Get his face off my monitor

In his dreams. The more people find out about the tax, and the fact that it will increase the price of everything for no benefit to the climate whatsoever, whether locally or globally, the more people will harden their opposition to it. But apparently not Wayne Swan, who believes (as usual) that it’s only a matter of time before the unwashed electorate come round to the political elite’s way of thinking:

Yesterday, as the Opposition Leader continued to attack the carbon tax, Mr Swan said he expected Labor’s stock to improve once the details of the tax were finalised in coming months.

“At the end of the day our job – we deal with some very tough economic and political issues,” he said in an interview with The Australian.

“There’s no way but just to keep going and get them done and wear it in the interim.”

He said there was “no other way” to deliver a carbon tax than that being pursued.

“We understand that we’ll cop stuff along the way because of that,” the Treasurer said.

“But there’s no alternative to it. The alternative to it is to do nothing. That’s terribly contrary to the country’s interests in the long term.” (source)

It’s actually quite funny (or it would be if it wasn’t so serious) to watch a politician twisting in the wind, trying to justify the unjustifiable. Maybe the big emitters will get together and agree a global deal in five or ten years time, in which case, Australia can join in then. There is nothing about the carbon tax that is in the country’s interests, whether short term or long term, unless there is global action. However, the longer that global action is delayed, the weaker the case for action will be, as temperatures and sea levels fail to rise as predicted, and people start asking “Is this Y2K all over again?”

Get his ugly face off my monitor

It is as if we are living in a parallel universe, where fantasy becomes reality, black is white, white is black, lies are truth and truth is a lie. My head is spinning from all the spin.

Not sure whether Wayne Swan is a liar or a fool. Does he genuinely, honestly, truthfully believe that taxing our economy for no reason whatsoever and damaging our competitiveness will “save jobs”? If so, he’s a fool – and a damn fine one at that.

Or is he just saying that to deceive the Australian public into supporting his government’s carbon tax policy? In which case he’s a barefaced liar. Please, make it stop.

Future jobs will be at risk if Australia does not put a price on pollution, the Government says.

Treasurer Wayne Swan responded to reports that Australia’s biggest manufacturing union will stop supporting the Government’s carbon tax if it costs a single job, saying the scheme is designed to save jobs.

‘‘Nothing could be more important to jobs in Australia in the future than making that transition [to a low-pollution economy]. If we don’t make that transition there will be a threat to our economy because the world is moving to lower carbon emissions,” Mr Swan said.

”So it is a difficult transition, but it is one that the Government wants to make working with the community, because our number one objective is to support employment and future prosperity.” (source)

And the key lie here is “the world is moving to lower carbon emissions.” It isn’t. It just isn’t. Are China or India lowering their emissions? No. The US? No. Wait, New Zealand has an ETS. Great, that will save the planet by reducing emissions by the square root of sweet FA. Climate madness.