Carbon Tax - post announcement

[Scotty72]

Well there are a bunch of people who are supposed to be better off thus liking the tax, and a bunch who think it wont do the job, or will be worse off etc. who don't like it.

It's a fair question, it gets personal and to the heart of the issue; i.e. how people feel about it.

The other questions start raising secondary issues.

The question as raised goes to the key issue juliar has to overcome if she wants to sell the tax.

Kym,

Are you happy paying personal income tax? Do you look at the P.A.Y.E. column on your payslip and smile at the hundreds taken out every single fortnight and give a ?

The obvious answer is NO! Of course not: in fact you do everything you legally can to minimise this amount. If you were HAPPY, you'd ask the taxman to take a few extra dollars because it makes you feel so happy.

Given that you are not happy to see tax taken away from you... you probably do recognize that it is a necessary evil; that if nobody paid tax, society would collapse.

Thus, most people feel that taxation is a necessary evil helping a greater good.

Therefore, a legit question would revolve around whether the bad (any tax) being outweighed by the benefit to society (if any) (reductions in pollution / climate change).

So, a question framed around the 'happiness' of a particular tax is a question designed to elicit an obvious emotional response - which you clearly want.

You're entitled to your opinion on the matter but, to pretend this is a fair survey question is a

Scotty

[Scotty72]

So why did you phrase the questions in totally different terms - setting "I like" against "bad decision" - if you were not trying to be unfair?

What faith are you going to place in the answers to a loaded question?

Do you need some basic training?

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I love this clip and often use it in my classes to demonstrate the power of media to tell us what our opinion is.

[geoffsta]

Are you happy paying personal income tax? Do you look at the P.A.Y.E. column on your payslip and smile at the hundreds taken out every single fortnight and give a

I don't mind it. At least I know the money spread Australia wide, on various things. I don't even have the tax free threshold. Although every August I get back over $5k
I think what the question is. Do you think the CT will benefit you in the long and short term, yes or no.

[Scotty72]

I don't mind it. At least I know the money spread Australia wide, on various things. I don't even have the tax free threshold. Although every August I get back over $5k
I think what the question is. Do you think the CT will benefit you in the long and short term, yes or no.

I agree - almost. We don't mind paying the tax - but are not wildly happy to do so.

But, even those who are proposing the tax are not claiming it is supposed to benefit US individually. It is supposed to benefit the environment. In the same way our income taxes don't benefit US individually, they benefit the community (and therefore US too).

Do you think the Carbon Tax will achieve its proposed environmental benefits?

I think this would be better question. Of course people will still be free to ignore the question and vote ME! ME! ME! Just as people now ignore the science, attack the scientists because they don't fit in with their world view.

Scotty

[ricktas]

I don't believe a carbon tax will reduce the amount of carbon put into the atmosphere at all. What will happen is that the companies who are being charged, will increase their prices and we will all end up paying more (even if a just a small amount). Supply and demand. Consumers want/need a particular product or service, they will still want/need it, but pay more for it. I fail to see how this will reduce carbon emissions one tonne!

If these companies for some reason in a year of three develop ways to reduce their carbon output and thus are not taxed as heavily, will they reduce the price of their product/service at that time? Historically, business is not known for reducing its prices, rather keeping any extra to add to the profit margin for the shareholders.

I'm sure the already bloated tax office is looking at employing even more people now, to manage this new tax..just what this country needs, more public servants.

The political direction of this country is so far off kilter, that it isn't even funny any more!

[ricstew]

how can we employ more public servants when we cant afford to pay the ones we already have? Wasn't there action because the police/nurses had the wages capped?

[Tommo1965]

if the government was serious about reducing pollution..they should give everyone a free solar electric system for our houses ...my electric bill is always $500-600 every 2 months..sometimes in the summer that will go to $800-900 because of aircon usage.... I've tried everything I can to reduce this....but apart from living in a cave, or a hothouse..im stuck...so until we have a greener alternative...what are we supposed to do ??..just keep paying more I suppose ...

[jim]

.... I've tried everything I can to reduce this...

Put on a jumper in winter. And acclimatise? I come from a cold country, but the days when I really need aircon—as opposed to just liking it—are really very few. And at that I'm just being self-indulgent. But even using it every day I couldn't get up to $800/month.

[Rattus79]

this is such a short sighted decision.
Unless every dollar collected from this goes to planting trees, then it's just another mooney grab and should have just been a raise in the GST.

We are going to watch the cost of absolutely everything in australia go up in the next couple of months as the trucking/shipping companies pass the tax off to their customers.
They are not allowed to tax a tax, but fuel has:
World Parity Pricing (huge tax as we make 70% of our own fuel)
Fuel Levy
GST
and now Carbon Tax

It's over 60c in the litre of TAX!!!

[Kym]

I'll say it again... The question is designed to get at how people feel about the issue.
There are no lead in question per Yes Minister (which I like); it is a pure binary option + gravy.

The lead in questions would have been ... (from a juliar perspective)...
- Do you think we need to reduce pollution?
- Do you think we need to help the environment?
- Do you want a better future for your kids?
- Do you want to pay less over-all tax and more social welfare payments?
- Would be prepared for a small increase in prices to get that less overall over-all tax and more social welfare payments, with you being net better off?
- Do you like the carbon tax?

The argument per the questions above is terribly flawed, but that is the crock that juliar is trying to sell.

The primary problem is the CT won't actually make much difference at all to CO2 output, and will damage our economy for no net benefit.

[Art Vandelay]

I changed my mind. I now think this carbon tax is terrific.

It looks like the average household will have extra expenses of $9.90 per week, but get subsidies of $10.10 per week.
Just think, every few months I'll have enough extra in my pocket to shout myself a cappuccino.... I may even just sit pondering in the coffee shop with a smug grin celebrating the crafty way I've just saved the planet from the impending doom of man made global warming.. that didn't exist anyway.

Are we all in some sort of time warp in one of those Yes Minister episodes ??

[I @ M]

Are we all in some sort of time warp in one of those Yes Minister episodes ??

History only ever repeats itself.

I'm not sure who to attribute that quote to.

[jim]

History only ever repeats itself.

I'm not sure who to attribute that quote to.

"Hegel remarks somewherethat all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

Karl Marx.

[Tannin]

I don't believe a carbon tax will reduce the amount of carbon put into the atmosphere at all. What will happen is that the companies who are being charged, will increase their prices and we will all end up paying more (even if a just a small amount). Supply and demand. ..... I fail to see how this will reduce carbon emissions one tonne!

It is called the law of supply and demand and it is the fundamental rule of economics. When the price of anything goes down, demand goes up; when the price goes up, demand goes down. The amount that demand goes up or down with price can vary according to circumstances (this is called "elasticity") but the fundamental fact that people buy more of cheap stuff and less of that same stuff when it is dearer is always true.


(Actually, in your state a lot of the electricity is already carbon-free because it's renewable hydro. This power will become relatively cheaper as there is no carbon tax to pay on it. The mainland states tend to be dry and flat and have a much larger population so hydro supplies only a tiny amount of power there and, in the main, we use the worst possible alternative - brown coal. So the carbon tax will provide Tasmania with a modest boost to its competitiveness because it will have largely tax-free electricity. Whether it's a big enough boost to notice at the present very low tax level I couldn't say. It will certainly become noticeable if and when the tax increases to a more reasonable number over time.)


So here is the first benefit of the carbon tax: people like you will use less electricity. You're not stupid, you know that turning the aircon up costs you money, you know that your old gas hot water service is expensive to run, you know that it's better for the planet and cheaper too to put an extra blanket on the bed instead of turning on the central heating.

Longer-term, the more energy costs (because of the tax) the more likely you are, when the time comes to build a new house or renovate your old one, to build it more sensibly - face it north to catch the winter sun, eaves to keep it cool in summer, good thermal design so it stays warm and stays cool .... all the things that make living in it more pleasant, and owning it cheaper.

As for the companies making the power (or any other carbon-intensive product), they can reduce their costs and increase their competitive advantage simply by reducing their carbon emissions. Up until now, they haven't had any financial reason to do so, but as the price on carbon kicks in, they are naturally driven to start looking for ways to dodge the tax by emitting less of the nasty stuff. By renovating their plant to burn coal more efficiently, for example, or by switching over to gas (which is still bad, but not nearly as bad a coal, and is going to be a very important stepping stone for 30 years or so while we transition to post-carbon technologies). And those same companies (if they are smart) or other companies (if the old ones are stupid) turn their attention to generating cheap carbon-free electricity with geothermal, tidal, wind, and solar power. The higher the cost of carbon, the less attractive coal is as an investment, the harder people work on coming up with better alternatives and putting them into production.

All of this is just basic economics. A first-year student learns about supply and demand inside the first ten minutes, and he won't have changed his mind when he is a Professor with a Nobel Prize.

[Tannin]

I'll say it again... The question is designed to get at how people feel about the issue .... it is a pure binary option.

You can say it again, but it's still rubbish.

[Tannin]

^ I better expand a bit on that blank contradiction, just to show that it is indeed reasoned and sensible, not just blind contradiction. You ask both halves of the question in the same way if you want a sensible answer to any question. Pretending that you have to use lead-up questions to bias a poll won't wash. You can (and indeed just did) bias a poll by asking the question in a biased way.

[Bennymiata]

What really irks me about this tax, is that the government and the Greens are trying to make out that they are so concerend about the environment that they are willing to put us all into even greater debt, risk our international competiviness and our jobs, to try and clean up our environment, and our air in particular.
Sounds wonderful.
However, the facts are quite different.

Ever since Kevin Rud came in, every single federal budget has seen massive cut-backs to the CSIRO and the employment of their scientists, so we will have less resources to fight this so-called "problem"
There is one country on earth that has planted millions of trees in their country since the late 1940's (well before it became fashionable to do so) and has managed to make desert into arable land - and the Greens Party has decided that this green country should be banned!

It is with this hypocracy that I seriously doubt the intentions of our government, and this whole scenario just reeks of something crook in Tallarook.
If you are going to give back the tax to people, how do you expect them to cut down on their emmissions?
Why should they if it doesn't cost them anything (or that is what the government think we are stupid enough to believe)?

Just wait unitl the subsidies cut out (which wil be just after the next federal elections) and then we will REALLY suffer from it, and for what?

General consensus seems to be that mankind is responsible for around 3% of emmissions, so why don't they try and do something about the other 97%??
No-one in the government or any other agency that I can recollect has come up with ANY plan to try and reduce the massive outputs of emmissions that the earth puts out, yet it is we that have to suffer for only putting in a minor amount of emmissions.
It's like having a really bad rash all over your body + 1 mosquito bite and going to the doctor to try and stop the itch.
If the doctor told you that he won't even look at the rash, but will give you something just for the mosquito bight instead, what would you think?
You'd think he was an idiot! And you'd be right!
This is exaclty what our wonderful government is doing right now.
It is heavily fining the owner of a noisy dog, that lives right next door to a dog pound with hundreds of barking dogs, and doing nothing about the noise from the pound.

The financial records of our wonderful government are also very, very poor indeed, and with their past records like the NBN, the schools building debarcle, the insulation debarcle and many others, lead me to believe that Juliar is just grabbing for cash in any way she can, so she can continue her unbridalled spending of our money, without doing any good for us as a whole.

By the way, that family that Juliar saw yesterday who are so enamoured with the Carbon Tax, it turns out that they were not just a family chosen at random, but good frineds of the local, Labour member for that area, a Mr Bradbury - so she wasn't just lucky to find a willing household, but the whole sham was arranged.

No wonder they call her Juliar.

[Tannin]

If you are going to give back the tax to people, how do you expect them to cut down on their emmissions?

This is the whole point. The purpose of the carbon tax is to make bad things cost more and good things more affordable. If you go on with your current wasteful habits, using fossil fuel products as if there was no tomorrow, you will be a little bit poorer or about the same (depending on your income bracket and a few other things). Only if you are massively wasteful will you be very much worse off than you are today.

If you start being more sensible in your consumption habits - e,g., turn the air-con down a click, get a solar hot water service, insulate your ceiling properly, upgrade your computer to a modern, lower power one, and so on - you will be a little bit better off than you were before the tax.

Even better, if you want to dodge this tax, good We want you to figure out ways to dodge paying the carbon tax! The more tax you dodge, the better it is for everyone!

[rellik666]

If you start being more sensible in your consumption habits - e,g., upgrade your computer to a modern, lower power one, and so on - you will be a little bit better off than you were before the tax.

I am sorry but how can you say that with a straight face?

I have a 10 year old car, my car isn't the most fuel efficient car in the world but it ain't bad, it is well maintained and looked after. Your telling me I should buy a new one so that I can be more fuel efficient? What happens to the old one? Where is the new one made, what is it made from, what energy, emissions and materials go into making it so I can save 4ltrs per hundred? Why is this saving the environment?

I have a 10 year old computer, it is slow but it does me, the screen is an old CRT. Your telling me I should buy a new one so that I can save a few watts of power every year? Again what is it made from, what energy, emissions and materials go into making it so I can save a few Watts? Why is this saving the environment?

Lets pour millions into electric cars, but where does the power come from? Oh wait power stations? Buy a prius? Why? See above oh and what about those batteries?

Oh lets look at the scrappage scheme....well thought out that one....see above...

Why are we not debating where our power is going to come from before taxing us into a choice we cannot make?

Why are we not supporting industry to change to better alternatives than making us pay for this?

IF governments are serious about climate change we need to fundimentally change the way we think.....but then again we aren't, just like we are serious about the road toll....all the way up until it is going to cost us some of that "revenue" we have made......

[Bennymiata]

The problem is that we have very little control over how much carbon we use.
As we don't all live on farms, all our food, clothing, and every other neccessity in life has to be transported by either road or rail, and both of these consume large amounts of carbon-rich resources, so we will pay more for EVERYTHING regardless of how much less electricity we use, or how economically we drive - or what the politicians are telling us now.
Remember when the NSW government said that privatising the electricity supply would mean cheaper electricty prices?

Energy consumption is something we all need, and once the subsidies and other payments stop, we will all suffer more than we should with NO improvement to our consumption.

The government says it will spend billions on finding alternative energy sources, but we all know that these alternatives have so far proved to be less efficient, and far more expensive than using what we do now and as the government is continually nobbling the CSIRO - who's going to do this?

Let me give you a little example.

The greenies would like us all to stop using petrol powered cars and use fuel cell vehicles instead, as there is no carbon pollution given off by these fuel cells, and that these fuel cells should be powered by hydrogen. The only emmissions would then be water vapour.
Sounds good, however, extracting hydrogen requires FAR more energy to get than it gives back - so we go backwards there, and what power are we going to use to extract the hydrogen?
If the only emmissions are water vapour, then we're in even bigger trouble, as water vapour is many times worse as far as greenhouse gasses are concerned so if every car n the planet was converted to hydrogen fuelled fuel cells, we'd be paying around 10 times more for the hyrogen than we do for petrol, and the atmosphere would have so much water vapour in it, that it would block the sun.

Then people say that we are running out of energy and that the world's oil supply will run out in 20 years!
Maybe oil will run out eventually, but then we can start using other energy forms that are far cheaper to get, far less dangerous to handle, far less risk of polluting our ground and water, yet no-one is using it now, and that is the frozen methane from under the oceans.
There's enough frozen methane in the Bay of Mexico alone to power the entire United States for over 3,000 years, so why isn't anyone using it now?
Because of politics.

I have little regard for most politicians, as Ive known too many of them and well-know that they are only in it for what they can get.
Forget about thinking that most politicians are really looking out for us, because they are only looking out for themselves, much like many aldermen who are actually property developers, and by being on the council, they can get things done that mere mortals could never do.
Take the ex-premiere of NSW, Bob Carr.
Just before he retired, he announced that by the year 2012 that Sydney Harbour would no longer be a working harbour, and that all the foreshores would be developed for the good of the Sydney residents.
The company that got the lion's share of the development just happens to be directed by his wife, and on his retirement from politics, he magically got a job as an advisor with Maquarie Bank for $500,000 + a year to oversee the harbour foreshore developments for them.
Fortuitous for Bob Carr isn't it? What a coincidence!
How is it that many politicians, and especially those that attain a high office, always seem to retire with lots of money when all they've ever done is serve the public?
There are just so many instances that I can tell you about people you know in politics, but suffice to say that honest politicians are like finding a needle in a very big haystack, so I always question these things.

Politicians are like bananas.
They all start out green, but end up being bent and yellow!