A lot has been said to defend this tax, one of the reasons I’ve heard is because the youth of Australia want this tax. The people against this tax have been portrayed as a bunch of old people who are only worried about their power bills and don’t care about the future of the planet. We have been told that we should support this tax because it will leave the earth in a better place for future generations. Well I am here today to say I am a young person I am against this tax. This tax will not save the planet and it will hurt the youth of this country the most. Already young people face an uphill battle to make a living for themselves, home ownership is slowly becoming a distant dream, food, fuel, electricity and water are constantly rising and this is all before the carbon tax. This is tax will result in cost of living becoming even more expensive, pushing many Australians to the poverty line and threatens our economic prosperity and therefore our standard of living that we have worked so hard for.

One thing that needs to be said is that the taxes must stop. This government’s taxing is out of control, it’s time we stood up and said we are not going to bear the burden of all this taxing. So far we have seen the government introduce the flood tax, the mining tax, the luxury car tax, and the increases in tobacco and alcohol tax. Worst of all the Australian people have not benefited from any of these taxes, all we have seen is the government spend our taxes on wasteful projects like the school halls, the pink bats and the ever growing list of failed green schemes. So far all these taxes have done is increased the cost of various goods and services without achieving any of the supposed changes in behaviour that these taxes are designed for.

This brings me on to my next point; his tax is also being sold as the almighty solution to global warming, that if we don’t have this tax the planet will be doomed. This mindset ignores the very nature of how this tax will operate, it will not change people’s energy’s uses and will hurt those who least can afford it. The end result of this tax will the carbon tax will be passed on by electricity companies and business to consumers who will pay the tax through already expensive electricity and everyday goods and services. The alleged clean energy alternatives that people are meant to switch to when electricity gets too expensive are in no way ready to be rolled out in mass supply to consumers, wind and solar have not yet proven themselves as affordable alternatives. So what choices are households left with? If we do need to switch our energy sources then it should be left to private industry to make it affordable to the market place, if climate change is such a grave threat to us then we should wait for the free market forces to provide a solution. We should not proceed with an ill-though out destructive tax which will only hurt society.

It is important for us to keep up the fight against this tax and stay united as a movement. Whether you are against this tax because it won’t work, because you don’t believe in climate change, or because of the deceptive way it’s being introduced our strength is our unity. No matter who you are or where you come from we need to keep on fighting this tax until we defeat it. It will be hard to defeat this tax but we can, so far we have been smeared by the mainstream media as a bunch of right wing nutters who want to bring about a dramatic overthrow of the government. But what is so nutty about exercising our democratic right to protest our disagreement against an action a government has taken. The anti war protesters were allowed to express this right, so were the anti work choices protesters, and so are we. We were not given a right to vote on this tax, and we will continue our opposition until a chance to vote on this tax is given and we will defeat it. This only the beginning and with the strength of democracy behind us we can win this fight.

The only group which is comprehensively and philosophically liberal is the Liberal Democratic Party, which has a platform of major tax reform and embraces the free movement of people and capital as well as acceptance of recreational drug taking, extreme sports and sex work, taking the policy position “if we prohibited everything we disapproved of, nobody would be free”. The LDP has failed to elect a single candidate and at the recent election in NSW ran as the Outdoor Recreation Party which probably indicates there are more votes in four-wheel-driving than the free exchange of labour and capital.

Let’s keep the FCC and the government out of the Internet.

The video from the Center of Freedom and Prosperity explains the benefit of tax competition and the threats of financial protectionism from the OECD.

The grinches at the tax office took advantage of Hogan’s return for his mother’s funeral to hold him hostage, refusing to let him leave the country until he coughs up some cash. It appears that the tax police in Australia are just as politicized and above the law as the IRS. Hogan has never been charged with tax evasion and there are plenty of signs that the bureaucrats want to make him a high-profile victim to justify the amount of money that has been squandered in a probe of supposed offshore evasion.

In light of the Ben Cousins documentary, there needs to be some clarification about what actions and behaviours people are and are not responsible for when taking drugs.

As opposed to the many highly functional business executives, doctors, lawyers, trades people, artists, police officers, service employees, farmers, small business owners etc who use these drugs, most of the harm that befell Ben was due to behaviour for which he should be held responsible for.

In fact the vast majority of users of these drugs do not act as recklessly as Ben. In this context, readers might appreciate clarification about the extent to which behaviours can be explained on a “disease” versus that of culpable lack of responsibility.

A number of quotes from Ben demonstrate that his actions were not due to a “disease.” They were essentially due to dysfunctional behaviour due to decisions he made.

Ultimately, people do have the option of whether to take drugs or not. Yes, some people are pre-disposed to have strong urges to take drugs. Some people experience intense feelings of internal turmoil for which drugs give temporary relief.  We should be very sympathetic to their plight and offer help. However, if drug use is hurting their lives, they have a responsibility to get help; not selfishly continue what they are doing and then blame it on “my drug disease”.

This is similar to the scandal whereby people are let off violent crime because they have a “drug problem.”

From a pharmacological, ethical, moral and philosophical perspective, taking these drugs is no different to drinking alcohol.

In this context we should not punish people who use drugs but are otherwise good citizens. We should however punish people who commit crime whether they take drugs or not. Criminal activity is not part of a “disease”; that’s a cop out.

About Dr Michael Keane

Dr Michael Keane is a consultant anaesthetist and bioethicist. He is also a National Health and Medical Research Council (NH&MRC) funded researcher into illicit drugs.

He holds the following positions:

Lecturer in public health at Monash University

Researcher at Swinburne University’s Brain Sciences Institute

Researcher at the University of Adelaide