The proposal that agriculture be subject to a carbon tax must rank as one of the worst aspects of the rush to tax carbon dioxide.
Our agricultural exports are enjoyed by others elsewhere on the planet, yet the government is being urged to draw into the carbon tax scheme a major export activity where any extra cost imposition has little to offer in changing behaviour and much to fear from unintended consequences.
Although agriculture is only 2 per cent of our GDP, two thirds of its products are exported. Agriculture is responsible for 13 per cent of our merchandise exports, reported in great detail by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and totaling $32 billion in 2008-09. The Department of Climate Change has modeled Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and estimated that it is 15 per cent of our total emissions. The certainty of our export statistics is in stark contrast to the unverifiable estimate of the agricultural emissions.
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