Marino sees tax cut benefits
South West families and pensioners will be better off without the carbon tax, according to Forrest MHR Nola Marino.
The carbon tax was introduced in 2012 by the Australian Federal Government, with a charge of $23 per tonne of emitted carbon dioxide equivalent on selected fossil fuels consumed by major industrial emitters and government bodies such as councils.
The tax was widely thought of as the most effective and least costly mechanism to reduce carbon output and reduce the level of climate change which is occurring.
The coalition though has made several moves to abolish the tax, with the repeal legislation lodged with the Senate for the third time on Tuesday.
Mrs Marino said power costs for homes and businesses would be about nine per cent cheaper than they would have been with a carbon tax in place.
“Businesses who used refrigeration will be among the best off from the carbon tax being removed as they had copped a double blow for the price of power plus the refrigerant gasses, ” she said.
“It was a tax on every power point in every house and business, and it was a multi-million dollar hit to the regions’ biggest employers including Alcoa, Iluca, Millennium Inorganic Chemicals, Simcoa, the Griffin Coal Mining Company and Yancoal Australia.”
Mrs Marino claims power company Verve Energy faced a $165 million tax hit on its Collie operations alone, with Alinta paying the carbon tax which raised gas prices.
“The carbon tax has been an environmental and economic failure which took $15.4 billion out of the economy and did nothing to stop the rise of emissions over the next six years, ” she said.
The Federal Government has committed to reducing Australia’s emissions by five per cent by 2020 based on 2000 levels through its Emissions Reduction Fund.
Opposition spokeswoman Alannah MacTiernan said the cost of a carbon price on WA businesses was insignificant compared to costs imposed by the failure to act on climate change.
“Massive increases in costs of water, insurance and government charges are already happening, ” she said.
