Carbon tax is socialism by deceit.

CORE VALUES: Prime Minister Julia Gillard's carbon tax plan is really an attempt at wealth redistribution. Source: Sunday Herald Sun

THE only incontestable truth relating to the carbon tax is not the warming planet, but that Julia Gillard was always going to inflict a wealth distribution tax on Australia.

The carbon tax is nothing about cooling the planet; it is everything about wealth redistribution.
Prime Minister Gillard has tried hard to distance herself from the radical socialist ideology she promulgated at the start of her career. Her words repeatedly betray these values; her actions wholeheartedly embrace them.
The structure of the carbon tax is a basal lesson in human nature. People rarely abandon their core values and, given the opportunity to action them, will do so, no matter how much deceit is involved.
As a carbon reduction exercise, the carbon tax will fail at the global level. Australia produces about 1.5 per cent of the world's total greenhouse emissions. The best modelling suggests that if we closed down all of our industries, the temperature drop would be so small that it would not be detectable in most thermometers.

The carbon tax will do nothing to reduce climate degradation and the Gillard Government will eventually need to tell voters the embarrassing answer to how much temperatures will fall as a result of the tax.
The best argument in support of the tax is that it will set an example for other high-emitting countries, such as the US, China, Russia and India.
But the trend of human history shows that this aspiration is illusory. Australia has no international power or authority. In this sphere only two currencies count: wealth and military strength. We fare poorly on both. Other countries don't care what we do. They don't want to impress us because it is not in their self-interest.
Moreover, the tax is unlikely to achieve even the modest emission reductions proposed by government modelling. Most people will be financially better off under the tax and have no incentive to change their behaviour.
But that won't faze Gillard one bit. The design of the carbon tax shows that it can be explained by only one rational objective: to take money from the rich and give it to the poor. The richest 10 per cent of households will now be forced to donate more of the products of their labour to the other households.
A tax aimed solely at reducing carbon emissions should affect every individual equally. The fact that there are distinct groups of winners and losers under the tax indicates that the aim of the carbon tax is other than to reduce emissions.
Gillard has achieved, under the supposed imperative of temperature cooling, the socialist utopia of wantonly taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
There are sound theoretical arguments for moving more towards a needs, as opposed to merit, based society and economy. There are also strong counter arguments for not introducing incentive-zapping economic reforms.
The real tragedy is the Australian community didn't have the opportunity to engage in this debate.
----------------
Mirko Bagaric is a professor of law at Deakin University.