Occasional Paper
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Green policies now matter as their voter base grows, their parliamentary power increases and their policy ambit widens.
- Contrary to popular perception their policies are not narrowly environmental -- in their entirety they mimic the central planning model now rejected by all but a few closed societies.
- Their environmental policies are based on quasi-religious belief and serious misconceptions of the quality and resilience of the environment -- they will strike particularly hard at the rural sector.
- Green economic policies will radically redistribute the shrinking national income their policies will bring about.
- Investment controls, weak labour policies and other forms of interference in markets will destabilise the economy.
- Energy consumption and exports will be drastically reduced by quarantining our principal energy source, coal, and any other feasible alternative.
- Wind, solar and other renewables can replace only a fraction of current supply at a much higher cost -- they will enforce negative economic growth.
- Immigration policy will focus on facilitating the entry of refugees and restricting the current flow of skilled and highly educated immigrants.
- Other policies will enlarge the public sector, tighten censorship, restrict overseas trade and liberalise drug use.
- Twenty or more new or increased taxes are proposed to reduce incomes, increase prices, tax inheritances and shrink the rental property pool.
- Green policies will hit the poor hardest through increased taxation, high energy (and hence goods and services) prices, lower employment and economic growth and reduced choices -- we will all be worse off but the poor will suffer most.
- Green policies are inward and backward looking, have failed universally at great cost to those who have been misguided enough to try them and are inconsistent with a free and tolerant society.
- These policies ought to be rejected.
WHY GREENS' POLICIES MATTER
Until recently, the policies of the Australian Greens have escaped serious analysis. The public expression of those policies in narrowly based direct action campaigns has received largely sympathetic media reporting and commentary. The images of defiant protesters in forests, rivers and reefs has simplified complex matters and elevated them to quasi-religious status. The public has generally acquiesced in the collaboration or surrender to these tactics by the political class.
For several reasons, this self indulgence by the public and politicians is no longer responsible or feasible.
First, the green movement, by its highly selective approach to issues, has attracted a significant support base and will be augmented by the impending implosion of the Australian Democrats. This widening voter base has grown in an atypical manner, often in conservative electorates. The new voter base is almost certainly not aware of the full measure of the Greens' policies.
Second, the Greens could possibly hold the balance of power in the Senate after the next election. They will then be able to use the traditional strategy of political blackmail to force adoption of a much wider range of policies than those relating directly to the environment. If the Greens are to be the party of review in this way, we need to know what their values are and whether they are pragmatic or dogmatic.
Third, the Greens have issued a much more comprehensive policy document for this election, which displays the extent of their ambition and the colour of their political philosophy.
Green policies therefore deserve close analysis and should undergo the same unsparing critical analysis of their practicality and their public benefit that is routine for the major parties. The Greens can no longer be allowed to get away with loose, generalised, emotive statements to justify their policies. The business of government is too serious for that.
THE POLICY FRAMEWORK
In general, the Greens' policies is a ramshackle collection. They resemble the unedited record of an extended workshop of strident and diverse interest groups pushing their own barrows and narrow ideologies -- doomsayer environmentalists, anti-globalisers, gender politicians, indigenous activists, welfare professionals, industrial relations club members and disappointed adherents of the old Left.
They are as populist and as pork-barrelling at the other parties -- just aimed at the hip pocket of a far more Left wing- crowd.
But underneath this diversity, and despite a number of startling internal contradictions, there lies a common theme. The Green policy framework could be said to be revolutionary. If enacted, it would radically alter existing policies and political processes. It is not new, however. Its philosophy is now more than a century old.
Although the policies all claim to pivot around environmental concepts, the processes, and most of the policies themselves, are a reincarnation of the tired old Marxist, totalitarian model.
These include:
- high levels of state ownership in the economy and a significant increase in bureaucracies and their powers,
- pervasive controls on economic, social and cultural life,
- inward looking/xenophobic economic policies, and
- high taxation and government spending.
The detailed protection through control of the environment at the core of policy is little more than a variant of state control of land and natural resources that has always been crucial to socialist policies and regimes.
Worse, these controls are founded on a misunderstanding of how the natural environment is structured and how ecosystems function. The ideological foundation appears to be a remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths, including the concept of an original Eden. In this framework, modern Man is in a state of sin wherever He attempts to modify or control the landscape.
The Greens' idea of environmental protection is thus "lock it up". An inevitable outcome of this approach is environmental neglect and the destruction of biodiversity as wrought by the Canberra fires of the summer of 2003.
The Greens also have a lack of concern for Australia's defence and a willingness to surrender sovereignty on some important matters, such as refugees, to UN bodies. This policy has no track record and carries an inevitably high risk through relying on foreigners to possess the same goals and interests as those we have ourselves and to share our own resolve in defending them. It is especially risky given the unrepresentative nature of the UN.
Yet, contrary to their rhetoric and willingness to relinquish national policy management in some areas to UN bodies, the Greens are not looking forward and outward -- they are looking backward and inward. They are a party of the far Left like their counterparts in Germany. It is not possible here to analyse the policies, of which the environment is only one plank, in great detail. The comprehensive agenda of the Greens can be found on their website for those interested (www.greens.org.au).
The following is an attempt to illustrate some of the more important weaknesses of the policies and their inherent contradictions.
SOME CORE POLICIES
ENVIRONMENT
Environment policy is at the centre of Green policies. It is difficult to weigh its impact, partly because much of it is no more than meaningless repetition of sustainability mantras, and partly because it permeates all other policies.
For instance, energy efficiency, proper management of marine resources and control of pollution are all laudable and already on the agenda of the mainstream parties.
However, our most significant environmental improvements over the last two decades have not come from environmental idealists but from new and innovative technological advances. These include real but unglamorous advances such as sewage treatment, air quality improvement and the sort of engineering solutions that have seen a halving in salinity levels in the Murray River.
Recently, advances in biotechnology and the broad scale adoption of this technology by agriculture in the USA have resulted in a 20 million kg reduction in pesticide use and a 2 billion kg increase in yield. The adoption of the first GM cotton varieties in Australia saw pesticide application rates reduced by 56 per cent and it is anticipated that this will increase to 75 per cent with the widespread adoption of the second GM variety. Yet the Greens are against this technology and have actively and successfully banned GM food crops. They have done so on the basis that GM is unnatural and poses risks to humans and to the environment in spite of a decade of evidence to the contrary. In short, the Greens are fundamentally narcissistic, because they will forgo the potential for real environmental benefits to satisfy their own quasi-religious beliefs.
The Green's policy involves many radical initiatives in traditional green areas. Greenhouse emissions will be drastically reduced by 80 per cent in 50 years and then phased out. This goes far beyond even what extreme green interest group such as Greenpeace advocate. The native forest industry will be restricted to plantations. Coastal development will be frozen. Rivers and native vegetation on private land will be strictly controlled. No new ports will be allowed. Pollution will be very severely punished and expensively insured against. All waste will eventually be recycled. All of this is proposed without any evidence of its need, or expected success, and with absolutely no expression of concern or even recognition of the impact such action would have on the economy, on people and on communities.
The approach ignores the reality that rivers are not fixed in their flow volume or direction and trees regrow. The Greens policies cannot deal with the reality of a dynamic Nature and Humanity.
The transition to the sort of society and economy envisaged by the Green policies will be costly and painful for the nation, and largely unnecessary. Where such policies have been most enthusiastically embraced, as in Germany, governments are now in full retreat.
All this is most clearly illustrated by the fate reserved for farmers, who will become the "proud custodians" of 70 per cent of the environment in this new world.
According to Green policies, farmers will be required to practice "sustainable agriculture. But to the Greens, "sustainable" is a confused, ambiguous, even meaningless concept. Sustainable agriculture is exactly what farmers do already, if only because they own their land and want to ensure it delivers a sustainable income. Having little respect for, and no understanding of the inherent motivations to ensure sustainable resource use, the Greens want to impose their own central planning as a substitute for individual actions that stem from well defined property rights.
Their policy will require operations on each farm to be subject to a national ecological plan based on "coherent bioregions" (which are a figment of Green imagination). Each farmer will be subject to a detailed "accredited environmental management system". These systems are already, and notoriously, an administrative and bureaucratic nightmare, even for large corporations. Each farmer will be required to consult numerous outside bodies about his operations. All this in the face of the recent Productivity Commission report's claim that the existing, less onerous regulations are already excessive and misdirected.
The upshot of all the Green policies for farmers is:
- rising energy and fertiliser costs as energy prices rise
- rising feed costs as genetic improvement is banned
- new and higher taxes of various kinds, including the nutrient pollution tax
- detailed planning/interference in operations by government and local action groups
- tighter regulation of the environment and food standards
These burdens will be carried with:
- a more restricted usable farm area
- more restricted production options, which exclude GM crops, native forestry and live animal exports
- less access to water and water trading
This is a bigger nightmare than the Soviet experiment with collective farming. Not only do the Greens want to impose state planning they also want to prevent farmers using resources efficiently.
Thus, the Greens are arguing for six times the quantity of water to be released into the River Murray (3,000 gigalitres equivalent to 6 Sydney Harbors) than that already committed by the Prime Minister (500 gigalitres). The Labor Party has committed to 1,500 gigalitres which is the amount demanded by the conservation groups. But, there is no indication in the Greens' policy documents how the 3,000 gigalitres will be used and how it will benefit the environment. This must be a figure pulled out of the air. If Bob Brown intends to run all the water held by a full Hume Dam down the river and out to sea this will create its own environmental problems -- as well as devastating regional communities along the river.
A study by La Trobe University estimates that taking half this amount of water, 1,500 gigalitres, would cost local communities approximately $162 million and the loss of up to 3,300 jobs. The study concluded that this would destroy whole communities, not just the agriculture sector. 3000 gigalitres would eliminate 40 per cent of water entitlements to Victorian irrigators.
At the same time farmers must manage for climate change though, thankfully, given the confused state of the debate on this, they will have some flexibility here.
However, those farmers least able to do so will not be required to bear the costs of all this. All costs will, presumably, be shifted to the productive farms.
Green environmental policy is superficially high minded, but it comes at a very high social cost. It involves detailed state supervision of society, locks up valuable national resources, closes off numerous sound economic options and would result in a much lower standard of living. This would be in return for environmental gains that are often questionable or achievable in other less punishing ways.
ECONOMIC
The first stated principle, and goal, of the Greens' economic policy is ecological sustainability. This is sufficiently vague as to be meaningless in this context. Getting down to the real thrust, the policy involves detailed supervision of the economy. The purposes are mainly social rather than environmental. They are intended to:
- dramatically redistribute income and wealth both at home and internationally
- enlarge the state sector
- achieve national self sufficiency in investment
- enforce "ethical" investment
- introduce industry planning
- deny farmers access to water and technology
- give organised labour new concessions and powers
As this agenda shows, the Greens are far from a single issue party.
The extreme versions of this socialist model have collapsed spectacularly around the world and the milder manifestations in countries such as our own have been drastically modified to encourage economic freedom and growth. The devil is in the detail of the processes that impinge upon the lives of individual Australians. There are a few unavoidable consequences.
A much more progressive tax scale will enforce significant redistribution of income and wealth. As total revenue must also increase substantially (see below) the income tax will have to bear very heavily on middle income earners (lower incomes will benefit from a higher tax threshold). The new estate duties will also need to be very progressive. Together with the multitude of new taxes (see below), which are ultimately borne by all consumers, the Green policy outcome is to tax productive, thrifty individuals very hard.
National self-sufficiency in investment and the associated control of "speculation" is an extreme version of the old controls on capital flows. These will require import and export controls, as well as exchange controls on the currency of a severity generally confined to wartime. With this policy we would be virtually on our own in the world, apart from certain closed societies such as North Korea and Cuba. If the policy worked, it would create immediate disruption and loss of confidence. It would deprive us of access to the surplus capital (savings) of other countries -- not very bright when Green policies require major new investment and while our domestic saving rate is headed toward zero.
The policy would also require strict rationing of foreign currency for current payments to bring the current account of the balance of payments to a net zero -- to match the capital account. At such a time, one would not like to be at the Reserve Bank counter explaining to migrants that they could not send money to their ailing parents, or to a businessman with a legal obligation to pay debt interest, or to importers from China with invoices in hand, or to travellers needing foreign currency to visit family or go on holiday. This policy is patent nonsense.
The alternative is a currency board which would simply sell foreign currency to who ever bids. With capital inflow banned, this arrangement would ensure a very low and unstable A$.
The Greens would exert government pressure on superannuation funds to make "ethical" investments. This faces two obvious objections. One is that super funds are legally obliged to invest to maximise the return to superannuants. Apart from this strict legal requirement, restricting the funds' investment choices reduces their potential to do their best. Do superannuants really want Bob Brown's acolytes to run their super fund? Do we want to forego benefits of high pensions for pretentious notions of "ethics" expressed by naive Green activist? Some people may, and they should be free to do so, but they should not be free to commandeer the savings of the majority who simply want the best chance of a secure retirement.
Industry planning as proposed by the Greens has a long history of failure. It creates permanently inefficient, high cost industries. With great and enduring pain, Australia removed industry protection and subsidies, which were part of the Country Party's planned approach to manufacturing. The economy did not collapse and consumers benefited. Protection of ecologically sustainable industries will be the same. Perhaps the greatest experiment in preserving culture and environment in this way is the European Common Agricultural policy. QED
Enlarging the state sector substantially, as proposed, hints at the nationalisation of enterprises, particularly in the transport and communication sectors. Privatisation in Australia has not always lived up to expectations but even a cursory comparison of the present structure against the hidebound, overmanned, inefficient state bodies of the past should convince that a wholesale retreat to the public sector would not improve services or reduce prices.
One example is the Victorian electricity industry which, under government ownership, employed over 20,000 people. Today it has one third of these numbers producing 50 per cent more electricity. Do we really want our economy to be run under wasteful conditions with all that this entails for drastically lower living standards?
The proposal to give state sponsored concessions to organised labour is damaging on several counts. Freeing up the labour markets creates employment; reregulating with a bias to labour will do the opposite. Granting a shorter working week and "lifestyle friendly work practices" has immediate appeal but a moment's reflection reveals the folly of it. It will simply add to costs. Consumers (workers) will pay for their shorter week in higher prices. With an aging population supported by a dwindling workforce, a shorter working week also sends all the wrong signals. France is already regretting its intemperate decision to shorten the working week.
There are many other aspects of the Green economic policies that are unworkable and damaging, but the real difficulty seems to be that the Greens live in a parallel world, which bears no resemblance to the real one.
ENERGY
The air of unreality and wishful thinking are strongest in energy policy.
The principal plank of the policy is to reduce energy consumption by reducing production. The biggest "gain" will be through phasing out use of coal by 2050. No new coal fired stations would be built and the existing ones would not be refurbished (presumably even to reduce emissions). We would thus lock up enormous energy reserves and deny ourselves by far the cheapest source of energy available to us.
It would also phase-out our second largest export industry, and force China, Japan and Korea to rely on dirtier sources of coal.
Nuclear power is the only really credible, clean, large-scale alternative and there is no question that the Greens would acquiesce to Australia using this to generate electricity.
Nuclear power aside, non-carbon emitting electricity sources are over twice the cost of conventionally generated electricity.
The Green's policy proposes "small scale distributed generators" but, especially as these will not be using fossil fuels, they are not a solution. Moreover, though intermittent forms of generation like solar can be currently produced at only a little over twice the cost of coal, this massively understates the penalty once significant quantities are involved. This is partly because existing wind generation is using the most useful sites. More importantly, wind energy is so unreliable and creates so many stability problems in the management of electricity supply that it is estimated by the Australian electricity market manager (NEMMCO) to require back up capacity to be installed for 92 per cent of its output. In addition, its dispersed nature would call for considerable additional expenditure in building the grid to allow its carriage to users.
Renewables are also increasingly subject to the sort of passionate environmental campaign with which the Greens are familiar.
Currently the heavily subsidised renewables are sheeted to supply 2 per cent of Australia's electricity. Even this will put an annual cost on the economy of between $380 and $530 million. Additional imposts will seriously damage our competitiveness.
The Green energy world will be one of high energy prices, smaller, more expensive homes, less lighting, heating and air conditioning, less travel, more expensive consumer goods and frequent power interruptions. Like all production driven policies it will require strict controls and rationing on the consumption side. Rationing will be broad based by blackout, and bureaucratised through licences granted to the favoured few.
Again, ordinary Australians would see a dramatic decline in their living standards and many of our resource industries would disappear overseas.
In case anyone should attempt an end run around this policy, we would also lock up our massive oil shale reserves, which could well be economic now at current oil price levels. Large-scale (clean) hydro-electric power would also be banned.
We are supposed to cope with this almost energy free world through increased energy efficiency and conservation on the demand side and renewable energy sources on the other.
As the policy contains an overarching right of the population to energy services, rationing or price will largely drive this efficiency and conservation. Prices would indeed increase dramatically but not enough to more than halve our use.
Low-income groups will suffer most from Green energy policies as they have the least capacity to adapt, least influence to jump the rationing queue and the least resources to pay high prices. They will also be the first to lose their jobs in the shrinking economy that would be a consequence of the Green plan.
IMMIGRATION
Immigration policy is stood on its head. More precisely, it disappears between the jaws of population policy and refugee policy.
Population policy is based upon ecological sustainability, which implies low population growth and low overall immigration numbers.
Such immigration as is allowed will be dominated by family reunion and humanitarian -- refugees/asylum seekers -- categories.
Refugee entry will be encouraged in a number of ways:
- an expanded refugee intake -- this is not quantified and in practice would depend upon how many people happened to arrive
- humanitarian visa categories will be expanded to include all who are displaced by famine, poverty, environmental degradation, war, political oppression or any direct or indirect denial of their fundamental human rights -- this covers hundreds of millions of people
- immigration will not discriminate on grounds of language, education, disability, sexuality etc -- we will accept virtually anybody
- all entrants without visas will be presumed to be asylum seekers and given every assistance to establish their refugee status -- a stowaways charter
- asylum seekers will be released with full social service support within 14 days unless security checks are negative -- given the time such checks can take this means an effective 14 days holding period
- existing temporary refugee visa holders will be given immediate permanent residence
- if asylum seekers are detained or ordered to be repatriated, they will be allowed unlimited rights to legal challenge with full welfare entitlements and legal aid at all stages.
- reception centres will be open door
- much of the interdiction and detention apparatus will be dismantled.
Over the whole immigration program there will be less emphasis on financial resources and English language skills in selection of migrants.
The message seems clear.
If you are a skilled tradesman or talented businessman or a hardworking blue collar worker from a peaceful and prosperous country, and do not have family in Australia, you would not welcome and your chances of coming to Australia are negligible.
The surest mode of immigration to Australia (though not the safest) will be for those from the numerous disturbed countries of the world. They can pay an enterprising boat owner, who would then be able to pass largely unhindered through our waters under the new non-interdiction policies. The migrants could then claim refugee status on arrival. They will then enter a fast stream, welfare-supported process to rapid permanent residence in Australia; then send for their families. In short, we will abandon our existing immigration program, designated an outstanding success by a recent Flinders University study, for virtually uncontrolled entry of immigrants of unknown quality. Immigration becomes a random international welfare policy tool rather than a focussed program of benefit to Australia.
The benefits to Australia from this policy are unclear to say the least.
OTHER POLICIES
The Green policy document is 180 pages long. There are many other policies that deserve detailed analysis. Collectively they are an unsustainable wish list. Several, however, merit at least brief comment.
There is a proposal for a guaranteed adequate income for all Australians at a level above the poverty line. The cost of this measure and its effects on the incentive to work are impossible to calculate without extensive financial and economic modelling but they would be many billions of dollars. This policy is either naïve or a cruel hoax on public pensioners.
Censorship would be extended to include video games, live performances and all leisure technologies. The mixture of liberationist and puritan in the Green makeup is worth further study, particularly with the New Left and the "pink" revolution
A raft of new official bodies and consultative processes will be set up including a Commissioner for Children, a federal energy agency, a National Commissioner for Ecological Sustainability, an Australian multinational company ombudsman and an Office for the Status of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex People.
The Greens will work for fair trade at the international level, not free trade. This might make the EU very happy, but it would entail a vast new bureaucracy to determine the "fair" price and to enforce sales and purchases at these prices. Nothing like this has been tried since the failure of the Soviet Gosplan. As an addendum, Australian companies will be obliged to meet Australian environmental standards when operating overseas and the government would facilitate foreigners' legal challenges to their operations. As this would result in Australian law overriding the laws of counties in which these firm operate, it would cause great disquiet in the international community.
The illegal drug policy of the Greens has been widely discussed. It should be noted that the Greens did not say that they proposed "examining" the question of making illegal drugs available. The policy says "The Greens will initiate or support" the decriminalisation of cannabis for personal use, pilot programs to make heroin available in controlled conditions, the controlled availability of cannabis and investigation of the options to supply ecstasy in controlled environments. People differ widely on this matter but the Greens have given a clear signal that they favour liberalisation of drug laws.
Internationally, The Greens favour the break up of our nearest large neighbour, Indonesia, through self-determination for West Papua and Aceh.
PAYING FOR YOUR GREENS
It is customary for minor parties not to cost their policies in any detail. The Australian public should now be told the total cost of Green policies as a condition of taking seriously the Green's claim to participate in the governance of Australia.
In the event, almost no costing of policies seems to have been done. The package is non-exclusive wish list of interests clustered under the Green banner. This is a quite serious problem as the policies incorporate a breathtaking array of new initiatives and increases in spending on current programs. There are over a thousand in all.
The new spending measures are too numerous to recount here. They cover almost every area of existing government and a host of new initiatives. Many of them are almost open-ended and extraordinarily financially absorbent. These include across-the-board increases in spending on childcare, education, health, housing, aged care, pensions, youth, Aboriginal affairs, welfare, occupational health and safety, foreign aid, research, arts and others.
Under each of these headings, multiple increases and new programs are proposed, as well as significant slackening in expenditure control mechanisms.
There are also the universal indirect costs which will flow from centralised economic planning, policing the centrally planned ecology, intervention in economic activity, redirection of superannuation investment and prohibition of foreign investment. All of these extra burdens are to be carried by the productive sectors of the economy.
The Greens might argue that they have made provision for extra finance although this is by no means clear.
Certainly there will be many new and increased taxes [see Box below]. The staggering array of new taxes may well kill the economic goose that lays the golden egg. Expenditure programs would become academic. Insofar as they did not send the economy over the cliff, they would almost certainly not cover the new spending programs. The massive growth in government will be accompanied by a massive growth in the Commonwealth deficit.
The Greens propose that this all be financed internally -- there will be no overseas borrowing -- from the currently almost nil private savings which the prosperity induced by their policies will generate. At this point, Green policy enters the realm of fantasy fiction.
WHO WILL PAY?
There is no Magic Pudding. The mainstay of the working population, comprising wage and salary earners and small business, will pay for the Green policies. The government always ends up counting on them, because their earnings represent most of the reward for productive effort.
The policies will hit hardest those on the bottom of the social scale. The "guaranteed adequate income" is a sham because it is an oxymoron. It cannot be guaranteed at a level adequate to protect the poor from the effects of higher prices for goods and services, scarce and costly energy, and reduced availability of transport options (no cars for the poor).
In that sense, the Green world will turn out at least as inequitable as that which now exists, with the rider that we will all be worse off together.
CONCLUSION
Both Green policies, and Green candidates ought to be rejected at the next election.
This is not simply because those policies are xenophobic, inward looking and based on poor understanding of the world.
It is not simply because they fail to demonstrate public benefit. It is not because they will undermine the incentives to work, to innovate and to create wealth. It is not even because they patently won't work.
It is because they are a rerun of a whole political philosophy and structure that has been resoundingly rejected, not only in the West, but also by all those countries that applauded the destruction of the Berlin Wall.
Pursuing these policies in Parliament, the Greens will seek to pressure other parties to:
- restrict the use of energy
- shrink the economy
- restrict the flow of skilled people and foreign funds to Australia
- restrict the import of goods and services
- regulate our society in detail
These policies will make us all worse off. The poor will suffer most. No other party, and only a tiny minority of closed communist societies, is trying to do this. In the end, the policies stifle natural and fundamental human aspirations to better our condition and that of succeeding generations.
MORE TAXES FOR ALL
The Australian Greens' Taxations Policy
NEW TAXES OR TAX INCREASES (POLICY SECTION REFERENCE)
- Increased income tax rates (3.3.2)
- New Consumption tax with multiple rates (3.3.8)
- Increase capital gain tax (3.3.9,3.3.10)
- Higher Fringe Benefit tax (3.3.3)
- Eliminate salary sacrificing (3.3.3)
- Introduce estate duties [including family home] (3.3.11)
- Introduce gift tax (3.3.12)
- Higher Medicare levy with progressive rates (3.3.15, 3.3.16)
- Eliminate Private Health Insurance rebate (3.3.18)
- Increased taxations of superannuation(3.3.19, 3.3.20)
- Tax family trusts (3.3.14)
- Increased company tax to 33% (3.3.21)
- Tax on franked dividends (3.3.22)
- Carbon levy (3.3.24)
- Increased timber royalties (17.1.8)
- Tax equivalent on non recycled paper (17.1.8)
- Tax bottles and containers (17.1.7)
- plastic bag levy (17.1.7)
- private transport user tax (2.4,2.5)
- Tax on batteries (7.1.12)
- Increased tax on rental property (3.3.28)
- Mining environmental levy (15.1.6)
- Nutrient pollution tax (3.3.25)
- Tax on fossil fuel usage (3.3.25)
- Tax on water pollution (3.3.25)
- Tax on soil pollution (3.3.25)
- Tax on air pollution (3.3.25)
- Tax on timber use (3.3.25)
- Tax on use of ocean (3.3.25)
- Tax on use of freshwater (3.3.25)
- Tax on mineral use (3.3.25)
- Tax on land sites according to land value (3.3.25)
- Tax on electromagnetic spectrum assets (3.3.25)
- Tax on petroleum (3.3.25)
- Higher taxes on ecologically damaging industries 3.3.27)
- Currency transaction tax (3.3.36)
- 33 % tax surcharge on high corporate salaries (3.3.31)
- Pay-roll tax to fund employee entitlements (4.3.25)
- Landfill taxes (16.2.3)
- Increased environmental charges and fines (16.2.3, 16.2.8)
TAX ELIMINATION OR REDUCTIONS (POLICY SECTION REFERENCE)
- GST (Replaced with consumption tax) (3.3.8)
- Cut tax on bartering or black market (3.3.29)
- Increase tax-free threshold (3.3.31)
- Tax cut for non-frequent flyers (3.16)
- Eliminate Higher Educations charge (2.18)
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