Why is it necessary for the Government and those who support the carbon tax to conduct a scare campaign on Climate change? If it is such a danger, why can’t they supply empirical evidence to support their stance and not rely on rhetoric and spin?
The empirical economic evidence can be viewed at www.garnautreview.org.au and this also contains good summaries of the science. This is neither rhetoric nor spin.
Where is the evidence that Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant? Carbon Dioxide is a harmless, trace gas, clear, tasteless and odourless, it is necessary for life just as oxygen and nitrogen.
Wikipedia defines pollutions as “the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability” and may be “naturally occurring; when naturally occurring, they are considered contaminants when they exceed natural levels”. While Carbon Dioxide is naturally forming in our environment, what makes it a pollutant, is the production of it above the natural levels.
The Carbon tax is designed to force customers and industry to change behaviours. How will providing compensation bribes achieve the objective of changed behaviour? On the contrary, it will encourage all to continue with their present behaviours.
There is a long history of people and business changing their behaviours to avoid taxation. Governments have long used taxation and compensation as tools to affect people’s behaviour. The fact that we tax tobacco at higher levels than fresh food is because we as a community have determined that the effects of smoking are worse on the community than the effect of fresh food. Similarly we use compensation for those who choose to take up private health insurance and it decreases the load on the public health system. Compensation will be used to selectively target those people and industries that are least able to afford it.
Treasury papers show there will be a loss of jobs caused by this tax. How do you suggest government should compensate people for loss of jobs?
According to Ross Garnaut, job losses that may come about as a consequence of mitigating climate change will be significantly lower than if we do not mitigate climate change. With the revenue from a carbon tax, the government will have the resources to better retrain and support any job losses.
The government claim the tax will only add one per cent to the cost of living, industry claims it will be five per cent. What is the correct rate of predicted additional inflation?
The details of the tax and compensation will need to firm up before treasury can model it and these figures are fully known, but you can be sure that it will be significantly less than the impact of taking no action on climate change.
Peter Alley
