Carbon tax goes up in smoke

11 March, 2011 by

Julia's carbon tax?

That’s according to Dennis Shanahan in The Australian this morning:

LET’S hope for Labor’s sake Julia Gillard has a plan B for handling the introduction of a fixed carbon price because plan A has gone to hell in a hand basket.

Labor’s plans to introduce a carbon price from next July are in free fall, and the government is losing the political debate dreadfully. Its messages are confused, the tone is totally negative and the only certainty for business is an early start date it doesn’t want.

Apart from the date there’s no other detail. The Greens continue to appear to control the agenda; Labor is losing support to both the Coalition and the Greens and most importantly six years of public goodwill over fighting global warming has been lost.

Publicly Labor is clinging to delusional claims of success and hoping a relentless campaign against Tony Abbott for being a negative wrecker will turn the politics back to the government.

There are real misgivings about the timing and presentation of the carbon tax, and fears that when Kristina Keneally, who has embraced it in the NSW election, is thumped at the polls she can claim it was made worse by Gillard’s tax.

A disastrous Newspoll this week, showing Labor’s primary vote at a record low of 30 per cent and a reversal since December of popular support to 53 per cent against and 42 per cent for a carbon price to combat global warming by pushing up energy prices, is making Labor MPs even more nervous.

Labor’s defence that it’s damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t present detail on a new tax because of the damaging experience of the failed resources super profits tax is a spurious argument. It ignores that there is a perfect template for introducing a new tax: the Petroleum Resources Rent Tax of the Hawke era.

Analogies with John Howard’s strategy on the introduction of the GST are equally spurious and are about ministers reassuring backbenchers that a government can recover from a record low primary vote and win the next election. (source)

In other carbon tax news, grocery association chief states the obvious – prices at the supermarket will go up if electricity prices go up. Colour me amazed:

INDEPENDENT grocers are warning that prices in their stores will have to rise if Julia Gillard’s carbon pricing plan pushes up the cost of electricity.

John Cummings, chairman of the National Association of Retail Grocers of Australia, said based on a $26-a-tonne carbon price, independent supermarket operators could face extra electricity charges of between $500 and $1000 a week.

Mr Cummings said the extra charges would be passed on to consumers through higher prices because the industry operated on low margins and had no capacity to absorb the higher costs. (source)

And former NSW Labor premier Nathan Rees has joined the party dissing the tax:

FORMER NSW premier Nathan Rees has exposed a rift between Julia Gillard and the NSW Right over a carbon price, saying the proposed tax was crippling Labor in the lead-up to this month’s state election.

In an exclusive interview with The Australian, Mr Rees, who is in danger of losing his seat of Toongabbie in the traditional Labor heartland of Sydney’s western suburbs, said there was “no question at all” the Prime Minister’s proposed carbon tax was hurting NSW Labor in the polls.

“I’ve never seen an issue sink in so quickly,” Mr Rees told The Australian.

“Julia announced it on the Thursday and by the time I was door-knocking on the Saturday every second person was talking about it.” (source)

All the while, the Fairfax press and the ABC have their fingers in their ears shouting “la, la, la” and are pumping Garnaut’s latest nonsense for all its worth.

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Economist lectures us on climatology

10 March, 2011 by

He's an economist, OK?

But that’s OK. Nobody cares about his qualifications because he’s a warmist – like Flannery. Contrast the case of a sceptic, when their qualifications and authority to speak would be rummaged through like an old suitcase. Of course, it’s our old friend Ross Garnaut, who needs sadly little introduction, and lectures us again on the “climate crisis” and rising temperatures and rising sea levels – all “worse than we thought”, according to his great climatological authority:

GLOBAL warming may push sea levels rises to the upper limit of current projections and temperatures above previously anticipated levels, Julia Gillard’s top climate change adviser has warned.

Ross Garnaut today issued a pessimistic assessment of likely climate change effects, suggesting recent updates to climate science showed previous research may have underestimated the effects of increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Professor Garnaut flagged the “awful reality” that global political leaders may have to go further than the emissions reduction targets they have been aiming for in international negotiations. [Great timing when the carbon tax is on all the front pages. If you were cynical you might almost think it was planned – Ed]

These targets aim for a concentration of carbon dioxide equivalent of 450 parts per million, which would limit temperature increases to 2 degrees celsius. [Just like that. The earth’s climate system has but one dial, marked CO2 – we twiddle it and the earth responds, like a cheap electric fire – Ed]

“There is a case in managing the risks of climate change for seeking to reduce emissions concentrations below 450ppm carbon dioxide equivalent,” Professor Garnaut said. (source)

Nice try to prop up Gillard’s pointless carbon tax, but no dice, mate.

Why, oh why does The Australian publish this crap? Can you imagine the howls of derision that would come from the warm-monger camp if an economist claimed that AGW was a crock? But with Garnaut, it’s all hushed respect. Give me a break. Nobody with a brain should give a flying fig what Garnaut thinks.

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Carbon tax is a disaster

10 March, 2011 by

Pointless and ineffective, and so is the tax

Another great read by Miranda Devine, who points out that it is Malcolm Turnbull, the only significant supporter of an ETS in the Coalition and “Labor’s best asset” who is secretly plotting with the independents to try and regain some relevance:

The Government has missed the point. Instead of slugging us for fossil fuels, it should provide green energy that is cheap to use.

IF you ever wondered who is advising Tony Windsor to support a carbon tax, well, now you know: moles within the Coalition, the kamikaze ever-shrinking pro-carbon tax faction, aka Team Turnbull.

Windsor is keeping their identities secret, but he says, “A lot of people within the Coalition would like to engage in that work (pricing carbon). They’ve been ruled out by the opportunism of Tony Abbott, but that doesn’t mean they can’t speak to others,” he told ABC radio yesterday.

Ah ha! So that’s why Malcolm Turnbull was having a deep and meaningful conversation over dinner in Canberra with that other ruminating country independent, Rob Oakeshott, last week.

Colleagues describe Turnbull as “Labor’s best asset”, sourly noting the flurry of meetings he has been conducting in an effort to revive his leadership prospects. They wonder whether he will again cross the floor to vote with Labor on its carbon tax.

Yet the self-destructing futility of his bid is laid bare in this week’s Newspoll, which shows Labor’s carbon plans are electoral poison, opposed by the majority of voters but most particularly by Coalition voters, whose aversion has grown to 72 per cent.

Windsor, whose conservative electorate is seething with anger over his role in bringing Labor to power and his apparent complicity in the carbon tax announcement, may have had his spine stiffened by Coalition rats.

But he still has been backpedalling at a million miles an hour since Labor recorded its lowest ever primary support in Newspoll, showing what a blunder the carbon tax is.

Now he’s trying to distance himself from Prime Minister Julia Gillard by saying she had “sort of jumped the gun” and should have given more “detail” about the tax before announcing it.

But it is not the missing detail that is the problem; it is the tax itself, as Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg points out. On Tuesday night, Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, outlined the flaws with the Government’s approach.

The least effective, most expensive solution to climate change is any sort of tax on carbon dioxide, he says. “For every dollar you spend, you save a couple of cents in climate damage.” And that money wasted today means you are less well placed to deal with any potential ill-effects of climate change in the future.

Read it here.

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If the AGW case is so strong, why delete emails?

9 March, 2011 by

Mann made warming

Despite a stack of whitewash enquiries intended to sweep the whole embarrassing episode under the carpet, Climategate just won’t go away. Watts Up With That is reporting that Eugene Wahl, physical scientist in the NOAA Paleoclimatology program at NOAA, has been quizzed by investigators and has admitted to deleting emails on the instructions of Michael Mann:

Sources confirm that a federal inspector has questioned Eugene Wahl and Wahl has confirmed that Mann asked him to delete emails. Wahl has also informed the inspector that he did delete emails as the result of this request.

There are times during the course of Climategate when you feel like you are in a Twilight Zone episode, especially the kind where the ambiguous meaning of terms plays a critical role, like “To Serve Man” [link to YouTube clip].

That episode is apt because of the central role trust plays and because of the role puzzle solvers play  in uncovering that the do-gooder aliens cannot be trusted. “Serving”, of course, has now taken on new meanings, as in “you got served” or pwned. With the release of the news that Mann successfully instructed Wahl to delete emails,  it’s clear that Mann got served or pwned by Wahl; but more importantly, he got served or assisted by Dr. Pell, Dr. Scaroni, Dr Brune, and Dr. Foley. Who are they? They are the Penn State team who served Dr. Mann by purporting to exonerate him in the Penn State inquiry, despite Mann’s own non-responsive response to a key question being on its face evasive, and begging followup questions. Regardless, Mann’s non-answer did not even purport to support their conclusion about his actions. In short, they covered for him.

So we have to ask again. Why is skulduggery like this required if the case for AGW is so strong?

Read it here.

UPDATE: Chris Horner, writing at the Daily Caller, summarises the trick admirably:

PSU [Penn State University]: This is potentially very grave. We must know: Did you do A or B?

Mann: I did not do A.

PSU: Ah. There we go. It appears there is no evidence he did A or B.

Read it here.

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Andrew Bolt: Gillard is finished

9 March, 2011 by

Andrew Bolt

Andrew’s column summarises the disastrous position Gillard finds herself in after her “carbon tax lie”. But I particularly liked the Seven Steps for Destroying Credibility:

STEP ONE: pretend you haven’t broken your word.

In Gillard’s initial announcement she did not even mention she’d ditched her promise.

Later, as public anger started to build, she pretended she was actually honouring it: “Before the last election I consistently said we needed to price carbon . . . What are we doing? We’re pricing carbon.”

STEP TWO: use lying language.

Gillard still calls her tax a “price on carbon” when it’s no such thing. She says “price” to avoid using the nasty “tax” word, and says “carbon” to make you think it’s imposed on sooty black stuff and not carbon dioxide.

STEP THREE: pretend your tax will make us richer, not poorer.

Gillard first presented her tax as the kind of invention that made computer pioneer Bill Gates a multi-billionaire.

“Bill Gates understood the need to be in on the change. The same is true now. This is the time to be pricing carbon.”

STEP FOUR: smear those who disagree.

Under attack in Parliament over her lie, Gillard resorted to abuse, accusing the Opposition of “race-baiting” and later warning it could even inspire dangerous extremists.

STEP FIVE: deny your tax is a tax.

Gillard at first did admit her “carbon price” was a tax, but by last Sunday Swan was so rattled that he pretended it wasn’t: “But it doesn’t operate like a traditional tax . . . It is not the case that the Government is going to take the carbon price out of your pay packet.”

Which must mean the goods and services tax isn’t a real tax, either, since it’s just a tax on everything you buy, just like this carbon dioxide tax.

STEP SIX: deny your tax is going to hurt like you once said.

At first Gillard conceded her tax would hurt (by making coal-fired electricity and petrol more expensive).

“It has price impacts. It’s meant to. That’s the whole point.”

Even two weeks ago, Climate Change Minister Greg Combet suggested ways to avoid this pain. “The main way to do that is by saving energy, to turn things off at the wall. Maybe think about how often you use the airconditioner. Using a cheaper-to-run hot water system.”

But now? With this tax turning into a debacle, Combet is denouncing what he himself once confessed:

ABC interviewer: Tony Abbott is . . . pointing out the carbon tax in his words would transform Australia’s way of life by making it harder for Australians to drive or turn on the airconditioner.

Combet: . . . What garbage . . . I mean, this guy, he really is nothing but a mobile scare campaign.

STEP SEVEN: don’t ever admit your tax won’t do a thing to stop global warming.

Here’s Swan with Oakes.

Oakes: I’m getting this question from a lot of people . . . ‘Tell me just how much the temperature is going to drop by if this stupid tax comes into effect?’

Swan: Well, Laurie, this is a long-term problem, and the longer we delay . . .

And blah blah. Honest answer? Zero.

Read it all.

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Shock: Taxpayer-funded ad campaign for Julia's carbon lie?

8 March, 2011 by

PM raises the spectre of an even bigger kick in the public's teeth

The indoctrination isn’t working. We have to increase the dosage. The indoctrination isn’t working. We have to increase the dosage… Where’s Penny Wong when you need her? Unfortunately, the Australian public are too smart for your nonsensical climate policies, Julia and Greg, as evidenced by the disastrous poll slump earlier today.

But hey, like I said, it’s got nothing to do with the policy being a crock of s#!t, it’s just that we’re not getting the message across properly. So we’ll waste even more of your taxpayer dollars with a pointless and, almost certainly, deeply irritating, advertising campaign. Seriously, it just gets worse. From ABC’s PM programme:

ALEXANDRA KIRK: The Government isn’t ruling out a taxpayer-funded advertising campaign. Julia Gillard’s reinforced the message on 7.30:

JULIA GILLARD: On Government advertising – from time to time we advertise to get necessary information to people, so I’m not going to rule in or rule out government advertising in the future.

PRESENTER: But it’s possible?

ALEXANDRA KIRK: PM has been told there’s a $30 million pool of funds for advertising that was never spent because of the demise of Kevin Rudd’s carbon pollution reduction scheme.

But an ad campaign before any carbon tax legislation’s introduced into parliament would leave the Government open to a barrage of criticism.

Government MPs are worried by today’s poll showing Labor eight points behind the Coalition after preferences. And they’re worried by the prospect of months more campaigning from Tony Abbott before the Government reveals the rate of the carbon tax and compensation to households and businesses.

Martin O’Shannessy says it all boils down to one thing.

MARTIN O’SHANNESSY: It’s certainly played out as a broken election promise that has left Julia Gillard taking opposite positions either side of an election.

It’s more damaging for her because if you like the license to lead us into the tough place of doing something about climate change and make no mistake, I believe that people do want to do something about climate change judging by the polling we’ve done [really? – Ed] But the license to lead us into that place is a bit of a, to mix metaphors, a double-edged sword.

A lot of optimism in Kevin Rudd, which obviously was dashed through the late 2009 and 2010 with Copenhagen being talked down and the CPRS going onto the backburner and that played out very badly for Kevin Rudd, there were other things going but these obviously important things.

It appears that Julia Gillard has disappointed in the other direction on this and people are punishing her for it. It’s a very sensitive issue that if you like amplifies their reactions. (source)

Can you imagine the voter anger at a taxpayer funded campaign for a policy that was expressly ruled out before the election? It really doesn’t bear thinking about… actually, Julia, go ahead and do it. It would finish you and your government off good and proper.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Excellent: Gillard to "push ahead with carbon price"

8 March, 2011 by

The socialist and the Marxist, or is it the other way round? Whatever…

Great news. I think we can reasonably confidently say: RIP Julia. You will go the way of Rudd, and Labor will be consigned to electoral oblivion for a generation:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is determined to fight on with her controversial carbon tax, despite a new poll showing Labor’s primary vote has hit rock-bottom.

Labor’s primary vote plunged to 30 per cent in the latest Newspoll, with the Coalition leading 54 to 46 per cent in two-party terms.

Ms Gillard told reporters in Washington she had always understood arguing for a tough economic reform such as pricing carbon was “going to be a big debate”.

“It’s going to be a hard debate – but it’s one that I am determined to win,” she said.

Not a chance now, I’m afraid. You’re sunk. And then another big misrepresentation:

“We shouldn’t try to lead the world, but neither can we afford to limp behind. We have a high emissions economy.”

What she means (but cleverly doesn’t say to fool those listening) is that we have a high per capita emissions, because we have so many emissions-intensive industries in our economy and a relatively small population – inevitably therefore, our emissions are high per capita. But we only produce less than 1.5% of the total, which is not enough for the climate to even notice. So a carbon tax and any reduction in emissions that we make here in Australia, are <shouts>UTTERLY POINTLESS GESTURES</shouts>.

And don’t, DON’T, whatever you do click the link. It’s a nauseous arse-lick piece by Fairfax’s Michelle Grattan full of sick-making photos of Julia with Obama, and a frankly horrific video which plays whether you want it to or not – highlight is Julia blaming Abbott (or Mr Rabbit, as she calls him – elocution was never her strong point) for her poll slide – priceless.

LINK – you have been warned.

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Newspoll: Labor plummets

8 March, 2011 by

Disaster for Labor (Blue: Coalition/Abbott, Red: Labor/Gillard, Grey: uncommitted

In the first NewsPoll since the announcement of the carbon tax, Labor’s standing in the polls, and that of leader Julia Gillard, has dropped like a stone:

JULIA Gillard’s carbon tax plan has reversed public support for action on global warming, damaged her leadership and delivered Labor its lowest primary support on record.

Tony Abbott is now the closest he has been to Ms Gillard as preferred prime minister.

And, as satisfaction with the Prime Minister slumps just nine months after she agreed to challenge Kevin Rudd, she remains behind the Foreign Minister as the preferred Labor leader.

In just two weeks, Ms Gillard’s personal support has gone from its best since she became Prime Minister in June last year to her worst. It is now the same as Mr Rudd’s failing personal support when he began campaigning for the mining tax in May last year.

Since Ms Gillard announced her intention to introduce a carbon tax from July next year, overall positive public support for action on global warming, even if it meant rising prices for electricity and petrol, has turned negative. A majority of people, or 53 per cent, are now against Labor’s plan, with 42 per cent in favour.

According to the latest Newspoll survey, taken exclusively for The Australian last weekend, Labor’s primary vote crashed six percentage points to just 30 per cent, the lowest primary vote in Newspoll survey history. Previously, the lowest primary vote was 31 per cent, in 1993, when Paul Keating was prime minister and Australia was in recession.

The Coalition’s primary vote, after falling sharply two weeks ago because of internal divisions, bounced back to 45 per cent. This is the Coalition’s highest primary vote since March 2006, when John Howard was prime minister and nine months before Kim Beazley was replaced by Mr Rudd as opposition leader. (source)

The Australian people do not like being lied to. Whether you support action on climate or not, Gillards backflip, breaking her promise not to implement a carbon tax under “any government I lead”, has irked the electorate and could spell disaster for Labor. Dennis Shanahan:

JULIA Gillard’s decision to announce her plan for a carbon tax from July 1 next year could be the political game-changer for her leadership, the Labor government and, most importantly, the future of climate change action in Australia.

Every possible element to drive down the standing of the Prime Minister, her government and the climate change debate has combined in such a way that the political and social divisions in Australia that have been evolving for years have become palpable and public.

Labor has lost its licence to campaign on climate change, a hard-won goodwill it had towards fighting global warming and a preparedness of consumers to pay, which was the fundamental underpinning of any political campaign to sell a new tax and raise prices.

The extent to which all the fault lines within Labor become entrenched – between the stereotypical inner-city lefties and the suburban conservatives, between young and old and those prepared or able to pay the cost of trying to arrest global warming – will decide the government’s fate. (source)

And also worth a read is Tony Abbott’s comments on climate in Adelaide:

TONY Abbott has declared Julia Gillard wants to change Australia’s way of life by introducing a price on carbon that would make it harder for people to turn on their airconditioners or to drive their cars.

In a speech in Adelaide last night, the Opposition Leader said the carbon tax would be the “big issue” of the next election campaign, regardless of when it was held.

Seizing the opportunity to intensify his attack while the Prime Minister is on her trip to the US, Mr Abbott said: “If this is to be more than just a hit on people’s cost of living, it must utterly transform the way we live and how we work.”

Mr Abbott said, given people’s propensity to use their airconditioners and to drive their cars, “if a carbon tax is to reduce electricity use and car use it will have to raise the price of daily life very considerably indeed”. (source)

Interesting times.

UPDATE: Hilarious to see ABC and Fairfax try to avoid this completely, both leading with “Obama ♥ Gillard” stories… pass the sick bag. On second thoughts, shouldn’t it be Bob Brown visiting the US? He is the PM after all…

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Labor Premier: carbon tax will "push up prices"

7 March, 2011 by

You've just made a LOT of new friends

Gong for the most blindingly obvious statement about the carbon [dioxide] tax goes to Lara Giddings, who tactlessly speaks the truth when Gillard, Combet et al are spinning their way up their own backsides. No Prime Ministerial Christmas card for you this year, Miss Giddings, methinks:

Tasmania’s Labor Premier Lara Giddings says a carbon tax will push up living costs and unfairly inflict economic pain on her state despite it already having more renewable energy than other states.

The federal government insists its compensation measures will help cushion households from steep price rises.

“You’d have your head in the sand to say there aren’t going to be cost of living increases,” Ms Giddings told ABC Radio on Monday.

“That’s not fair.”

It certainly isn’t, but delusional Combet isn’t having a bar of it:

Federal Climate Change Minister Greg Combet rejected the suggestion, arguing compensation measures for pensioners and low-income households would act as a cushion. [What about the rest of the population? – Ed]

“I don’t expect any significant impact on the overall cost of living out of our carbon price mechanism once we’ve done all our final work [please, my aching sides – Ed]. But, we will ensure that whatever that may be, we will assist households cope with that price impact,” he told reporters on Monday. (source)

Which I guess means they’ll be emitting the same amount of carbon dioxide, then? Total horse-shit, Greg. Sorry. Never thought I’d find myself agreeing with a Labor state premier, but in this case, Lara’s right on the money.

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Rio Tinto: carbon tax "disastrous"

7 March, 2011 by

Trucking awful tax…

Tell us something we didn’t know:

Mining giant Rio Tinto has warned the carbon tax is “potentially disastrous” for industry unless a far more generous compensation package is offered than under Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

Rio’s managing director, David Peever, says the CPRS design would have resulted in a cost of $3 billion on Rio Tinto’s export business.

He said industry accepts changes must be made to cut carbon [dioxide] pollution [emissions]. [Really? Why? – Ed]

But Mr Peever – who is also a member of the Federal Government’s business roundtable on climate change – says cutting pollution [emissions] will be expensive and in some cases the technology to cut it has not even been developed yet.

“Businesses unable to pass a carbon price through to customers, which is most businesses competing in international markets, would simply have to absorb it,” he said.

“Depending on the magnitude of the carbon price, this may be manageable when market conditions are favourable and margins are healthy.

“But when the cycle turns down, it will inevitably be disastrous.” (source)

And already the Greens are circling the wagons to ensure that compensation to the evil mining industry is kept at rock bottom:

Greens leader Bob Brown said an independent arbiter should decide compensation.

“There’s no way we will back these big corporations being compensated when they don’t deserve compensation,” Senator Brown told Sky News.

“I’m just saying if trade-exposed industries, which include Rio Tinto … want to put in a claim after carbon pricing’s been brought in … let that claim be looked at independently and verified so we don’t have gouging by big industry at the expense of small business.” (source)

Remind me, who gives a flying fig what Bob Brown says again? Oh yes, we all must now. He’s the Prime Minister, after all…

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,
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