Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
You likely didn’t realize that the First Rule for the Carbon Tax Club is … nobody talks about the Carbon Tax Club.
And not only that … it could cost the poor Aussies big bucks if they say what I just said about the Carbon Tax Club.
Gotta love totalitarianism in the service of national eco-themed suicide …
From Miranda Devine’s blog at the Australian Telegraph (emphasis mine):
THE whitewash begins. Now that the carbon tax has passed through federal parliament, the government’s clean-up brigade is getting into the swing by trying to erase any dissent against the jobs-destroying legislation.
On cue comes the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which this week issued warnings to businesses that they will face whopping fines of up to $1.1m if they blame the carbon tax for price rises.
It says it has been “directed by the Australian government to undertake a compliance and enforcement role in relation to claims made about the impact of a carbon price.”
Businesses are not even allowed to throw special carbon tax sales promotions before the tax arrives on July 1.
“Beat the Carbon Tax – Buy Now” or “Buy now before the carbon tax bites” are sales pitches that are verboten. Or at least, as the ACCC puts it, “you should be very cautious about making these types of claims”.
There will be 23 carbon cops roaming the streets doing snap audits of businesses that “choose to link your price increases to a carbon price”.
Instead, the ACCC suggests you tell customers you’ve raised prices because “the overall cost of running (your) business has increased”.
So if some Australian business prints up this post, and tapes it to his window … he can be fined up to one megabuck. A million dollar crime.
Eco-terrorism at its finest, where Australia now has criminalized free speech … carbon. A word to conjure with, the name that cannot be spoken.
w.
PS—I think we should have a contest for the best sign within the Aussie law. To open the bidding, I suggest that Australian businesses post a big sign inside their stores that says:
WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SAY THAT
THE CARBON TAX IS RESPONSIBLE
FOR OUR PRICE INCREASES.
Sincerely,
The Management
Bulldust says:
November 17, 2011 at 2:10 pm
If one visits the ACCC site one can see that Miranda Devine has grossly misrepresented the position of the organisation. The Chairman was quite clear about the organisations’s position in his presentation, which is no different than it has been in the past about any other misleading advertising:
http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/1017300/fromItemId/142
“Business costs increase all the time, and businesses are free to set their own prices. However, if a business chooses to raise their prices they should not misrepresent this as a result of the carbon price when it is not the case.”
“This is not new – the message is simple: if you are going to make a claim, you need to make sure it is right.”
I would suggest that Ms Devine has reading comprehension difficulties, or she is being deliberately misleading. The full guidance brochure can be found here, but the Chairman’s statements sum it up neatly:
http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/1017091
My BS meter went off immediately reading this story… always good to check the source first folks.
Thanks, Bulldust. While you are correct in theory, in reality there’s no way to do what the ACCC suggests. They say that if you want to say that the increase is due to increased carbon costs, you have to get a statement from your supplier that verifies that their increase is due to increased carbon costs.
However, a moment’s thought reveals the problem with that. If a man selling bread wants to make a statement about carbon, he has to get a statement from his baker. For his baker to make that statement, he has to get a statement from his miller, and his electricity supplier, and the man who sells petrol for his bread trucks, and the truck manufacturers where he buys the trucks, and for the increases in phone costs and every other cost.
And each of those, in an endless loop, all have to get statements from the other one. Try this on for size.
If I drive a Ford truck and I sell materials to Ford that they make cars with, they can’t make a statement about carbon without supporting carbon evidence from their suppliers … including me. But I can’t say how much my carbon costs have gone up without the carbon statement from Ford. Cute, huh?
The net results of this chilling regulation will be:
1. The actual costs due to the carbon tax will be underestimated at the business end. Since you can get fined up to a million dollars for exaggeration, every single estimate of the cost will be on the low side. This will no doubt be used to make the claim that the costs are minimal. They are not.
2. Many people will just say “sorry, I don’t have an estimate”, because a) it’s far too much work and hassle to contact every one of their suppliers and ask if they have an estimate, and b) you can get fined if you overestimate. Most folks will wisely say nothing … chilling. Unfortunately, when a supplier says that they have no estimate, what is the retailer to do? He is muzzled, he can’t say anything, because of another man’s inaction.
3. Any tax on energy, direct or indirect, is a much larger drag on the economy than a tax on a finished product. Simple economics, taxing the inputs to a manufacturing process is a greater burden on the economy than the same tax on a finished product. See my discussion in “Firing up the economy, literally“.
So while you are correct in saying this is framed by the Govt as a “truth in advertising” issue, Bulldust, in reality it is nothing of the sort. It is designed specifically to make it very hard to say anything about carbon, with draconian fines. The net result is guaranteed to be a suppression of comment on the carbon issue. I see no reason to conclude that it is accidental that the regulations will have a chilling effect. The regulations have made it a practical impossibility for a businessman to determine the effect of CO2 on the business.
w.
PS—Beyond that, what kind of nanny state is it that tries to keep shopkeepers from making ludicrous claims? Why can’t they say what they want about carbon? At the end of the day the market rules, if they jack their prices too far they’ll lose customers. Who is hurt if they say “20% price rise due to carbon” instead of “20% price rise due to our kids going to college” or “20% price rise due to general business conditions” or “20% price rise due astrological influences”?
Me, I think the Australian consumers are smart enough to look at a sign saying “20% price increase due to carbon tax” and say “I’ll shop next door, they raised their prices 3%”.
So truly … what is the harm to the consumer? For me, that’s government gone mad.
Dictatorships and despots fall with a great crashing heard worldwide. We all hear their great fall!
NOT so for freedom and democracy!
Freedom and democracy falls quietly, internally with the passing of laws and restrictions. It happens so subtlety, many are completely unaware of it’s passing. One day you are speaking your mind and the next you are paying huge fines because of what you have said, or worse, sent to a re-education center, where wooden rods are educating your anus. GK
The solution is obvious: Any supplier does as they do as they are required to with the GST; itemises it on the invoice.
Buy from suppliers who itemise and itemise it on your own invoices. Accept no price increase without an itemised invoice showing the tax component.
Keep in mind that the cost of the tax is greater than the amount of tax collected. There are administrative overheads; changes in business processes which need to be implemented as of yesterday. So the tax is already costing suppliers. I trust that they’re keeping track of every cent. (/sarc)
Quote
Grant says:
November 18, 2011 at 7:48 am
The state won’t be able to hide the fact that a carbon tax will drive up costs across the board, nor will it be able to hide job losses. Hey government, news flash, people don’t like to be told what to.
The most important thing to many people, and I suspect many Australians, is liberty. From the things I see of them on this blog, they ain’t gonna take it!
Unquote
Can you please give us a simple example/ model effects by the recently increased tax?
To: G. Karst,
No need to be fanatic.
Find a solution how to make things easier.
Quote from Thomas Jefferson: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” (as cited in Padover, 1939, p. 89)
“. . . whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that, whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them right.” (as cited in Padover, 1939, p. 88)
The above quotes were the cornerstones of Jefferson’s interest in education and the franchise. He placed education as the foundation of democracy and a prerequisite to vote.
Ignorance and sound self-government could not exist together: the one destroyed the other. A despotic government could restrain its citizens and deprive the people of their liberties only while they were ignorant. Again Thomas Jefferson.
The throttling of free speech is to promote ignorance and the suppression of opposition by government can only be interpreted as an attempt to protect self-interests.
Jefferson was not Australian but does the principle apply?
Sure! Keep a very large jar of Vaseline concealed on your body at all times. That way one will always be ready for re-education. GK
LazyTeenager says: a pantsload of misleading half truths.
First they came for the honest business owners…
If you truly are a lazy teenager, I may be able to forgive your naive ramblings as the product of immaturity and a profound ignorance of history rather than the deliberate obfuscations they appear to be.
The retail customer pays for everything. The customer pays for something. That money goes to the business and eventually your wages. Any expense is paid for by the retail customer.
I must now consider Australia to be a banana republic.
This is both sad and disturbing.
Thank you Olen,
We do expect that a government is basically respected and trusted by its own people, and the people get what they deserve as their own rights.
You said “. . . whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that, whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them right.”
This is hopefully the meaning of VOTE.
As a whole, I agree with you and your comment is wise.
Appreciate.
Olen says:
November 18, 2011 at 9:11 am
“. . . whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that, whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them right. (as cited in Padover, 1939, p. 88)”
Here is the problem. Propaganda is the most easily accessed information available today, bar none! It starts at the moment of birth and does not end. Much of it is firmly embedded by our trusted education system. It is extremely difficult, for anyone, to rise above this “matrix”. It is a primary cause, when one makes the simplest decisions, such as what shampoo to best purchase.
Well informed today means well indoctrinated! Truth is virtually invisible! GK
To: GK,
I’ll try to do it, I am your follower.
[SNIP: Dave, a bit premature and over-the-top. -REP]
RE: “He placed education as the foundation of democracy and a prerequisite to vote.”
Universal suffrage put a swift end to that, didn’t it? In principle, universal suffrage was meant to correct the wrongs of sexism and racism vis a vis voting access. But the revolutionaries have exploited it to the hilt, ensuring that millions upon millions of utterly uneducated and barely literate morons vote in each election. This is true throughout the English speaking countries. We are in a world of hurt.
here’s some wording for a sign..
“There will be no Carbon Tax increasing prices on the stuff that we sell”
We can’t “say” our prices have risen due to the carbon tax.
(feel free to ask us what we “think”)
To solve a problem in extra ordinary times, we may need extra ordinary measures, even one makes simplest decisions.
An economical decision and the Policy behind it, considering many variables, is not easy to make. Trust between People and their Government is the main issue, this makes everything possible.
Never could figure out how Australia allowed gun control and now a carbon tax when it looks so much like our western United States and was settled by similarly independent minded folks as well. But then I suspect the big cities rule, just like here. Upstate New York people are much different than NYC people but NYC has more people and more say. Big cities are the bane of democracy, full of people wanting someone to protect them and take care of them. Is that the simple answer?
or maybe a picture of Gillard with a word bubbles saying
“Our price rises are not due to the carbon tax”
(mods , combine with previous post if appropriate.)
LazyTeenager says:
November 18, 2011 at 12:42 am (Edit)
You would prefer GW and the cherry tree, LT. Your nose for seeking out and defending lies and incorrect information is dang near infallible. I hate to burst your bubble, but that story about GW and the cherry tree is not true.
So not only is it OK in the US to lie, cheat and manipulate the truth about George Washington, there’s no million dollar fine if you do so.
See, in the US we assume that people of normal intelligence will notice that if someone says “Carbon taxes have forced me to raise prices by 200%”, it’s likely to be nonsense.
For example, we’ve had the RGGI in force here for some time, and gosh … nobody had a problem with what the businesspeople said. Sure, some of them likely exaggerated their costs … so what? When have you ever trusted a businessman who said “All prices 90% of wholesale cost!!”? Well, not you maybe, but I’m sure that the average Aussie can spot a spiv from a few blocks away.
In the US we also assume that a person with average intelligence would have noticed that the story about GW and the cherry tree was a legend, and not a true tradition … and indeed, your blind acceptance of the legend as being true has just shown that to be a very valid rule of thumb.
w.
From Climate Dissident on November 18, 2011 at 4:25 am:
To me, this indicates the European citizens are considered educated enough to know those inherent qualities yet too stupid to recognize such “fluff” in advertising. But of course, European governments are smarter than their citizens, as the citizens have accepted. That’s why they elected the EU Council to govern them by directive from Brussels, right?
This ignores the specious nature of the ruling. To wit:
This is akin to concluding that persistent elevated body temperature is a symptom of a fever. How did the description of a condition become a symptom?
Plus now they can’t claim that drinking water can prevent dehydration. Which makes it more likely that you’ll suffer from dehydration, drinking water or not drinking water? The grey area is drinking water cannot absolutely prevent dehydration. But this is also true when a vaccine is said to prevent getting a certain disease. Has the EU banned advertising, even public service announcements, that claim a healthy diet and exercise can prevent heart disease?
As far as one water being healthier than another, which doesn’t apply here, among bottled waters made to enforced high standards, there may well be a difference in healthy-ness, especially as seen with the usual US plethora of offerings ranging from plain distilled to mineral-containing and even vitamin-enhanced. Although with a good varied diet such differences are likely insignificant with regards to overall health. However if we were to compare bottled water like the celebrities drink, to the local water available in third-world countries that the celebrities are visiting…
Warning to customers – prices will increase. You get what YOU voted for.
Well, that will not be so easy to get rid of the “tax which may not be named”. One needs a Harry Potter to get rid of it.
speaking of it: “you know what tax” may be an appropriate name?
I agree Lars, it should be dubbed the Voldemort tax. Might even prompt some young people to ask about it and get informed.