I believe man-made climate change is real and I believe Australia may play its part in reducing carbon dioxide in the environment.
That said, I don’t support the carbon tax introduced by the Federal Government, nor do I support the Oppositions notion of ‘direct action.’ Both schemes are inefficient and wasteful and there is a much better way forward.
The Government’s carbon tax will see massive amounts of revenue collected as tax and then this will be redistributed by Government to compensate some households for the increased prices caused by the tax. This will involve a massive amount of churn of money through the bureaucracy and out through the economy. It is an incredibly inefficient way to put a price on carbon pollution. I also believe the Government should go back to the polls to seek a mandate for a carbon tax given the promise the Prime Minister made at the last election that there would be no carbon tax under a Gillard Government.
While I would support the repeal of the current carbon tax, it must be replaced by something more efficient. The Opposition’s plan is to use tax-payers money to clean up the mess made by polluters. This creates the situation where there is no real incentive for polluters to reduce their pollution because the tax-payer is picking up the bill.
I support a model developed by leading economic think-tank Frontier Economics. This scheme rewards low-emission industries while punishing high-emission industries. It involves carrots and sticks, and unlike the Government’s scheme it doesn’t involve the massive taxing and wealth distribution you will have in the Government carbon tax. For more information about this scheme, please click the 'Frontier Economics' link below.
