The plans for this coming carbon tax sound like an episode of the " Mad Hatter's tea party ". We are now told that because of a " legal technicality " we will not know who the five hundred firms to be taxed will be.
Are these five hundred to be secretly tipped off in advance ? So that they can at least implement some plans to try and reduce the damage ? Or is application of the tax to be the work of some secret " Star Chamber " ?
Even limiting the tax to just five hundred firms in it's initial stage reeks of injustice. Two firms producing the same end product face differing tax regimes. The bigger of the two gets hit with a carbon tax while it's competitor goes tax free. That is anything but a level playing field.
Eventually, every producer of carbon will be taxed, but that will not happen until the carbon trading scheme comes into play in 2015. Three years is a long time to apply tax on a purely selective basis - and the government is silent on just when this " legal technicality " will be overcome and the details of who will be taxed released !
It seems to be just one more straw blowing in the wind that will convince the voters that the Labor/Greens plan is heading towards another disaster of the roof insulation kind. The legislation has yet to pass parliament and implementation is just a year away - and still the plan has more holes in it than a Swiss cheese.
All it will take is for a public spirited politician to jump ship - and put this coming disaster out of it's misery !
The sooner the better !
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