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Wouldn’t it be better if we all went and planted some trees?

Anthony Sharwood

by Anthony Sharwood

06 Jun 01:20pm

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Filed under: Carbon Tax, Politics, Protests

144 comments

Well, that was a weird weekend. Thousands of regular Australians, plus the usual assortment of activists, went for a nice Sunday stroll to demand their right to pay more tax. Strange days indeed.


The last time Australians took to the streets to protest in numbers so large was the February 2003 rallies to protest Australia’s involvement in Iraq. John Howard duly took no notice, as was his right, and off our troops went.

The interesting thing about the 2003 protests was that the crowds were truly a cross-section of society. There were the old and young, the left and the right, the hardened activists and the first-time protestors. Compare that to the two carbon rallies, where the crowds were totally fractured along political lines. That contrast says a lot about the current state of public debate, and what it says is this:

It says that nobody listens to anybody any more. It says that the deeper we get into this thing which was once quaintly termed the information age, the less fresh information we actually consume, and the more we unquestioningly throw our bundle on the ute tray of the political party we favour, on any and every issue.

Oh, and here’s your double irony. While all this is going on, we lament the fact that gormless politicians govern by focus group, yet the first rogue who steps out of line on a key issue (Turnbull on climate, anyone?) is deemed treasonous and unelectable.

We really are our own worst enemies in creating something approaching a workable national discourse. We see it first hand here at The Punch every day. Whenever we run a piece on climate change, a predictable thing happens. The Labor voters argue it’s happening, and support action. The Liberals don’t, and don’t.

If anyone needs more than anecdotal proof, take a quick gander at Peter Lewis’ research, published last week on The Drum. It shows clearly the Liberal/Labor divide on all things climatey.

The point is, how did it come to this? How did our own views on an issue like climate change, and its bastard child the carbon tax, come to mirror those of the major political parties?

These are earth sciences we are talking about. Earth sciences. We’re all experts in economics because we all earn money and pay bills, so it’s only natural we gravitate towards the party that best suits our philosophy in this realm.

But earth sciences? Seriously, how is it that if you believe in small government, you’re 99 per cent likely to think anthropogenic global among is a scientific conspiracy, while if you love the welfare state, you’ll be totally behind the science? How does this connection work?

You cannot, cannot, cannot argue there is a natural connection between holding a progressive world view and the belief in warming. Nor can you argue that economic and social conservatives are somehow predisposed towards anti-science. It’s like saying one will always eat Corn Flakes, the other Rice Bubbles. It just doesn’t make sense.

But that’s the way things are.

Day by day, hour by hour, we congregate more and more with those who are like us. It happens in internet forums, just as it happened in the parks with the two sets of carbon tax rallies.

Frankly, it doesn’t say all that much about any of us. It suggests that we’re as intellectually malleable as the very pollies we so often lampoon.

Whatever else it says about us, two things are certain. The carbon tax in Australia will save less than half of one percent of a cow’s backside’s worth of pollution, and is stupid, and is only being put in place because Darth Brown is pulling the reins of government.

Also, the protestors yesterday would have been much better going off and planting some trees. So too, quite frankly, would the opponents of the tax who have generated countless tonnes of hot air venting their frustration on the issue.

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144 comments

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    • hot tub political machine says:

      01:29pm | 06/06/11

      I beg to differ that there is no connection between progressive/conservative and action/no action. Its a pretty clear one, so to mutilate your quote Ant - I can, can, can-can (wooo!), can argue there is a connection….and here it is:

      Consevative - likes things the way they are, wants to “conserve” the status quo - hence nothing new like a price for carbon I didn’t have to pay before.

      Progressive - the world is not right, we ought to do something to “progress” soceity to something better, something like less polution, a carbon price - that’s something - lets do it.

      Reply

    • Dan says:

      01:52pm | 06/06/11

      I think it helps to look at who wins and who loses out of this. My 2 cents is that political allegiences are often about income level - those with good incomes tend to be conservative because they don’t want the situation to change, progressives are people who want change cause they don’t earn as much as conservatives.

      If you take that (admittedly broad) generalisation into this current debate - then the “compensation mechanism” becomes the critical issue. The Govt is only talking about compensating people on $80k and less and it will be a sliding scale - effectively this could represent one of the largest wealth redistributions in our nation’s history.

      If you look at it through that prism - it makes perfect sense that wealthy people don’t want it and poor people do.

    • hot tub political machine says:

      01:59pm | 06/06/11

      I think your onto something Dan - it feeds back into those classic distribution of wealth arguments.

      As Leela from Futurama put it “I’m rich….suddenly I have an opinon about the capital gains tax!”

    • Samuel says:

      02:03pm | 06/06/11

      @ Dan,

      I don’t think that’s actually accurate. It’s the wealthy that do want it. The Greens vote is highest amongst the richest electorates (Adam Bandt’s seat of Melbourne, for example). Conservatives are strongest amongst lower-middle income earners. There are, of course, belts of high income earners who vote Liberal, like those in the north shore, but many of them would be ‘wet’ Liberals.

      Even in the working class, though Labor’s vote is strong, the demographic there would be mostly right leaning Labor voters.

      This climate change thing is totally driven by inner-city lefty types, who are wealthy, highly educated and believe that the best way to fix the world’s problems is to get everyone to think just like them.

    • Tony of Poorakistan says:

      02:14pm | 06/06/11

      Those on the right tend to be better educated in general and better educated in the sciences, in particular. 
       
      For myself, I believe the climate changes regularly. How could I not believe it - I know we have had ice ages, I know the poles have moved. I also believe that we *are* affecting the climate, but in a comparitively miniscule fashion and that it is not necessary to panic, provided we move in an orderly fashion towards more responsible behaviour. 
       
      What we most emphatically do NOT need is Gillard using it as an excuse to take money off those she despises and give it to those who vote for her.

    • hot tub political machine says:

      02:29pm | 06/06/11

      Hmm, Tony I had heard differntly - about education in general, not sciences - that the higher the education level the more likely a person is to vote greens. e.g. if everyone in the nation held a post graduate degree the Green’s would be the major party.

    • Bruce says:

      02:32pm | 06/06/11

      If a carbon tax comes in, and I plant more trees on my block of land, can I get a rebate ? just like the solar rebate !

    • Bobster says:

      02:48pm | 06/06/11

      Tony,

      I thought the theory was that those on the left were the one’s who’d spent all of their time at these “un-o-varsitays” learning how to join the commie revolution?

      Today it’s the right-wingers who’ve been out getting all indoctrinated with superfluous education?

      Bloody hell, I’m losing the plot. I’ve fallen into the Twilight Zone or something.

      You’re all playing a trick on me today, aren’t you? Did an email go out to tell us we’re all going to steal the other side’s arguments this week?

    • TimB says:

      03:08pm | 06/06/11

      I think it comes down to values in the end.

      My income is not high. I don’t earn anywhere near 80K.  If the compensation on offer came anywhere close to Garnaut’s plan, I’d probably be raking it in.

      Yet I like to think that one day, as I advance in my career and start to pull down those larger sums of cash, that I’d be able to keep it, as opposed to tossing part of it into the government’s pointless money-go-round.

      So I don’t expect “compensation” now, nor should I be forced to contribute to it if/when I earn more later in life.

      I’m against the tax on the basis of pure principle. I don’t think it’s fair that someone who has put in the effort is forced to subsidise the “carbon footprint” (as it were) of someone who hasn’t. If the whole aim of the tax is to penalise people for consuption, then why is compensation involved at all?
      More importantly, why is compensation determined by income level, independent of what a person’s CO2 footprint may actually be?

      This point has been stated repeatedly and I have seen *nothing* from the other side of this debate to indicate that it’s any less true now:

      This tax is nothing more than wealth distribution by stealth. It will do NOTHING to reduce Australia’s already miniscule carbon emission levels.  It erodes all incentive for people to better themselves. And that’s why I’m against it.

    • Bobster says:

      04:27pm | 06/06/11

      So TimB, you just like your tax flatpacked? Or are you one of these who figures he shouldn’t have to pay it now matter how its calculated?

      I’m having trouble figuring your position. You’d prefer a levy? You’d prefer a direct action plan (which, let’s face it, will just be funded by taxes with different names)? You’d prefer hikes to income tax? Or you think it’s all a crock and to be ignored?

    • Geoffrey Chaucer says:

      04:28pm | 06/06/11

      I haven’t cut the grass for 4 months.

      Will I be entitled to double compensation and will the Greens give me a medal for that?

    • PTom says:

      04:29pm | 06/06/11

      TimB

      I earn more then the 80K and support the putting of a price on carbon. For what it will cost as now is small amount of dollars to what action will cost us in 10 or 20 years. It would have been cheaper even if we had done something a few years ago under Howard.

      The So-Called Carbon Tax is on the Carbon footprint of industry, not the consumer. It has nothing to do with penalise consumption. It is about rewarding consumer to buy cheaper non-carbon emission products and give industry incentive to lower their cost.

      As for the person’s CO2 footprint compensation would require new government departments and auditors, while income level can be done quick and easy.

      “erodes all incentive for people to better themselves”
      So would you switched from high price carbon energy to low price alternative energy?

    • Dan says:

      05:11pm | 06/06/11

      @ Samuel,

      I guess I was focussed on the major parties. I came from a fairly poor family and most of my social circle were labor voters. Then I got a pretty good job, made a lot of money and started spending more time with liberal voters. To my shock they were not the morally bankrupt cruel capitalists that I had been led to believe. They actually agreed with the same social goals, just not the way to get there (i.e. left thinks people need help top counteract financial disadvantage, right thinks helping creates a handout mentality and hurts people long term).

      My observation is that wealthier people like small government, poorer people like big government, but I’m not saying this is a well researched position, its just my personal experience.

      My view is I just like good government, whoever is offering that (which I’m not seeing from anyone at the moment).

    • TimB says:

      06:21pm | 06/06/11

      @ PTom

      “I earn more then the 80K and support the putting of a price on carbon. For what it will cost as now is small amount of dollars to what action will cost us in 10 or 20 years.”

      What evidence do you have that it will “cost us more” in 10 or 20 years? Surely whatever technology we use to take action *now* would actually be cheaper in the future?

      “The So-Called Carbon Tax is on the Carbon footprint of industry, not the consumer.”

      So why is the *consumer* being compensated? Industry will pass the tax on. You know this. Whilst it may not be a direct tax on the consumer, it’s definetly an indirect tax. Constantly pointing to initial bill going to industry is nothing more than misdirection.

      “It has nothing to do with penalise consumption. It is about rewarding consumer to buy cheaper non-carbon emission products andgive industry incentive to lower their cost.”

      “Rewarded” for choosing the non-carbon intensive, penalised for choosing the high-carbon intensive ones. Potato. Po-tahto. Your schem would work better if there were a bunch of easy ways to drastically reduce those emissions. But you don’t. As my next point shows

      The biggest driver of carbon emissions would be fuel and power. We’re nowhere near the point of reducing the emissions on fuel. And as for power….

      “So would you switched from high price carbon energy to low price alternative energy? “

      If the alternative energy was cheaper, sure I would. And by cheaper I mean ACTUALLY cheaper. You don’t just artificially jack up the price of coal power to make renewables “relatively” cheaper. That’s cheating and does nothing but increase power costs across the board.

      If renewables can’t cut it against coal on their own, then they’re inefficient and shouldn’t be used. Come back to us when the tech is better. Then we can talk.

      @ Bobster, yes ideally I *would* like us all to pay a flat tax rate across the board. Why not? We’re all generally provided with the same services are we not? (Whether we choose to take advantage of them is another issue)

      It’s not enirely without precedent. After all companies only pay one tax rate. It’s 30% across the board regardless of size or profits. (Although Labor are clearly tring to change that with the mining tax, penalise success, it’s the Labor way) 

      I’m not naive enough to think that there’s not a whole host of complicated reasons as to why our tax system is currently set up the way it is. There’s probably a ton of factors that I’m ignoring here. I’m sure someone will hapilly point out all the flaws in my admittedly rough idea.

      But just off the top of my head, why not have say the first 20K or so tax free, then everything after that taxed at 30%?
      Hopefully that wouldn’t put lower income households under more pressure, and everyone is taxed the same. And if you put in the effort to earn more money, you aren’t penalised by being slugged more.


      As far as the climate change issue itself is concerned, what I think should happen is this::

      The government should set aside a certain amount of cash for R&D into renweables. They should also set reasonable benchmarks (i.e. the tech has to be able to reliably produce a certain level of power at a certain cost).
      If and when the tech is ready, develop it, unleash it on the market, and let natural market forces take their course. If the tech really is all that as it should be, people will naturally gravitate to it over coal.

      If however after a certain amount of time no progress is made, suck it up and go nuclear (or even better Thorium). If the Greens or whoever don’t want to go down that road, then clearly the whole carbon emissions debate just isn’t that important to them.
      Surely a remote chance of a nuclear accident stacked up against the doomsday scenarios we keep getting fed by Gore, Flannery, et al is a no-brainer choice.

    • Bobster says:

      07:25pm | 06/06/11

      Why not impose a carbon tax at a fairly significant rate, shove business in the right direction towards mitigating pollution and more financially sustainable energy technology (coal and oil can’t last forever).

      With the money you make from the carbon tax you could conceivably raise the tax-free threshold to 20-25k, thus compensating households for the increase in the price of some items/services (they will also have to opportunity to increase this compensation by lowering their energy use themselves)  and you can theoretically decrease pressure on wages growth for several years by virtue of the enormous flipping tax break everyone just got.

      Now, I grant you, there is a major, major, major flaw in this (assuming there’s not some screaming hole in my logic or I forgot something - this isn’t exactly a well-drafted treatise) in that this particular incarnation of the Labor party seems capable of f—-ing up the opening of an envelopment.

      Still, I’d rather someone who’d give it a crack over someone who thinks it’s utter crap to the extent he puts up the laughable “direct action” solution (dumbest of second dumbest policy in Canberra, depending on where you choose to place the findings of Tony Windsor recent project, but that’s off point-ish).

    • Bobster says:

      07:36pm | 06/06/11

      Oops, forgot to address R&D.

      You know as well as I do that a profit motive, as provided by a carbon tax, will create a greater incentive to develop renewable technology than government subsidies ever can in isolation.

    • Dave says:

      07:37pm | 06/06/11

      The whole thing is about being lied to before an election so Juliar could betray the thoughts and ideals of her own party to get into power. That and only that is what we should be debating

    • TimB says:

      08:13pm | 06/06/11

      Bobster, I just think the technology should exist *first*. If the puported climate apocalypse isn’t enough reason for the technology to be developed now, I hardly think that making everything more expensive in the meantime is going to cut it.

      In the history of human technological development, people didn’t develop the next big thing because the old thing was being taxed. They did it because it was better and that’s where their profits come from.

    • Wall of text! says:

      08:32pm | 06/06/11

      OMG TimB quit with the WALL OF TEXT… nobody going to read all that shit!

    • Bobster says:

      08:48pm | 06/06/11

      You want to spend the next two years talking about the time a politician lied?

    • Bobster says:

      09:48pm | 06/06/11

      This is a different situation though. If we let the market do all of the work there’s going to be a lot of pain before that profitability kicks in. Carbon tax is the lesser of two evils.

      Why wait for things to get so bad we’re forced to do something? Why not get the ball rolling now?

      I know the market will sort it out eventually but I’m not entirely sure we should be waiting. It’s a bit of a reactionary machine the old free market, that’s probably why you need to use tax in this way from time to time.

      It works well as a balancer but the free market has no intuition or foresight, it’s not going to get us what we want in most painless way, we need to push it in the right direction.

    • TimB says:

      10:09pm | 06/06/11

      @Wall of Text, I’m sorry you have the attention span of a retarded goldfish.

      Thankfully Bobster has managed to master the ability to focus on a task for more than 30 seconds and has read my post. Perhaps if you ask him nicely he can teach you how he did it.

    • SimonC says:

      11:51pm | 06/06/11

      Rubbish. It splits along political lines because of the proposed solutions - More taxes, more hairshirts, lefties love it.

      Suggest nuclear power might be a bit useful to stop this whole AGW lark, and you’re standing all by yourself, being screamed at as shill for nukes.

      Sorry, but if AGW is LESS scary than a form of power that makes up 20% of current world supply, then no thanks. I’m not worried enough to pay your new tax, i’m afraid.

    • Bev says:

      09:20am | 07/06/11

      Samuel says:02:03pm | 06/06/11
      is to get everyone to think just like them.

      If they don’t bludgon them into it.

    • WOTTimB says:

      05:54pm | 07/06/11

      @TimB not sure that you have ever been on a forum but wall of text usually results in it being scrolled right past, so if you have a good point you want to share and if you want it to be read think of your audience.

      Or if you just wanna type so much that noone reads it, or could be bothered to debate it knowing. that you will write another wall of text in response, then go right ahead.

      You have some good points that get missed because of that.

    • Nick says:

      01:29pm | 06/06/11

      I can’t remember the exact numbers, but i read a proof that Australia’s expenditure on so-called ‘climate change’, despite costing thousands of dollars per tax-payer, will only ‘save’ 0.0000002% of carbon dioxide emissions.

      Leftists have yet to realise that this ‘global warming’ scare is just that, a scare, and a lot have people have made some very big bucks out of it. You want to know how I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about? Officially, ‘global warming’ has been so thoroughly debunked that they changed the name to ‘climate change’. Does anybody know the definiton of climate? (here’s a hint: one of the words in it is ‘changing’).

      To try and resist change in climate is to try and stop the earth rotating. We have no influence over it at all. There have been elongated and flash periods of heating and cooling all throughout the history of the Earth. Apparently our earth is going to heat up and drown us. How, then, are we getting feet of snow in rural NSW during May, when it wasn’t even winter yet?

      Get it through your heads. Leftists have a SEVERE victim complex. This can be proved by every feminist who has claimed to be oppressed since the 1980s, or anybody with more than 1% non-Caucasian blood accusing anybody of ‘racism’ since the 90s. It simply doesn’t exist to the point where it matters anymore. You keep looking for things to fight even though you’ve won all your battles.

      Truly ridiculous.

      Reply

    • PTom says:

      01:49pm | 06/06/11

      @Nick,
      “To try and resist change in climate is to try and stop the earth rotating. We have no influence over it at all”
      Wow your insight is increable may be you should explain that to Landcare .

    • G says:

      01:52pm | 06/06/11

      Wow Nick, that’s an awful lot of zeros. Your source must be completely valid.

    • Warren says:

      02:07pm | 06/06/11

      @Nick What is “Truly ridiculous” is your post starting with “I can’t remember the number”. And apparently you can’t be bothered looking it up so you invent a number instead.

      “’global warming’ has been so thoroughly debunked that they changed the name to ‘climate change’” Can you substantiate this statement or is it more BS?

      How about doing some basic research Nick? Even a casual perusal at non-left organisations starting with the Liberal Party show a broad acceptance that climate change is real and humans play a part in it. Your rant illustrates the increasing irrelevance of your position.

    • Jack says:

      02:24pm | 06/06/11

      Uh, ‘global warming’ didnt become ‘climate change’ because it was SO THOROUGHLY DEBUNKED. The term ‘climate change’ was created by a Republican spin doctor for George Bush because it was less scary for all the redneck voters out there? A guy who now works for….Fox News.

      But close! I mean, baseless assertions have been thoroughly proven to be awesome.

    • RyaN says:

      02:34pm | 06/06/11

      @Warren: how about you respond to Nick with an educational post pointing to the peer reviewed research that shows unequivocal evidence of a human marker in climate change.

    • Warren says:

      03:17pm | 06/06/11

      @RyaN. I’m reluctant to do research for people who are too bone idle to educate themselves but here are some pointers:

      B.D. Santer et.al., “A search for human influences on the thermal structure of the atmosphere,” Nature vol 382, 4 July 1996, 39-46
      Gabriele C. Hegerl, “Detecting Greenhouse-Gas-Induced Climate Change with an Optimal Fingerprint Method,” Journal of Climate, v. 9, October 1996, 2281-2306

      V. Ramaswamy et.al., “Anthropogenic and Natural Influences in the Evolution of Lower Stratospheric Cooling,” Science 311 (24 February 2006), 1138-1141
      B.D. Santer et.al., “Contributions of Anthropogenic and Natural Forcing to Recent Tropopause Height Changes,” Science vol. 301 (25 July 2003), 479-483.

      Levitus, et al, “Global ocean heat content 1955–2008 in light of recently revealed instrumentation problems,” Geophys. Res. Lett. 36, L07608 (2009).

      Or try these organisations:

      CSIRO
      IPCC
      NASA
      BOM

    • Warren says:

      03:17pm | 06/06/11

      @RyaN. I’m reluctant to do research for people who are too bone idle to educate themselves but here are some pointers:

      B.D. Santer et.al., “A search for human influences on the thermal structure of the atmosphere,” Nature vol 382, 4 July 1996, 39-46
      Gabriele C. Hegerl, “Detecting Greenhouse-Gas-Induced Climate Change with an Optimal Fingerprint Method,” Journal of Climate, v. 9, October 1996, 2281-2306

      V. Ramaswamy et.al., “Anthropogenic and Natural Influences in the Evolution of Lower Stratospheric Cooling,” Science 311 (24 February 2006), 1138-1141
      B.D. Santer et.al., “Contributions of Anthropogenic and Natural Forcing to Recent Tropopause Height Changes,” Science vol. 301 (25 July 2003), 479-483.

      Levitus, et al, “Global ocean heat content 1955–2008 in light of recently revealed instrumentation problems,” Geophys. Res. Lett. 36, L07608 (2009).

      Or try these organisations:

      CSIRO
      IPCC
      NASA
      BOM

    • Nick says:

      03:54pm | 06/06/11

      Australia emits 1.35% of the world’s carbon emissions.

      The planned reduction, is, on average, (between 5 and 15) 10% over 10 years.
      that is, we will save 0.135% per year
      so, 0.135 of MAN MADE input per year

      carbon dioxide makes up 0.0387% of the world’s atmosphere
      0.135% of 0.0387 is… wait for it….
      0.000052245%

      a few less zeroes, i admit, but i’m not done.

      Now, it’s bloody difficult to find our how much carbon emissions each year are influenced by humans… but wait, that’s strange, since we’re so obviously destroying the atmosphere, you think there’d be dramatic figures plastered EVERYWHERE!!! But why is there none?

      but because i’m so dedicated, i found a source
      http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
      0.28% of all carbon emissions are influenced by humans.

      so what is 0.28% of 0.000052245?
      oh, right
      it’s 0.000000146%

      looks like i was being a little bit generous in my first post, huh?

      That’s right. we spend $4.5 billion per year (using a rough estimate of 18million taxpayers = $2500 per taxpayer per year) to save 0.000000146% of all carbon dioxide.

      http://joannenova.com.au/globalwarming/graphs/log-co2/log-graph-lindzen-choi-web.gif

      “OH NO BUT IT MUST BE TRUE BECOZ AL GORE AND MEDIA AND HUMANS ARE SO EVIL & POWERFUL DERP DERP DERP”

    • Nick says:

      04:41pm | 06/06/11

      Actually i made a little error with my wording there

      “to save 0.000000146% of all carbon dioxide.”

      that should read

      “to influence 0.000000146% of the atmosphere”

      Regardless my point stands.

    • Kika says:

      04:49pm | 06/06/11

      Rubbish. The first power bill someone gets is going to send a firecracker down their gullet to change their usage…  “Oh a $250.00 power bill. Oh well, I’ll keep using the same amount of power and spend just as much”

    • RyaN says:

      05:32pm | 06/06/11

      @Warren: nope none of those show any definitive human marker in climate change. What they show is that their computer models predict warming which is unsurprising since their computer models are 1. programmed by them and 2. completely simplistic with predefined outcomes.
      I believe one of the pieces of damning evidence that was released by the hackers who hacked the University of East Anglia was a piece of code with an array of data which increased in value aptly labelled “Fudge Factor” is the type of thing we will see in all of their computer models.
      So it stands, any definitive PROOF of a human marker in climate change. Computer modelling is not proof.

    • Its small like says:

      08:30pm | 06/06/11

      Its just a number without any context, so its small and you think that means nothing? Maybe if you put things in context in would start to make sense.

      Only takes a drop of poison to kill a human, if I say is a drop dangerous? but not say what that drop contains you may seem reasonable in answering no. But then to put that in context and specify its a drop of poison and then of course… its dangerous you agree.

      Your whole argument is based apon a number that is small and because it is “small” it doesnt matter…. and doing so have taken the facts out of the context that gave it real meaning and made them subjective and mean nothing. Grats you fooled yourself good.

    • fairsfair says:

      01:38pm | 06/06/11

      I am sick of the labels. I agree in taking care of the earth and doing anything possible to do that. I like you Ant, don’t see how a carbon tax will do it, so I am opposed to it until the governement can change my mind.

      So where do I fit in? Nowhere apparently. I want to see people encouraged to look after the environment, but I think the current political climate in Australia is insane. We can all do our bit and rather than looking to the Governement to institude something (in the same breath as criticising a “nanny state” I might add) why don’t we make the changes ourselves?

      My father is a diesel fitter and used to own two bulldozers. The first time I saw my dad cry was after he came back from a trip to the daintree where he was required to chain down acres of rainforest in order to meet the repayments on the dozer when interests rates were 18%. In the weeks following my father sold the dozers and started planting his own rainforest on his 3acre property.

      Twenty years later, still no dozers but he has an absolutely beautiful backyard. We grew up environmentally conscious thanks to a burly grease covered mine working man mountain who is a non-practicing catholic and a Bob Katter voter. Lets stop the pigeonholing and take some responsibility because admit it or not - most people care about the environment, they just don’t care for cash grabs that cannot be expained by the people who seek to impose them.

      Reply

    • James says:

      01:53pm | 06/06/11

      I agree fairsfair - and a very interesting story as well. The world is evidently more complex than any of our current debates.

    • Elphaba says:

      02:01pm | 06/06/11

      Hi Five! grin

    • nossy says:

      02:28pm | 06/06/11

      @fairsfair - I remember our august ex Premier here in QLD Sir Joh Bjelke Peterson had many bulldozers FF and he used to stretch huge chains between them and drive forward knocking down trees like tenpins - made a motza out of it I am told - cleared vast tracts of land. Shameful.

    • John Smythe says:

      02:29pm | 06/06/11

      >>>Lets stop the pigeonholing and take some responsibility because admit it or not - most people care about the environment, they just don’t care for cash grabs that cannot be expained by the people who seek to impose them.

      I like that Fairs. I read The Punch occasionally and am often left wondering how politically aligned people are. There’s more debates from a political party perspective, than about the topic at hand. Having been out of the country for so long, I really have no idea where I stand.

      But like you, until the current government can give me enough information on the reasoning pros/cons etc. then it looks nothing more than a cash grab for a money hungry government.

      Here’s one thing Japan is doing. Let’s ignore the kickbacks Aso (pronounced Arsehole…because he is one!) brought in cheap toll roads on weekends. 1,000yen id the most you would pay between tolls. Worked good for the all the people working in the big smoke but having family back in the country. Of course his real motive was to help the sales of the ETC devices his mate was running.

      Now…let’s look at the economical impact of that (you know, like the govt should be doing to an excess tax on already over taxed peoples…). Some modes of mass public transport went out of business. Numbers riding the shinkansen dropped, some ferry services went out of business (reportedly) or are on hard times.

      How is this related to the topic at hand? Point 2 identifies that public transport suffered as people were all relying on their cars now. Increased cars, increased carbon emissions.

      Does Japan try to pull the wool over its peoples’ eyes? (Let’s not get into Fukushima now please)...and put out a new tax? No. They will simply remove one, at the time seen to be beneficial, service, and return it to the way it was before. This should then re-encourage people to train/ferry it back home.

      So why doesn’t the current government come up with ways of improving the situation…why does it NEED to rely on more money grabbing tactics?

    • Blind Freddy says:

      03:06pm | 06/06/11

      A lot of liberals can’t bring themselves to admit the need for environmental consideration because it would mean that they would have to admit that the environmentalists have been right all along and they don’t want the inconvenience that the limits-of-nature imposes on their wasteful lifesyles.

      Maybe TA (and fellow travellers) could pray to his omnipotent god to change the laws of thermo-dynamics.

    • fairsfair says:

      03:23pm | 06/06/11

      @JS - that sounds like a logical means of directly influencing people’s consumption. Something that is rediculously foreign to a lot of Australian’s. Probably because we are now so used to our Governments frittering infrastructure funding (NSW), leaving us risk exposed (QLD) and essentially wasting our money (federal). I think we kind of expect being let down these days. Just like you expect your private health insurer to put up the premium and reduce cover at every review.

      The ongoing rise in the costs of petrol clearly indicates that a steady increase in essential costs does little to influence people. Yes, if petrol became $5 a litre tomorrow it would, but subtle increases (or some rediculous notion of compensating people toward increased costs) will not influence people’s behaviour. It is like putting a frog in boiling water, you throw it in it will jump right out but if you put it in cold water and slowly heat it, it will sit there and stew.

      I think we are starting to stew. It is high time our government focused on delivering people the choice to make the right decision - like a reliable and comprehensive public transport system. If there was one available for me to use, I’d be on it in a flash.

      Enjoy your input btw - fantastic to hear from people who are experiencing different things yet still have an interest in what is going on back home.

    • fairsfair says:

      03:40pm | 06/06/11

      @ Nossy - it is shameful and it was never accepted by most people. I am glad that it is for the most part, no longer allowed.

    • Stephy says:

      06:34pm | 06/06/11

      Fairsfair - great comment. I think there are many out there like you and would happily step up to be heard. Like you I’m a great lover of the environment but I can’t see how a cash grab from the govt is going to change things. Why not offer up a benefit for tree planters, or encourage people to pick up a vegetable garden starter from Bunnings or so? At least there’s an agreeable outcome and you can see the difference you’re making (or trying to make).

    • Fiona says:

      11:16am | 07/06/11

      Fairs fair, it doesn’t happen to the same extent in the developed world perhaps, with the exception of reflex still chopping down virgin forest for paper, gas companies putting up rigs on people’s farms both here and in the US and god knows where else, just to name a few examples. It’s the third world that is most prone to these sort of abuses these days. The developed world shines a media spotlight on it and “greenies” protest, but that doesn’t really happening in the third world. Sad really, all this keeps going on and we keep crapping on about a carbon tax.

    • Coop says:

      01:38pm | 06/06/11

      I suggest that it’s got a lot to do with progressives notion that being “seen” to be doing something is actually doing something constructive.

      They appear to me to get a sort of smug superiority hit by spending vast amounts of money and appearing to act upon something by using “plans” that have no identifiable objectives, no performance criteria, and quite probably no actual impact, rather than acting in a way that is measureable.

      Performance indicators and accountability are ever so right wing, passe,  and boring.

      Reply

    • mickijo says:

      02:19pm | 06/06/11

      It looks impressive to see"thousands” marching but it would be even more impressive-not to say fairer-to put it to millions and ask them ALL to vote in an election. This is the only way for Australians to achieve justice. No matter how many “marches’’ you have on any subject. Ask the masses!

    • Anne_N says:

      02:30pm | 06/06/11

      I feel like I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole.

      I can’t believe thousands of citizens marched in the streets demanding the government tax them.

    • RyaN says:

      02:46pm | 06/06/11

      @Coop: and its so “fashionable” at that dinner party with your fellow millionaires to appear to be environmentally conscious before you drive home in your Gillard style gas guzzler to your energy hungry mansion. At least you can afford to be “fashionable” and compare yourself to Cate Blanchette, you are both millionaires after all.

    • Reece Harley says:

      01:38pm | 06/06/11

      Is it accurate to categorise supporters of the Liberal Party as supporting smaller government and those supporting Labor as the reverse? It seems to me that this is no longer a clear distinction; especially when the Liberal Party are advocating for a direct-action approach to Climate Change (Socialisation of the private cost of pollution through government expenditure to mitigate the environmental impact) while the Labor Party were stridently arguing for a market -based system, but were twice defeated in the parliament by their opposition.

      Reply

    • papachango says:

      02:01pm | 06/06/11

      Fair point, and the Liberals are not always liberal in their economic policies. The fact that TA can push for a huge parental leave tax and support communist style plain packaging of cigarettes should mean that his party should be forced to remove the word ‘liberal’ from their name, as it’s clearly false advertising.

      However, if you look at Abbott’s ‘direct action’ (spend about a bil of taxpayer money planting trees) versus Labor’s ‘market based solution’ (a massive new tax and administrative burden on everyone and everything costing nobody knows how many billions), I’s back Abbott’s as the most liberal (or at leats the least illiberal)

      Plus everyone agrees planting more trees is a good thing, provided you don’t steal people’s land to do it. It’s having an each way bet on CO2 - if it is the killer poluuting gas that has been predicted, trees will fix it, if not it’s good for biodiversity anyway.

    • Bobster says:

      02:40pm | 06/06/11

      I think it is fair given the over-all point of this article.

      If you decontextualised that statement then you’d be right, it’d be laughable.

      Buuuut, Liberal voters like to think they believe in small government - that’s what their grandparents believed in when they cast their lot with the Libs 50 years ago anyway.

      The reality is a bit different though but that would require real engagement and the realisation that Tony Abbott is out there spruiking the most left-wing economic policies this country has seen since the 70s.

      That’s kinda Anthony’s point though - no one pays attention anymore, they just barack for their team.

    • James says:

      01:40pm | 06/06/11

      Bloody good post Ant. It’s time we had a hard think about what we’re doing as a people, and where our current conversations, and methods of ‘public discourse’ may eventually take us.
      It is rather shameful, as you point out, that someone like a Mr Turnbull can be assailled by News Ltd because Murdoch and The Australian team have supposedly agreed to ‘back Tony Abbott’. What does this do for our nation, when the media can so openly and blatantly implement bias for their reporting?
      This is of course, just one media outlet - everyone does it. And yet it is something to applaud that you can work for News Ltd and write what you have here, for this post, at the same time.

      And on the issue of a carbon tax - has anyone ever thought that we should just change the whole bloody issue to one of ‘sustainability’??
      We might actually get some results if we start to think about what is sustainable, in terms of our resources, our agriculture etc. - for example, it’s no good that we start using Roundup-ready cotton when clearly it is not environmentally sustainable, despite the negligable Co2 outcomes of using it.

      Reply

    • Erick says:

      01:46pm | 06/06/11

      James, you attack the Murdoch media for supposedly being biased in favour of Tony Abbott, but you fail to mention that the ABC and Fairfax media (and large sections of the Murdoch media) are strongly biased in favour of the Labor Party.

      Thus is your own bias revealed.

    • James says:

      01:59pm | 06/06/11

      Erick, thanks for your response, but my first comment remains robust. If you read on from the inital News Ltd comment, I clearly state that ‘everyone does it’, referring to every media applying bias in their reporting.

    • HappyCynic says:

      02:18pm | 06/06/11

      @Erick

      Wow are you illiterate?  James says “This is of course, just one media outlet - everyone does it”.

      I think it’s fair to accuse those other media outlets you mention but rather unfair to accuse James of bias simply because he only cited one legitmate example of media bias instead of all of them.

      Pointless accusation of bias is pointless.  Besides bias depends on your individual perception.  In the binary (and to be perfectly honest, stupid and incomplete) view of the world today that most idiots latch on to, facts will have a liberal, progressive bias if you’re a conservative, whereas facts have a conservative bias if you’re a progressive.

    • fairsfair says:

      02:36pm | 06/06/11

      If I may interject without causing offence…

      This conversation exactly proves Ant’s point. Nobody is discussing the matter at hand are they? Less hot air - more action toward actually addressing the problem. You are just wasting your time and energy talking about this stuff.

    • loulou says:

      02:52pm | 06/06/11

      @Happy Cynic,  Wow   and you are not one of “the idiots”, of course.  Perhaps you are simply a bore.  When next you set out to lecture, leave out the “....to be perfectly honest…....”  Would expect the high-minded to be honest, all of the time.

    • Robbie says:

      07:56pm | 06/06/11

      Erick says large sections of the Murdoch media are biased towards the Labor Party.. haha!!! funniest thing I have ever read.

    • @CraigLambie says:

      01:49pm | 07/06/11

      My God what a lot of Hot Air.

      @James - excellent comment!
      I think that we should really stop all this hot air and start a conversation that is about the issue. 
      I am starting to wonder about the comments on the Punch, it is simply emotion based name calling a lot of the time.
      I want to see the ability to rate comments ie. Emotion, Fact, etc… then you could at a glance see that a comment was worth reading or some drivel
      Eg. @Ericks comment would get a Fact rating of 0 and an Emotion rating of 5 Maybe a Biased rating of 5 or Right or something.
      @Happy Cynic could get a Emotion rating of 5 etc.
      Oh and Relevance rating most of these would be 0.
      I am going to add this to the Democratic Evolution idea here http://www.facebook.com/pages/Democratic-Evolution/101721126992?sk=wall

    • Elphaba says:

      01:40pm | 06/06/11

      My opinion on the carbon tax has nothing to do with which party I vote for.  I don’t like the Libs policy either.  But since abstaining from voting is stupid, and Labor is the one in power with the ability to pass their hair-brained idiotic policy, they attract my anger.

      When the Libs get in, I’m sure I’ll be pissed off at them too.

      Reply

    • fairsfair says:

      02:26pm | 06/06/11

      Hi Five! I wish I could cut my inane ramblings down to a concise few sentences.

      I agree, the lib policy has holes, but to me it is the better option of the two at the moment. So if an election was called tomorrow my vote would be againts one thing, not for anything else (sad reality).

      Welcome back smile

    • Elphaba says:

      06:32pm | 06/06/11

      Your ramblings are never inane, fairsfair. wink

      Your voting method actually perfectly encapsulates what happens at an election.  Governments don’t win elections - they lose them.

      My NY resolution was to be more succinct, lol.

    • Wayne Kerr says:

      01:42pm | 06/06/11

      I think what has been seen on Punch in recent weeks is not that right wing conservatives (Liberal Supporters) do not believe in man made climate change.  The thing they are taking issue with is the Carbon Tax, how it has come about and how it will address the actual environmental issues.

      I’m a swinging voter.  Neither hard core Labor or Liberal. I’m not convinced that man made climate change is totally real.  While I admit man and industry must have had some impact, I question how much impact it has had in relation to natural cyclical patterns.

      What I am firmly against is the Carbon Tax.  I don’t really care that Julia Gillard said there would be no carbon tax under her watch and then changed her mind.  I expect that from politicians from both sides of the fence. I do object though to what I see as a wealth distribution tax being introduced. My family will not see any refunds just because my wife and I both have worked hard and placed ourselves in a good position career wise.  This does not mean we are rich.  We are not crying poor either but this tax will make our cost of living higer than it already is.  In effect we will be subsidising other people’s lives which I don’t think is entirely fair as I don’t think I should be punished for working hard.

      A carbon tax will tax the biggest polluters to encourage them to seek out greener ways to produce their product.  Those costs will be passed on to general public in a large proportion of goods and services.  Again my problem is that there doesn’t appear to be any viable green alternative to producing electricity, for example, at this stage.  So if the technology isn’t already in place how are these polluters going to make their production greener.

      So in summary, I don’t think the debate that’s been on punch has been so much AGW (Labor) Vs Anti-AGW (Liberal), it’s been more on the validity of the carbon tax which is being sold under the guise of fixing climate change.

      Reply

    • Michael says:

      02:14pm | 06/06/11

      Spot On, Gillard deliberately keeps linking “anti carbon tax” with “anti climate change” “deniers” and “skeptics”. You will notice she refers to deniers and skeptics day in day out when she’s talking about a price on carbon. Yet it’s her Carbon Tax that’s in question, not climate change. Polls continually show that most Australians believe there is climate change. Makes me wonder does she have a plan “B” if her carbon tax doesn’t get up? Hey Gillard we accept there is climate change, it’s your TAX we don’t accept as the right action to deal with it. UNDERSTAND.

    • nihonin says:

      02:32pm | 06/06/11

      But Wayne, think of the children, you’ll just be called a denier and shame on you for thinking about your wallet.  Shame shame shame.

    • Anna says:

      03:15pm | 06/06/11

      Action on climate change is NOT a carbon tax, that will make no difference to Global temperatures. You shouldn’t have been conned by the Greens Julia. You should have stuck to “there will be no carbon tax under a Government I lead”.

    • Lib voter who believes in climate change says:

      01:47pm | 06/06/11

      I think there is something deeper in all of this. I am a rusted on Liberal voter (and a science teacher) and believe totally in human-induced climate change due to excess carbon dioxide.
      However, what I don’t agree with is a straight tax. I don’t believe it is the most effective way, look at the Pollution Reduction Trading schemes that have been most effective in America/Scandinavia (reducing sulfur dioxide and hence acid rain in the 90’s) and carbon emission TRADING schemes that have been implemented elsewhere.
      I don’t believe there will be no impact on the Australian economy and am yet to be convinced by anyone that this tax will actually reduce the global temperature given Australia’s mostly pathetic contribution to global total emissions (less than 1%).
      I am all for action, but think it needs to be considered, debated properly - preferably by scientists and economists rather than politicians - then implemented with a proper education campaign.
      What we have now is two parties accusing each other of everything under the sun - but neither of them with a solid, workable plan.
      And all this from a Liberal voter…

      Reply

    • V says:

      04:46pm | 06/06/11

      Kevin Rudd tried to introduce an ETS didn’t he? Of course the plan didn’t please any side of the debate: Abbott opposing it straight out (again) and the Greens opposing it for not being extensive enough.

      I agree this debate is being too politicised. I don’t trust politicians who live by the opinion polls.

      However, my position is thus. Despite Australia’s ‘pathetic contribution to global total emissions’, we are the highest contributors per capita. We have the means as a politically and economically sound nation to act compared to other nations. Why not be the example to the world?

    • Crap Filter says:

      01:47pm | 06/06/11

      Speaking for myself, I listen, I hear, and I learn.

      I hear a lot of misleading material, and a lot of poorly presented, weakly argued material, a lot of personal attack and an amount of plain deceit - like the Opposition Leader persistently mis representing the content of the Garnaut 2011 Review in Question Time. Then repeated here. 

      So here I take a little time to post properly debatable, sourced, factual material in reply. 

      This I keep up, despite a barrage of misinformation and personal insult, some of it unprintable.

      Meanwhile, I continue to read widely and think about what I see and hear.

      This for example, from The Oz just today. Sits up well against Sharwoods piece. Very well. Recommended reading, for all sides.

      Has the nation lost its confidence when it comes to carbon policy?
      http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/nervous-naysayers-on-the-road-to-ruin-as-a-high-carbon-economy/story-fn59niix-1226069667998

      Reply

    • CJ Morgan says:

      01:48pm | 06/06/11

      That was a good article, Ant (and a great song too) - right up to the penultimate paragraph.  How does that reversion to puerile name-calling assist in the current discourse about climate change and the climate tax?

      Reply

    • ibast says:

      01:48pm | 06/06/11

      We used to have a democratic party holding the balance of power in the Federal senate.  They did a good job in forcing the government of the day into reasonable concessions and thus achieving what was most acceptable to most people.

      They did this with the GST and got crucified for it.  Turns out they were right, but it’s too late now.  Thanks to a smear campaign by the major parties and redneck radio, they will never be back.

      What we’ve had since then is a mud slinging match between the major parties that has brought the nation to a standstill.  And in a matter of days we will have superimposed over the top of that a radical party holding the balance of power in the Senate.  I happen to agree with that radical party at the moment, but I don’t believe it is the best situation for Australia.

      Reply

    • papachango says:

      01:53pm | 06/06/11

      how is it that if you believe in small government, you’re 99 per cent likely to think anthropogenic global among is a scientific conspiracy, while if you love the welfare state, you’ll be totally behind the science?

      Well, for both questions, the answer is probably because those who believe in Big Government have latched on to the theory of AGW and used it as an excuse to push for all sorts of government interventions into the lives of individuals, from the minor (City of Yarra taxing outdoor heaters and handing out blankets diners) to to the outright totalitarian (Clive Hamilton and his ‘suspension of democratic process’, or Tim Flannery’s ‘regulating global consciousness’)

      Then you consider some of the deceptions that have been exposed, such as the untruths in Al Gore’s film and the ClimateGate emails, the extent to which they were glossed over, and the absolutely hysterical denoncing of anyone who has the slightest suspicion as a ‘climate denier’. The word ‘denier’ has only ever been used before in one other context - not even Biblical creationists are called ‘evolution deniers’.

      Given all this, could you blame us for being a little sceptical? We might not be able to much longer - there’s been talk of making it illegal in some quarters. Hamilton reckons we’re actually worse than Holocaust deniers, as, according to him,  we’re denying the future, they’re only denying the past.

      Denier is rubbish, anyway. I don’t hear anyone claiming the temperature isn’t going up, it has been since about 1900. I can’t say categorically that human-emitted CO2 isn’t a factor in this, but I’d like to see the facts without the hyperbole and doom mongering, and stupid terms like ‘carbon pollution’. Carbon is the basis of all organic life, FFS.

      I’d also like to see some solutions to this supposed problem that don’t involve taxing the hell out of everyone and keeping the developing world in perpetual poverty.

      Reply

    • James says:

      01:53pm | 06/06/11

      A major component of the mess we are in is that people have been encouraged to disregard expert opinion on the subject of global warming, just think what the end point of this might be, it might make the current bigotry seem tame in comparison.

      What if, en masse, people start questioning (and ignoring) the experts on biological quarentine, vaxination, universal education, medication directions or dumping of toxic waste into water ways etc.  Very quickly our “advanced” civilisation will start to come apart at the seams and we will start to resemble the poor wretches of the third world.

      We rely on specialists warning us of very complex future problems to steer a path through the minefield.  If we simply start ignoring them we are relying on the ability of an uninformed mass of people to accurately assess future risks, think stock market crashes, minor conflicts escallating out of control and disease outbreaks with no vaxination or cure.

      Reply

    • Wayne Kerr says:

      02:05pm | 06/06/11

      @James

      Are people being encouraged to disregard expert opinion or are people now realising it’s ok to question expert opinion and not necessarily take evrything at face value because an expert says so.?

    • papachango says:

      02:10pm | 06/06/11

      There are lots of people who think vaccination is a Big Pharma conspiracy, question the science behind Western medicine, and believe that you can cure cancer by having a few drops of water that once saw a molecule of a Muscovy duck’s liver. These same people tend to believe all the AGW doomsday scenarios too. Go figure.

    • James says:

      02:46pm | 06/06/11

      It is ok to question, but you need to be honest with yourself that is, do I really have a valid point that I want this expert to hear or do I just not like experts because I think they are up themselves and therefore I will shut down anything they say and shout my opinion regardless.

      If too many people start taking option 2 i.e. rubbishing experts because they don’t like the look of them, then you run the very real risk of a society that defaults to the mob for all decisions regardless of how complex they are.

      Btw papachango I doubt you could find a single climate scientist who believes in the magic healing power of crystals or any other such mumbo jumbo and you know it.

    • SP Korolev says:

      12:16am | 07/06/11

      The internet provides plenty of information on complex subjects. This is a double edged sword as one is be able to find answers more in tune to their point of view, rather than, say , studying medicine or atmospheric sciences and coming to conclusions through classwork and actually knowing what to look for in data regarding vaccination or AGW.

      Questioning the accepted practices is a good thing, but only if they are questions and not opinion.

    • James says:

      10:49am | 07/06/11

      Very true, I don’t think alot of the climate science deniars read very widely, rather they gravitate to “information” that backs up a conclusion they have already made.  You have to put in the hard work learning how to interpret data if you want to make a valuable contribution to a scientific debate.

    • loulou says:

      01:57pm | 06/06/11

      How did it come to this? the article asks.

      Because one group of scientists did not want to be contradicted and set about silencing the other group.

      Reply

    • Holly says:

      02:07pm | 06/06/11

      Your argument is somewhat flawed because the group who you describe as 99% likely to think that anthropogenic global warming is a scientific conspiracy do not according to the evidence during the Howard years support small government and they are very fond of the welfare state especially when it extends to middle and high income earners. Negative gearing and capital gains are really a taxpayer subsidy to the more well off - another form of welfare.  Then we have industry subsidies, farming subsidies etc etc - not to mention the final irony that the Abbott government is touting a “socialist” approach in his climate change policy.  Totally weird.

      Reply

    • DH says:

      02:12pm | 06/06/11

      Great piece. I loved the comment in the paper today by one of the twenty-somethings at the rally yesterday, commenting that her parents are worried about the tax, but she keeps assuring them that to save the environment, ‘you can’t put a price on carbon’. Hopefully they’ll do the decent thing and kick her out of home so she can discover what paying a bill is like.  I’m all for saving the world, but surely a tax like this will only serve to push more people to living IN the environment, rather than saving it?

      Reply

    • RyaN says:

      02:42pm | 06/06/11

      Agreed, we have already opened up the old fireplace and burn trees every night to warm the house since they already started padding the electricity prices for this carbon tax.
      Donkey geyser going in next, burn more trees to heat the water.

    • papachango says:

      02:43pm | 06/06/11

      The author gets one point wrong. Rather than demanding ‘their right to pay more tax’, they’re really demanding that others be force to pay more tax.

    • Pom says:

      02:31pm | 06/06/11

      “Climate Change”?, dunno. “Pollution”, yep.

      Reply

    • Ben81 says:

      02:38pm | 06/06/11

      On the Carbon Tax the reason support for a large part mirrors support for the major parties is because nobody but rusted on Labor fans could possibly lie to themselves enough to convince themselves they should support it.
      What person in their right mind thinks such an extreme measure that will increase our cost of living, the cost of running a business in Australia and the cost of Australian products is in any way justified given it will have no measurable effect on climate change at all and a negligible impact on world emissions?  And who really accepts being explicitly told one thing during an election campaign and then having that taken back once the election is over?

      I think if the government wasn’t doing so badly in the polls there would be even less support for it because the desperation some people have to see a little ‘victory’ for Labor somewhere wouldn’t be so great.

      Reply

    • Chris L says:

      06:33pm | 06/06/11

      Yup, it’s all ‘cause of those one-eyed immovable supporters of the “other” side.

      A very succinct demonstration of the point of the article… unless you’re being serious.

    • Ben81 says:

      08:56pm | 06/06/11

      “Yup, it’s all ‘cause of those one-eyed immovable supporters of the “other” side. “

      That’s right in many cases when it comes to this tax Chris, definitely, and I gave some of my reasons for saying that.
      How about another obvious reason, why would people truly more concerned about climate change than the Labor party support a tax that by the governments own modelling says won’t even be effective in making alternatives cheaper at the price they’re hinting at?

    • 'Pretty Simple Really. says:

      02:39pm | 06/06/11

      ” How does this connection work?”

      You seriously don’t see it? All the solutions to AGW are in one for or another, to implement Socialism and big government. it also just so happens that all the people who used to wave red flags are now waving green flags (Adam Bandt for one).

      Given the people proposing the AGW solutions are lying about their motivations, how can we who oppose the “solution” even trust that they’re telling the truth about the problem?

      Reply

    • Bobster says:

      03:16pm | 06/06/11

      So explain why Tony Abbott is selling direct action and Julia Gillard wants a market mechanism?

      The people waving the red flags are the one’s who should be wearing blue ties.

      The communists, it would appear, have switched teams.

    • Mark says:

      02:41pm | 06/06/11

      “Over time the scientific evidence that the climate is warming has become quite compelling and the link between emissions of greenhouse gases from human activity and higher temperatures is also convincing.

      Being among the first movers on carbon trading in this region will bring new opportunities and we intend to grasp them.”

      John Howard 2007

      Reply

    • Bill says:

      03:20pm | 06/06/11

      “There will be no carbon tax under a Government I lead”

      Julia Gillard 2010

    • Mark says:

      03:50pm | 06/06/11

      @ Bill

      Now both of them are no longer deniers, unlike some of Howard’s progeny.

    • Bobster says:

      02:45pm | 06/06/11

      What the hell is going on here today?

      Punch columnists and Punch posters realising en masse that Abbott is promoting socialist policies and that the dyed-in-the-wool Libs have missed all of that in their haste to compare Gillard to Stalin?

      The same columnists and posters realising the Labor is so right-wing that even Thatcher might tell them to have a cuppa and a bit of a lay down?

      What, oh what, is happening to Australia?

      We still all agree on the Greens though, right? Don’t anyone start telling me they’re actually a mob of free marketers.

      Reply

    • Slim says:

      02:53pm | 06/06/11

      “How did our own views on an issue like climate change, and its bastard child the carbon tax, come to mirror those of the major political parties?”

      I suspect it has something to do with where we fall in Hierarchical Individualist or Egalitarian Communitarian spectrum - this, it seems will influence our political, social and scientific attitudes accordingly.
      http://www.cxoadvisory.com/sentiment-indicators/why-the-experts-dont-rule-the-world/

      Reply

    • Andy D says:

      02:56pm | 06/06/11

      The rabid bigots at both extremes of the spectrum are the ones causing all the chaos (and we see plenty of them here at the Punch, I won’t name names, we all know who they are).

      If you think that your beliefs (as a climate change believer or as a climate change non-believer) are so sacrosanct as to be beyond question or challenge then you are the problem, you are not part of the solution!

      On Climate change the far-left are so far left and the far-right are so far right that they are going all the way around and meeting in the middle and as a group the extremists sully the whole process/debate with their disgraceful attempts to stifle their opponents and deny the moderate majority the opportunity to assess the facts and decide for themselves.

      We need to start looking at the ‘ranters and screamers’ from both sides as a single group of extremist zealots whose beliefs are driven by ideology and who cannot be trusted to be part of a mature informed debate.

      You can always pick the zealots, they are the ones who think all the extremists are on the other side of the debate.

      Sadly there are many politicians, public figures and journalists who fall into this extremist category and there are many other topics besides Climate change that are being hijacked by these extremists.

      Reply

    • SimonTigey says:

      03:04pm | 06/06/11

      The reason it’s divided on political lines is that labor supporters have to show support or their party is finished, whether they support a carbon tax or not. In fact i would go as far to say that this fight is about political survival now, and it doesn’t look to good for Gillard. It seems clear to all now that only Greens and rusted on Labor voters are for this tax, the vast majority are 100% dead against it. Labor and the Greens misread public perception on this badly, but I guess that’s always a possibility when your blinded by ideology. Gillard is gone for all money, it’s just a matter of time, fancy bringing in a carbon tax while prices are skyrocketing.

      Reply

    • Dr B S Goh says:

      03:12pm | 06/06/11

      I believe in the threats of global warming but I am strongly against the carbon tax in Australia because it will disadvantage Australia with almost ZERO impact on global warming.

      I think it is several times more effective if Australia focuses on what it can do to help Asia to reduce its CO2 emission. The Yearly INCREASES of human CO2 emission in Asia is Several TIMES the TOTAL yearly human CO2 emission in Australia.

      One simple way Australia can achieve great outcomes in global warming is to help India and China in generating electricity from nuclear energy. India and China currently each gets less than 3% from nuclear energy. Both countries plan to expand greatly the use of nuclear energy.

      In comparison about 80% of the electricity in France is generated by nuclear energy.

      Currently and roughly India and China each gets 65% of their electricity from coal.

      In comparison about 80% of Australia’s electricity comes from coal.

      Thus instead of the carbon tax in Australia the best way forward is for Australia ,with the permission of the Greens and ALP, to lift the embargo on uranium sales to India and work closely also with China to promote the use of nuclear energy in India and China. India is very short on uranium.

      Reply

    • Anubis says:

      04:25pm | 06/06/11

      Dr BS Goh - you forgot the blindingly obvious - Australia needs to switch to Nuclear energy - against the ideology of the Greens and Labor. That is one way we can show the world that we are doing something. This “bastard child the carbon tax” will not achieve a single thing relating to our Carbon Dioxide emissions. it is purely a cash grab by a morally and financially bankrupt government.

    • Dr B S Goh says:

      04:55pm | 06/06/11

      @ Anubis. I fully agree with you.

      Australia should use nuclear energy to replace coal to generate electricity. That switch would create many thousands of high valued jobs. Maybe we ask if Melbourne /Victoria can take this leap into the future since the La Trobe Valley is using brown coal for electricity. Those who are frightened with this use of nuclear energy can move to live in Sydney/NSW.

      It seems very strange to me that our FM Rudd was in the Middle East recently to sell our uranium to a country there. We should not sell any uranium to the Middle East and North Africa until those regions are stable.

      Mr Rudd would do Australia a great favour in many ways to sell uranium to India. All he needs to do is to convince the Greens and ALP to remove the embargo. We have a keen and large market for our uranium.

      India now gets it uranium from Russia. We should really help India on a win win strategy. If we help India with its plans to generate ten times more electricity by nuclear energy the amount of CO2 reduction per year achieved would be a few times the total CO2 emission in Australia. We can truly then pat ourselves on our backs and say we have achieved significant outcomes in the fight against global warming and we can make heaps of money from it.

    • Meltdown Man says:

      08:56pm | 06/06/11

      Cept you forgot about what you going to do with all the nuclear waste and risk meltdown that could leave a place uninhabitable for decades possibly longer. Have we not learnt from Japan’s diaster? Germany has and have commited to shut down all their nuclear power.

      Solar/Wind/Hydro works brilliantly, its biggest drawback is its price. Which is ironic because in the long run it pays for itself over and over again. Unlike Coal and Nuclear which over time cost us more and more as they are finite resources and costs with storing nuclear waste etc.

      ppl argue that Solar/Wind/Hydro cant provide baseload power? I beg to differ, Hydro provides 90% and more of electricity in some cities.
      Solar and Wind require more space but is still doable, before you say no its not let me explain how it can. If every new house was fitted with Solar and existing houses all after a transitional period, City buildings included including windpower would take a substancial load off baseload requirements. Heavy industry/Production would be the areas that would still need extra from baseload from what they could not generate themselves.

      That is how its done, and dont even start with the “but whos going to pay for it?” crap, thats not the point being made.

    • Dr B S Goh says:

      09:58pm | 06/06/11

      @  Meltdown Man. In my opinion Germany has a very strong Greens Movement more so than what we have in Australia. I submit that the Greens movement in Germany has pushed Germany into its recent decision to shut down their Nuclear stations.

      You look at the way the Greens a weaker force here in Australia than in Germany and how they managed to push Australia into the carbon tax.

      On the hand France continues to get 80% of its electricity from Nuclear Energy.

      I think the scientists and leaders in India and China know what is best for their countries. They have decided to expand their use of Nuclear Energy ten fold within a short time.

      We are just the facilitator in this push in nuclear energy by being a reliable source of uranium.

      We then share the common objective of reducing significantly the GLOBAL emission of human CO2.

    • Kebabpete says:

      03:17pm | 06/06/11

      Great article as usual Ant. Love your work!

      Myself, I’m totally against this ‘Carbon Tax’ for a number of reasons. The blatant lie from Julia, the fact that its being pushed though by Prime Minister Brown, a man that barely any Australian voted for, and most of all because they are using the environment as an excuse to raise unnecessary revenue.

      Why tax the carbon producing companies (other than for obvious wealth redistribution) more just to increase the price and encourage competition? If the govt really wants to encourage competitors that can produce the same product both cleaner and cheaper then why don’t they just offer them huge tax breaks and incentives?

      Leave the coal as it is. The industry is not broken, its just not the best we can do with the technology at our disposal. Instead, why not just let a company set up an environmentally friendly energy producing plant and not make them pay any tax or stamp duty to do it?

      No one pays more, no wealth redistribution, and all the tree huggers are happy.

      Reply

    • Martin says:

      03:22pm | 06/06/11

      Its interesting talking to a mate in politics who I asked why we arnt given a better incentive to cover our roofs in solar panels with each home selling back to the grid his response was “theres no money in it for the government” he then proceeded to explain to me that up towards of 2000 people would lose there job and the grid could not afford to pay for itself anymore, I then asked him if the dollar value was removed from the equation is it a solution his answer was two fold, yes it would go 40% of the way to reducing our footprint the 2000 engineers and maintinence people would then have to be retrained to maintain and install the new source of electricty, finally we got to the carbon tax the word cash cow kept creeping into the conversation, when I said but isnt it just robbing peter to pay paul his reply was a resounding yes its not the best solution considering the carbon credits have stalled two years ago and have actually gone backwards also the $1.3 billion dollar carbon credit fraud currently under investigation involving three european countrys but its the only one our government seems to want to look at. So why arnt we solar paneling the b-jesus out of our homes and using the new solar paints that absorb energy, planting forests where no forests exist and giving huge incentives to those companys that invest heavily in R&D to develop and implement clean energy and remove carbon nasty products like certain driveway sealers, paints, floor sealers and stamped road bases many of which go into building your average home?? His answer again came back to the same conclusion its a very good solution and ethical however theres no money to be made in doing whats right and whats right sadly doesnt provide revenue.

      Reply

    • Ian says:

      03:35pm | 06/06/11

      Assuming Australia passes this ridiculous tax/trading scheme, assuming it is not as rife with corruption as existing schemes abroad, assuming the world was actually waiting for us to show ‘leadership’ on the issue, assuming our export industry suffers no loss of trade due to higher costs, assuming the carbon dioxide our industry exhales truly is bad for plants everywhere, assuming the failure of the renewable sector to overtake fossil fuels was due to us not paying a carbon tax, assuming we end up with this weak minority Labor/Green alliance for two more years because Gillard is petrified of calling a fresh election and gaining a mandate, assuming the tax would never be rescinded as promised by the coalition, assuming…  Don’t waste my time - the tax is not global, hence it is flawed and potentially devastating to Australian families and industries.  You cannot reverse pollution, whatever you try, go look at the developing world for goodness sake.  How much further the world could advance its environmental platform by demanding an end to intellectual property and patent rights.  There’s your energy solution right there.

      Reply

    • disgusted says:

      03:38pm | 06/06/11

      Ok.. here’s the question:
      “The point is, how did it come to this?”

      To which I reply - because people read (and believe) articles like this that are the almost daily staple of your alleged “news” organisation. Having a near-captive market and near total population coverage means the news.ltd monotonolith gets to push its pet liberal party policy to people who may not realise they’re buying and reading it… and when suddenly the “facts” they are fed for breakfast are magically aligned with the policy of one political party (guess which one?) - well. It seems obvious.
      Why do people line up to smack scientists after reading articles in which scientists are smacked by their favourite outrage peddler?
      How did it come to this?
      Why do comments align on political agenda when the articles themselves are written in order to push the jerkwad reactionary do nothing, fear everything, neo-con twaddle?
      How did it come to this?
      Cos outrage and fear sells. And you junk it up relentlessly
      Pathetic.

      As for the argument over ‘miniscule’ - blood alcohol has to be 0.05% and you’re unsafe for driving. Zero point zero 5 percent, which is actually 0.0005 out of one, or zero point zero zero zero five.. as Alan Jones might say.
      What’s another one for the road…
      Atmospheric ozone is about 1 part per billion (I forget) - but thats enough to bounce 95% of all UV radiation.
      Atmospheric carbon is.. roughly.. 1 per 6,000? (again - forget)... or about 170,000 times more than ozone. And thats 2.5 times more now than ever before, ever.
      Still having no impact?
      Of course it isn’t! There’s zeroes in it. Carbon tax labor wrong greenie.. I’ll yell louder until I’m right.

      Reply

    • macca-d says:

      03:43pm | 06/06/11

      On the right side of politics there are a bunch of people who don’t believe in man-made climate change, and a bunch of people who believe in it but don’t think we should do anything about it.  Overall it seems like the majority of people do believe in man-made climate change. 

      Marginally increasing taxes on goods and services to reward enviro friendly behaviour, and fund development of new enviro friendly technology is not a bad idea.

      Reply

    • Chris Johnson says:

      03:53pm | 06/06/11

      “The last time Australians took to the streets to protest in numbers so large was the February 2003 rallies to protest Australia’s involvement in Iraq.”

      Really?  I seem to remember some large protests against Workchoices that were larger than the pro-carbon price rallies.

      And when is someone going to mention that attendance at the Melbourne rally alone outnumbers attendances at all anti-carbon price rallies?

      “The interesting thing about the 2003 protests was that the crowds were truly a cross-section of society. There were the old and young, the left and the right, the hardened activists and the first-time protestors. Compare that to the two carbon rallies, where the crowds were totally fractured along political lines.”
      At the pro-carbon price rally in Melbourne it was again truly a cross-section of society.  Old and young, hardened activists and the first-time protestors.
      As opposed to the anti-carbon price rallies which have been predominantly older.

      “the protestors yesterday would have been much better going off and planting some trees.”
      I can only assume that you haven’t read the Climate Commission report regarding Natural Eco-Systems - Page 58

      Reply

    • papachango says:

      04:58pm | 06/06/11

      the number of people attending a rally is in no way indicative of general public opinion. This applies even if you claim that the people attending the rally were a ‘cross section of society’.

      Fact is that rallies tend tpo attract those from a particular side of politics, and given the usual timing, those without a day job.

    • Chris Johnson says:

      05:50pm | 06/06/11

      papachango it may not be indicative of general public opinion, however it is indicative of those motivated to act.

      Abbott seems to think those who attended weekend rallies as “a few activists”, yet they clearly outnumber the even fewer activists who have attended anti-carbon rallies.

    • Crap Filter says:

      06:32am | 07/06/11

      “Without a day job”. What?

      These events were all held on Sunday.

      S u n d a y.

      Spare us the bull dust, do.

    • Kika says:

      04:47pm | 06/06/11

      Get a grip Ant. Just because a lot of people actually believe that taxing corporations will do something for the environment. Just because they sit on the other side of the fence… AND don’t agree with you.

      And it’s a no brainer about the opinion vs political side of the fence you sit on. The political parties know what their loyal believe in and make policies accordingly. It’s not like Tony Abbott is going to announce tomorrow that payroll tax is going up, income tax for those on a combined income of $150K is going up and that those who don’t plant trees are going to be fined. Those as well who don’t marry someone from their gender.

      It ain’t going to happen. They have polls and go out in their communities and listen (theoretically) and make policy according to what they think their voters will vote for.

      And then there are idiots on the otherside who just assume everyone agrees with them. Then when they don’t they just say “It’s Labour die hards just towing the company line! I don’t want to pay tax! Just because I don’t that means they don’t either!”

      Reply

    • Dementer says:

      04:49pm | 06/06/11

      I can see this being a problem it should be an opt in soultion.

      Tick the box on your tax form.

      Anyway the Greens wont vote for it as they dont think it has gone far enough.

      Reply

    • Crap Filter says:

      06:37am | 07/06/11

      No matter what the Libs tell you, the carbon price is not a tax on individuals.

      No matter what some posters parrot,  it still isn’t.

    • TimB says:

      07:52am | 07/06/11

      Crap Filter, suggest you put the filter on your own posts.

      Will business be liable for the tax? Sure.

      Will they then pass it on to the consumers? Hell yes.

      So in the end the consumers *will* be paying, not the businesses.

      Hide behind technicalities all you like. If the individuals aren’t the ones ultimately paying the tax then why is the Government talking about compensation?

      How about you try some honesty instead of peddling spin?

    • Crap Filter says:

      08:42am | 07/06/11

      Adds to costs? No one has ever pretended otherwise.

      Businesses? About 1,000 of the largest polluting businesses pay the carbon price directly.

      Businesses, competing in the market, may choose to:
      Reduce emissions and hence lower flow-on to consumer prices
      Absorb some or all carbon price hence lower flow-on to consumer prices
      Pass on carbon price in full - to consumers.

      Consumers:
      Can choose services and goods for price, for energy efficiency, for carbon efficiency. Or choose to use less.

      Either way, households/individuals up to middle income will get a tax break, equivalent to the average price impact, sliding scale above that. They could well end up in front.  Meanwhile, market forces make a shift in emissions.

      Very simple, and no spin. No amount of spin or finger wagging makes the carbon price a direct tax on individuals.

      TimB knows all this perfectly well as it has all been explained again and again and again.

      Anyone talking individual tax, tax forms, tick boxes blah blah blah is trying to spin. To cheat. 

      If Timb or the Opposition Leader had a case to make, they wouldn’t need to cheat.

      No matter what they tell you, the carbon price is not a tax on individuals.

    • TimB says:

      10:31am | 07/06/11

      I repeat:

      If the individuals aren’t the ones ultimately paying the tax then why is the Government talking about compensation?

      The only one cheating here is you.

    • TimB says:

      10:35am | 07/06/11

      Oh and I missed this.

      “Very simple, and no spin. No amount of spin or finger wagging makes the carbon price a direct tax on individuals. “

      Noone on my side of the debate has ever tried to claim that it would be a direct tax. We know it’s indirect. That doesn’t mean that we’re paying for it any less.

      “Anyone talking individual tax, tax forms, tick boxes blah blah blah is trying to spin. To cheat.  “

      And noone is saying this either. By insinuating that people are, what are you doing? Oh yeah. Cheating.

    • Crap Filter says:

      01:13pm | 07/06/11

      As its the bigger firms making most of the emissions to start with, its both efficient and fair that
      a) they pay the carbon price directly
      and
      b) we don’t as individuals.
      One way to fix that - the tax break for individuals, funded from the carbon pricing revenue.

      TimB is a frequent reader and poster, so he can hardly have missed the number of Punch posters talking about personal tax, tax forms, tick boxes, blah blah blah.

      And if TimB is right, why then did Opposition Leader Abbott deliberately misrepresent Garnaut’s words on this very thing,  in QuestionTime last week? Why?

      Repeating then: there is no direct carbon tax on individuals, on your tax form or anywhere else. Your costs may go up, for which you will get a tax break.

      No amount of spin and finger pointing from any sly-boots will make it otherwise, and to keep trying to pretend otherwise is cheating.

      If you had a case, you wouldn’t need to cheat.

    • James Dunstan says:

      05:05pm | 06/06/11

      I thought the carbon price was all about gradually changing industy behaviour in a way that reduces carbon pollution over the longer term. Even if we are not large emitters how can that be a bad thing. It is certain that eventually it will happen whether it be another 10, 15 or 20 years. To start early would make sense so that industry can begin looking at more innovative ways of doing things. The political divide on this issue amazes me.

      Reply

    • fairsfair says:

      05:25pm | 06/06/11

      I voted Labor in 2007 and therefore against the ETS. Then Kevin wanted an ETS and his Labor colleagues, The Greens and the Tony Abbott lead half of the Coalition blocked it. I don’t recall ever hearing John Howard discuss the ETS in the lead up to the 2007 election.

      Hindsight is a beautiful thing. I personally think an ETS is the way to go in conjunction with some form of direct action (note I don’t mean the coalitions plan, just acting directly). If it was initially set low (like the one Kevin Rudd presented) it would ease people into the idea and with time it would increase depending on its functionality. It may also prove to be bloody useless and scrapped, who knows? People need to get over this pay-per-view right to lifestyle. Just because you can afford to run the five plasmas it is ok to have them? No it is not. Some of the responsibility needs to be put on us, not just “the big polluters” because collectively - we become a pretty big group. Oh and if you think it is people on $80k and over that are the only ones with more than one TV and an overy consumptive lifestyle you are sadly mistaken.

      The biggest thing I can’t really get past is that Julia Gillard wants that too. In her appearance on Q&A months ago (following her initial announcement of the “policy”) she clearly stated that she wants an ETS and if my memory serves me correctly she even hinted that once Labor had the majority again they would transform the Tax into an ETS. That being the case, why did she help topple Kevin Rudd on the back of this policy (and others) and why does she not stand by that? It is clear the Green’s are behind the push for the tax and she did not have the confidence in her goverment to stand up to them.

      I think Julia had done herself a disservice. She should have stood by her guns on the ETS and not pandered to the Greens. She would still have the faith of the voters in that instance, could have called a new election and on the back of Tony Abbott’s performances since the 2010 election she would have won it outright.

      I am not saying that that is my personal preference, but I would much rather see a government achieve rather than talk about achieve, which is all that is happening of late (from all sides). I feel sorry for her, she is but a pawn in a useless system. She has been set up to fail. We need another election that delivers a clear winner. Who wins, I don’t care but there are clearly no winners at the moment. 

      Here we are 4 years later, still talking about isseus raised 2007. When do we say enough is enough? More importantly, how do we say that?

      Reply

    • Donny says:

      05:31pm | 06/06/11

      I had an interesting question posed to me by my son the other night when we were discussing this topic.  He asked if the Carbon Tax came in and costs increased for all goods and services, would not the Government benefit with extra GST as well?, like a double dip ?
      Extra income from the Tax and GST.
      Since I could not giv him a definite answer, thought I would throw it up here for a response.

      Reply

    • Dr B S Goh says:

      07:04pm | 06/06/11

      @ Donny. You have a very smart son. How old is he? He is right. The Govt will get extra revenue from GST based on higher prices for many goods and services with the carbon tax.

      But to be fair I do not think the present Govt is so smart and devious to plan this double dip with GST and the carbon tax.

      May I suggest that he study Applied Mathematics for his undergraduate degree as it will provide him the language and tool to master other subjects which he can study at the graduate level. We do not have enough smart students wanting to study Maths these days.

    • Aden Crocker says:

      05:34pm | 06/06/11

      I’m gonna say my opinion here, not all labor voters believe in climate change and not all liberal voters deny climate change. I fully believe in man made climate change and laugh at any person who shouts a conspiracy with scientists or the UN simply because the real big polluters have stronger lobbyists than climate scientists do.
      However, I do not think the carbon tax was a smart political move by Labor at all as it a. has only a 5% cut by 2020 b. taxes people more than punishing the polluters and c. is not going to get people to positively act on climate change because they’re being taxed for it.
      We need to give people and businesses an incentive to cut emissions
      Also the goal for climate change action is to slow emissions not reverse them
      I say bring on nuclear power even from what happened in Japan as it is the best current alternative to coal
      Disagree or agree I will not flame, this is my only post

      Reply

    • Richard says:

      05:53pm | 06/06/11

      When its said that we don’t want leaders to govern by focus group and we want them to be principled, that is then not an open invitation for the government to declare open war on our living standard.

      Whether or not you agree with this new branch of science called “climatology” or not is irrelevant. Whether you think that the IPCC is more of a political body than a scientific body or not is irrelevant. The only relevant issue is: should the government meddle in the economy for not really any good reason (in the context of the current global framework on CO2 emissions, there is no doubt that there isn’t any real good reason), with potentially (in fact imo undoubtedly) disastrous consequences.

      The answer is no, and anyone who cannot see this is a brainwashed fool.

      Reply

    • Kevin Rennie says:

      05:56pm | 06/06/11

      Better to plant ideas at this stage. Tony Abbott will provide the fertiliser no doubt.

      If you’d like to know what we were doing at the Melbourne rally in beautiful sunshine, then here’s some video:

      What Price Carbon Pollution - Melbourne Say Yes Rally
      http://tiny.cc/p27x6

      Reply

    • AnthonyG says:

      06:52pm | 06/06/11

      I don’t think it is a surprise that a small percentage of the poulation are brain dead sheep.

      Reply

    • Gavin says:

      06:56pm | 06/06/11

      I’m not fighting for the right to pay a new tax. Instead, I am supporting a system which will reward those businesses who find a way to cut down their emissions, avoid the tax and have more competitive prices by virtue of not having to pass on costs to their consumers. It will put those who have no intention of finding away to cut down on pollution in a position where they have to face the reality: change how we do things, or fall out of the competition against those who do and go bust.

      I have no intention of subsiding pollution. I have every intention of utiling business who pollute less and therefore charge less.

      Reply

    • Ben81 says:

      09:22pm | 06/06/11

      What are some of these alternatives that will genuinely cut emissions and be so much cheaper and easier than paying the carbon tax, especially at the hinted “well south” of $40 a tonne price?

      And isn’t it the reality that the more expensive products will be the Australian ones?

      Just as importantly, if this tax is somehow successful in achieving what it’s being sold to us to do how will it be justified given the negligible impact on world emissions at the cost of such a hit to our cost of living and products?  Do we just hope these ‘alternatives’ become cheaper or something when nobody’s paying the tax and the revenue to fund the compensation is gone? 
      Ross Garnaut for one says we will eventually bear the full cost.  Doesn’t seem like we’re getting much in return for it.

    • grumpy says:

      12:35pm | 07/06/11

      Gavin,
      the businesses that pollute less will not charge less, because there prices are driven by market forces. They will extract every cent of profit that they can, and they will price their products at the highest price that the market can bear and allows them to meet their balance sheet projections. Thats what businesses do….they make money for shareholders, they are not benevolent organisations!.

      I will agree with you when you can tell me by how much the minuscule amount of carbon in the atmosphere that is attributable to human activity will be reduced by my carbon tax $. If you can’t, then what are you actually going to pay for? Feeling good/superior? etc.

    • Kylie says:

      07:46pm | 06/06/11

      It’s not so much the science as not trusting this government to manage a sausage sizzle cash tin let alone a massive tax and restructure of the economy.  Let me say two words that put the fear of god into anyone concerned about their financial future - Wayne Swan!

      Reply

    • Mining tax Carbon tax says:

      09:05pm | 06/06/11

      I think if they had a better name for the Tax it might go down better, hey do you remember how things seemed to be going so well before all this and then Rudd announced the mining tax?

      Seems kinda silly now they got rid of him for that, I mean out of the two taxes I think voters would prefer the mining tax? am I right?

      Why do industries like mining and coal get tax breaks though?

      This is all very ironic…. and bitter tasting.

      Reply

    • Didvid.S says:

      12:23am | 07/06/11

      I don’t understand how an article that was solely about political partisanship can conclude with ‘[...and that’s why the carbon tax] is stupid’.

      If that was the point you wanted to make, maybe you should have written about it.. just a little?

      Reply

    • Crap Filter says:

      06:51am | 07/06/11

      Yep. The Sharwood style. The aim?

      Simple. Make a noise, any noise. To get a reaction, any reaction.

      Never ever have a crack at pulling together some decent info, put down in plain talk.  Nup. Too hard.

      What you want in a “story” is reaction. Who needs debate. Reaction, that’s the stuff. Colour. Conflict.

      Lace your piece with lots and lots of “we” and “us”. Make out you talk for everyone.  Or “people like us”.

      So then it’s magically “our” problem, our fault. Like the Sharwoods of the media had nuthin to do with it.

      Yep, right, sure. Uh huh.

      But then there’s this, from The Oz no less. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/nervous-naysayers-on-the-road-to-ruin-as-a-high-carbon-economy/story-fn59niix-1226069667998

      See? It can be done better. It is done better. Just not by this fellow.

    • Al Hammond says:

      11:40am | 07/06/11

      yeah, it’s not so much irresponsible journalism as pointless journalism. And who listens to The Doors anyway?

    • Anthony Sharwood

      Anthony Sharwood says:

      10:04am | 07/06/11

      Yeah but did that dude insert some awesome music with his piece? I rest my case.

      Reply

    • Crap Filter says:

      12:59pm | 07/06/11

      Case? What case?

      You didn’t make a case.

      You tossed a few cliches and one liners about. Pfft.

    • Harquebus says:

      12:30pm | 07/06/11

      As you are stupid enough to use that Flash cr@p, please don’t say “we” when you talk about unquestioningly, lament and own worst enemies, etc.
      Plant lots and lots of trees. The survivors will thank you. Peak oil mate, peak oil.

      Reply
 
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