Carbon Tax; two words that separate, don't really mean much, but together mean a lot to the Australian people and thanks the the Gillard governments announcement of the carbon tax price ($23 per tonne) on Sunday, those two words of Carbon Tax aren't going away anytime soon. The Gillard Government announced that from July 1st 2012, the Carbon Tax will take place. Here, writers Emma Gardiner - Deans and Stephen Davies debate the reasons why you should and shouldn't vote for the carbon tax.
AFFIRMATIVE: Emma Gardiner - Deans
Carbon dating: Why you should fall in love with the new carbon tax
I’m embarrassed to admit that I had to Google ‘Carbon tax’.
It’s not that I don’t care or am completely ignorant; it’s just that it’s quite complicated.
Trading schemes and caps aside, the upshot is that the carbon tax penalises polluters. Most companies only feel pain in their bottom lines so it makes sense to incentivise them where it hurts.
This scheme places the Australian government at the vanguard of revolutionary policy; a welcome change considering how thoroughly backward it’s been in the past (see: indigenous rights).
The Labor government has made some brave moves over the past three years – laptops in primary schools, maternity leave provisions, saying sorry at long last – and this is one more step in the right direction. Now, to get the mining tax across the line … but I digress.
This is not greenie-wishy-washiness. This is a tax based on the scientific facts surrounding global warming and dwindling fossil fuel reserves. It’s not about environmentalism; it’s about inventory management, which is a relief considering that lightweight environmentalism is fundamentally flawed. Many so-called ‘environmentalists’ fill their trolleys with organic food packaged in plastic, shove it all in a green bag and then drive home in their petrol-fuelled cars.
It’s fashionable to pretend you care but it’s an entirely different proposition when caring becomes a fiscal decision.
The carbon tax will increase the price of all sorts of things; basically anything that requires fossil fuels to make, transport or power. No one will be able to weasel their way out of paying the $26 tax per tonne of carbon dioxide. And you know what? You want to pollute? You should be made accountable.
In the same way you have to pay rates for rubbish collection, water, roads and other civic necessities, you should have to pay for infringements on air and water quality.
Imagine a world where there are safe bike paths, an abundance of solar, wind and water powered energy sources and the air and water is clean.
Contrast this with a world where the roads are strangled with traffic, power comes from coal or oil and the air and water are increasingly polluted.
Hang on; that’s the way things are now.
Go ahead. Tax me. I want the government to increase the pressure on me – and everyone else – who is too lazy, complacent or indifferent to make the necessary improvements to their habits.
Emma is the Founder and Creative Communications Director of Blossom Media.
She is communications specialist with over 10 years of media experience. She has a BA Communications from the University of Newcastle and started her career as a radio producer with ABC Newcastle, later moving to Sydney to become a print journalist on both consumer and trade titles. She has spent the past seven years working in consumer PR. Today Emma is the part-time PR Manager at Unique Tourism Collection and freelances for Toga Hospitality. She project manages Daily Addict xChange, a weekly women’s networking event created in partnership with Merivale and is a regular contributor to DailyAddict.com.au. She is the Founder and Publisher of SheGoes.com.au, a travel blog for adventurous people.
NEGATIVE: Stephen Davies
At school I did work experience at a vet. This usually involved holding things and mucking out cages. But sometimes I'd get the dreaded call to help comfort a dog while it was euthanised. The sight of someone's best friend, left behind to shuffle off alone, terrified, is horrible. My job was to pat and talk to the dog so they wouldn't be scared during the injection, and while they faded away. It haunts me today. I still remember the sad, resigned looks in their eyes.
I know that look, and I see it every time I look at Julia Gillard. How high were the hopes when she ousted Kevin Rudd, and how low the polls a year on. There are many reasons for this, but one that hangs around her like an albatross - the carbon price.
Australia needs action on climate change. It's right the government has adopted Ross Garnaut's suggestions (partly) to price carbon despite saying they wouldn't (in completely different circumstances than the current minority government) and Kevin Rudd ‘walking away’ from the ETS (he didn’t really).
Why, then, could anyone be against it? When it was announced, there was much hysteria from people who only a year earlier sent Rudd's approval rating plummeting for 'shelving' the ETS. The public is fickle. They don't care that the carbon price (it's not really a 'tax') is the first step toward that ETS.
The public would rather listen to Tony Abbott, an atavistic DLP-throwback whose entire platform as an alternative government rests on opposing, sniping at and (impossibly) promising to repeal a carbon price.
Abbott has been travelling the country, promising that it will drive up the cost of everything from sunshine to babies' smiles, destroy industry and end civilisation. While government support erodes, we have no similar scrutiny of his policy - throwing money at big polluters. This will actually cost 'battlers' much more.
We should oppose the carbon price to upset Abbott. Anyone who has read 'Battlelines' will know he isn't quite the idiot he seems. But he'll do anything and say anything to get into power. By focusing on an unpopular policy, one he doesn't even have details of, he's going to coast into the Lodge. By shelving this sensible policy we'd be cutting down on one of Australia's main sources of noxious emissions - the lies about it coming from our ascendant opposition leader.
Stephen Davis is an editor and writer based in Melbourne. You can read his blog here and follow him on Twitter at @stephendevice
If you would like to contribute to a debate, please contact Clare at g_o_a_s@hotmail.com or send her a message via Twitter
Nice debate. But I think it also important to look at "Global Warming" itself, as this is the basis for the governments excuse for instituting another revenue raising scheme.
ReplyDeleteGlobal Warming has become the catch-cry of the 2000's, thanks mainly to self-serving media looking for anything that will make them some money from being both scary and too involved for the lazy populous to actually look at the facts. Is the world getting warmer? Probably. Did man cause this? Inconclusive. Our world goes through many changes, we have had ice ages in the one extreme and greenhouse effects in the other before. The only significant difference now, is that we have the ability to record those changes as they are happening.
The global warming scare is a craze that was started by research done by Briffa with the findings released in 1998. When the findings were released, a movement started based on the research, which has travelled right around the world. The only problem is, Briffa refused to release his actual research until 2008. And when he did, it was found that of the 1000's of trees he studies in Siberia, his findings were based on just 12 of them. Out of over 1000 trees, only 12 showed any signs of the "hockey stick shape" in their rings that the whole basis of the global warming scare is based on.
This has caused a lot of people, who have actually read the studies, to stand up and take notice. Yes, the world still cries out "Global Warming", but really, it has now been shown to be the most recent pop sensation. Think about this: in the 1960's, 70's and 80's, everyone was worried about "Global Cooling"
So should we have a carbon tax? No. There is no need for one. Until someone actually does a valid study, with valid results that show we have caused global warming, the Carbon Tax will remain what it is: a Tax.