Australian PM Rudd Meets Reality Others want $5000 Child Tax

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd last night did an about-face on deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, days after Australia’s delegation backed the plan at the climate talks in Bali.A government representative at the talks this week said Australia backed a 25-40 per cent cut on 1990 emission levels by 2020.But after warnings it would lead to huge rises in electricity prices, Mr Rudd said the Government would not support the target.The repudiation of the delegate’s position represents the first stumble by the new Government’s in its approach to climate change. Source: heraldsun

A WEST Australian medical expert wants families to pay a $5000-plus “baby levy” at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child.

Writing in today’s Medical Journal of Australia, Associate Professor Barry Walters said every couple with more than two children should be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child’s lifetime.

Professor Walters, clinical associate professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia and the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth, called for condoms and “greenhouse-friendly” services such as sterilisation procedures to earn carbon credits.

Australian Family Association spokeswoman Angela Conway said it was ridiculous to blame babies for global warming.

“I think self-important professors with silly ideas should have to pay carbon tax for all the hot air they create,” she said. “There’s masses of evidence to say that child-rich families have much lower resource consumption per head than other styles of households.

But the plan won praise from high-profile doctor Garry Egger. “One must wonder why population control is spoken of today only in whispers,” he wrote in an MJA response article.

Source: news.com