Carbon tax axed

[nero_bolt]

EXCELLENT NEWS and about time

After years of political debate, the Senate has voted to axe the tax, 39 ayes to 32 noes.

[boris1gary]

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@siggie-reported-by-alarmists wrote:

Tim Flannery....gone

Climate Commission.....gone

Carbon Tax......gone

.....giggle........

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you forgot the big polluters happy...giggle,snort.

[siggie-reported-by-alarmists]

I'm sure they are....

[boris1gary]

Andrew Dettmer, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national president

"Australia now produces lower emissions and uses less energy to smelt metal. It seems that abolition of the tax suits the government's rich mates, who don't want to pay a price for their pollution."

Professor Roger Jones, Professorial Research Fellow in the Victoria Institute of Strategic Economic Studies (VISES) at Victoria University

“The perfect storm of stupidity.

"It’s hard to imagine a more effective combination of poor reasoning and bad policy making.

"A complete disregard of the science of climate change and its impacts.

"Bad economics and mistrust of market forces.

"Poor risk management to take what is effective and working, what can be readily adapted to more stringent targets, and replace it with a more expensive and unwieldy scheme that lacks the resources to meet its totally inadequate target of 5% reductions by 2020.

"A total failure of governance by government.”

Michael Raupach, director, Climate Change institute, Australian National University, on the Conversation

“The repeal of Australia’s carbon price is a tragedy, not a triumph. It flies in the face of three giant realities: human-induced climate change, the proper role of government as a defender of the common good, and the emerging quiet energy-carbon revolution.”

[siggie-reported-by-alarmists · Accepted solution]

Pppppfffftttt.....

[nero_bolt]

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@siggie-reported-by-alarmists wrote:

Pppppfffftttt.....

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Well said Siggie 🙂

[siggie-reported-by-alarmists]

     

[azureline**]

I thought I heard in the car that the residents of Brisbane will be getting a $35 credit on their rates................

[monman12]

It is a pity that a topic such as this, which requires a small knowledge of  a few sciences,  has been hijacked by politicians, nuts, conspiracy nuts,  and those not conversant with the sciences involved.

CO2 increase is a global problem (not a means to run a global carbon credits trading market) which for all the years of talk has had absolutely no effect upon the inexorable and accelerating increase in global atmospheric GHG concentration. Our contribution to GHG is insignificant globally, and leaving aside political posturing Australia would do well  to study/develop future climate change mitigation.

Be prepared.

nɥºɾ

[the_great_she_elephant]

 Australia would do well  to study/develop future climate change mitigation.

As per  the Renewable Energy Target, currently under the stewardship of Richard Warburton, a well known climate change sceptic?

[nero_bolt]

Australia abandons disastrous green tax on emissions

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has finally won backing to end the tax on carbon emissions Down Under, signalling the pointlessness of such schemes

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/commodities/10972902/Australia-abandons-disastrous-green-tax-on-e...

In the history of taxes, Australia's levy on carbon emissions must go down as one of the most unsuccessful in history.

Tony Abbott, Australia's centre-right Prime Minister, finally made good on his pre-election pledge after his government repealed the measure introduced by his Labor predecessor Julia Gillard.

Poorly thought out and highly unpopular, the tax is almost unique in that it generated virtually no revenue for the Australian Treasury, contributed to the rising costs that have taken the gloss off the country's resources boom and essentially brought down Ms Gillard's former Government.

The repeal of the tax, which will be replaced by a scheme that will offer companies grants to help Australia meet its target of cutting emissions by 5pc by 2020, is a bitter blow for campaigners who have claimed that harsh green taxes are required to head off climate change.

Although British Prime Minister David Cameron has so far resisted calls for a direct tax on carbon emissions in the UK, the bill for green policies is rising in the UK.

Households and businesses paid a record £43bn in green taxes in Britain last year.

The total green tax revenues for 2013 are the equivalent of £1,629 for every household - up from £1,564 in 2012 and £1,221 per household in 2003. 

The tax, which almost cost the Australian government more to collect than it raised in actual revenue, or achieved in terms of a better environment, was politically motivated and poorly thought out in terms of hard economics.

Arguments for the Aussie tax often focused on how the government had to take profound action to reverse changing weather cycles such as droughts that had drained the gigantic Murray-Darling river basin and floods sinking large areas of Queensland under water.

The tax was designed to hit the country's biggest emitters of carbon pollution such as mining and energy companies. Instead it added to the uncertainty hanging over the resources boom, the main driver for the Australian economy.

It also ignored the impact that China is having on global carbon emissions. China's polluted capital Beijing is probably a bigger threat to the world's environment than a small country like Australia.

Unfortunately for Ms Gillard, the carbon tax policy was so unpopular that it contributed to her downfall just weeks ahead of a general election at the hands of her long-time political foe Mr Rudd.

Ultimately, the tax failed in its political objective of holding together Labor's fragile minority government with the Greens, or winning over voters who faced higher costs passed on by the companies that had to pay it.

The tax failed to raise enough funds to help reduce Australia’s budget deficit, or more importantly stop changing weather patterns causing havoc across the country.

Ms Gillard had also hoped that the tax would transform Australia into a global carbon trading superpower instead of the world's biggest mining hub. However, her thinking ignored the fact that carbon trading mechanisms and green taxes have largely been a failure elsewhere and especially so in Europe where they have dragged on investment and threatened long-term energy security.