AUSTRALIA’S IMPERATIVE! REVISITING A TAX ON CARBON!

*Pressure to include discussion on the re-introduction of a tax on carbon at the forthcoming Productivity Round Table is growing increasingly stronger.

*A carbon tax is a vital element of the reform of Australia’s Environmental legislation [Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act] and in ensuring increases in productivity and the future economic prosperity of Australia in a world that is rapidly transitioning away from fossil-fuels and into a world of power and production based on renewable energies. 

* ‘The accelerating decline in the natural environments is ‘reducing the environmental capital on which current and future economies depend’ – 2025 State of the Environment Report.

*The list of individuals, companies and groups supporting and advocating for a tax on carbon just keeps increasing:

                    # Australian Productivity Commission has endorsed a Carbon Tax as an important action to support and grow productivity in Australia for many years. 

                   # Ken Henry, former Treasury boss, Chair of the 2010 ‘Future Tax System Review’ and currently Chair, Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation, who first advocated for a carbon tax in 2004.  ‘Why the hell did we ever drop it (Australia’s 212 Carbon Tax)? We had the world’s best carbon policy and then, for purely political reasons, decided we could afford to do without it!’

                   # Mining giant, Rio Tinto, Australia’s largest producer of aluminium and one of the biggest users of Australia’s electrical energy, who is rapidly transitioning out of fossil fuels and into renewable energy for its smelting operations in NSW and Queensland. ‘A market-based price on carbon is the most effective way to incentivise the private sector to make low-carbon investments and drive down emissions’.

                   # The Australian Council of Trade Unions, whose officials are already actively engaged with workers who are likely to be made redundant by a transition out of fossil fuels and helping them to re-train and be ready for other jobs in the new renewable economy.

                    #The large majority of Australian economists and tax experts recognise that a price on carbon is the most efficient and lowest-cost policy and action to deal with the impacts of climate change and the transition to net-zero by 2050.  A survey by the Economic Society of Australia found 86% support for a carbon-price as the most efficient way to realize net-zero by 2050.     

Ross Garnaut, one of Australia’s and the world’s leading energy economists has demonstrated very clearly why a carbon-price is important for not only dealing with the environmental impacts of the continued use of fossil fuels BUT just as important, why it is imperative for Australia’s economic future in a rapidly evolving world of power and production based on renewable energies and ‘green’ methods of production. 

(Garnaut.R. 2024, ‘Let’s Tax Carbon’, La Trobe University Press)

 

                       # Australian Conservation Foundation

*A  carbon pricing scheme was introduced by a previous Labor government and began operating in July 2012. It was successful and worked effectively.

Emissions of GHGs fell: the economy expanded strongly; the revenue raised from the tax was then used to protect households, workers and industries affected negatively by the carbon price.

*Comment:

Putting a price on carbon in Australia is imperative because it:

#will generate the funds to be able to plan and develop effective adaptations against the impacts of climate change and compensate for the failing social safety nets that have now been fundamentally challenged by the negative impacts of climate change and the burning of fossil fuels 

These nets include household insurance and protection from flood and bushfire damage; the complete relocation of families/households/communities living in now un-liveable locations; the raising of houses now in imminent flood danger; the protection of houses in coastal areas now prone to sea level rise and destructive storms; and the replacement of essential infrastructure (bridges, railway lines, roads, powerlines and towers etc) that have been destroyed by events caused by climate change:  It will also provide funds necessary to continue to build the infrastructure necessary for a transition to renewable energies (subsidies/rebates for rooftop solar systems, wind turbines, battery storage, energy-efficient appliances and EVs (both active transport and motor vehicles, trucks and buses). 

All funds paid  by those companies continuing  to create the very forces that have caused the damage.  

 

A  tax on carbon:

#will  provide funds to ensure the natural environment capital necessary for future economic survival;

# is a positive and effective environmental policy in dealing with the negative impacts of climate change;

#facilitates and supports both policy-wise and financially the essential progress towards renewable energies; 

#impacts on those companies that continue to cause significant emissions from mining/refining/using fossil-fuels for production energy will pay for doing so: the big emitters will pay the penalties;

#provides funds to increase the productivity of the Australian economy;

#results in funds essential to support the absolutely necessary transition of an Australian economy based on mining and exporting and burning fossil fuels to one based on the production and use of renewable ‘green’ energy and products;

#provides a clear and predictable basis for the investment and development of renewable energy infrastructure by the private and government sectors.

 

A tax on carbon is the best, most effective and efficient means to protect Australia’s environment, our economy and our way of life.

Let’s place a CARBON TAX on all goods and services! Saving Earth is not a free ride – it costs!

(David Smith, for ‘Electrifying Bradfield Inc. based partly on Secombe.M., Green Knight of the Round Table, The Saturday Paper, July 25-August 1,2025, pp12-13.