The slick, well funded eco-evangelists just keep repeating the mindless propaganda. “Yippee only a few sleeps to the new irrational, useless self-harming carbon [dioxide] tax, here’s how you can help to do in slowly what little industry we have left:
And these are the enemies of our industry, prosperity, our society and your children’s future, with zero gain for the environment:
And here is their ‘facts’ sheet.
Why must we have the carbon tax? To reduce carbon dioxide emissions due to dangerous Climate Change, right?
Is there a single mention of the reason for the tax? How marvelously effective it will be for the pain? NO. Because it is completely useless!
As Mark Latham said:
“…a carbon tax is to carbon use what tobacco excise is to smoking. Imagine if the Government in the tobacco excise gave most of the money to smokers, compensated the big tobacco companies and exempted some of the brands from the tax”
Do I even need to rebut this rubbish?
1. You won’t pay… of course you will – they will pass on the costs to you – that’ll be why Labor are claiming to be compensating you in the very next column.
2. Reducing Pollution… CO2 is not pollution, no real pollution is being reduced.
3. Could create 770, 000 jobs… could also grow my balding hair, but it won’t, because this would be the first time that a tax creates jobs, other than those involved in collecting it. Multiple studies show ‘green jobs’ whatever they are, destroy more that double the number of real jobs and cost as much as $500,000 each to create. Here is the green job revolution in the US: Promises of green jobs withering on vine.
4. EU Countries have carbon taxes… They have baby taxes compared to our Godzilla. No country on earth has an industry-wide carbon tax, EU has it only on electricity industry, EU collect only millions for 1/2 billion people, we will collect billions for 23 million people, EU is not built on resources like we are, France makes 70-80% of electricity from nuclear and exports it so is largely unaffected by the tax.
5. You will be no worse off… Do we believe that for a second? Even if Labor intended this, you can’t modify behavior relating to an essential like energy, without pain, much pain. Electricity prices have gone up by 50% over last few years – was there a drop in consumption? Certainly not, only a trivial change to subsidised solar costing us $300 per ton of CO2 abated and billions in total. Furthermore, Labor cannot even begin to predict the real cost of the tax cost and the cost of all the intended and unintended consequences.
6. New investment… yes but mainly by rent-seekers into subsidised or mandated industries. Currently, the US government wants to know where that $535 million dollar “green jobs” DOE loan went after the collapse of Solyndra.
7. Delaying action is risky and irresponsible…. if we don’t do something… or, the sky will fall if you don’t pay this tax. What little fig leaf of a science theory that existed for this global social engineering tax has all but disappeared – and isn’t this the mother of all scare campaigns, rather Tony Abbott’s warnings of the costs?
8. Australians can achieve great things… Agreed, and reversing this insane carbon tax will be the first thing we should achieve.
They claim to represent over 3 million Australians from all those organisations. There’s no chance of any cross-over between members, is there?
It is the Godzilla of a scare campaign and would crush a mother of a scare campaign in minute. Just think about it. Increasing chance of alien attack. Plagues of mosquito’s with nasty tropical diseases coming to kill those in the southern states. Millions of refugees on our shores. Droughts cyclones floods and just for good measure throw the drought one in again and call it fire. Death to fluffy animals (polar bears). Most of our cities to be drowned. And not sure how this one works because i thought fish could swim and would like the artificial reefs produced from our drowned cities, reduced fish stocks. Australia not able to feed itself by 2050 so we might be starving along with the refugees that have turned up. Sorry have probably missed a few but I think have covered the main ones.
You’ve also got to bear in mind that although we will get “compensated”, that’ll just go under the carpet when inflation goes up and the RBA jacks up interest rates.
It’s worth recalling, that this is only happening because Julia had to do a dirty little deal with Bob Brown. And also they have a carbon tax in NZ and it’s failed to stop climate change, had their worst snow in about 70 years. Yes climate does change so I don’t know who’s a denier. But that’s why global warming is gone, now it’s climate change.