WSJ Online
Not exactly a vote of confidence:
The plan is economically damaging enough that even the normally timid business lobby—many of whose members originally supported climate-change legislation—is speaking up. Opposition leader Tony Abbott slammed the plan as “socialism masquerading as environmentalism,” and he has a point. The government plans to use some of the carbon tax receipts to triple the income threshold before the income tax hits. In other words, this is in part a scheme to redistribute income from energy users to Labor voters. It is an odd kind of tax reform that narrows the tax base.
All of this for negligible environmental benefits. Australia emits 1.5% of the world’s greenhouse gases. Even if the country cut its emissions to zero, the move would do little to reduce global emissions. Australia’s per-capita emissions are high compared to other developed nations because it’s a sparsely populated continent blessed with an abundance of natural resources. Aussies have developed profitable, world-class natural resource and energy businesses that have lifted incomes at home and helped supply developing countries like China and India. This is bad?
It is if you believe in the theology that loathes carbon fuels and wants government to allocate the means of power production. In a speech Thursday, Ms. Gillard vowed to press forward with cap and tax and said that her convictions are “very deeply held.” We’ll see if her government can survive them.
Read it here.
Australian Climate Madness 
“Aussies have developed profitable, world-class natural resource and energy businesses that have lifted incomes at home and helped supply developing countries like China and India. This is bad?”
Obviously the Greens think so, so Gillard has gone along with it. She’s just too stubborn and ignorant to realise her folly, and I sincerely doubt even this smack over the head from the WSJ will wake her up.
Hi,
A great article from the WSJ, thanks for finding this, I really enjoyed the read. I totally agree with what was said in the article, it really is madness, there must be a few people around the world that think our PM has gone mad, and they are right to think so.
At last, someone from overseas who is of the same mind as the majority of Australians. It is an ill conceived tax by someone who should never have been!
As the WSJ points out, the plan (carbon dioxide tax) is economically damaging enough…
What country in the world, with an abundance of natural resources like Australia, would tax itself for using those resources. Will Saudi Arabia impose a tax on itself for mining its oil? Will Iceland tax itself for its geothermal power? Will Kazakhstan tax its natural gas reserves? Would Botswana tax itself for mining its diamonds? Would the Cayman Islands tax its own tourism industry so as to make it uncompetitive? Of course, no country in their right mind would tax their own natural resources as it provides them with an advantage.
Unless of course your in Australia where we have an abundance of coal that is cheap to mine by world standards, of high quality and can supply cheap power for manufacturing. Instead of harnessing our natural advantages, we’re going to tax them so we no longer have a natural advantage and we become uncompetitive on world markets. Go figure!
The beauty of the tax is that it will lead to the obliteration of Gillard’s Labor party and will also be the beginning of the end of the Greens. We were saved the first time by a combination of Copenhagen and the GFC. Not enough people took the hint so now we have the threat of the tax and a second GFC. Locally, and I suspect more widely, people are saving their dough because they are cautious about the future. The days of tomorrow being better than today are coming to an end. The new tax is like a nail in the coffin. Gillard is desperate and is spending taxpayers money to make advertisements that are not just propaganda but full of known errors. News of the World was shut down for much less.
The Gillard Government is beholden to the Green minority led by Bob Brown who keep her in power along with a band of independents. Australians from all walks of life are struggling, this country is one of the most over governed and over taxed nations in the world. Food prices,petrol prices and utilities have gone through the roof under this government, they privatise everything calling it “competition.” The end result is higher prices charged for everything to keep the population down. The Carbon Tax is another kick in the teeth for Aussies as this will be applied to everthing we use and consume. It will seriously damage our export and manufacturing industries once compensation stops. This fraud perpetrated by the U.N and the IPCC has to be stopped as governments see it as a revenue raiser in the name of “dangerous climate change.”The people responsible for the lies being told have to be held accountable it has got beyond the joke, but its too late for us Aussies the 80% of us against this craziness are described as “deniers, skeptics, rednecks” and have no say only the minority gets listened to. As they say “the squeaky hinge gets all the oil.”
Gillard and her gang are traitors to Australia. They have sold us out!
What is the disconnect that permits supposedly rational persons to quote a Murdoch rag as ‘economically sound’.
The GFC ‘surprised us’–rather than was caused by no tax from ‘the good corporate citizens’
[??}
Thieving criminals–and the only retort is that socialism isnt based upon economics.
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Perhaps the fact that the UK economy is worse than Portugal’s debt obligation balance– saves the effort of even looking for a cause.
Instead we’ll continue to be regaled by WSJ and its sycophants. [snip – enough. We get the point]
An anti-Labor opinion piece in the Murdoch press?! What a surprise, given they acknowledge they’re involved in Australian regime change. Clearly they can be trusted to give a balanced view.
“Even if the country cut its emissions to zero, the move would do little to reduce global emissions.” That’s true for every country on the planet – even the USA and China who account for over 15% each – if it acted alone. The point of Australia acting at all is that, collectively, every country will make a difference.