True that "The carbon tax is no RSPT" - but more than it

Comments on Rob Burgess “The carbon tax is no RSPT”, 14/03/2011, http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/carbon-tax-Julia-Gillard-Tony-Abbott-RSPT-pd20110314-EWRLU?OpenDocument&src=sph&src=rot

I think Rob Burgess is too optimistic on the relativity of carbon tax versus RSPT.

The political difficulties of a carbon tax and sell it to the public, businesses and political parties are no easier than the RSPT.

Yes, Rudd and Swan made huge mistakes in being inflexible in their approach to the RSTP, though as the subsequent MRRT showed it would be a much easier job to achieve a mineral tax even though it was arguably possible to do better than Gillard's MRRT.

For a carbon tax, the political interests diverge to a much greater extent. There are differences between businesses and consumers in terms of impact and compensations. There are differences between political parties in terms of how much the tax should be to achieve a particular goal.

Further, while a mineral profit tax only targets a sector of the economy, a carbon tax affects the whole society, businesses and consumers alike.

Who or what business does not consume energy that has emissions attached to it?

As well, the carbon tax is supposed to tackle global warming and there is a legitimate point about the effectiveness of Australia's action alone.

There are uncertainties about the science. There are uncertainties about the effectiveness. There are about the management of the current government in terms of policy delivery and project management in terms of waste of public money.

Those are not so easy to overcome as Rob Burgess suggests.