United Nations bets it all on Australia's Carbon Tax (millions of $$$ spent from UNEP and GEF to sponsor Tax in Australia)

Carbon tax is Prime Minister Julia Gillard's 'foreign plan', Tony Abbott says

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Necessary tax ... Gillard said the next decade will be difficult without a carbon tax. Source: The Daily Telegraph

THE carbon tax is Julia Gillard's "foreign content plan", according to Tony Abbott, who said today the Coalition would continue fighting the tax even though it is destined to pass parliament.

The Gillard Government’s clean energy draft laws are expected to sail through the lower house on Wednesday, before heading to the Senate where they will be voted on some time next month.

The Opposition Leader this morning continued his attack on the Prime Minister, ahead of Wednesday’s vote.

“We’re going to give it a very good fight and you know this carbon tax is Julia Gillard’s foreign content plan because it will put Australia’s manufacturing at a permanent competitive disadvantage,” he told Channel Nine.

“So, she was talking about supporting local manufacturing last week, this week she wants to pass through the parliament a carbon tax that will permanently damage it and, as I said, it’s her foreign content plan for the goods we buy.”

A new manufacturing industry group – which has brought together a number of large companies including BlueScope Steel, Boral and Amcor – has also criticised the carbon tax, saying it should be deferred.

Manufacturing Australia’s executive chairman, former Reserve Bank board member Dick Warburton, said it seemed “quite wrong” to introduce the carbon tax “until we have a clear picture of what is going on in the rest of the world”.

“In fact countries are actually pulling out of carbon taxes and (emissions trading schemes) and therefore for us to go ahead with very little protection of the emissions at a distinct disadvantage to our economy just doesn’t seem right,” he told ABC Radio.

However a new report, released by Climate Change Minister Greg Combet today, shows climate change is putting at risk alpine water that is worth $9.6 billion a year to the Australian economy.

The Australian Conservation Foundation said the report underlined the urgent need to cut greenhouse pollution.

``The snow-capped peaks of the Australian Alps are a rare and beautiful thing in our mostly dry continent, but they could be gone by the middle of this century if we let climate change continue unabated,'' ACF chief executive Don Henry said.

``This report shows again how vital it is that our federal parliamentarians get on with the job of putting a price on carbon pollution - the primary driver of climate change.''

Meanwhile the government is furiously trying to avoid embarrassment on the issue of asylum seekers.

The government is just on vote away from having the numbers to change its migration laws and resurrect its controversial Malaysia people-swap deal.

Only WA Nationals MP Tony Crook – who sits on the crossbenches – is undecided on the issue. If he sides with the government it will hardly matter, since the Coalition and the Greens will vote down the legislation in the Senate.

But if Mr Crook sides with Mr Abbott in the lower house, it would be the first time in 80 years that a government loses a vote on legislation in the House of Representatives.

At U.N. everyone in suspense waiting for Australia's Gov to vote on carbon tax. It will be the world's first country to implement carbon tax regime.

United States and Canada are next !

Australian Cabinet to vote on carbon tax

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CANBERRA, Australia, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- Australia will introduce a carbon price in Parliament next month and it is expected to become a law by the end of the year, the federal government said Wednesday.

Under the controversial tax, Australia's 500 highest-polluting companies will pay $24 per ton of carbon pollution they emit beginning July 1, 2012. In addition, a market-based carbon trading scheme would be introduced in 2015, allowing major polluters to buy offsetting shares in companies producing emissions less than target levels.

Wednesday's announcement follows a protest by about 2,000 Australians on Tuesday -- the anniversary of a pledge that Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard made during last year's federal election not to introduce a carbon tax – demanding that the government scrap the plan.

The latest Nielsen poll indicates that 56 percent of Australian voters asked said they are against the tax scheme and an Institute of Public Affairs survey showed that 70 percent of accountants polled said small business would be negatively affected by a carbon tax.

Australian Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said Wednesday the government has ruled out putting off the carbon tax.

"This is a reform that is in our economic interests to make," he told Sky News.

"This will drive investment in new technologies, innovation, it will improve the productivity of our economy over time -- there is no case for delaying it here."

The Institute of Public Affairs, a free market think tank, urged the Gillard administration to scrap the carbon tax in light of the looming economic downturn of China.

The world's largest exporter of coal and iron ore, Australia is China's largest supplier of iron ore.

"The recent stock market roller coaster and the European and U.S. debt crises have shed light on the risks associated with Australia's reliance on China's thirst for our resources," Hugh Tobin, director of the Northern Australia Project at IPA, said in a release.

Tobin said that once global demand drops in the resource sector, commodity prices would fall from the current high levels. The combination of falling commodity prices, along with Australia's introduction of proposed mining and carbon taxes, he warned, would make many Australian projects unprofitable.

"China is deliberately moving to reduce its reliance on Australian minerals in favor of increasingly cheaper markets in parts of West Africa and South America," Tobin said. "Why would we want to add on new taxes and make ourselves uncompetitive at a time like this?"