Dear Editor,
Labor MPs Janelle Saffin and Justine Elliot’s refusal to stand up for their electorates means North Coast residents will be hit with a carbon tax from July next year.
They voted with the rest of Labor, the Greens and the Independents Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor and Andrew Wilkie to ensure the carbon tax legislation was passed in the House of Representatives. The legislation will inevitably pass in the senate with the Greens support.
A carbon tax of $23 a tonne will be an additional $515 a year on a typical family’s cost of living and that’s just for starters. Even on the government’s own figures, more than three million Australian families will be worse off and that’s before this carbon tax just goes up and up.
Many of these families live in regional Australia. For example, a single income family on less than average weekly earnings with one child aged under five is worse off under the government’s package. As are dual income families such as a school teacher and a shop assistant or that of a policeman and a part-time nurse.
The government’s compensation package is a farce. Once an Emissions Trading Scheme is phased in, there will be no set carbon price, rather a fluctuating one based on trading activity. The government will have no control over the price so how can it ensure families and pensioners will be adequately compensated?
The Gillard government’s also ignored industry and business concerns that a carbon tax will be another cost burden that will be passed onto consumers, while making them less competitive.
Justine Elliot and Janelle Saffin should have stuck up for the people in their electorates. They didn’t, and should hang their heads in shame.
Yours sincerely,
Senator Fiona Nash
Nationals Duty Senator for Page and Richmond
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