Bad for Gillard
Andrew Bolt’s column on the carbon tax announcement sums up the frustration and disenfranchisement many of us are feeling this morning:
JULIA Gillard’s carbon tax is the most brazen fraud perpetrated by an Australian government.
Warming believers should be outraged that the tax is so useless. Sceptics should be outraged it’s so pointless.
It offends the intelligence of everyone and threatens the jobs of thousands.
For nothing.
The Prime Minister yesterday claimed “the science is in” and man’s gasses were heating the planet dangerously.
But not even Gillard dares to claim that the tax she’s finally unveiled will stop any of that warming, or change the climate in any way – because it won’t. It can’t. (source)
News.com.au runs a poll on the carbon tax, and the results aren’t pretty. However, GetUp has obviously been mobilised to vote on this, as the results are far less dramatic than they were yesterday evening, but they are still damning (see graphic):
ANGRY Australians have vowed to vote Julia Gillard from office at the next election after today’s controversial carbon tax announcement.
Scores of voters rejected the plan soon after details of the $24.5 billion package to tackle climate change were revealed, with more than 80 per cent who voted in a national online poll saying Australia shouldn’t have a carbon tax.
Almost 100,000 votes were cast by more than 25,000 people across four polls in News Limited’s “Carbon Tax Plebiscite”, with 87.1 per cent saying they planned to change their vote at the next election in light of the tax.
More than 70 per cent of voters, or 15,866 people, said they now planned to vote for the Coalition at the next election while just 8.51 per cent said they would support a Labor government.
Just 13 per cent of voters said they wouldn’t change their vote at the next election. (source – vote at the link)
Industry is unimpressed:
CANBERRA’S grand carbon tax reform package will only raise the growing alarm in the business community that the Gillard government just doesn’t understand the meaning of the bottom line or the pressures facing industry and the economy.
It will be hard enough to convince highly sceptical voters that the carbon tax is an important economic and environmental reform that won’t leave most of their budgets worse off.
But most of the business community, already coping with massive structural changes, will be even less persuaded that this scheme has merit, let alone that it deserves the title of major reform. The $23 a tonne tax is high enough to increase costs on business but not sufficiently high to do what the government promises it will — drive substantial change in energy use, provide investment certainty or reduce global warming.
What it does produce is the churning of billions of dollars in and out of Canberra, intrusive and inefficient regulation and a (hopefully) modest drag on economic growth just when the non-mining sector feels so weighed down. (source)
Tim Blair takes Gillard’s address to pieces:
“Most Australians now agree our climate is changing, this is caused by carbon pollution, this has harmful effects on our environment and on the economy and the government should act.”
Most Australians don’t want a carbon tax.
“The first Australian government to announce a plan for a carbon price was John Howard’s back in 2007.”
And look where it got him. And Kevin Rudd. And Malcolm Turnbull. Gillard is shooting for a climate change four-peat.
“A lot has happened since then; the debate has been difficult and divisive. But we have now had the debate – 2011 is the year we decide that as a nation we want a clean energy future.”
Whoa! The debate is over now? The Prime Minister’s powers evidently now extend to public opinion.
Frankly, she could do with a little more practice on her own cabinet first.
“Now is the time to move from words to deeds.”
Several words from which the Prime Minister dearly wishes we could move: “There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.”
That sentence didn’t survive as fact for even one year. (source)
Jo Nova:
“Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.” Henning Webb Prentis, Jr., President of the Armstrong Cork Company 1943
The quoted passage from Prentis is known as “the fatal sequence”, and the only good news is that we don’t have to stay on the road to bondage. The message about the real science and economics is spreading from BBQ to BBQ, dinner to dinner, through letters to the editors, and through phone calls to radio stations. Information is our friend, and when it comes down to it, we can do it without the lamestream media, and the ABC. They can rubber-stamp the government PR, and union sponsored activists can try to cancel speeches that might reveal the truth, but these distant messengers don’t come between family and friends.
Word-of-mouth spreads the story with an exponential growth curve. There’s a one way stream of people leaving the “carbon faith” and shifting to skepticism, there’s virtually no flow the other way.
Sooner or later the hard rock meets the immovable force and when 70% of the country know that the tax is a lie, based on deceit, wallowing in corruption and plastered with vested interests it will be all over — all over for the tax, all over for Labor Party credibility, all over for the witchdoctors who think they can change the weather. (source)
Letter from Viv Forbes:
Carbon Tax Mark 4 is flimsy but dangerous.
Because of public opposition to a new tax on everything, the tax has been gutted. The PM hopes to buy public support by giving exemptions to almost everyone and offering widespread bribes to voters. It is now feeble and ineffective.
But the Green-Gillard coalition is desperate and such people cannot be trusted. They will say or promise anything in order to get this new tax introduced.
Once on the law books, the exemptions will be whittled away, the tax rate will increase and the tax bribes will disappear. It is a stealthy cancer in the gut of the Australian economy.
The cost of electricity, food, fuel and travel will increase, but few people will recognise the root cause. Politicians will blame “Woolworths, power suppliers and Big Oil” for the pain.
This new stealth tax is the thin edge of the wedge.
It will have no effect on the climate, but is a fiscal weapon too dangerous to be left in the hands of green extremists.
Leaving Bob Brown loose with the vast powers of a carbon tax is like leaving the grandkids alone in the hayshed with a box of matches.
“Abolish the Stealth Tax” will be the next election slogan. (source)
As everyone now knows, the tax will do nothing for the climate, and even warmist Adam Morton from the Sydney Morning Herald acknowledges that fact. And points out what many commentators miss, namely that Australia will have to buy permits to reach even the modest target set for 2020:
ONCE you can get past the extraordinary compensation packages – some justifiable, others less so – the real test of the carbon price package is pretty basic: will it cut Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions?
Beyond that, will it set up the economy for potentially even deeper cuts down the track?
The answer to the first question is probably yes, though it depends on how you define a cut in emissions.
…
What does all this mean for emissions? It depends on your perspective. Treasury modelling suggests Australia’s emissions will rise slightly in the years ahead before starting to fall in a couple of decades.
They will quickly be significantly lower than they would be without a carbon price, or under most analyses of the Coalition’s ”direct action” policy. But it also means Australia will only reach its targets by buying international carbon permits – 101 million tonnes worth in 2020, and many more by 2050. (source)
With such lukewarm support from one of Gillard’s cheerleaders, it looks as though the tax will annoy everyone. Not enough to please the Greens, and too much for everyone else. And we hope voters have long, long memories.
Australian Climate Madness 
Tim perfectly sums up the arrogance and stubbornness of this woman above.
Yesterday’s disgraceful effort…that was it.
Now she’s finished…
Not long now.
CARBON TAX IS THEFT – PLAIN AND SIMPLE.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=181254384531&ref=ts
These clowns couldn’t even bring in a massive new tax without increasing the deficit by another $4bn
They couldn’t behave themselves enough when presented with a giant slush fund to hold back the new expenditure enough to make it revenue neutral.
The Watermelons get $10bn to chase dreams of renewables. This is insane. That money will all go down the drain for no benefit beyond funding a bunch of public servants and associated rent seekers.
It’s interesting that the new world order mob so conveniently ignores the painful experiences of other parts of the world. Spain and Denmark are two relevant cases. Both found, eventually, that the “renewable energy” push was a baseless disaster. After installing a ridiculous quantity of wind generators, Denmark relying on neighbouring countries’ electricity systems to keep its own system stable.
The $4b, more than anything, leaves the government without an argument. How can a government be so incompetent that it imposes a tax that costs more to collect than it brings in?
Why does Julia Gillard let Bob Brown lead her around by the nose? Why didn’t she just refuse, and point at the Greens and say : they won’t compromise, we can’t do this deal. People would actually respect her more.
Everyone gushes about how good she is at negotiating, but I’d sure like to see her a house or two. All this negotiating seems to be is giving the Greens whatever they want and doing a bit of mock protesting.
Hidden in the detail is $40m for ‘educating small business in reducing energy’. How insulting is that? $40 million to tell people to drive less, turn the airconditioner down and switch the lights off when they leave a room. Why not send all those small businesses a tax refund with a note thanking them for providing the bulk of Australian employment?
As for the CM poll – the majority of Qlders have now woken up and taken part. The limited effect of the GetUP trollers is nothing in the path of a couple of million of seriously annoyed Queenslanders. The NO vote is now running north of 90%. If there was a NO f****g way! vote, I’m pretty sure it would be even higher.
Australia’s disgrace: We are one of the highest emitters of stupidity per politician.
Good one!
I listened in awe and shame yesterday to the flea circus (They are all parasites) passing a death sentence on our country, hoping to hear 2 simple phrases “global warming is nonsense” and ” climate change is natural” from that idiot Abbott, he appears to be a member of the Church of GW just a different Sect.CO2 is life
So what do you want fred a continuance of this out of control Gillard/Brown government who will inflict so much more pain on us and desicrate the country? Or for Abbott to commit political suicide with what you want him to do and say? I don’t and you are so niave if you think he could do want you want anyway. Finally give him some credit for the mess Turnbull had the opposition in, Rudd looked like winning many elections. What would you be saying in a blog had that happened? I know where you are coming but politics is different to real life and the outcome for us is critical!
[Snip] we cant stand [snip] your whining LIES upon LIES upon LIES you have no idea how u have embarrassed us nationally and internationally but u continue to send this country in a direction that WE THE PEOPLE DONT WANT YOU or do u forget YOU WORK FOR US [snip – we know how you feel…]
Waiting until the next election is just what they are hoping for – all the hype will have died down, FROGS IN HOT WATER, and everyone will have pocketed their government handouts – blackmail as it were to keep us quiet. Cannot people see this is just hush money? we have been bought off – except all taxes are going to actually rise…. this was a sneak attack – a cover up. They did not even have the backbone to stand up for what they said they actually believed in, so they snuck it all in under a grey fog – with new taxation laws too boot! Slithery slimey dirty skungy politicians!
Treasury modelling has been a pathetic over recent years, if you don’t believe me look at forecasts especially during the GFC. I also do not claim to be an economist but do have a lot of experience running a medium business in a very competitive field for over 20 years. Whilst, I do not compare this to running a country, I simple make the point that the forecast impacts of this tax on industry and consequently the consumers appears to be very light on. This would suit the government because whilst they are saying they are being extremely generous it will turn out that they are not even being adequate.
Clearly the lunatics are running the asylum and we should all be very scared for the future of this country.
Watch these two short videos, which say it all!
Firstly, Penny Wong and Julia Gillard
Secondly, Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan
So, after watching the above evidence expressed by these blatant liars, I simply ask people this question: “At the next Federal Election, how will you vote?
If you believe the government spin the carbon dioxide tax and subsequent ETS will have no negative effects on our economy, jobs or disposable income. Call me a skeptic but how can a new level of taxation, designed to hit Australian industries, make our economy stronger, make my job secure and not cost me anything?
Very disappointed with Tony Abbott as he fights Gillard on the terms of the Carbon Dioxide Tax when he should be concentrating on showing how pointless the whole expensive exercise is in changing the climate of the world.
He should get some of Gillard’s wild and unsubstantiated statements and demolish each one – one at a time.
Simon deftly summarised it in Friday’s 8th July blog. The debate is certainly not over.
You know, I don’t think I have been angrier, ever, at the poor state of political debate and the huge amount of spin and lies produced by any former government in Australia.
As the Labor guru Graham Richardson says, “You do or say whatever is needed, to make it happen – doesn’t matter if it’s wrong” Should have realised that leopards don’t change their spots.
Graham, all you say is feasible but politically he is hogtied, Turnbull has already attempted to politically undermine him. Turnbull should evaluate his priorities if it is believing in the IPCC view of AGW then he needs to get out, otherwise he needs to honestly take a look back at the fact Rudd had his measure when he was leader and I believe Utegate would have finished him. So with respect to Abbott he has put the Coalition in a position to Stop an out of control Gillard/Brown Government. It is not a time for you to be too critical, otherwise there will be nothing between this countries desicration and the pain the Greens have yet to inflict on us!
Give me $24 Billion, and I will buy a large property in the desert, cover several thousand square km with lime, making the ground white, which will reflect a small percentage of sunlight back into space, actually having the result of cooling the planet, and having immediate affect. I will get it done well before 2050, and I will pocket the remainder. Then when they complain that the planet it cooling to much, because it turns out that the CO2 wasn’t doing as much as they claimed, they can pay me to remove the lime to warm the planet… which I will then sell for a profit. Anyone care to do the maths on the feasibility?
Small Business should manage their own compensation package.
With hold all taxes and refuse to submit income tax.
Starve the bitch of funds. Its the only way to get rid of her.