“Farmers and coal miners, people who put product on the boat and pay for our Nation, have to be protected from the ramifications of the Emissions Trading Scheme which will be a direct tax on their capacity to operate”, according to Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce.
“The ETS is a bad tax. It’s a tax on people whether you make a profit or not and it’s a tax on people just because they exist. It’s a tax that’s accompanied by an army of bureaucrats.
“If you believe in small business you cannot believe in an ETS. If you believe in the right of Australia to maintain its food sovereignty by the capacity of the Nation to feed itself, you cannot believe in an ETS”, says Senator Joyce.
“If you have any appreciation of the economic condition we are currently in where the only way to pay our staggering debt is to send our products overseas protecting our major exports, you would not believe in the ETS.”
“However if you have some vain belief that a stockbroker in the middle of town pushing paper round and collecting commission off all those who are actually productive in our economy is a way forward, then I suppose you would believe in the current ETS”, says Senator Joyce.
“The ETS in its current form will be one of the most devastating taxes on the Australian economy and unfortunately this argument only gets proved right or wrong once you implement it but by then its too late, the damage will be done.”
“Australia must recognise the perilous economic condition it’s placed itself in with excessive debt and excessive reliance on overseas funds. We must realise that the only way we are going to pay back the debt is to maintain our capacity to produce in an export market.”
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