The road of no return !

Yesterday, thousands of people turned out in Sydney to urge the government to go ahead with a carbon tax because they feared the result of global warming.   This seems to contrast with polls that show that the general consensus is opposed to such a tax.

Their is undoubted merit in the carbon tax idea.  Put simply, it is a plan to tax the polluters and by costing them money create the incentive for them to mend their ways and move to a less polluting way of doing business.

The planners agree that it will push up energy prices - and probably most other prices as well - but intend to compensate lower income people and pensioners from the tax collected - and there are very fuzzy plans to initially limit the impact on core industries with cash-backs.

Nobody can actually predict how severe the job losses and business failures from a carbon tax implementation will be on this nation.  The left wingers predict a rosy future of job growth and business expansion as we create new " green " industries to fill the void.    The biggest polluters are crying gloom and doom - and probably overstating the expected impact.

What the community of Australians must understand when they consider this proposal is that if we take this road - then it is a road of no return.

If it turns out badly, we can not reverse direction - drop the tax - and expect things to return to normal.  If the worst scenario develops - and we lose core industries such as steel making, aluminium production and the heavy polluters who also happen to provide the vast majority of jobs - then once they are gone they are gone forever.

A former prime minister - a long time ago - made a statement that Australia could turn into a " banana republic ".     That is a very real possibility if we take the carbon tax road with good intentions for this planet's future - and it turns out that the lesser nations are tilting at windmills because   China, India and the United States ignore global warming - and we destroy what is left of our production industry to no avail.

Each and every Australian needs to study this carbon tax proposal very carefully before making up their minds.    There is no magic crystal ball to chart the way ahead - but if we get it wrong it will be a calamity to impact the lives of our children - and our children's children - into the future far beyond this century !