On October 12th, the Australian Labour government, led by Prime Minister Julia Gillard, passed the historic carbon tax legislation through the Lower House of Parliament.
The first 18 bills were passed by a margin of 74 votes to 72, leading to much cheering and jeering not only in parliament, but also around the country. And also a much lauded kiss on the cheek from the Prime Minister to former PM Kevin Rudd.
Opposition leader Tony Abbott has of course been a vocal non-supporter of the tax, which he claims will raise prices for consumers, cost the country jobs and do nothing to help the environment. He has sworn a ‘blood oath’ to repeal the legislation and oust it entirely should he become Prime Minister.
According to the Labour government, the tax will most certainly take away, but it will also give back, in the form of reduced taxes and tax breaks for working Australians.
The consumer price index will rise by 0.7% in 2012-2013, the first year of the tax plan, leading to such tangible outcomes as costing the average Australian household and extra $9.90 a week.
It doesn’t sound like much, but depending on who you talk to about this still hotly debated subject, it’s either a small price to pay or is that it will lead to the downfall of society itself.
Lets’ look at some of the bills that were passed;

Aims of a 5 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020. That’s 159 million tonnes of carbon.
Emissions Trading to begin in 2015, with restrictions on International Credits to be lifted, but the importation of which must only constitute half of Australia’s emissions.
Free permits will be issued to the ‘big polluter’ industries such as the aluminium and steel industries, which are susceptible to fluctuations in international trade market. Some will receive permits covering almost 95% of average industry emissions over the first 3 years. The steel industry itself will receive $300 million in the first 4 years as incentive for continuing innovation and improvement.
The tax-free threshold towards salary and wage earners will rise to $18,000 per year in 2012-13, and to almost $20,000 in 2015.
Most workers earning up to $80,000 will get back an average extra $300 a year thanks to tax breaks.

The 18 bills that constitute the Carbon Tax will be before the Australian Senate in November, and the feeling here is that it will pass though into law.
Of course the tax has its nay-sayers, as does any tax that has come along, but more importantly it is the hardest part of any new venture; taking the first step.
The ‘big polluters’ will cry the loudest as they get hit the hardest, apart from generous rebates and free credits, studies have shown that the metal industries in Australia will indeed suffer (the aluminium industry looks to pay $60 for every tonne in carbon emissions while China will end up paying $8, while the airline industry will almost certainly meet some bumps in the road as they move to new technology. Qantas alone spends $3bil on jet fuel per year and the industry is one of the biggest fuel users and carbon emitters in the world.
It makes sense that Australia is the moving forward in regards to a Carbon Tax, we are currently the worlds’ biggest carbon emitters per capita, and the continent is highly vulnerable to the effects of Climate Change. For such a country to pass a Carbon Tax shows the commitment to change has to be undertaken.
Ultimately, can humanity sit on its hands with all the data available on the coming effects of climate change to bet on the chance that doing nothing is better than doing something?
Opposition is still rife and it is not yet set in proverbial stone, but the die has been cast, the idea is out there, all we have to do is follow it through.

By Chard Currie
Email: chard.currie@gmail.com

References:

msnbc business
telegraph.co.uk
carbontax.net.au
Noosa News

For being such a sunny continent, Australia is largely underutilised when it comes to solar power. When it comes to manufacturing Australian-made solar panels, well, with Silex Solars announcement in August 2011, the proverbial nail in the coffin was hit in and the coffin buried. Silex Solar was the last remaining manufacturer of solar panels in Australia. They continue to build and sell solar panels, but with imported components, mostly from China.
Former Silex CEO Michael Goldsworthy claims his company had to ‘bite the bullet’ and lose 30 manufacturing jobs after the government rebate programme was scrapped. In a rather obvious case of damage control, Silex replaced Goldsworthy with Craig Menzies who quickly announced that their move was to help secure Silex’s position in the marketplace.
The move to ‘clean energy’ has thus far proved to be a very rocky road with lots of time consuming bends and potholes. Government rebates that help the ‘battlers’ are constantly stopped right when the scheme becomes too popular, with the government never really sure on how much it should give back, let alone contribute to the switch from dirty to clean energy.
The ‘Feed-In’ tariffs (where one can receive money when they feed power back into the electricity grid) that initially made installing solar panels attractive have been cut when the scheme became too successful, while the government rebate (up to $8000), for installing a solar system at your home was done away with entirely. It was replaced by the Solar Credits Programme, where an installed solar system would receive a higher amount of Renewable Energy Credits for the first 1.5 kilowatts they generate. RECs are basically a form of ‘energy currency’ that one can use against energy costs or trade them for money. A great way of us getting used to the cap & trade system that will be rolled along with the Carbon Tax in mid-2012
But just because we aren’t manufacturing solar panels here, doesn’t mean all is lost. The Australian Government is hard at work with its ‘Solar Cities’ program, which aims to showcase the potential of solar power in 5 major areas across the country. However, this programme was announced in 2007 with a woeful $7 million dollar budget.
This of course pales in comparison to the $125 million afforded by the government to Silex Solar to build a .5MW pilot plant, which will then be turned into a 100MW planet, near Bridgewater, Victoria.
Australian manufacturing may seem to be heading to an impasse, but that doesn’t mean we can’t become key players in the renewable energy game or left out of the ever evolving global market place.
World leading solar research continues in Australian universities and with a renewable energy target of 20% by the year 2020, we must stand up to set-backs and pressures and do the best with what we have, when we have it.
By Chard Currie
email: chard.currie@gmail.com

sources:
Skynews
Eco Who
Silex Solar
wikipedia – Solar cities in Australia