Is it sad to see the Big Australian joining Big Government, Big Unions and Big Business in supporting a Big New Carbon Tax.
The whole purpose of a carbon tax is to force us to use less of every product or activity that produces that harmless gas-of-life, carbon dioxide. The big producers are electricity, steel and other metals, petrol, diesel, cement, timber, beef, lamb, dairy, wool, travel and tourism.
A carbon tax is thus a tax on the cycle of life and the essentials of life. It aims to create artificial scarcity in all of these. Which ones does Mr. Kloppers plan to do without?
He says we can make this tax “revenue neutral”. The Soviets ran a revenue neutral fiscal policy for decades – “they take 100% of your income and spend it all”. If it were truly revenue neutral it should go back, exactly, to those who bear the cost, with no bureaucratic handling charges and no diversions to your favourite green charity. This would be a zero sum game so why do it?
Of course BHP’s massive Australian mining exports will be exempt, and its big operations in Africa and South America will never face a carbon tax. And nuclear power will get a gigantic boost from a heavy handicap on coal power. Guess who owns the biggest uranium mine in the world?
This is just a destructive proposal by the Big Australian to levy a Big Tax on all other Australians.
Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, has spent his life working in exploration, mining, farming, infrastructure, financial analysis and political commentary. He has worked for government departments, private companies and now works as a private contractor and farmer.
Viv has also been a guest writer for the Asian Wall Street Journal, Business Queensland and mining newspapers. He was awarded the “Australian Adam Smith Award for Services to the Free Society” in 1988, and has written widely on political, technical and economic subjects.
