I have updated the website home page with the following:
http://www.ozpolitic.com/index.htmlTime for the public debate on the economics of climate changeApril 13 2013.
Back in December 2010, the Sustainability Party of Australia and OzPolitic issued our first call to arms on the carbon tax, asking people to write to their local candidates in support of a carbon tax.
http://www.ozpolitic.com/index.html#Carbon%20Tax%20Back%20on%20the%20AgendaAt the time our efforts seemed futile. Labor was openly hostile to a tax, probably in response to the Greens adopting a carbon tax policy, and Tony Abbott had steered the coalition to a policy of never putting any kind of price on Carbon. Yet the extraordinary events that followed showed us once again that in politics, anything is possible.
Now we are once again calling on people to support the tax. We are asking people to write to local members and election candidates to voice their support for the tax. We are asking people to finally have the public debate we need on the merits of the tax, without the partisan baggage it attracts. We have 5 months to turn the tide of public opinion.
Again, both major parties seem against us, with Abbott committed to 'direct action' and Labor committed to a change to a trading scheme in 2015. This change has already been legislated as part of the original carbon tax package and will go ahead without new legislation, which means support from one of the major parties. The change will happen in 2015-2016, however the fate of the carbon tax will most likely be determined by the policies that the two major parties go into the next federal election with. Although the odds seem stacked against the carbon tax, the reality is much more complicated. For example, prior to taking control of the Liberal Party, Tony Abbott put considerable effort into promoting a carbon tax. You probably didn't notice at the time because his comments about the ('crap') science of climate change were getting far more attention. Unfortunately, Abbott changed his stance on a carbon tax at around the same time he changed his stance on the science.
You can read more about Tony Abbott's remarkable transition on the science and economics of climate change here.
http://www.ozpolitic.com/green-tax-shift/tony-abbot-science-economics-climate-ch...Whatever your views are on how we achieved a carbon tax, I believe the reason we ended up with it is that everyone in the game, be they Greens, Labor, Liberal or Nationals, understands the need for action on climate change, they understand that a carbon tax is the best way to achieve that change, but they also see the political toxicity of a tax with a public that does not always understand the counterintuitive yet fundamental economics behind it.
Back when he was happy to be seen as an intellectual economic rationalist, Tony Abbott himself summed up the dilemma:
July 27, 2009:
Quote:The fact that people don’t really understand what an emissions trading scheme entails is actually its key political benefit. Unlike a tax, which people would instinctively question, it’s easy to accept a trading scheme supported by businesses that see it as a money-making opportunity and environmentalists who assure people that it will help to save the planet. Forget the contested science and the dubious economics, an emissions trading scheme is brilliant, if hardly-honest politics because people have come to think that it’s a cost-less way to avoid climate catastrophe.
Quote:If Australia is greatly to reduce its carbon emissions, the price of carbon intensive products should rise. The Coalition has always been instinctively cautious about new or increased taxes. That’s one of the reasons why the former government opted for an emissions trading scheme over a straight-forward carbon tax. Still, a new tax would be the intelligent skeptic’s way to deal with minimising emissions because it would be much easier than a property right to reduce or to abolish should the justification for it change.
The point of these quotes is that the Coalition policy against carbon pricing in general, or the carbon tax in particular is not as set in stone as many think, despite Abbott's claims that he never supported an emissions trading scheme or a tax. For Labor, this argument is a little easier to make, but still needs to be made. The contrast between the clear economic arguments in favour of a tax and the difficult political reality it faces is the ultimate reason why our path to a carbon tax was so messy, yet far more likely that it appeared. It is also the reason why continued direct personal pressure on your local representatives and candidates is so necessary if we are to keep the tax. Ultimately, politicians have no choice but to bow to public pressure. If we are to keep the tax, we also need to keep the public debate going and progress it as far as possible prior to the upcoming federal election. With the public finally focussed on the economics of climate change rather than the science, there has never been a better opportunity to get the message out that a carbon tax is the cheapest, simplest and most flexible way to reduce emissions.
Read more about the economic arguments in favour of a carbon tax here.
http://www.ozpolitic.com/green-tax-shift/green-tax-shift.html
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public debate on the economics of climate change (Read 31618 times)
