carbon tax, page-8

Global warming seems to be a licence to deceive and to spin:


JULIA Gillard and Wayne Swan have appealed to the new parliament to let them put a price on carbon in this term to deliver certainty for business.

What a nonsense. First, if Gillard is so concerned about ?certainty?, she would not rule out a carbon tax before the election, and then suggest a carbon tax after it. Second, ?certainty? can be had just as easily by ruling out a price on carbon dioxide as it can by imposing one. In fact, if Labor joined the Coalition in opposing an emissions trading scheme it would give business all the certainty it needs that there would be no big change in policy if there were a change in government.

Which brings me to the third problem with this call for ?certainty?. No certainty is possible even if Parliament were to agree to tax carbon dioxide emissions, whether directly or by an emissions trading scheme. A change of government would change any such scheme. An there?s no certainty that any tax imposed today would not be raised tomorrow, especially when the truth is discovered - that a price on carbon dioxide (in fact, electricity) will have to be very, very high to slash our emissions.

But this deception pales in significance when compared to this:


Ms Gillard had declared before the August poll ?there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead"?

Labor has since left the door open to introducing a carbon tax rather than an emissions trading scheme. Asked why she had shifted on a carbon tax, Ms Gillard told the Ten Network?s Meet the Press yesterday ?circumstances have changed? and said the government had to be realistic.

Circumstances always change. But no circumstance has changed that warrants Gillard today reneging on a promise she made less than two months ago.

More than 80 per cent of voters at last month?s election gave their first vote to a party which opposed a carbon tax. There is no way any carbon tax could be inflicted on the public while Labor and the Coalition keep their promises. The only way it could be imposed is by Labor breaking its word to please the Greens - which would be a classic case of letting the tail wag the dog.

So this is not a situation in which a minority Labor Government is unable to fulfill a promise because of opposition in Parliament. No, this is instead a case where Labor voluntarily breaks a promise it is perfectly able to keep, with the Coalition?s willing help.

And that is not forgivable.