Climate sense from Terry McCrann

Writing in The Australian, Terry McCrann correctly equates the ETS to another GST, but one in which we have no idea what the rate will be:

IMAGINE if John Howard and Peter Costello had proposed a GST with an indeterminate variable rate, with the "variation" left hostage to the manipulation of clever investment bankers and other main-chancers, and you might begin to understand "Kevin Rudd's GST" -- his Emissions Trading Scheme, or ETS.

"His GST?" If we get the ETS, it is going to add to the price of everything -- not just power and not just carbon-based power in particular. On that point, it's worth noting that it is specifically designed to increase the price of all power -- quite deliberately, to make wind and solar power "competitive". That's to say we pay more for them, but they become "cheaper" than coal-based power.

Indeed, the ETS is intended to be, and will be, even more punitively pervasive than the GST. Because once we get past the early, politically driven, subsidies to hide its real impact and real cost, there will be no carve-outs, as is the case with the GST and fresh food and medical services. They will all become more expensive.

The pervasiveness and very significant impact on your everyday costs make Rudd's ETS the elephant in every living room. What will turn it into a dangerous, unpredictable rogue is the way it becomes hostage to market manipulation.

Read it here.