Antinuclear

Australia’s Carbon Tax: Tony Abbott hopes the sky will fall in

What if Armageddon arrives in three weeks, and nothing happens? Because that is the likely outcome.

The Treasury forecasts that the carbon tax will cut economic growth by 0.1 per cent below what it would be otherwise. Imperceptible, in other words

“Publicly, their leader [Tony Abbott] talks mining stocks down; privately, they snap up the investments … His whole campaign is a complete fraud. As July 1 approaches he is going to get more and more desperate, because he will have no credibility left.”

Merchants of doom, beware, The Age, Peter Hartcher, June 9, 2012 Tony Abbott and the opposition must be careful their wrecking-ball approach doesn’t rebound and hurt them.

It’s strike one against Tony Abbott’s scare campaign on the carbon tax and mining tax. “Australia reported its economy was the fastest-growing in the developed world in the first three months of 2012, sweeping aside growing gloom,” reported The Wall Street Journal this week.

With the new taxes due to take effect in three weeks, the facts on the health of the Australian economy show a very different country to the one that, if Abbott is right, should rightfully be cringing in fearful anticipation..… The problem for the opposition is that the good news demonstrates the limits to its strategy of doomism. Hockey was left with nothing to say
except to look hopefully to future doom.

What if Armageddon arrives in three weeks, and nothing happens? Because that is the likely outcome.
Just like Labor’s scare campaign against the Howard government’s GST
package, it will prove to be largely hollow.
The Treasury forecasts that the carbon tax will cut economic growth by 0.1 per cent below what it would be otherwise. Imperceptible, in other words. There will be some dislocation and some distress, but it will
be nothing like the horror story that the opposition has been telling.
Greg Combet spelt out the problem that the Abbott opposition
confronts. In Parliament’s question time last week, the Minister for
Climate Change said of Abbott:
“He predicts the death of manufacturing, the death of the auto
industry, the death of mining, the death of the coal industry, the
death of the nickel industry, unimaginable cost increases,
unimaginable power price increases, apples, fruit, mincemeat, chops,
T-bone steaks – all out of reach; there is no way anyone will be able
to buy anything….. He quoted Abbott as saying that “a carbon tax
means death to the coal industry”. Combet continued: “Yet the trouble
is, the coal and minerals industries are experiencing record growth.
The Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics has reported that there
is over $500 billion worth of capital expenditure in the investment
pipeline.
“It is not just big companies that are investing; it is also many
small investors, including many members of Parliament who have a lot
of confidence in the future of the industry.”
He named seven opposition members who had invested in coal companies
since the Gillard government announced the carbon price: Malcolm
Turnbull, Josh Frydenberg, John Alexander, Stuart Robert, Ken O’Dowd,
Teresa Gambaro and Michael Keenan.
“Publicly, their leader talks mining stocks down; privately, they snap up the investments … His whole campaign is a complete fraud. As July 1 approaches he is going to get more and more desperate, because he will have no credibility left.”
Abbott thought that it wouldn’t come to this. When he started his
vociferous fear campaign, he was convinced that the minority
government would have lost its footing and fallen by now. But it has
not and he now confronts a serious credibility challenge.
……. http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/merchants-of-doom-beware-20120608-201el.html#ixzz1xQrEdh6t

June 11, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics