Heating a fuel tax is explosive politics

Heating a fuel tax is explosive politics | The Australian

In any contest between morality and money, however, money usually wins. This is underscored by the findings of a joint government and industry survey in Britain last month, which confirmed that for the public, worrying about climate change was one thing, but paying to do something about it was something else. The snapshot of attitudes for the Energy Saving Trust found 80 per cent of the public believed climate change was having an impact, but few were doing anything about it. Most people were not willing to forgo a foreign holiday or plasma television to help. And government measures such as new taxes, congestion charges and carbon rationing were considered to be less socially acceptable than banning smoking in public or same-sex marriages. Only 5 per cent of the 1192 people surveyed thought setting a personal pollution limit was a good idea. It is not difficult to imagine what result the Opposition would get in Australia if it polled motorists on whether they favoured a new 10c, 20c or 30c a litre tax on petrol.