Raymond and Vernice I agree. In love with wealth and power.

“Gandhi said aim for integrity not simply to win. What a guy.”

Good post Tom.

I hate to say this, but cigarette tax is a known revenue raiser and that’s all.
They collect over $4.00 on tax a pack, or up to $1.4000 a year per person.
$56.00 tax alone a fortnight.
It doesn’t stop anyone from smoking. It may disadvantage the poor, yet many will go without food to compensate. Or stop going out.
The government will disguise this under a health issue. They get $1.000s of dollars from tobacco companies.
If people give up, it’s for health reasons.
Cancer Council and fundraising help pay for a lot of the adds.
There are far more taking illegal drugs these days than those that smoke.
In USA they have raised the tax to almost double on smoking, to help pay for the health of those children that are poor. Which mean’s people will have to smoke, to help the poor.
TB believes people that smoke take up $$$$$$ in the public health system. So it’s really about money more than anything.

I know it’s not called a GST rollback but I wish someone would do a comparison of the numbers of GST raised and cost of stimulus packages in the last 9 months.

So it makes alot of sense to me in real politik and economic terms for the party who parented the GST to want to promote a defacto form of consumption tax around energy use that is by loading on extra burden of foreign carbon permits onto consumer prices.

Leave to others to decide whether it’s ‘taking golf clubs to a cricket match’ to paraphrase Minister Wong. One thing is for sure, the ALP are using the environment as a political wedge and that’s the limit of their sincerity on green stuff. Gandhi said aim for integrity not simply to win. What a guy.

“Laughably, you expect an alternative energy ‘solution’ within the next decade”

Mama: the solutions already exist, Bro. PV cells, wind, hydro, Electric Vehicles (around since the 19th century) - you name it. You’re confusing ‘invention’ with ‘implementation’. Chlorofluorocarbons are the obvious example of what can be i.m.p.l.e.m.e.n.t.e.d. in a decade if the will is there.

GTFO with your dumba5s comments.

Do you want to argue the science of global warming? Can you not see that no one cares what unqualified people think about the science? Neither you nor I are qualified to have any meaningful discussion on the warming of the planet, and I have never made an attempt to engage on the science. The only subjective, and thus debateable part of the argument is how to respond. You’ve made your point; you think doing nothing is the safest bet. Lots of other people disagree with you. We’re now talking about how to respond. You say don’t respond, so your opinion is of very limited use. Your insinuations and half formed ideas are really quite worthless.

But don’t worry, the Liberals will win the next election, and you and your kind will finally control the country again.

lulz, I bw to yr Ober l33t HTML skillz Evan.

And thanks for not answering my question and proving my point.

You really do have no idea.

The Canberra press gallery’s role in this turkey of real economic pain to be inflicted on the Australian people is a nadir, but the sinners have no insight.

Good piece as usual from Gerard Henderson in the SMH:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/a-fatal-dalliance-liberals-who-want-to-be-loved-20090810-efje.html

When Turnbull ignored the Canberra press gallery was surely his finest hour as leader; the decision to vote against Rudd’s insane stimulus porkbarelling. He should ignore his personal conviction in an ETS (even if not Labor’s mates rentseeker bonanza) and vote this sucker down. He ain’t going to win the election anyway but he can set himself to win the one following as the dog that is this policy finally dawns on voters (even if never the fourth estate dingdongs in Canberra).

Try this.

This forum is not your personal chalkboard where you and your sewing circle can sit and nod in furious agreement - about that which you obviously know very little - with each other.

Your gilded cage affords you the ability to only spout the religious rhetoric.

You have no real ‘solutions’ save advocating gross economic larceny at the expense of your fellow humans.

How does such a misanthrope live with themselves?

And it would be cheaper for the nation, compared to the cost of underwriting increasing imports of foreign carbon credits. Cheap as they may be now, they will not stay cheap, not if they are tied to real reductions in carbon emissions.

It is also interesting to note that under the Frontier Economics proposal, there will be no assistance for households.

Someone’s has their eyes open.

A carbon tax would be levied in Australia, and the money raised would be spent in Australia to clean up our economy. An ETS, or even worse, the “mongrel” that Turnbull has proposed, would still tax us, but send our money overseas to buy carbon credits from countries with endemic corruption and questionable book-keeping. Also, how will this affect our already unsustainable foreign debt?

Then on the business side, under an ETS, it’s possible that two businesses of exactly the same size with exactly the same emission levels could pay grossly different costs for the carbon they emit due to the invisible hand of the market. As we have seen over the last few years, international markets are far from transparent, and liable to be manipulated by banks and speculators. If the cost of oil can unhinge itself from supply and demand to rocket from $40 to $140 in the space of months, what’s to stop the price of carbon from doing the same? This could be disastrous for large emitters, or more accurately, their customers.

Before this legislation is even considered by the house of reps, the government needs to address how a carbon market (local or international) will be transparent, and what measures would be put in place to avoid manipulation of carbon prices by speculators.