Pretend for a moment that we wanted to forcibly reduce the production of carbon dioxide by Australians.
There are three ways to do it.
The first option is to levy a tax on every tonne of carbon dioxide produced. This assumes that if you tax something, less of it will be produced. This is phase 1 of the Gillard/Greens scheme. Tax payers rate this the "least worst" scheme because it is simple, easily demonised and easily abolished once it becomes obvious that it is achieving no climate benefits at great cost.
A second option is to use ration cards like those used to ration petrol during the war. The quantity of cards issued is set each year and issued to industries favoured by the ruling politicians. The ration cards can be traded in an official market or on the black market. This is phase 2 of the Gillard/Greens scheme. It is greatly favoured by bankers, brokers, traders and speculators.
The third option is the bureaucratic snow job where politicians try to hide the true costs of their carbon phobia under a suffocating blanket of taxes, subsidies, rebates, mandates, quotas and permits designed to apply the death of a thousand cuts to the usage and costs of carbon fuels. The bureaucracy, the lawyers, the Greens and some Liberals favour this underhand scheme.
The worst plan of all is to burden Australia with all three schemes. This is the current climate caper from all parties.
The way out of this mess is repeal, repeal and repeal.
Abolish every policy, tax, subsidy or bureaucracy established during the lunatic phase of climate madness – repeal everything with "carbon", "clean", "climate", "green" or "smart" in its name.
The sky will not fall; and our jobs, our industries and all plant life will benefit.
Viv Forbes
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.
