Closed for business…

The Science and Public Policy Institute undertakes the cost/benefit analysis of Australian climate mitigation policies that the Gillard government strangely doesn’t want to do.

Gillard and Combet are always banging on about a carbon tax being in the “national interest”, but the reality is that a tax with no benefit couldn’t be less in the national interest.

So, ladies and gentlemen, if we shut down Australia’s economy completely tomorrow, then by 2100, we would have slowed any man-made warming by:

0.01 degrees

So Julia, please explain why we are bothering with any kind of carbon price?

Read it here (PDF).

Thanks to Jo Nova, who did the wonderful graphic!

Andrew Bolt

Essential reading. The Left-wing media (read: the media) have been strangely silent on Julia’s “lie” about a carbon tax, and some have even attempted to portray it as the brave act of a strong leader! Compare and contrast that muted whisper with the cacophony of outrage that would have erupted had Tony Abbott been elected PM in August 2010, and then promptly introduced Work Choices again.

REMEMBER how so many journalists hated John Howard, who nevertheless won four elections in a row?

Remember how almost all the media backed a plan for a republic, only to have it rejected at the 1999 referendum?

How often have we seen this gulf in opinion between the mainstream media and the public they report to?

I suspect Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s lie may be the latest example.

It’s rare to see such overwhelming fury from a public at having been so brazenly deceived by a politician.

Before the election, as everyone now knows, Gillard repeatedly promised she would not introduce a tax on carbon dioxide emissions—in effect, a great green tax on electricity and petrol.

“There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead,” she said.

But six months later Gillard says she will indeed give us that carbon tax, and from next year, without even going to another election for a mandate.

The reason? Just one of the 150 members of the House of Representatives, the Greens’ Adam Bandt, demanded this tax, as did his leader, Bob Brown, holding the balance of power in the Senate.

Everyone knows Gillard broke her solemn word. And a great many people hate politicians lying to them so flagrantly, which is why the talkback lines are smoking, protest rallies are planned, and Essential Research, in a poll this week, detected a huge and election-losing drop in Labor’s support.

But in one part of Australia, that anger is not felt. No zephyr of protest wafts. No objection is raised to Gillard stealing an election with a lie.

That part of Australia is where some of our most influential political reporters and commentators work. To them, it seems, Gillard did no worse than make a compromise, and, indeed, she may have even risen to glory.

Read it all.