THE carbon tax is set to become law today despite last-minute amendments pushed by the Coalition and independent senator Nick Xenophon that they said would limit electricity price rises.

In a reform that aims to transform Australia's economy and cut its greenhouse emissions, Labor's controversial carbon pricing scheme is expected to comfortably pass the Senate today with Greens support.

Last night, Liberal senator Simon Birmingham and Senator Xenophon jointly moved an amendment that would stop electricity generators having to pay in advance for forward-dated carbon permits - a move the industry and opposition say would minimise expected power price rises.


Energy Supply Association of Australia interim chief executive Clare Savage urged all parties to back the amendments, saying the advance payments would make it harder for generators to make long-term electricity contracts with retailers and customers, pushing up prices.

A spokesman for the Greens said the party would not be supporting the amendments. A spokesman for Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said the government had committed $5.5 billion to help generators make a smooth transition to the carbon price and that deferred payments on permits would reduce the liquidity in the carbon market.

The carbon pricing scheme will force about 500 of Australia's biggest-emitting companies to pay for each tonne of carbon they emit, although vulnerable industries will receive large numbers of free permits.  

Australians will be compensated for expected price rises for electricity and manufactured goods via tax cuts and benefits increases. The scheme will begin as a tax in July and shift to a market-based carbon trading scheme in 2015. The Coalition has vowed to repeal the scheme if it wins government.

Greens deputy leader Christine Milne yesterday hit back at Coogee Chemicals after the company announced it was shelving a $1 billion expansion plan because of the carbon tax, pointing out that Coogee chairman Gordon Martin sits on opposition climate spokesman Greg Hunt's business advisory panel.  

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/carbon-tax-set-for-easy-passage-20111107-1n3ws.html#ixzz1d3HZwWKt

Abbott has failed in his quest.  Total failure.

Australia’s carbon price will start at $23 a tonne, rising to $29 by 2015, when it is scheduled to become an emissions trading scheme linked to international markets.

European firms are paying under $12.60 for carbon emissions permits after the market crashed to a four-year low amid uncertainty over the economic bailout of Greece.



Elswhere in the news:

German economy to 'grind to a halt next year'
http://www.france24.com/en/20111012-german-economy-grind-halt-next-year

The global economy will collapse.

Dubai, The entire Middle East, Most of the European countries are all going bad, the smaller ones are doing ok, but once the bigger ones fall that will affect them, China is in big debt, Japan with the world's biggest debt bubble, South Korea has a high private debt level, The USA are a basket case , Brazil with one of the highest rates of private debt, the rest of the Central and South American countries are basket cases anyway. Argentina are doing very well with 11% GDP probably because they refused to listen to the IMF. The UK, Oceania, Africa are all basket cases.

Ironically, Iraq is doing really well thanks to their oil revenue and the fact that they can't start to rebuild until America p1ss off.

It is larger than one or two or even three countries. Once the first domino falls the rest will tumble too. That's why everyone is pointing at everyone else's economy because they want someone to blame. The first country to fall will get the blame for those that tumble after them.

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Nov 8^th, 2011 at 10:53am:


....and so? If it's all gone to hell in a handbasket, how do your predictions achieve anything? Will you stand there shouting "I TOLD YOU SO!" as you starve to death with the rest of us?

The Gillard government declared victory for a "historic economic reform" today after the Senate finally passed a carbon tax - laws that have created political havoc for four years and have been debated for more than a decade. The government won the historic vote in the upper house 36 to 32.  

Labor and the Greens combined to pass the 18 "Clean Energy Future" bills just after midday, to applause from the packed public galleries.  

Historic day ... for Julia Gillard, who lost popularity after vowing before the election there would be no carbon tax under her government.

Historic day ... for Julia Gillard, who lost popularity after vowing before the election there would be no carbon tax under her

Finance Minister and former climate change minister Senator Penny Wong said that, on the Labor side of politics, "we accept the science, we accept the need to act [on climate change], and, like John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull, we accept the science and the advice that putting a price on carbon is the best way to reduce emissions."  

Senator Wong failed to secure the passage of the former Rudd government's emissions trading scheme.

Coalition leader Tony Abbott was overseas when the Senate took its vote, but National Party frontbencher Senator Barnaby Joyce declared it was "a sad day when we reorganise our economy on the basis of a colourless, odourless gas ... it is the height of foolishness."

He said the tax would do nothing to change the temperature of the globe "whether it is going up down or sideways" but said Australian households would definitely be poorer and the Coalition "would make certain" they hadn't forgotten the reason at the next election, when he predicted Labor would be "crucified".

Greens Senator Christine Milne said Mr Abbott had "cut and run" and could have delayed his departure for a conference in Britain to be in Australia for the vote.

A last minute amendment by the Coalition and independent Senator Nick Xenophon to allow electricity generators to defer payment for the purchase of billions of dollars in forward-dated pollution permits failed.

A $23 a tonne carbon tax will now be paid by about 500 high-emitting companies from next July, with about half the revenue to be returned to households in the form of tax cuts and increases in pensions and family payments, to compensate them as electricity generators pass through the cost of the new tax.

Another $9.2 billion over the first four years of the carbon pricing scheme will be paid to high-emitting industries with overseas competitors not subject to a tax. They will receive up to 94.5 per cent of their emission permits for free.

The carbon price is designed to meet the emissions reduction target endorsed by both major parties of at least 5 per cent by 2020, compared with 2000 levels. Labor is now promising to cut Australia's emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.

Mr Abbott, who took the Liberal leadership after a revolt against former leader Malcolm Turnbull's support for the Rudd Government's emissions trading scheme, has made opposition to the carbon tax a central issue of his leadership and has "pledged in blood" to repeal it.

AAP reports: The opposition's joint amendment with Senator Xenophon regarding deferred payment of future permits was defeated 36 to 32 just before the final vote was held.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/senate-passes-carbon-tax-20111108-1n4p1.html#ixzz1d4hHd2AO

D'uh 

and all the little leftys cheer at a new tax.

what plebs