“Carbon Sunday” – The madness in Australia over the Carbon Tax

This is a collection of links and excerpts regarding PM Julia Gillard’s speech announcing the tax. In a nutshell, from what I can see, the majority of Australians are pissed, and she’s toast, partly because she lied about it before taking office, partly due to the fact it is being implemented as a deficit from the get-go. Oh and then there’s the fact that it won’t make a bit of difference to the temperature, and will be nullified by China.

Apparently, the way it is structured, it looks “Almost bordering on a bribe” (-Andrew Bolt, see his interview with Lindzen below) .

Scores of voters rejected the plan soon after details of the $24.5 billion package to tackle climate change were revealed, with more than 80 per cent who voted in a national online poll saying Australia shouldn’t have a carbon tax.

…
“They’re calling it ‘Carbon Sunday’ but I like to refer to today as ‘Suicide Sunday’ for a PM and three independents,” one reader wrote.
…
Just eight per cent of voters said they were confident it wouldn’t affect their hip pocket.

An anti-carbon tax group said its website crashed after being overwhelmed with people trying to sign up to a campaign rejecting the tax.

The organisers of the site, no-carbon-tax.org, said the site crashed because of the “sheer numbers of people signing up.”

In the Queensland polls hosted by couriermail.com.au, about 7000 readers voted on four questions, with about 90 per cent believing we should not have a carbon tax, over 60 per cent saying climate change was a myth, and 75 per cent saying they were now more likely to vote for the Coalition.

Carbon Sunday

Andrew Bolt – Sunday, July 10, 11 (11:36 am)

- $4.3 billion over four years is going to be spent above what the tax raises to buy off the public with tax cuts and handouts. That’s one wild way to sell a tax, spending more than it raises.

- the compensation must soon run out if the Government doesn’t want to broke. The deal says that after three years, companies can buy offsets overseas for up to half their emissions. This means that costs here will rise, but the revenue to compensate for these rises is sent overseas.

- The Government claims this package will reduce emissions by 160 millions tonnes by 2020. But the immediate tax and spending levels cannot do that. This target can be achieved only with a dramatic raising of the tax. No figure is given for how much of our emissions will be cut by the tax as it.

- The Government refuses to nominate employment effects on the specific industries involved.

- No figure is given for what effect this will have on the world’s temperature.

- Julia Gillard cites in her support Margaret Thatcher, who indeed did warn in 1988 that we should worry about global warming. What Gillard fails to add was that by 2002, Thatcher had developed second thoughts about the alarmists, writing that global warming “provides a marvelous excuse for worldwide, supra-national socialism”.

Cost increases: <a title=”Households to see average cost increases of $9.90 a week. However, they will also receive assistance of $10.10 a week on average.Households to see average cost increases of $9.90 a week. However, they will also receive assistance of $10.10 a week on average.

- Gillard announces also she’ll buy out a 2000 Megawatt power station over the next decade at a price not revealed. That’s billions to actually reduce our power supplies, not increase them.

Just to put all this nonsense in perspective, the policy is due to reduce Australia’s emissions by 160 million tonnes of CO2 by 2020. Sounds impressive right? Well, China’s emissions rose in just one year by 750 million tonnes, nearly five times Australia’s planned reduction by 2020 – in just one year. Climate Madness.

Forestalling all of the 0.24 C° global warming predicted by 2020 would demand almost $60,000 from every man, woman and child on the planet.

Many Australians to be better off under tax deal: Gillard | The Australian

According to a recent Newspoll, just 30 per cent of people support the tax.

“The presumption in the Newspoll that the majority of Australians don’t want action on climate change will change,” Senator Brown told reporters in Brisbane yesterday.

Ms Gillard warned the government would not be cowed by opposition to the tax and accused the Coalition of “lies and distortion” and “attacks on our economists and scientists.

“After all that, I simply say to our opponents: is that the best you can do,” she said.

“Because if you think that’s enough to knock us off course, you’ve got another think coming.”

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Climate change: Gillard or Abbott | thetelegraph.com.au

[Piers Akerman] The carbon dioxide tax has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with raising an extra $11 billion in revenue.

The tax is not a reform, it is economic suicide.

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READ the full text of Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s address to the nation following the carbon tax plan:

I WANT to talk to you tonight about why the Government is putting a price on carbon and what this means for you.

The decisions I announced today mean:

AROUND five hundred big polluters will pay for every tonne of carbon pollution they put into our atmosphere.

BY 2020 this will cut carbon pollution by 160 million tonnes a year.

AND because some businesses will put prices up, there will be tax cuts, increased pensions and increased family payments.

We have had a long debate about climate change in this country.

Most Australians now agree our climate is changing, this is caused by carbon pollution, this has harmful effects on our environment and on the economy – and the Government should act.

Economists and experts agree that the best way is to make polluters pay by putting a price on carbon.

The first Australian Government to announce a plan for a carbon price was John Howard’s back in 2007.

A lot has happened since then; the debate has been difficult and divisive.

And no government – no political party or leader – can claim to have got everything right during this time.

But we have now had the debate, 2011 is the year we decide that as a nation we want a clean energy future.

Now is the time to move from words to deeds.

That’s why I announced today how Australia’s carbon price will work.

From 1 July next year, big polluters will pay $23 for every tonne of carbon they put into our atmosphere.

They now know how much they will pay unless they cut their pollution.

And they can start planning to cut pollution now.

By 2020 our carbon price will take 160 million tonnes of pollution out of the atmosphere every year.

That’s the equivalent of taking forty five million cars off the road.

Some of the cost paid by big polluters will be passed through to the prices of the goods you buy.

The price impact will be modest but I know family budgets are always tight.

So I have decided most of the money raised from the carbon price will be used to fund tax cuts, pension increases and higher family payments.

These will be permanent, matching the carbon price over time.

Not everyone will be financially better off – there is no money tree. The budget has to add up. But I want people who need help most to get the help they need.

That’s why 9 in 10 households will get a combination of tax cuts and payment increases.

For almost six million households this will fully meet your average extra costs.

And of these, four million Australian households – including every older Australian who relies solely on the pension – will get a “buffer” for your budget, with the extra payments being 20 per cent higher than your average extra costs.

When you have some time, you should have a look at the cleanenergyfuture.gov.au website.

It’ll help you find out what you’re entitled to.

And it will link you to ideas for how to cut power bills and cut pollution without cutting back on life’s essentials.

I also understand that there is nothing more important to families than having a job.

So I have decided we will take special measures to support jobs and keep Australia competitive internationally. And some of the money paid by polluters will also fund billions of dollars of investments in clean technologies like solar, wind and geothermal.

All up, the carbon price will support $100 billion worth of investment in renewables in the next forty years.

Putting a price on carbon is a big change for our country.

I know we can do it together.

Our economy is the envy of the world.

We have world-leading renewable technology, a coal industry determined to cut pollution among the world’s richest reserves of natural gas.

And we are a confident, creative people.

I see a great clean energy future for our great country.

I know we can get there together.

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Now look at the polling from the Herald Sun:

You can weigh in here

Finally, keep your eye on the prize.

h/t to Tom Nelson for collecting many of these

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UPDATE: Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. points out the absurdity of a basic claim.

Australia has released its much awaited carbon tax proposal (here in PDF). I am just now browsing through it. This analogy in the document strikes me as particularly unfortunate:

The Government has committed to reduce carbon pollution by 5 per cent from 2000 levels by 2020 irrespective of what other countries do, and by up to 15 or 25 per cent depending on the scale of global action.

Meeting the 5 per cent target will require abatement of at least 159 Mt CO2-e, or 23 per cent, in 2020 (Figure 2.4).1 This is equivalent to taking over 45 million cars off the road by 2020.

Why do I say an unfortunate analogy?

Well, Australia has only about 12 million cars (and 16 million total vehicles), so using a reduction of 45 million cars “off the road” to illustrate the unilateral emissions reduction goal simply illustrates the impossibility of the task.

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This new policy was of such national importance that Gillard had to pre-empt regular TV programming on Sunday to announce it….and they couldn’t even get the basic math right.

Notice how the Aussie papers are selling it...from the first link :

Carbon Sunday: the early reaction

*****************************EXCERPT*****************************************

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced the detail of the government's carbon tax. The commentariat has been quick to respond:

"Julia Gillard has gambled on a massive compensation package of tax cuts and benefits rises for most people to cover scepticism about a carbon tax and fears of job losses and rising costs.
In what could easily have been converted into a tax reform agenda the Prime Minister has gone as far as possible to spread the revenue from tax to households and away from business.
Business, particularly coal mining and electricity generation, carry the vast burden of the tax through direct costs and fuel imposts.
In a package that dwells far more on compensation than abating greenhouse gas emissions, Labor is trying to bury fears about price rises and reassuring voters that the "average" costs to the "average" voter will be over compensated.
But the question will be whether householders believe that the initial up front payments, which avoid a heavy cost in the crucial year of returning to Budget surplus, will actually offset the price rises in power and food that roll through from the tax and fuel imposts."
Denis Shanahan - The Australian

"This is a better package than the CPRS it is so closely modelled on, but not by a lot.
The key problem with the CPRS was that compensation for emissions intensive industries was so great and went for so long that it neutered the price signal, meaning the entire scheme was a giant money circulator that wouldn’t have started decarbonising the economy until well into the 2020s.
The same levels of assistance will apply to big polluters again, but this time the Productivity Commission will be on the case to review whether the assistance is justified and there’s an in-built bias toward reduction in assistance to the levels proposed by Ross Garnaut in his updated report if the PC agrees. But big polluters have a guarantee that their assistance won’t be cut until at least 2018, although the PC can start its 2014-15 review early if it believes there are industries making windfall gains from compensation. Which, of course, they will be.
There will also be an independent body to examine the case for accelerating Australia’s laughably unambitious target of 5% by 2020. The Climate Change Authority could become a potent independent source of advice that will pressure future governments inclined to recalcitrance in the key issue of how quickly we proceed with decarbonising the economy."
Bernard Keane - Crikey

"Looks to me like a better package than version knocked back under Rudd. Goes long way to answering concerns. But will people believe Gillard?"
Laurie Oakes - Twitter

"It is what it was always supposed to be — a gradual start to what will in the end be a major economic change.
In many ways it is initially more cautious than Kevin Rudd's carbon pollution reduction scheme, although the Greens have won concessions that keep the door open for faster change if global action steps up in the future.
But it is by necessity complex. And there are some losers. Explaining all the giving and taking that means most families will be ok is going to be very hard. Explaining the long tern benefits even more difficult.
But for Tony Abbott, finding someone, somewhere who feels worst off will be a cinch. Which means the overall modesty of this package could still get lost in the telling."
Lenore Taylor - The Sydney Morning Herald

"With all these exclusions and these giveaways, this carbon dioxide tax increasingly seems to be a mere revenue raiser for a government out to redistribute wealth."
Andrew Bolt - Herald Sun

"The carbon tax announcement is way more generous than I expected... Almost bordering on a bribe."
David Koch - Twitter

It’s a Greens victory!
Tim Blair - Daily Telegraph

"They have obviously seen it as an opportunity to pursue a social justice agenda on taxation, as well as an opportunity for carbon pricing. That’s a way to negate some of the attacks on the cost of living impacts. I think that’s a smart move, to tie it to an overhaul of the tax system.
I would have liked to have seen a faster escalation in the price over the first few years. I think $23 a tonne is very much a softly, softly approach and isn’t going to drive a lot of new investment in clean energy. Only going up 2.5% a year is barely going to keep track with the cost of living changes and CPI."
Dr Chris Riedy, Director of Institute for Sustainable Futures at University of Technology, Sydney - The Conversation

"Julia Gillard refuses to give number of people who will be worse off under her carbon tax."
Kelly O'Dwyer Lib MP - Twitter

"The assistance will go a long way to calm concerns on the Labor backbench, especially from those in mining and manufacturing seats where Abbott has been campaigning the hardest.
While independent Tony Windsor is set to pass the laws, he disagreed with heavy transport moving to a new tax regime in 2014.
What is not known is just how the plan will shift public opinion.
Gillard has given herself a good shot at swaying voters, but Abbott is likely to seize on some of the guess work in the plan to show Labor remains a risk to jobs and hip-pockets."
Paul Osborne - Herald Sun

"It’s broadly consistent philosophically with what I have been arguing for 20 years. I support the principles involved but there are some problems in detail.
The big question you have to hold up to assess this program is: is there any way of knowing now what firms might expect the carbon price to be in 2020 or 2030? The answer is no, there’s nothing that drives a futures price yet.
That is a real problem because that is where the technological innovation will come from. [Companies] have to have some way of knowing what price will be expected at any point in time. Tying down the long term expectations hasn’t been done. That could still happen once they put in place the carbon trading market but they have to do that in a particular way.
Warwick McKibbon, ANU - The Conversation

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