Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard
Posted on 07/10/2011 2:27:13 AM PDT by bruinbirdman
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is set to reveal the details of a carbon tax designed to help fight climate change and billed as one of the nation's biggest economic reforms for decades.
Labor leader Gillard plans to tax Australia's top 500 polluters for their carbon dioxide emissions as a means of reducing pollution, changing energy use and building investment in clean sources of energy.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard
"No longer will the nation's biggest polluters be able to pollute our atmosphere for free," Gillard told a Labor Party conference on Saturday.
"From July 1 next year, the freedom to pollute our skies will cease. Two decades of denial and delay will come to an end. Polluters will have to pay."
Reports have suggested that carbon dioxide emissions will initially be taxed at Aus$23 ($24.70) per tonne, on a par with the European Union's emissions trading scheme.
The Sydney Morning Herald has reported the Australian price will be designed to increase by about three to four percent every year before shifting to an emissions trading scheme, with a floating price, by 2015.
Gillard will release details of the policy, expected to deliver revenue of Aus$10-12 billion per year, after 0215 GMT and give a rare televised address to the nation to sell the package later on Sunday evening.
The prime minister has the numbers in parliament to pass the legislation but her popularity has been sinking in opinion polls since she announced plans for the tax earlier this year.
The issue of a carbon tax is hotly debated in Australia, among the world's worst per capita polluters due to its reliance on coal-fired power and mining exports, with thousands attending rallies for and against the tax in recent weeks.
The conservative opposition has led the attack on the tax, saying it will hurt industry and send jobs offshore as well as increase the cost of living for ordinary Australians.
Gillard has attempted the sweeten the deal for voters in recent days, promising that Australians will be compensated for the cost through government family payments, pension boosts and income tax cuts.
Petrol has also been exempted from the levy to shield consumers.
"Most people will find that when all is said and done, they are not a cent behind, and many will come out ahead," said Gillard.
But major mining companies such as BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata are expected to be hit by the tax, liable for a combined Aus$380 million under a conservative price of Aus$20 a tonne, according to modelling by the Australian Financial Review.
Basically, you can bet on upswing of Australian unemployment, failed companies within thirty-six months, and a hostile voting environment within five years.
What a twit - she’s either a useful tool or found a way to tap into the revenue for her personal gain.
I am sure Bernard Madoff is looking at this and saying “Are you F$%@ing kidding me!! If only I had put the money in green technology I would still be free!”
I am also sure there are a lot of people in the Mafia going “Wow is’nt that the defination of Racketeering!”
People are outraged here. I highly doubt she’ll be around after the next election.
DOA
DOA
This begins as the Carbon Scam collapses elsewhere. Where/Who gets the money? What green eco-friendly nature rebuilding programs will be put in place? Who will monitor their progress? How will progress be measured? Is there a report card back to the scammed companies to assure them they have not been robbed at gunpoint?
My mind reels at various lunacies this early in the morning.
Well, look on the plus side.
Think of all of the Aussie babes that will immigrate to America to find work.
Oh...
Wait....
Nevermind.
And for my next act,,,I’ll shoot myself in the other foot.
Whatever these 500 polluters manufacture will rise in cost as they pass this theft on to the consumer.
This is idiotic, why not force them to take this theft money and put it into cleaning up their plant, but no, The government will get the money ,the consumer will get the shaft, and the pollution will still be there.
“From July 1 next year, the freedom to pollute our skies will cease.”
But if you pay a nominal fee, you can pollute all you want. Yeah, that’s gonna help things.
So they plan to increase electricity costs by an average $50.00 to $60.00 a month on the average consumer. Then the Government will raise Taxes on everyone so that they can redistribute the Tax Money back in the form of Tax breaks to defer those same costs ? Makes Perfect sense to me .Other than Bankrupting Business’s, i see No Point in this at all.
It doesn't matter a single bit if consumers are compensated -- industry will be gravely damaged.
The carbon tax is a tax on capital and, therefore, production. The reimbursements are designed to keep consumption steady. The two are in conflict.
Australia, like the U.S., runs a chronic trade deficit. And, also like the U.S., it is a result of monetary inflation which has caused prices and wages in Australia to outpace those of Asia.
Energy-intensive industries will find that, once the tax is in effect, their assets are worth much less and will write them down accordingly or even abandon them. Now, a company with a factory worth, say, $1 billion, does not necessarily have that much in cash to invest in less carbon-intensive processes and will likely just go out of business.
Other ventures will decide, given Australia's inflation-driven high costs of business, to simply locate over seas. A tax on capital destroys capital -- there's no other possibility.
But the ninnies running the country are blissfully ignorant of that and will harm Australians' standard of living with their little "revenue-neutral" tax all in the name of global warming. I'm surprised this has been allowed to happen.
She's not trying to attack pollution, but carbon dioxide. CO2 is not a pollutant. It is a byproduct of most manufacturing processes, and of all biological processes. Without CO2, there is no life. Decreasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere literally decreases the amount of living things the earth can support.
‘”No longer will the nation’s biggest polluters be able to pollute our atmosphere for free,” Gillard told a Labor Party conference on Saturday.’
That sounds fairly reasonable until you realize that CO2 isn’t actually pollution.
I’m sure the Australians will be ecstatic about the economic fallout, even as the Earth heads into several decades of global cooling... ;-)
It has it's place with outdoor solar path lamps...etc., but viability and green in the same sentence is oxymoronic.
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