Tax on breathing better than carbon

THE Federal Government has announced it will introduce a tax on breathing out after studies found humans were emitting carbon and destroying the planet.

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THE Federal Government has announced it will introduce a tax on breathing out after scientific studies found humans were emitting carbon and destroying the planet.

Prime Minister Julia Gizzard said it was hoped the tax would discourage excessive breathing out and persuade people to adopt more sustainable respiratory habits.

“At this stage we don't intend to tax breathing in, but we may ultimately have to adopt a user-pays approach to oxygen to help save forests and anything else that produces air,” she said.

Ms Gizzard said disadvantaged Australians would have to pay the breathing out tax but would be compensated through money raised by higher taxes on Liberal voters.

“We also expect many of them will hold their breath or store their own carbon to be released into the wild at some point in the future,” she said.

Green groups have called on the Government to tax everything that breathes, moves or emits anything to discourage any form of human activity.

Industry groups claim that any tax on any form of carbon will cause all businesses to go broke, costing thousands of jobs and putting at risk corporate Christmas parties and Friday lunches.

Ms Gizzard described climate change as “the greatest moral and political challenge facing me this week”.

She rejected claims that taxing breathing out would threaten Australia's international competitiveness.“We intend to be a world leader in introducing ridiculous taxes,” she said.

“We may be a small country in the middle of nowhere but that should never hold us back from being an international laughing stock.”

Ms Gizzard conceded she had promised during the election that she would not introduce a tax on breathing.

“But you need to remember that was early in the campaign when I was a wind-up Labor-controlled fembot, rather than the ‘real Julia' who emerged after the polls went bad,” she said.

The Prime Minister announced the new tax while surrounded by Greens and independents who had apparently captured her and held her hostage.

She denied her decision had been influenced by the kidnapping, noting that outspoken independent Rob Buckshot was now sporting a beard and looked a bit like 1970's Saturday matinee idol Grizzly Adams.

“I'm told the beard captures 30% of breathed out carbon and I would encourage all Australians to grow one. Mostly men,” she said.

Thirsty Cow is fictional. Any similarities between it and anything living are unintended. Thirsty Cow takes no responsibility for the world and all of its contradictions.

Originally published as Tax on breathing better than carbon