It certainly doesn't *look* like a joke.I read the Sydney Morning Herald on a semi-regular basis and from what I can tell this tax is *very* unpopular.Perhaps "naturalman1975",an Aussie member who I've pinged,might want to weigh in on this.He's right up to date on Australian politics and current events.
It’s not a joke - and to a certain extent I don’t think it’s unjustified.
The Carbon Tax is certainly not justified, nor is it a good idea, and it also represents a serious broken election promise and what is basically a lie by the Prime Minister.
But what this particular article is about, is about attempts to prevent dishonest business price-gouging consumers by raising prices simply to increase their own profits and lying to consumers by saying those rises are due to the carbon tax.
For a company to fall foul of these laws, they will have to lie to their customers. They are certainly permitted to raise their prices if they choose to - on the basis that the market will determine whether or not people are willing to pay the new price. If they are, the company will increase its profits. If they’re not, it will lose money. The market will decide the price. What they are not permitted to do is blame a price rise on the carbon tax unless the carbon tax is genuinely what has lead to the increase in price.
They can raise prices. They just can’t lie about the cause. If they claim that the carbon tax is what has lead to increased prices, they need to be able to demonstrate that - and it should not be hard if its true - if they can show their power bill has increased, for example, or the costs of raw materials they use has increased, it should be simple to show that that they are just passing that increase onto their customers.
The carbon tax is bad. Allowing companies to lie to customers to increase profits is also bad.