Obama Praises Australia’s Draconian Carbon Tax

Businesses face million dollar fine merely for suggesting tax will cause higher prices
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, November 17, 2011

President Barack Obama has ominously praised Australia’s draconian carbon tax, even as details emerge over how the government plans to fine businesses up to $1.1 million dollars merely for suggesting the fact that the new tax will cause prices to rise.

During a press conference yesterday, Obama praised Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard for pursuing “a bold strategy” in passing the highly controversial carbon tax bill.

“I think that’s good for the world,” Obama said. “I actually think, over the long term, it’s good for our economies, as well, because it’s my strong belief that industries, utilities, individual consumers — we’re all going to have to adapt how we use energy and how we think about carbon.”

In reality, the carbon tax is set to devastate Australia’s economy and send energy prices skyrocketing even as the world teeters on the brink of a financial collapse.

Illustrating how overwhelmingly unpopular the new tax is amongst both businesses and consumers, the Australian government has been forced to impose draconian punishments on retailers merely for complaining or informing their customers about how the new rules will cause price hikes.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission 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,” which in real terms means that firms can be fined up to $1.1 million dollars merely for running promotions that suggest the tax will cause prices to rise, such as “Beat the Carbon Tax – Buy Now” or “Buy now before the carbon tax bites”.

“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,” writes Miranda Devine.

“It’s all very Orwellian: the tax whose name cannot be spoken. We are already paying for the climate-change hysteria that has gripped Australia for a decade.”

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The ban on all dissent against the carbon tax will be enforced by teams of “carbon cops” who roam the streets conducting snap inspections of businesses to ensure they are not making any reference to the tax, set to take effect from July 1 next year, as part of their pricing structure.

Energy costs in Australia have already risen by 17 per cent in the last six months, with a huge jump in the number of people who have had their electricity supply cut off because of their inability to afford the hike.

“But no matter how Orwellian the tactics, no matter how many carbon cops are sent into hairdressing salons to interrogate barbers on the precise nature of their price rises, the truth remains: Australia has gone out on a limb, imposing a carbon tax that will send businesses to the wall, cause undue hardship to families, and tether Australians more tightly to government handouts,” writes Devine.

“And soon, we will send billions of dollars overseas to buy useless pieces of paper called carbon credits. Invesment bankers, lawyers and carbon traders will get rich, as will all the usual spivs and scam artists ready to stick a bucket under the government spigot raining taxpayer cash.”

As we have documented, the entire carbon tax scam is a monumental fraud which does nothing to help the environment even if you believe in climate change hysteria, in that its primary purpose is to line the pockets of ‘carbon billionaires’ like Al Gore and Maurice Strong.

Obama’s support for Australia’s carbon tax is unsurprising given the fact that he was “instrumental in developing and launching the privately-owned Chicago Climate Exchange” via millions of dollars in donations from the Joyce Foundation, with whom Obama served as a director. His administration has also been aggressively carrying out Obama’s promise to “bankrupt” the coal industry through meddling EPA regulations that have prevented desperately needed coal-fired plants from being built in the U.S.

Carbon trading schemes are directly connected to people in third world nations like Honduras and Uganda being brutally evicted from their land and in some cases slaughtered in cold blood. Western companies make billions from seizing land and using it to grow trees in return for lucrative carbon credits which are then sold to companies under carbon tax schemes like the one just passed in Australia.