Beattie coal tax to fund research

Sean Parnell and Sid Marris
May 10, 2007

COALMINERS in Queensland will be hit with an increase in tax to pay for research into clean coal technology, as part of Peter Beattie’s response to climate change.

Delivering on a threat made at the ALP national conference last month during the uranium mining debate that industry would pay, the Queensland Premier said he would increase royalties on coal after he claimed industry reneged on a deal to match taxpayer funding.

In New York on a trade mission, Mr Beattie - who wanted $300million from the commonwealth and the same from the industry to match a state investment in clean coal technology - told a luncheon it was in the industry’s best interests to fund research.

“They (the industry) had indicated to us they were going to put in $300million but inevitably the coal companies are like any other disparate group of people; they want to spend it on their own projects,” Mr Beattie said.

“Well, at a time when we are combating climate change, we can’t allow that latitude.

“What we will say clearly to coal companies is that we will lift royalties to the per cent necessary to actually fund the research necessary in clean coal technology.”

At present the Queensland Government takes 7 per cent in royalties, gathering $1.1billion a year.

Mr Beattie is pushing Stanwell Corporation’s ZeroGen project, which revolves around carbon capture and zero-sequestration technology, and has the backing of federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd.

Major coal companies have chosen to fund competing projects, with one senior executive warning of a duplication of clean coal technology research and a lack of funding.

An alarmed coal industry was yesterday seeking talks with the Queensland Government over the prospective tax hike.

Australian Coal Association executive director Mark O’Neill said industry was already raising $300million through a voluntary collection over five years, which would help develop a range of projects in both NSW and Queensland, including the ZeroGen project.

The industry fund, announced last year, has already allocated $70million.

Mr O’Neill reaffirmed that the industry was keen to support worthwhile projects in Queensland.

Federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane accused Mr Beattie of “playing around with royalty rates to fund pet projects”.

The Global Warming Tax Scam Kicks In

Fresh studies, polls conclude climate change being used as revenue raising tactic

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Tuesday, September 4, 2007

The British government is raising almost double the revenue in so called “green taxes” that it needs to offset the social cost of CO2 emissions according to a new report. An accompanying opinion poll also reveals that nearly two-thirds of people think politicians are using the green issue as an excuse to tax more.

The conclusion of a report by the TaxPayer’s Alliance watchdog, states that “In many cases, individual green taxes and charges are failing to meet their objectives, are set at a level in excess of that needed to meet the social cost of CO2 emissions, and are causing serious harm to areas of the country and industries least able to cope.”

The study found that the social cost of Britain’s entire output of CO2 was £11.7 billion in 2005 but in the same year, the total net burden of green taxes and charges was £21.9 billion. Meaning that even two years ago taxes were £10.2 billion in excess of the level agreed to meet the Britain’s CO2 emissions. The Alliance calculates this excess is equivalent to over £400 for each household in Britain.

“We need more honesty about the costs of extra green taxes when British taxpayers already pay some of the highest pollution charges in the world,” said Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers’ Alliance.

The report also reveals that the main “pollution taxes” of fuel duty; vehicle excise duty (road tax); the Climate Change Levy; Air Passenger Duty; the Landfill Tax and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, each have serious flaws which indicate that the government is less concerned about the environment and more concerned with raking in excessive revenues.

In addition a second study by accountants UHY Hacker Young backs up this claim by revealing that the Government gives back in tax breaks just two per cent of the money it collects through environmental taxes.

UHY Hacker Young tax partner Roy Maugham said: “It’s surprising just how lopsided the Government’s approach to green taxes has been over the last ten years.

“At the moment it’s all stick and very little carrot.”

If the government were really concerned about climate change then they would be offering incentives not punishments for reducing CO2 emissions in the form of tax breaks. But tax breaks aren’t a giant cash bonanza for our exalted guardians of Mother Earth, the loving government, who are going to tax the living hell out of us for our own good and for the very survival of mankind, while lining their own pockets.

The Treasury has said the claims in the studies are “ridiculous” and has dropped the green bomb on the TaxPayers Alliance, reminding it that climate change is a justification to do anything.

A spokesman said: “In arguing against these taxes, the Taxpayers’ Alliance are being doubly dangerous - it would mean cuts to public services, schools and hospitals, as well as higher carbon emissions leading to accelerated climate change.”

Meanwhile Corin Taylor, research director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, has reminded the government that over vamped green charges, far from being a solution, are a primary cause of cuts in public services. “Green taxes and charges impose substantial costs on, amongst others, the National Health Service.” Taylor commented.

Released alongside the TaxPayers’ Alliance study, a new YouGov poll of more than 2,000 adults (double the usual sample) was commissioned into public attitudes towards green taxes.

When asked what they thought the primary motivation was for new green taxes, 63 per cent agreed with the statement: “Politicians are not serious about the environment and are using the issue as an excuse to raise more revenue from green taxes.” Only 20 per cent thought that “Politicians are serious about the environment and are bringing in new green taxes to change people’s behaviour to help reduce carbon emissions.”

Remember that these studies encompass two year old figures and naturally do not even take into account newly proposed “carbon taxes” which would see a sky rocketing in costs sought by the Treasury.

In recent months we have seen proposals in the UK and the US to impose steep new taxes that would raise the cost of burning oil, gas and coal even at a time when the cost of energy is already through the roof.

Such calls for a carbon tax on energy have been echoed by globalist groups such as the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg group whose members are coincidentally made up of many big energy company heads and CEOs who stand to gain from long term hikes in prices to offset an initial drop in demand that a new tax would bring.

We have previously pointed out that while many green activists aim their criticisms at the energy companies and big government, it is the elite structures within and surrounding those very areas that are pushing global warming fears, in addition to their tax proposals.

Global warming also acts as a convenient veil for the real environmental crimes that will continue on behalf of the mega corporations and scientific establishment that are in bed with the very government imposing draconian measures on us in the name of the environment. GM contamination, toxic waste dumping, bizarre cloning mad science, and the destruction of the rain forests will continue apace while we are still being lectured about light bulbs and beer bottles.

There is also actual discussion of imposing a carbon tax on humans for the air we breathe!

Meanwhile less than half of all published scientists endorse the theory that human activity constitutes a significant contribution to climate change, hardly a “consensus” as the UN appointed panel on climate change calls it.

The climate change momentum has shifted among prominent scientists who are now benefiting from a greater depth of research. A spate of new research papers has significantly chilled fears of man-made global warming.

If the cause is not even agreed upon how is it that the solution is?

Because governments throughout the world love convincing people that they are in danger and that they can only be saved by letting them take control. Globalists imagine and invent problems and then they offer us the solution, but the solution is always more government, more corporate monopoly, less sovereignty and less free market economy.

The global warming tax scam has kicked in. There’s no time left for a debate they tell us - we don’t want to hear about the medieval warm period, we don’t want to hear about how temperatures dropped as carbon emissions increased for four decades from the 40’s to the 80’s, we don’t want to hear about how the troposphere shows no build up of greenhouse gases, we don’t want to hear about sun activity and its direct correlation with climate change, we don’t want to hear about arctic ice samples showing how CO2 lags behind temperature increase. There’s money to be made and there’s peasants to flog.

Eco-fanatics and power-hungry elitists have taken total control of the global warming bandwagon. Before they choke the life out of modern industrialized civilization by eliminating the source of 80% of the planet’s energy, and in the face of fierce silencing techniques, it is vital to further understand why scientific evidence is not on the side of the theory of human-caused warming.

For a wealth of information on the man made global warming hoax check our archive which has scores of articles and multimedia files relating to the science of global warming as well as the agenda behind the hype.