I can see it all unfold now. The Greens will bend Gillard over again and force her to introduce the new "container deposit system". Labor will set up a "Container refund Enforcement Administration" at a cost of 80 million dollars. It will be managed by ex-union officials who demand a cushy government job in return for not letting any embarrassing secrets slip out to press. A further 10 million dollars will be spent on advertisements to educate the public about the dangers of grocery store owners and school tuck-shops in Liberal electorates ripping them off by increasing prices due to extra paperwork and encouraging them to report businesses to the ACCC. The Sanitation and Recycling Workers Union will organise a series of rolling strikes and work-to-rule days to protest the risk to their jobs by scab non-union labour (children collecting bottles to take to the recycling depot for pocket money) and demand a 9.5 wage increase each year for 3 years to compensate them. Pensioners will get angry about the increased cost of their weekly grocery bill, and the Greens will then blame Labor for disadvantaging pensioners who cannot leave the house and demand that pensioners are exempted from the bottle and can levy. Labor will form a senate committee to do a feasibility study on mandatory separate labelling for bottles and cans for pensioners and low income families, with a plastic ID card and a system of Medicare-like offices where pensioners and umemployed can go to lodge their bottle and can refund coupons and receive a cash payment minus the carbon tax levy. Greens lawyers will launch a class action against the government on behalf of boat people who are unfairly disadvantaged because they cannot cash in their empty drink bottles because there is no bottle depot on Christmas Island. Labor will spend 2 million dollars on a "Bottle and Can Watch" website which will receive 7 hits per month. Tony Abbott will once again be handed Labor's head on a platter and he still won't know what to do with it.
Are you a politician or do you right policy for govt? What you wrote sounds like what they do down to the letter...... I have always said I wish I was an adopted, lesbian, midget, middle eastern boat person, single mother, low income, unemployed, person on a pension. I could say and do anything
Don't you mean it's what happens when there is insufficient taxation? Surely if they can clean the air with a tax, they can ensure clean water with a tax as well. For everyone one else that doesn't believe in the efficiency of taxation to provide positive outcomes, its an unfortunate consequence of an unbelievably over-bearing government that we have to take steps to ensure our water is safe to drink. Here's one way of doing that. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG5uE32AM0U[/youtube]
You know, it's funny how many people around here enjoy extolling the virtues of "user pays" systems until they realise that they're actually users themselves. Then it becomes a case of rationalising why they still shouldn't have to pay anything. It would be more amusing if it wasn't so sad.
I think we should go totalitarian. Forget about the taxes. Just make non-returnable food and drink containers illegal. Then the cost goes to manufacturer and the user pays, not the rest of us.
Rubbish. I have no problem with user pays. I get annoyed when I am forced into a user-pays-multiple-times system. I pay for a non-optional recycling bin in my rates. To slug me again through a recycling levy is nothing but a tax grab. Guess to make myself feel better I could just start dumping all my household recycling into the land fill bin. Might even start burning all the stuff I usually put in the green-waste bin too, so I get my mony's worth for the carbon tax.
Ok don't get me started.. I recycle everything, am so happy to do it. I called the council to ask for another bin..they EARN money from us sending our recycling to them...they said they were going to charge an extra two hundred and fifty dollars PER ANNUM for me to basically help them earn money. So i just put all the extra in the land fill bin. By the way, we have chooks for food scraps, recycle everything so the red bin is always less than half full.. That is a house of five people. No longer... Red bin is always full now with things that can go to recycling. Would really like to see how much the council MAKES from us all, and then see why our rates are not REDUCED as we are clearly adding to the budget, not depleting it. Oh no, the rates keep going sky high. end of rant.