Thirty years ago, on this day, April 17, 1993, newly-re-elected Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating made another mental note to hate environmentalists….
The Prime Minister, Paul Keating, and the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, Simon Crean, have denied knowledge of alleged Treasury proposals for a $1.9 billion energy tax.
Mr Crean rejected reports in The Weekend Australian and The Age on Saturday [17 April] which suggested that a tax on the energy content or fuels and possibly carbon emissions, being discussed by Treasury and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, had drawn on studies by the Department of Primary Industries and Energy
Brough, J. 1993. Keating, Crean deny energy-tax proposal. Canberra Times, Monday 19 April, p.3. http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/126983159
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The carbon tax idea had been around for quite a while, and in 1990-91 a combination of industry figures managed to defeat it. Environment Minister Ros Kelly had said, at the Rio Earth Summit, that it wasn’t something that would be done, but the proposed “solution” did not, of course, go away. If Australia were to meet its “stabilisation target”, let alone its 20 per cent reduction by 2005 target, economic measures like a tax were going to be needed…
What I think we can learn from this
People inside bureaucracies leak, either to put pressure on politicians, or to kill an idea by prematurely releasing it. In this case, who knows?
What happened next
The push for a carbon tax came up again, in 1994, and was defeated by early 1995. There wouldn’t be a price on carbon dioxide until 2012, and that only lasted a couple of years. And the emissions climbed….
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs