Monday 23 May 2011

Abbott tries to calculate a carbon price on goods produced by a church-owned health food company


Here’s Tones in crusading mode last week as he began his latest media blitz against a national price on carbon pollution:
“This carbon tax is going to be so toxic because it's going to make the price of manufacturing everything here in Australia much, much higher,” Abbott told the Herald Sun at the NSW Sanitarium Health Foods factory, which makes the popular Weet-Bix breakfast cereal.”
Oooh, aah, we won’t be able to afford our hot weeties on a cold winter morning if the dastardly Gillard gets her way!
Hold on – isn’t there a small problem with this scenario? Not only is the manufacture of health foods, spreads, snacks and breakfast cereals not listed among the highest polluting industries in Oz, but the Australian Health & Nutrition Association Ltd (trading as Sanitarium) is owned by the very conservative Seventh Day Adventist Church, a charitable institution operating on Christian based principles.
Which is really a polite code signifying that its profits are protected in large measure (eg. Income Tax exemption, GST concession, FBT rebate) and under the new rules proposed by the Federal Government loss of tax exemption status will not apply to its existing commercial activities for some years to come.
So if anyone could absorb the probably low flow-on costs from a so-called carbon tax introduced in 2012-13 it would surely be this church-run business.
In fact the only price rises Sanitarium itself is foreshadowing are due to rising global commodity prices (including cereal grain prices) which affect its supply of raw materials. Something I'm sure they quietly told Tones. Along with the fact that the industry peak body to which it belongs told the Gillard Government in early 2011 that it agreed with a carbon pricing mechanism:
"AFGC is of the view that it is not a question of whether Australia should become more energy efficient and reduce emissions, but by how much, by what means and at what cost to the economy.
The most critical response to climate change is a globally consistent approach, including a common price signal for all greenhouse gas emissions. In this global context, Australia should develop a strategic national approach to emissions reduction and carbon pricing policy measures"
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