We are told that the carbon tax will allow the market to determine how to best reduce the use of carbon fuels.
But we still have a thicket of bureaucratic rules, subsidies and mandates driving up the cost of electricity. This is not the market reacting to a simple tax – it is a costly mess.
If politicians were honest about reducing costs for Australian households and tax payers, four steps are required:
First, abolish all rules forcing electricity retailers to buy a mandated percentage of their power from expensive and unreliable sources such as wind and solar.
Second, abolish all rules forcing electricity retailers and consumers to pay above market prices for green energy, whether they want it or not.
Third, abolish the carbon tax and all the subsidies, compensation, exemptions and compliance costs associated with it. This money merry-go-round increases costs and taxes and achieves nothing useful.
Finally, boycott those shameless electricity retailers who have actively spread the green energy myths knowing that this will increase electricity prices while simultaneously requiring more gas back-up, thus benefitting their own gas interests.
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.
