Abbott: ad campaign is "taxpayer-funded propaganda"

17 July, 2011 by

More spin

Labor uses taxpayer funds to push a policy that isn’t even enacted into law. The guidelines for government advertising state:

“governments may legitimately use public funds for information programs or education campaigns to explain government policies, programs or services and to inform members of the public of their obligations, rights and entitlements” (source – thanks to Baldrick)

But this is neither information nor education of a policy, it’s party-political propaganda intended to mislead the public, as Tony Abbott commented today:

Touring the marginal western Sydney seat of Lindsay, Mr Abbott described the ads as taxpayer-funded propaganda that did not tell the full truth.

“If the Labor Party wants to advertise, the Labor Party should find the money and the Labor Party should spend the money,” he said in the western Sydney suburb of Penrith.

“Taxpayers should not be ripped off to fund political propaganda.” (source)

As I posted earlier, the one thing that won’t even be mentioned in Labor’s adverts for “climate action” is the climate.

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Quote [Lie] of the Day: Julia Gillard

17 July, 2011 by

Fake

Explaining why she formed an alliance with the Greens after the election in 2010:

Ms Gillard said she could have become Prime Minister by forming a deal with conservative independents Tony Crook and Bob Katter, but she chose to ally with the Greens and accept their demand for carbon pricing because she believed it was right.

“In the 17 days (after the 2010 election) I had discussions with a lot of people – with the Greens, with (Rob) Oakeshott, (Tony) Windsor, (Bob) Katter, even some discussions with (WA National Tony) Crook. I thought it was always going to be possible for us to structure arrangements so that we would get support in this parliament,” she said. (source)

So despite the fact that Gillard:

  1. had promised the electorate just days before that there would be “no carbon tax under the government I lead”, knowing full well that government with the Greens would mean bowing to their demand for urgent climate action (as revealed by Adam Bandt yesterday);
  2. had opposed Kevin Rudd’s introduction of the ETS in 2009;
  3. could have formed government with Bob Katter and Tony Crook (allegedly); and
  4. is on record as having described the Greens as “extreme” and “not a party of government”,

she chose to ignore all of those points and, er, form a government with the Greens – “because it was right”???

So, Julia, are you lying now or were you lying then? Lies, lies and yet more lies. It never ends.

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Carbon [dioxide] tax ad blitz to launch today

17 July, 2011 by

Still from advert

All paid for by your taxes. You can bet that it will be a campaign of misinformation and lies, with frequent use of phrases such as “carbon pollution”, “clean energy” (as if CO2 isn’t “clean”), and nauseating and mawkish “children and grandchildren” moments. And you can bet that it won’t say anything about the effect on the climate, which we all know is sweet F.A.

One thing we can be absolutely sure of, and that is they won’t be wheeling out Carbon Cate or any other moonbat celeb, not after what happened last time:

PRO-CARBON tax television ads to be unleashed on Australia tonight are part of a $25 million taxpayer-funded campaign to win over the public as the Gillard government struggles to explain its message.

The advertisements will cost $12 million but the total bill for the government to explain its climate-change policy will cost more than $25 million, with figures in budget papers showing the government has earmarked an extra $13.7 million for a ”public information” campaign on the tax.

This would be used to fund websites, leaflets and other publicly available information on the details of the government scheme, a spokesman said.

It is understood the television advertisements feature real Australians who work in large and small organisations and are involved in creating a clean-energy future. People appearing in the ads were not paid or given scripts.

But the government faces competition in the advertising stakes.

The Sun-Herald has learnt the Australian Trade and Industry Alliance will launch a $10 million anti-carbon tax advertising campaign this week, which is backed by the coal industry and the Minerals Council. It is understood a long-time Liberal Party pollster, Mark Textor, is the architect of the testimonial-style ads, which follow a similar print campaign in newspapers last week.

With polling showing the government holds a primary vote of just 27 per cent – the lowest in recorded history – and personal support for the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, also in uncharted territory, Labor has embarked on a fierce campaign in the electorate to sell its carbon tax policy. The Coalition leader, Tony Abbott, has also led his MPs and senators in hitting the streets to oppose the tax. (source)

From the small clip I have managed to see of one advert, it features a comparison between the introduction of the carbon tax and the Industrial Revolution (no overhyped exaggerations there, clearly…). Immediately, one can see that is a nonsensical comparison – the Industrial Revolution managed to lift millions of people out of a life of miserable poverty and towards one of relative comfort thanks to power provided by cheap, fossil fuel energy.

The carbon tax will do precisely the reverse, sending people back towards poverty by making the energy we all need way more expensive. Oh, and for no benefit to the climate, either.

This is going to be a bitter fight to the political death – and I think I know whose death will be the result: the one on 27%.

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Islanders need $millions to cope with 3.6 mm/yr sea level rises

16 July, 2011 by

From ABC:

Torres Strait Islanders have warned Prime Minister Julia Gillard they could become Australia’s first climate change refugees if she continues to ignore the effects of rising sea levels in the area.

Torres Strait island communities have repeatedly pleaded for funding to deal with problems like coastal erosion and inundation, but say they have been forgotten in the Government’s carbon tax package.

Mayor Fred Gela says the one-metre sea level rise Ms Gillard recently identified as a risk would devastate his low-lying communities – some of which are already being inundated. [Yes, but that was a total fabrication by Gillard – Ed]

In an open letter to the PM, Councillor Gela and council CEO John Scarce say they are still waiting for help from the Australian and Queensland governments to help them adapt to climate change.

“We cannot afford to keep waiting forever. Failure to act on desperately needed adaptation measures in the Torres Strait puts Australia at risk of being the first developed nation with internally displace climate change refugees,” the letter, dated July 11, 2011 says. (source)

However, the Bureau of Meteorology National Tide Centre database for Darwin tells a rather less urgent picture (as usual):

Darwin tide gauge: 3.6mm/year since 1959 (y axis: meters, x axis: months since 1959)

A fairly gentle 3.6 mm/year, in line with global sea level rises. At that rate it would take 277 years to rise one metre…

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IPCC: the warmists' club

16 July, 2011 by

Frakking good stuff

Kevin Rudd used to prattle on about the “4000 guys in white coats who run around and don’t have a sense of humour” who kept telling him that man-made emissions were to blame for dangerous global warming. You’d be lucky to get to 4000 even if you included all the rent-seeking hangers-on – and there were plenty of those.

John McLean analysed chapter 9 of Working Group 1 (Understanding and Attributing Climate Change) and concluded:

“More than two-thirds of all authors of chapter 9 of the IPCC’s 2007 climate-science assessment are part of a clique whose members have co-authored papers with each other and, we can surmise, very possibly at times acted as peer-reviewers for each other’s work. Of the 44 contributing authors, more than half have co-authored papers with the lead authors or coordinating lead authors of chapter 9.

The IPCC appointed as review editor for chapter 9 a person who was not only a coordinating lead author for the corresponding chapter of the previous assessment report but had also authored 13 of the papers cited in chapter 9 and had co-authored papers with 10 authors of chapter 9 including both coordinating lead authors and three of the seven lead authors.” (source, PDF at p18)

I have called the IPCC a “coterie of warmists” on several occasions in the past, dismissively excluding criticisms from highly respected scientists that don’t fit the pre-conceived agenda, whilst welcoming with open arms sheaves of suspect grey literature from environmental advocacy groups – because they do fit the agenda. Now the redoubtable Donna Laframboise of No Frakking Consensus exposes more of the seedy mutual backscratching that passes for normal scientific practice down at IPCC Mansions, and the name of an ACM favourite pops up:

Cynthia Rosenzweig is a research scientist who works at James Hansen’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies. Once I might have described her as a senior Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) author. But she’s actually more than that.

It turns out Rosenzweig is a member of a small clique of people who wore multiple hats during the writing of the 2007 climate bible. When I hear that thousands of the world’s best scientists participate in the IPCC I envision each of them making a focused contribution in the narrow field in which they possess exceptional research expertise. But that’s not how it works.

Rosenzweig, for example, served in six distinct capacities. She was:

  • one of the two most senior authors for a chapter titled Assessment of Observed Changes and Responses in Natural and Managed Systems
  • a contributing author for a chapter titled Assessment of Adaptation Practices, Options, Constraints and Capacity
  • a lead author of the Working Group 2 Technical Summary document
  • a drafting author of the Working Group 2 Summary for Policymakers document
  • a member of the core writing team for the Synthesis report
  • and an expert reviewer for Working Group 2

In other words, certain names pop up again and again in IPCC reports. If shadowy interests were trying to “control the message” in these documents, entrusting key tasks to a small group of people might be an effective strategy.

Like Rosenzweig, Australian meteorologist David Karoly filled six separate IPCC roles. He served as a lead author and as a review editor. Along with Rosenzweig he was a lead author of a Technical Summary, a drafting author of a Summary for Policymakers, a member of the core writing team for the Synthesis Report, and was also an expert reviewer.

How anyone can take this politicised and integrity-challenged organisation seriously any more is beyond comprehension… And we can expect more of the same (only worse) with AR5 in 2013/14.

There’s much more. Read it all.

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Gillard bought Greens' support with promise of "urgent climate action"

16 July, 2011 by

Bandt

We all knew this already, but it’s good to hear Adam Bandt admit openly that Julia Gillard sacrificed her principles and her party and was happy to throw an explicit pre-election promise under a bus to buy the Greens support:

“They [Labor] did come to us and say they wanted our help in forming government and we said, OK, but as long as we take urgent action on climate change.“

Source (at 1:40)

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Labor slips further as economy falters

16 July, 2011 by

Labor or the economy? Both.

Labor’s support has slumped to its lowest support since 1942, according to a Roy Morgan poll taken after the announcement of the carbon [dioxide] tax:

In the first Australia-wide voting intention poll conducted since Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the details of the Carbon Tax the latest telephone Morgan Poll conducted over the last two nights, July 13/14, 2011 shows the L-NP 60.5% with a record winning lead over the ALP 39.5% – the worst Two-Party preferred voting result for Labor since the first Roy Morgan Gallup Poll conducted in May 1942.

The L-NP primary vote is 52.5%, nearly double the ALP 27.5%. Support for the minor parties shows the Greens 10.5% and Others/ Independents 9.5%.

If a Federal election were held today the L-NP would win in a landslide according to today’s Morgan Poll. (source – h/t Bolta)

Christopher Pearson believes Labor’s end is in sight:

Niki Savva predicted in her column in The Australian some weeks back that it was only when people started to feel sorry for Julia Gillard we’d know her political career was irretrievable.

Her press club performance on Thursday may have been that point. We saw Julia the tearful recalling the shy, reserved girl at Unley High who always held back, who had difficulty dealing with emotion and engaging with people, who was content to work hard, get through university and join Slater & Gordon’s law firm.

The Canberra press gallery is almost the only group still slightly besotted with her, but this was a bit much even for some of them to swallow. There were also signs of restiveness when, pressed on her view of local journalistic standards in the carbon debate, she advised her audience not to “write crap. It can’t be that hard.”

My guess is that in time historians will find she and her government were the beneficiaries of more hysterical rubbish from the press gallery on the subject of anthropogenic global warming than any leader of a major party in recent years. Yet there she was, reproaching them for insufficient commitment to groupthink. (source)

As I posted here earlier in the week, the global economy ain’t exactly in great shape. The US is up to its neck in debt, as is the EU, with countries lining up for handouts. It wouldn’t take much of a shove to send the world spiralling into a second GFC, which makes it even more ludicrous for Labor to force through an economy-wrecking carbon [dioxide] tax that will do nothing for the climate:

ONE of the nation’s big four banks expects the Reserve Bank will soon slash interest rates, while some of Australia’s most prominent businessmen have warned that the European debt crisis and struggling Australian households are slamming the economy into reverse.

As Julia Gillard attempts to sell a sceptical public the carbon tax, which she acknowledges represents a massive economic transition, business leaders are warning that the carbon tax debate is about to be overwhelmed by international events they fear could spark a second global financial crisis.

Westpac economist Bill Evans yesterday reversed the bank’s long-held view that the next move in interest rates would be up, saying things had turned so bad so quickly that rates could be slashed over the next 12 months by 100 basis points. If passed on in full, this would slash the current standard variable home rate of about 7.8 per cent to 6.8 per cent.

He also warned that unemployment was set to jump next year, possibly as high as 5.75 per cent, from 4.9 per cent now.

The threat of the sovereign debt crisis in Europe was expected to lead to an “extended period of financial market turmoil”, Mr Evans said. (source)

Any sane person would conclude that the introduction of a carbon [dioxide] tax at this time of turmoil is suicidal. But not the Labor/Green alliance. For them it is a dangerous and highly damaging political crusade, with Bob Brown and the extremist Greens in the driving seat and Labor as complicit and powerless passengers.

UPDATE: More here from Paul Kelly in The Australian.

Filed Under: Climate

Carbon tax modelling hopelessly optimistic

15 July, 2011 by

Henry Ergas

Henry Ergas in The Australian exposes the ridiculously optimistic basis for the government’s carbon tax modelling:

THE one thing you need to know about Treasury’s modelling of the carbon tax is this: it assumes that by 2016, the US and all the other developed economies that do not have carbon taxes or emissions trading systems in place will have them up and running.

This implies that in next year’s US presidential election, likely to be fought at a time of high unemployment, the winning candidate will campaign on the basis of introducing a carbon tax that will go from zero to $30 a tonne in a matter of months. And that tax will then not only get through Congress but in record time.

Moreover, that feat accomplished, by 2021 China will sign up too, and with 14 per cent of the world’s population and barely 20 per cent of world income, will agree to shoulder 34 to 35 per cent of the costs of global mitigation. As part of that deal, China’s leadership will accept a fall in national living standards, relative to business as usual, of between 5 and 10 per cent, while per capita incomes in the far wealthier US and European Union decline by a fraction of that amount. And with China on board, the rest of the world will join the party. (source)

Yep, looks pretty realistic to me.

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And modest too…

15 July, 2011 by

Crocodile tears

From Julia Gillard’s faux-teary address to the Press Club yesterday:

“If that means people’s image of me is one of steely determination, I understand why.” (source)

No, Julia, that is not our image of you. It’s more like “stabbed Kevin Rudd in the back having said you wouldn’t, lied to the electorate about a carbon tax, then cynically sold the country down the river to the Greens to keep yourself in power.” How about that?

By the way, is this the “Real Julia” again, or just another fake one to try to fool the voters?

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Daily Bayonet GW Hoax Weekly Roundup

15 July, 2011 by

Skewering the clueless

As always, a great read!

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