The government is attempting to bypass Parliament to hold its same-sex marriage postal survey. Credit:Andrew Meares Last December, the government released three discussion papers examining how to improve fuel quality and vehicle emissions standards. The overriding goal was to help Australia achieve the emissions reduction targets it agreed at the Paris summit by making our cars more efficient and fuel less dirty. It's a discussion worth having. Unlike countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, India and Canada, there are no minimum fuel efficiency standards for light vehicles in Australia. That makes us a global outlier. The government asked for feedback from interested parties: car manufacturers, health and environment groups and motorist associations. On Monday afternoon, the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development emailed stakeholders with a proposed model for a new fuel efficiency standard. Again, feedback from interested parties was welcomed.

Details of the proposed standard - which is tougher than car makers had expected - were soon passed on to journalists, who wrote it up for the next day's papers. And that's where things started going wrong. The Daily Telegraph splashed on its front page with the story: "A 'carbon tax' on all new vehicles in Australia - that will push up the cost of our most popular cars by thousands of dollars - is being proposed by the Turnbull government." Except it isn't. The new fuel efficiency standard would make some cars more expensive and there would be financial penalties for car companies that break the rules. But that doesn't make it a "tax" (in the sense of being a compulsory financial contribution imposed by government to raise revenue). Just as any news story with an error isn't "fake news", any measure to reduce carbon emissions isn't necessarily a "tax".

But "carbon tax" is a catchy phrase, loaded with political baggage, so outlets such as The Australian and Fairfax Media followed The Tele and ran with this angle. The headlines made life momentarily difficult for Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg but, in another sense, they were a gift. "This story is a beat up," Frydenberg said. "The government has no plans to introduce a carbon tax on the family car - it's about as likely as Elvis coming back." And with that sound bite, TV and radio interviewers quickly moved on, leaving viewers and listeners unclear about what the government plans to do.

Into the factual vacuum stormed Opposition Leader Bill Shorten who declared: "You have the government putting out a discussion paper proposing a carbon tax on motor vehicles ... What I say today is that Labor has no plans and will not have a carbon tax on motor vehicles." He then said: "We believe you have to have emissions standards in vehicles. We want greater fuel efficiency." In other words, Labor supports the government's actual policy (vehicle emissions standards) but has ruled out supporting a fictitious policy (a carbon tax on cars). Loading For politicians and journalists alike it's no wonder, on days such as this, the public professes to have such little faith in what we do.

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