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

The 90 year ban on importing New Zealand apples into Australia was lifted in August of this year.
To a country which exports 60% of its agricultural output every year, it was feared that this could attack the profits of the local market (claims of losses up to $30 million per year), and of course, included the possibility of importing the dreaded ‘fire blight’ from New Zealand.
However, New Zealand called the ban a ‘barrier to trade’, and the claim was brought before the World Trade Organisation, which agreed with them.
Now, for the first time 90 years, we in Australia can now buy New Zealand apples.
However, it has not flowed smoothly. A shipment of NZ Apples was rejected in Tasmania due to quarantine regulations (small amounts of leaf matter were found in the shipment). A few red faces were revealed, but reassurance came via Bruce Beason, managing director of Apollo Apples, one of the major apple exporters in New Zealand, who chalked the situation up to ‘over reaction and scaremongering’.
One of the main reasons for the 90 year ban of NZ Apples comes down to fire blight, which was first discovered in NZ orchards in 1919. The disease gets into trees via lesions in the leaves and branches and can affect the entire tree. Hailstorms especially leave orchards susceptible to infection, and can help infect an entire orchard in mere minutes.
The disease leads to scorched looking leaves, like the tree has been affected by fire.
Hence, fire blight.
It can infect the entire tree if untreated, and it has been known to destroy entire orchards within one growing season. It is treated by various antibiotics, but this does not come without complications, as strains resistant to antibiotics have been found in the United States.
The history of fire blight is something like a cold sore on the face of the fruit export world.
Countries fiercely deny they have it, but then it turns out they do.
One such example is Japan, who claimed fire blight wasn’t present in their country and did not threaten their major fruit export; pears. When this was in fact deemed untrue, the scientist who discovered it there committed suicide over the shame of outing farmers who traded with blight-affected fruit. The Japanese government to this day, denies the existence of fire blight in Northern Japan.
For all the emphasis being placed on NZ Apples and the possibility of fire blight in Australia, not much fuss was made over the announcements of Chinese apple imports in January 2011.
China is the world’s leading apple grower, but has at least 18 ‘pests’ that appear on quarantine watch lists in Australia and no doubt prove much tougher to police than watching out for a few leaves and twigs.

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

Source:
bloomberg.com
theaustralian.com
tvnz.co.nz

Will July the 10^th 2011, be a day that lives in infamy? Or will it be seen as the first step along the path to world-wide change when it comes to pollution emissions?

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced on that day the Australia will put a price on carbon emissions from July 1^st, 2012.

With economists predicting the price to be between $21-$30 per tonne, the Gillard Labour government set their sights almost smack bang in the middle (do governments set their sights anywhere else?), on $23 per tonne of carbon emitted.

This inauspicious-sounding starting point will reap the government $11.5 billion in the first year alone. Couple that with the predicted 5% rise each year until 2015, when Carbon Trading will be rolled out, it seems the Australian government is set for quite the windfall.

But with the same government also promising $9.2 billion in grants and free permits to trade-exposed industries such as coal and steel, one could safe thinking that the government has shot itself in it’s own carbon footprint.

The Australian Government will also be spending nearly $4.5 billion more than the income the tax will supply in the first 4 years.

Of course the ‘Battlers’ get their cut, with tax cuts promised for middle to low income earners, cash benefits for pensioners and next to nothing for high earners. Almost sounds like a win for the little guy, doesn’t it? Not really. The average weekly costs of a household will increase by $10, but this will be compensated for by the government, which is good. The first tax cut, worth around $300 to households earning under $80,000 a year, will coincide with the introduction of the Carbon price in July, 2012. Just in time for the prices of flat screen televisions to tumble to the $300 mark? Time will tell.

But the carbon price paid by business will most certainly be pushed onto consumers, which may leave both households and government seriously out of pocket. Even with all their benefits, free permits and ultimately the Carbon Trading Scheme, chief polluting industries such as cement, coal, aluminum and steel are simply not going to go without a fight. They won’t stop until every scrap of useable metal or rock is able to be pulled from the earth. Then other planets, then asteroids. Maybe, but at least by then they will be polluting elsewhere, right?

All this is in the hope that Australia can successfully reduce its Carbon output by 5% by the year 2020, and the bigger hope is that other countries will follow suit. Given that Australia contributes barely 2% of global carbon emissions, it leaves many still questioning why we even need to change at all. After all, the rising Dragon that is China, the Crouching Tiger of India and the awakening Bear that is Russia are just starting to flex their muscles, to say nothing of the waiting-to-explode potential of Africa and South America, will what we are doing even make a difference?

Regardless of what anyone says, we have to slow down on the way we are using our finite resources. Welcome to the first step, only 1000 miles to go…

 

By Chard Currie

chard.currie@gmail.com

 

Ref:

The Weekend Australian, July 9-10, 2010

‘Scheme Fails on Three Key Levels’

Judith Sloan

 

The Sydney morning Herald, July 11, 2011

‘A Clean Start’

Lenore Taylor

 

Crikey.com.au, July 10, 2011

‘Carbon Tax: The Politics and Policy’

Bernard Keane