Gillard seeks to entrench carbon tax laws

17 September, 2011 by

Not sovereign?

There is a general principle in constitutional law that the “sovereignty” of Parliament ensures that a future parliament cannot be bound by its predecessor. In other words, if a parliament enacts a law, then a subsequent parliament should be entitled to repeal it. However, two articles in The Australian have demonstrated that the Gillard government is trying very hard to breach this principle, and entrench the carbon tax legislation in the statute book.

Firstly, Henry Ergas, writing yesterday commented:

IT was Mark Dreyfus QC, Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change, who let the cat out of the bag.

Once the carbon change legislation is in place, he said, repeal would amount to an acquisition of property by the commonwealth, as holders of emissions permits would be deprived of a valuable asset. As a result, the commonwealth would be liable, under s.51(xxxi) of the Australian Constitution, to pay compensation, potentially in the billions of dollars. A future government would therefore find repeal prohibitively costly.

That consequence is anything but unintended. The clean energy legislation, released this week, specifically provides that “a carbon unit (its generic term for a right to emit) is personal property”.

This, the government says, is needed to give certainty to long-term trades. But that claim makes little sense, for even without such protections there are flourishing markets for fishing quotas and other tradeable entitlements.

And internationally, governments have generally ensured pollution permits are not treated as conventional property rights, precisely so as to be able to revise environmental controls as circumstances change. Rather, this provision serves one purpose only: to guarantee any attempt at repeal triggers constitutional requirements to pay compensation, shackling future governments.

Nor is it the only poison pill built into the legislation. Also crucial is what happens if a new government rejects the emissions reductions recommendations made by the carbon regulator, the Climate Change Authority.

In that event, unless the government can secure a majority for an alternative target, permitted emissions are automatically cut by up to 10 per cent in a single year, crippling economic activity.

A Coalition government, or even a Labor government less wedded to the Greens, would therefore find itself trapped. (source)

And Paul Kelly, writing today, also considers the problem of repeal:

As incoming PM, Abbott would find himself having to check and reverse one of the deepest policy convictions in the senior ranks of the public service: that carbon pricing is far superior to his own direct action agenda.

Beyond that, he would need to replace an economy-wide scheme that priced carbon, treated emission permits as a property right, granted tax cuts and transfer payments as compensation and created an elaborate new structure of governance with a Clean Energy Regulator, a Climate Change Authority and a Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

Comparisons with Work Choices are false. Acting on its 2007 mandate, the Rudd government with Gillard as relevant minister replaced Howard’s laws with the Fair Work Act. But dismantling Labor’s clean energy structure is a far more formidable task. It penetrates to issues that will alarm business, face possible rejection in the Senate and could finish in the High Court. Gillard’s purpose is to entrench the new system and create a new status quo.

Labor’s scheme is one of the most elaborate in the world. The initial price of $23 a tonne from July 2012 will be fixed rising at 2.5 per cent per annum in real terms. From July 2015 it will transition to a flexible price estimated at $29 a tonne en route to an 80 per cent emissions reduction target by 2050. The coverage will be wide, reaching two-thirds of Australia’s emissions.

Upwards of 500 of the biggest polluters must pay for each tonne of carbon pollution they release. The flexible price means our scheme will be linked with other carbon markets. The heart of the policy is that companies can take action at home or purchase an international unit, thereby reducing carbon pollution abroad. This recognises that climate change is a global phenomenon and ensures domestic action occurs at the lowest cost.

The opposition is fixated on winning the political battle and how to unscramble the scheme in office. It has legal advice suggesting the issue may end in the High Court. The question is whether an Abbott government would be liable to compensation for removing property rights that were created only by this legislation. It is, unsurprisingly, a grey area.

“This is an attempt to sabotage the democratic process,” shadow finance minister Andrew Robb told The Australian yesterday. “We won’t be intimidated and we won’t be bullied. We will repeal this. If we have to return to the people at another election then we will.” (source)

It should come as little surprise that a government that has no mandate for the policy and treats the electorate with contempt takes such a cavalier attitude to constitutional norms of our democracy. This is a government hell bent on getting its way, and making sure that the Coalition are hamstrung if (when) they are elected in 2013 or sooner.

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Enviro group wants "legal rights for flora and fauna"

16 September, 2011 by

© NHN 2009 Flickr

Witness for the prosecution…

I guess this would be a Friday Funny if it weren’t for real. The battiness of the environmental movement really knows no bounds. “Experts” meeting in Queensland are apparently calling for the introduction of “wild law” which will hand legal rights to plants and animals and various other parts of the ecosystem:

Australia’s rivers, forests, ocean waters, flora and fauna should have their own legal rights, according to environmental experts meeting in Brisbane today.

Lawyers, academics and researchers from across the world will gather at Griffith University to discuss this emerging global legal movement, known as “wild law”.

The movement calls for laws to not just protect species and properly manage environments, but to actually hand legal power over to flora and fauna.

Conference organiser Michelle Maloney, the convener of the new Australian Wild Law Alliance, said the movement’s successes in South America had come about because indigenous groups were strongly represented in senior leadership positions within governments.

“At this point in time, all western legal structures and governance systems are based on a belief that humans can do whatever they wish and that most things out there in the world are simply for our use,” she said. (source)

Speaking as a lawyer, I look forward to seeing how one is supposed to take legal instructions from an ocean, or a forest, or an endangered species of fish, perhaps. Maybe we’ll see polar bears in solicitors’ office waiting rooms, flicking through back copies of National Geographic to see if they can spot any members of their family in the photos.

And surely if we grant such rights to plants and animals, then they must bear the same responsibilities as their human counterparts, including the duty to provide first hand evidence of the wrongs done to them in open court. “Call Fluffy to the witness box, please” will be the cry echoing through courtrooms across the land. And I can’t see cross-examination going that well, to be honest.

And don’t expect to get paid in a hurry either, except perhaps in dead fish.

Lunacy.

UPDATE: It is also worthy of note that the environmental movement seeks in so many ways to take civilisation back to the Medieval period, so it should come as no surprise that it is now returning us to the age of animal trials (except this time with the parties reversed).

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Quote of the Day: Ivar Giaever

16 September, 2011 by

Quote of the Day

From an email exchange following the Nobel prize-winning physicist’s resignation from the American Physical Society because of its blind embracing of the global warming faith:

“In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?” 

Read it here.

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The Left's policies of censorship and indoctrination

15 September, 2011 by

Stephen Conroy, er, hang on…

Censorship and indoctrination are two ugly sides of the same coin. The Left has infiltrated the education system in Australia to such an extent that students emerge from schools and universities with a twisted world-view based on half-baked Marxist preaching, environmental extremism, cultural relativism, post-modernism and a black armband view of their own history and culture.

They have been taught to abandon the canon of Western literature and scientific achievement, to hate the United States and Israel (naturally), ignore and abandon the Judeo-Christian traditions of Western civilisation and eschew the benefits of market driven economies, and instead celebrate the numerous failures of socialism and multiculturalism, glorify underachievement and mediocrity as a result of an “equality of outcomes” based approach, sympathise with the Palestinian “struggle”, and, of course, support action on global warming and other green/Left ideologies.

It takes years, and possibly decades, of experience and maturity for many (but by no means all) to realise that the world they learned about in school bears little resemblance to reality, and is a world viewed through a distorted red/green prism.

All the while, the Left can stand proudly by and watch entire generations of young people pop out into society as virtual automatons pre-programmed to accept their dangerous ideologies and policies.

But wait, we can’t have this… Some media organisations aren’t playing the game! They actually have the gall to challenge the system which we have so carefully constructed, with subversive articles which expose the failures and hypocrisy of the Left! The people are thinking for themselves – this is not acceptable. The people must only think what we tell them to think. Despite the fact that we have the ALP-BC and Fairfax to spread our propaganda (which they do very well thank you), their influence is waning so rapidly that there is a danger of losing control of the message. But then a miracle occurred…

And Lo! There came from the Land of Murdoch a phone-hacking scandal! And verily did the Left rejoice! “This is perfect timing”, they said unto themselves! “We can use this as an excuse to bully and harass the heretics from the Land of Murdoch and suppress any dissent! We must have an “inquiry” into those dangerous media organisations, with terms of reference vague enough to allow us to damage them sufficiently to prevent them from spreading their misrepresentations whilst appearing at all times that we are being even handed and fair.

And thus was born Labor’s inquiry into the hate media (© Bob Brown).

And if that wasn’t enough, it might cover blogs like this one as well. From Stephen Conroy’s press conference (no link):

Journalist:

But you’d also have to define who could be complained about and what the penalities would be once they were complained about? A tweeter, a blogger, a…

Conroy:

Well, as you said. Now you’re canvassing areas that I think will be richly canvassed in the inquiry, and these are the sort of… these are, the questions is… you’re asking all the legitimate questions.

Imagine the surprise – there was I thinking Stalinism had died out, only to find it alive and well and living in Canberra.

[thanks to Gunna]

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Abbott: Carbon tax "the longest political suicide note in history"

14 September, 2011 by

Tony Abbott responds to Julia Gillard’s introduction of the carbon tax bills to Parliament:

Let’s be absolutely blunt about the bills now before the parliament: this is a bad tax based on a lie and it should be rejected by this parliament.

The Prime Minister said yesterday that the question for members of this parliament was are you or are you not on the right side of history? Well, let me say, Mr Speaker, this is arrogant presumption by a Prime Minister who is on the wrong side of truth. That’s the Prime Minister’s problem. She is on the wrong side of truth when it comes to this issue.

…

I say to this Prime Minister there should be no new tax collection without an election. That’s what this Prime Minister should do. If this Prime Minister trusts in the democratic process, if this Prime Minister trusts her own judgement, trusts her own argument, that is what she should be doing. She should be taking this to the people.

Mr Speaker, the whole point of this tax is to change the way every single Australian lives and works. That’s another reason why this should be taken to the people. This is not just a minor bit of financial engineering. This is not just – if you believe the Government – something to do with the revenue. This is a transformational change. This is something which is supposed to impact on our country, not just today, not just next year, not just next decade but forever. That’s how important this is, if the Government is to be believed, and this is why it should go to the people first.

This tax is all about making the essentials of modern life more expensive. Modern life, Mr Speaker, is utterly inconceivable without fuel and power, without fuel to move us around the country, without power to make our homes, our businesses and our factories work. So, if this tax comes in, as the Government wants it to come in, we won’t be able to turn on our air conditioner or our heater without being impacted by this tax. We won’t be able to get on a bus or a train, ultimately to drive our cars, without being impacted by this tax. That’s how important, that’s how significant this tax is. This explains the obvious impact that this tax will have on every single Australian’s cost of living. This explains the obvious impact that this tax will have on every single Australian’s job and this explains why it is so necessary for this tax to go to the people before the parliament tries to deal with it. Mr Speaker, if this parliament is to have any democratic credibility on an issue like this there must be an appeal to the people before a decision by the parliament.

…

So, all of those bold claims in the Prime Minister’s speech yesterday, all of that big chest-thumping talk of a massive reduction in emissions as a result of this tax, utterly wrong, utterly wrong and disproven on the basis of the Government’s own documents. We aren’t reducing our emissions, we are just engaging in a massive transfer of wealth from this country to carbon traders overseas. That’s what’s happening. That’s what’s happening under this tax. It will be $3.5 billion in 2020 to purchase almost 100 million tonnes of carbon credits from abroad, it will be $57 billion – one and a half per cent of gross domestic product – shovelled off abroad by 2050 to purchase some 400 million tonnes of carbon credits from abroad.

…

So Mr Speaker, this carbon tax proposal from the Government would be disastrous for our democracy. How can Australians continue to trust our democracy when the biggest and most complex policy change in recent history is being rammed through this parliament by the most incompetent government in recent history? The biggest and the most complex change, sponsored by the least competent government in recent times, not only does it not have a mandate to do what it is proposing it has a mandate not to do what it is proposing. That’s why this package of bills is so disastrous for our democracy.

Mr Speaker, it’s disastrous for our democracy, it’s disastrous for the trust that should exist between members of parliament and their electorates.

Why are the Members for Throsby and Cunningham sponsoring such damage to BlueScope and to the coal miners of the Illawarra?

Why is the Member for Hunter and the other Hunter Valley members of the Government doing such damage to the heavy industries and to the coal mines of the Hunter?

How can the Climate Change Minister talk to his constituents with a straight face given what he is doing to them?

How can the Member for Capricornia want to close down so many mines in her electorate?

How can the Members for Corio and Corangamite be doing this to the cement industry and to the aluminium industry and to the motor industry of Geelong?

What we have from this Government is politically and economically and environmentally disastrous.

But it’s more than that.

It is going to turn out to be the longest political suicide note in Australian history.

Read it all here.

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Lies and spin launch carbon tax bills

14 September, 2011 by

The eighteen carbon [dioxide] tax bills were introduced into Parliament yesterday. As usual, Julia Gillard couched the introduction in lies, misrepresentations and spin.

Let us not forget what Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan said in August 2010, days before the last general election:

But, desperate to stay in power after the narrowest of election victories, and having sold out to the Greens for their support, Gillard and Swan promptly executed a 180 degree about turn, betraying the electorate to appease Bob Brown and his band of eco-tards.

Here is Gillard’s introduction, from Hansard (PDF), with some comments included:

This House has been debating climate change for decades. Parliamentary debate of this issue predates this building itself. My predecessor as member for Lalor, Barry Jones, once said this about climate change, ‘If we are only prepared to plan five years, 10 years, 15 years or 20 years down the track all the dangers that are feared can be avoided.’

Those words were spoken 24 years ago next week.

We have now had decades of heated public argument and political opinion.

Alongside decades of enlightened scientific research and economic analysis. [But this government only listens to the research and analysis that fits its pre-conceived agenda]

After all those opinions have been expressed, most Australians now agree [FALSE – most Australian’s strongly DISAGREE]:

  • our climate is changing [TRUE – as it has for 4.5 billion years]
  • this is caused by carbon pollution [FALSE – the relative contributions of natural and anthropogenic drivers is completely unknown]
  • this has harmful effects on our environment and on the economy [UNKNOWN – the effects of a natural global cooling could be far, far worse]
  • and the government should act. [FALSE – nothing Australia does alone will make any difference to the climate]

And after all that analysis has been done, most economists and experts [that I have selectively chosen to listen to, that is] also now agree: The best way is to make polluters pay [Australia’s most productive industries suffer] by putting a price on carbon. [Gillard still continues to refer to the harmless trace gas carbon dioxide as “carbon”]

So that is the policy of the government I lead. [Ironic that she chooses the identical phraseology to that used in the video above – just to rub it in, perhaps?]

And that is the plan which is before the House now.

A plan for a carbon-pricing mechanism which means around 500 big polluters pay [most productive Australian industries suffer] for every tonne of carbon pollution they put into our atmosphere.

A plan to cut carbon pollution by at least 160 million tonnes a year in 2020. [Which in real terms is square-root of bugger all]

A plan for tax cuts, increased pensions and increased family payments. [If you want people to reduce their usage of fossil fuels, why are we compensating them? Is it because this is more about wealth redistribution than climate change?]

A plan for clean energy jobs and investment [Total nonsense – every manufactured “green” job costs real people REAL jobs]. A plan for a clean energy future for our country [people will use “clean energy” by themselves when it is competitive. Forcing them to do so simply skews the market and allows green industries to cream massive subsidies].

Today we move from words to deeds. This parliament is going to get this done. [We’ll see]

This government is riding roughshod over the electorate of Australia. It has no mandate to introduce this tax, and should rightly put the question to the people of Australia at an election. The opinion polls tell the story. Ordinary Australians have had enough of the lies and spin. We can only hope that one or two Labor MPs with a conscience (are there any??) will vote it down out of principle. But I think that is highly unlikely. Just a bunch of brainwashed lemmings that do as they are told.

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The debate is over… on the carbon tax

13 September, 2011 by

Contempt for Parliament

With the carbon tax bills being introduced to Parliament, the government is doing its best to ensure that there is as little debate as possible. Greg Combet, difficult to like at the best of times, is at his most arrogant, contemptuous worst:

“Tony Abbott’s misinformed people, deceived people, told lies about things,” he said. [Better not mention the lies in the government’s ad campaign then – Ed]

“I don’t expect the Coalition to make much in the form of a constructive debate.”

The Coalition claim that there is no where near enough time to debate the complex bills, with each member only having a minute to debate the 18 bills. Combet explains helpfully:

“That’s all rubbish,” Mr Combet said, adding the bills would be debated as one piece of legislation. [That still is only 18 minutes per member for one of the most complex changes to our economy in Australia’s history – Ed]

Mr Combet said there had been 35 inquiries into climate change [all of them fudged or fixed – Ed].

“It really is time we got on with it.”

“Time we got on with it.” I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning. Just imagine Labor’s outrage at a minority Coalition government with no mandate, which broke an express pre-election promise to force through a hotly contested piece of legislation and then stifled proper democratic processes in Parliament by cutting short the debates. We’d have Combet, Gillard, Albanese and all the other Labor attack dogs shrieking from the rooftops. Tony Abbott responds:

Mr Abbott said it would be a “travesty of democracy” for the Government to rush its legislation through Parliament, especially as it had no mandate for a carbon tax.

He vowed to repeal the laws once a Coalition government was elected, despite concerns it might cause disruption to business.

“It’s never disruptive to get rid of a bad tax,” he told ABC Radio.

“It’s always advantageous to reduce business costs and they don’t want this tax and if they get it, they will want to be rid of it as quickly as they possibly can.”

Read it here.

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Roger Pielke Sr on Skeptical Science

13 September, 2011 by

Roger Pielke Sr

Roger Pielke Sr responds to the trashy attacks on the UAH dataset and Roy Spencer personally from the likes of our own “Eureka Prize winning” John Cook at the web site (Un-) Skeptical Science.

A few quotes:

As a result of the persistent, but incorrect (often derogatory) blog posts and media reports on the robustness of the University of Alabama MSU temperature data, I want to summarize the history of this data analysis below. John Christy and Roy Spencer lead this climate research program.

The ad hominem presentations on this subject include those from the weblog Skeptical Science who have sections titled:

“Christy Crocks” and “Spencer Slip Ups”

If this weblog intends, as they write, to contribute to

“Explaining climate change science & rebutting global warming misinformation”

they certainly have failed in this effort, with respect to the outstanding research that Christy and Spencer have accomplished.

Pielke also cautions:

Weblogs such as Skeptical Science, if they want to move the debate on the climate issues forward, need to move towards a more constructive approach.

All I can say in response to that is “don’t wait up”. Skeptical Science isn’t interested in a constructive approach to this issue, because it is an agenda-driven propaganda site. It has nothing to do with seeking scientific truth, and everything to do with advancing a pre-determined position by rubbishing and dismissing anything (and anybody) that challenges it. The last thing Skeptical Science wants to do is move the debate forward – the debate’s over.

And if you want to understand your “denialist” psychological condition, all you have to do is read one of Cook’s books on the subject. See, no agenda there, clearly!

Read it here. (h/t WUWT)

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Another paper suggests cosmic ray influence on clouds

12 September, 2011 by

Figure 5 - click to enlarge

This time based on real-world experimentation, rather than laboratory test results as with CERN/CLOUD. In this case, the paper looks at the link between Forbush decreases, which are a decrease in the galactic cosmic ray flux in response to a burst of gas ejected from the Sun towards the Earth, and the change in diurnal temperature variation (i.e. the difference between night and day). Fewer cosmic rays mean fewer clouds, which means colder nights and warmer days, in theory…

From Nigel Calder:

More than a year ago I began a succession of posts on whether or not observations in the real world support or falsify the Svensmark hypothesis. The most explanatory was the first – see link

The focus was on the “natural experiments” in which big puffs of gas from the Sun block some of the cosmic rays coming from the Galaxy towards the Earth. The resulting falls in cosmic ray influx, called Forbush decreases, last for a few days. The game is to look for observable reductions in cloudiness in the aftermath of these events. The results are most clearly favourable to the Svensmark hypothesis for the Forbush decreases with the largest percentage reductions in cosmic rays. Scientists keen to falsify the hypothesis have only to mix in some of the weaker events for the untidiness of the world’s weather to “hide the decline”. 

The Serbs avoid that blunder by picking out the strongest Forbush decreases. And by using the simple, reliable and long-provided weather-station measurements of temperature by night and day, they avoid technical, interpretive and data-availability problems that surround more direct observations of clouds and their detailed properties. The temperatures come from 184 stations scattered all across Europe (actually, so I notice, from Greenland to Siberia). A compilation by the Mount Washington Observatory that spans half a century, from 1954 to 1995, supplies the catalogue of Forbush decreases.

The prime results are seen here in Dragić et al.‘s Figure 5 [image top right]. The graphs show the increase in the diurnal temperature range averaged across the continent in the days following the onset of cosmic ray decreases (day 0 on the horizontal scales). The upper panel is the result for 22 Forbush events in the range 7−10%, with a peak at roughly +0.35 oC in the diurnal temperature range. The lower panel is for 13 events greater than 10%. The peak goes to +0.6 oC and the influence lasts longer. It’s very satisfactory for the Svensmark hypothesis that the effect increases like this, with greater reductions in the cosmic rays. The results become hard (impossible?) to explain by any mechanism except an influence of cosmic rays on cloud formation.

The case for the Sun influencing climate by modulating cloud cover becomes stronger, little by little. By the way, just for the benefit of the Consensus Boys, this is how science works.

Read it here.

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Remembering 9/11

11 September, 2011 by

We are putting aside the petty whirlwind of climate change politics to remember something far more important: the events of 9/11 and the families of the thousands that died ten years ago today. Our thoughts at this time are with our US friends and others who suffered in that terrible tragedy.

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