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Carbon Edge Dictionary, previous edition
Two Heads - It is hard NOT to have an opinion (11 Apr 2011)
Robert Eastment
It is of little interest to many of us that we denounce the need for a carbon tax, or any other form of financial punitive measures to curtail emissions, until there is more empirical evidence of the costs and benefits, and yet we have strong opinions about this based on no better information.
We are entitled to our individual views and free speech enables us to espouse about the virtues of the carbon tax policy. However, from a truly Australian and New Zealand cultural perspective it needs to be fair and not give privileged mates a helping hand.
Understandably it is the energy generators burning black and brown coal that have stated this is all very unfair and they want the goal posts moved for their own industry. This will impact on all of us, should we be glad the posts may be moved to contain energy cost increases, or should we be outraged that the power generators may be allowed to have their own set of rules.
What about another critical input to life - being food? When entering a supermarket should all those companies with goods on the shelves be exempt because people should not need to pay more for food. And down at the vegetable and fruit area, will the farmers and horticulturalists also want to be exempt because their produce will cost more. May be across in the butcher section the farmers could get credits because their polluting beasts are no longer endangering the environment.
While these views are simplistic, and they are not intended to be academic appraisals, what they are intended to do is question the right of any specific industry to claim they are a special case and lobby the government to exempt them from what is an unpopular tax policy.
If power generators, which is a significantly polluting industry, are exempt or given special treatment, then there is more than some irony in that the government is going to wear the discomfort of introducing this carbon tax policy, but allow some of the major instigators of pollution to avoid sharing in the pain.
There is so much at stake here, what difference is this action going to make to global pollution, should Australia be a first mover, is the tax going to be set too high or too low? We all certainly have an opinion on these matters but our information is no better or believable than what the government is working with. This must surely speak volumes.
Tim Woods
It is probably the case that no tax is particularly popular. But it is fair to observe that no tax is more unpopular than one applied unequally or without adequate rationale.
Though it is unequal between individuals depending on their circumstances, income tax has a strong rationale (and of course a history) and is little more than a mild aggravation to those who rail most against taxes.
More recently, the GST has been equally applied but households were compensated unequally – again on a strong rationale. There is little heat in the debate about the GST these days.
Company tax on the other hand is equally applied to all businesses, though I wonder when comparing small business effective tax rates with those for big business. Murmurings aside, there is little real debate about the need for corporate taxes.
All new taxes face their criticisms on the day they are mooted and introduced and over time – where they are rational and broadly equal (or unequal for a rational reason) – they pass into practice and more or less out of mind.
So too will it prove for the proposed carbon tax. If it comes into operation it will quickly be assumed into the national economy. Its application on an equal basis – based on consumption of goods and services that involve significant emissions – coupled with household compensation will probably be the key to that.
However, though the rationale is strong if you believe ‘climate change’ is real, if you don’t believe that, the tax has no rationale. That’s where the art of politics becomes important and its skills like explanation, persuasion and repetition become all the more relevant.
The proposed carbon tax has another constraint. It will only be around for two years before an emissions trading scheme will be in place. That is an added complexity that makes the story telling around the carbon tax all the more difficult.
When the carbon tax becomes the emissions trading scheme, there will nominally be a transparent exchange between equally informed parties. A market in other words. Financiers, traders and others are queueing and gearing up to be involved. Not because of what it will cost them, but because of what they stand to make from it.
Their rationale for participation is that they see a profit in it and the last thing they want is an equality like that offered by a carbon tax. On that basis alone, perhaps we should be less concerned by the carbon tax and more concerned about who might benefit from its successor.
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