Following is a letter published in today’s AFR on the absurd proposition that the establishment of a carbon price from July 2012 will create certainty for businesses to invest in alternative and (presumably) existing energy sources and the users of those energy sources. It is astonishing how some sections of the business community have accepted such nonsense.
In case you have not been already contacted by opponents of the tax I also draw your attention to the development of a protest movement by various institutions/individuals. Professor Bob Carter, for example, has distributed a pamphlet and established an email address for those wishing to participate in a “People’s Revolt” – thepeoplesrevolt@talkingclimate.ruralsoft.com.au. The circular lists several sites which provide information relevant to the dangerous global warming thesis. I add here that Menzies House is also running a campaign –www.StopGillardsCarbonTax.com
Des Moore
Carbon confidence queries
letter published in The Australian Financial Review, 1 March 2011
The Gillard government is praised for announcing a climate change policy that gives Australian businesses a certain basis for investing in, as Climate Change Minister Greg Combet says, “our energy sources of the future, not the past”.
Never mind, of course, that Australia’s most valuable asset is its coal. Certainty is the word and, under our ACTU model, “clean energy will have big benefits for our economy”.
Or it will have when businesses know the initial and future price for carbon; when future subsidies for the various renewable energy sources are determined; when China decides to keep its projected level of CO2 emissions at about 500 per cent higher in 2020 than in 1990; when there is an international agreement on the level of greenhouse gas emissions for each main emitter; and when a few other “minor” details are determined.
But such details are not the point. Certainty and confidence flowing from the Gillard/Green alliance will set the future course in place for Australian businesses and workers and no Opposition will be able to reverse it.
Des Moore
Director, Institute for Private Enterprise,
South Yarra Vic