Apart from investment in public transport, how about incentive for city people to purchase small, fuel efficient cars for going to work. Improve pushbike laneways in our towns and cities (take a look at the Danish use of pushbikes for getting around Copenhagen). Improve goods freight throughout regional Australia. This will not only reduce the footprint, but improve our agricultural efficiency. The list goes on. To reduce our carbon footprint we need direct action, not a new tax. We do not need government to impose a new tax that is principally a public relations exercise but that will have no significant impact on world carbon dioxide emissions, but will significantly hurt our economy, drive industries off shore, increase our dependence on imports, which then in turn increases our carbon footprint.
John Cassegrain
Port Macquarie
