Let's make sure Gillard has to answer these questions

16 July, 2012 by

Hang out with the PM? No thanks…

The OurSay website is inviting us to “hang out with the Prime Minister” – nothing I could think of could possibly be worse, but anyway – and you have the chance to vote for the three questions she will be asked [Update: link fixed to show most popular questions first]. You may recall that ACM’s question on OurSay’s The Climate Agenda reached third place and therefore received a full page article in Fairfax – that must have hurt.

Let’s see if we can make our hopeless PM squirm, shall we?

The top two questions as it stands are as follows:

“By how much, measured in thousandths of degrees Celsius, will the Earth’s temperature be reduced through the carbon tax?”

(0.0035C apparently), and:

“You said that you wouldn’t impose a price on CO2 until you had a deep and lasting consensus from the Australian people – When did you receive that consensus? and where is that consensus at now?”

It’s nowhere to be seen. And the public are abandoning you in droves…

Register at Our Say and you have 8 votes. Use them as you see fit – you have just over three days left.

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'Even the dead don't escape the carbon tax'

9 July, 2012 by

A situation that is no doubt being played out all around our country, and will be until this pointless tax is repealed.

Fraudulent price rises attributed to the carbon tax will become commonplace, and every time it happens, it will forcefully remind people just whose fault it all is, and how she lied about it before the election:

A Melbourne family who claim they were slugged an extra $55 “carbon tax charge” when burying a relative were told “even the dead don’t escape the carbon tax”.

Erica Maliki and her family were burying her father-in-law at Springvale Cemetery when she was told the price per burial plot had increased because of the carbon tax.

Her father-in-law died on June 30, the day before the carbon tax was introduced, and was buried early last week.

“I thought to myself, ‘What carbon could possibly be used by putting a man in a grave?'” Ms Maliki said.

“All they did was put the dirt back in. How can they charge us a carbon tax for burying someone?”

Ms Maliki’s son Zaid said the cemetery’s receptionist told his sister-in-law “even the dead don’t escape the carbon tax”.

“We are pretty upset… that comment was a kick in the guts,” he said. (source)

In any event, technically, burial is carbon sequestration. If it had been a cremation, however…

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Craig Emerson dances on the grave of the Australian economy

3 July, 2012 by

Singing a requiem for Labor

If you haven’t seen this video, please be prepared with a sick bag – and don’t have any sharp objects around with which you may wish to inflict harm on your computer.

Craig Emerson comes to an interview with the ABC prepared with a pre-recorded soundtrack to participate in one of the most embarrassing interviews I have ever seen –  not just from this Labor rabble, but in my life.

On the day after the pointless and damaging carbon tax was introduced, and Gillard suggested those who questioned it were simply foolish, we have this:

[tube]hZboCxbTzHk[/tube]

Words. Fail. Me.

All I can struggle to manage is, keep it up, Craigie boy. You have just torpedoed another massive hole in your sinking government.

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Gilliard: only foolish people oppose carbon tax

2 July, 2012 by

Of course the headline of Gillard’s patronising and delusional article in The Australian doesn’t say that, it says:

“Sensible Australians will see carbon tax as a change for the better.”

Which is the same as saying only foolish people will question its merits. And she asks a very dangerous question:

“So now, Australians have a chance to see carbon pricing in action for themselves. Is it a wrecking ball, a python squeeze or is it a sensible policy to cut pollution? You decide.”

Oh, don’t you worry – we will, Julia. We will.

Read it here.

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Last few days before Australian climate madness takes effect

29 June, 2012 by

The Australian economy…

On Sunday 1 July 2012, the Labor/Green government’s carbon tax of $23 per tonne will finally take effect in Australia.

We’ve heard all the usual spin from Greg Combet about how other countries are taking similar action and Australia must “catch up”. It’s all bullshit as anyone with half a brain could work out. Unfortunately, Combet and Gillard and their Green mates don’t have half a brain between them, so they can’t work it out. In any case, it’s all Green blackmail anyway, to keep Gillard in power.

Coming at a time when:

  • the European economy could collapse at any moment thanks to any number of bankrupt states teetering on the brink of default,
  • economic confidence in the US is low, and
  • our own resources-run economy is feeling the pinch from decreased demand from China (even ignoring the punishing mining tax),

to legislate what is essentially the world’s highest carbon tax, when European carbon prices have been falling like a stone, and now stand around $10, is pure climate madness – and what originally gave this blog its name back in 2008.

And of course, it will do NOTHING for the climate. Our emissions will actually rise. And China and India’s emissions will rise several orders of magnitude more than any notional reduction here in Australia for decades to come.

Gillard believes that when the tax comes into effect, people won’t notice and she can crow “See, it wasn’t so bad after all!” Some hope. Electricity prices are already set to rise 18 – 20% next year and the additional costs of paying the tax will inevitably be passed on to consumers (or suppliers, who will eventually pass it on to consumers anyway). Prices of virtually everything will rise despite the almost childishly simplistic refrain of “it’s only the top 500 polluters who pay”. Yes, and who pays them?

The cost of living here in Australia is going through the roof and the economy is already stagnant. Uncertainty about a second GFC is forcing Australian families all over the country to tighten their belts, slash discretionary spending and sit tight in their bunkers until the next election, which they hope will deliver a majority government capable of action.

Thanks to the carbon tax, the next 15 months will be even worse than that. I foresee the economy shrinking, retailers going under, businesses failing and unemployment rising. The housing market will shrink and families will be stuck in the negative equity trap. There can be no other outcome.

The so-called “green economy” is a myth. It survives on a life support system of generous government handouts. Withdraw the feeding tube and death rapidly follows. Only when such alternative energies become genuinely competitive will they be able to survive without government crutches. It is not the panacea that will see us through this crisis.

We can only hope that something forces an early election and this pointless and damaging tax can be removed as soon as possible thereafter. Otherwise, we’re stuck with it until at least the second half of 2013, by which time, the Australian economy may be too broken to be saved – and it may take generations of hard times foisted upon our, quote, “children and grandchildren” to restore it.

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Gillard facing 'carbon tax revolt'

3 June, 2012 by

Stop burning that money! It's bad for the climate!

By the law of averages, there had to be a few MPs in the Labor party who were smart enough to question the nonsensical reasoning behind the carbon tax (and possibly the futility of any kind of unilateral climate action).

The Sunday Telegraph reports that there may be rumblings on the back benches:

JULIA Gillard faces growing backbench unrest over the carbon tax with sceptics quietly planning to push for changes to the incoming tax – or the leadership.

Labor MPs have voiced concerns about the level of the July 1 fixed carbon price – $23 a tonne – and the timetable to transition to an emissions trading scheme in 2015.

A new caucus sub-committee, created to cool MPs’ anger over the government’s foreign-worker deal with mining magnate Gina Rinehart, is set to be a forum for sceptics to push for change, several Labor MPs suggested.

“I just hate the carbon tax. Never wanted it,” one Labor MP told The Sunday Telegraph.

‘We might have a few like-minded sceptics coming out. If I had my way we wouldn’t be having a carbon tax but that’s not possible.” (source)

Now this would be a fight I want ringside seats and a ton of popcorn for.

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Carbon tax: $10bn up in smoke

31 May, 2012 by

Stop burning that money! It's bad for the climate!

It’s been said many times before, but it bears repeating again and again:

The carbon tax will do nothing for the climate.

Terry McCrann points out the blindingly obvious (to everyone except Julia Gillard and the Labor/Green government), namely that China’s increasing emissions will dwarf any reduction in Australia’s already tiny carbon footprint.

Australia’s planned reduction of 5%, of the 1.5% of global emissions it produces, equates to less than eight hundredths of one percent of global emissions. Even if we assume global emissions remain constant, such a tiny change will make no difference to the climate.

But of course, as the alarmists like to say, it’s worse than we thought! Since global emissions will continue to increase as China chews through more and more coal every year to support its rapidly growing economy, Australia’s token reduction will be swamped many times over.

So we know that the carbon tax will do nothing for the climate. So what is it for?

It’s a very expensive, very damaging political gesture to keep the Gillard minority government in power by buying the support of the Greens (I wouldn’t pay 10c for a Green, let alone $10bn), and to kowtow to the pointless political correctness that pervades the climate agenda, run as it is by the UN and mega-environmental groups like WWF and Greenpeace.

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Abbott will call double dissolution on carbon tax

26 March, 2012 by

Double dissolution?

Glad to see this spelt out clearly. If Abbott wins the election next year, and the Senate refuses to pass his legislation repealing the carbon tax, he will not hesitate to call a double dissolution.

For our overseas readers, under the Australian constitution, if the Senate votes down a government bill twice, the government may call an election in which both houses of Parliament (Senate and House of Representatives) are dissolved and re-elected. See here for more information on this procedure.

The issue for a potential incoming Abbott government is that the Senate would still be controlled by the Labor/Greens, who are likely to resist any attempt to repeal the carbon tax:

Australians will head quickly back to the polls if the Coalition wins the next federal election but fails to persuade the Senate to repeal the carbon tax, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott warned yesterday.

A jubilant Mr Abbott said the carbon tax had played a role in the Liberal National Party’s overwhelming victory at the Queensland election which saw Labor’s presence in the state Parliament reduced to about seven MPs.

Outgoing Queensland premier Anna Bligh and her predecessor Peter Beattie insisted the election had been fought on state issues but both urged their interstate and federal Labor colleagues to quickly learn from the humiliating defeat.

Mr Abbott said the carbon tax had been one of the issues which had contributed to former Brisbane lord mayor Campbell Newman’s election success. He said a federal Coalition government would do whatever was necessary to repeal the carbon tax, including calling a double dissolution election.

But Mr Abbott doubted a Labor opposition would ”commit suicide twice” by supporting the tax in the Senate. [I wouldn’t bet on it, Tony, given their record of incompetence and stupidity – Ed]

”If I’m wrong, if an incoming Coalition government can’t get its carbon tax repeal legislation through the Senate, well, we will not hesitate to go to a double dissolution,’‘ he told Sky News. (source)

It’s hilarious how Labor and Bligh are desperately portraying this defeat as a minor local difficulty, without any federal ramifications, especially when a survey of Queensland voters put “energy prices” at the top of their list of concerns – something directly influenced by mad green climate policies pursued by Labor at a federal level.

Oh well, let them go on believing that if they wish – the last thing we want is for them to come to their senses.

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Carbon tax cost to Aussie economy: $30 billion by 2018

13 March, 2012 by

Australia's economy with the carbon tax

But who cares when you’re “saving the planet”? The fact that the European carbon price is less than half of Gillard’s starting point is brushed aside. The fact that whatever emissions reductions Australia makes will have no effect on the climate whatsoever is ignored. The pleas from businesses to reduce the initial carbon tax to something much lower (or preferably zero) go unheeded and rebuffed by the arrogant likes of Swan and Combet.

AUSTRALIA faces a $30 billion hit to growth by 2018 if domestic carbon prices remain higher than the European price, according to new economic modelling that will add to business pressure to bring the $23 starting price closer to Europe’s $10.

The modelling, by the Centre for International Economics consultancy, warns that keeping the $23 fixed price regime and the floor price of $15 a tonne – key elements of the current package – will have almost twice the impact on economic growth by 2018 as allowing the Australian price to track international prices.

A higher price in Australia than in comparable international markets could also cost the mining industry a cumulative $4bn and durable manufacturers $1.5bn over six years, the CIE modelling predicts. In a blow to the Coalition’s direct action policy alternative, leading CSIRO researcher Michael Battaglia has warned that the abatement figures in Tony Abbott’s alternative policy are “ambitious”. The centrepiece of the policy – sequestering 85 million tonnes of carbon in soil by 2020 – might only achieve abatement of between 5 million and 20 million tonnes, he said yesterday.

Which is why the Coalition should abandon their direct action policy at the same time as scrapping the carbon tax. Put the funds towards adaptation when required.

The CIE research, commissioned by the Minerals Council of Australia, comes amid projections that slow growth in Europe will mean international carbon prices will not rise significantly above the $10 around which they are currently sitting.

When Australia’s carbon package was announced, Treasury assumed an international carbon price of between $29 and $61. But the European credit crisis caused prices to slump. The research will amplify calls by key business backers of carbon pricing, including the Australian Industry Group’s Heather Ridout and the Business Council of Australia’s Jennifer Westacott for the policy to be rewritten. (source)

Fat chance. Labor doesn’t care about business (or about the climate). They only care about sucking up to the Greens to stay in power and creaming off the revenue from the tax to plug the massive hole in the budget caused by their reckless spending and waste.

Remainder of the article follows.

[Read more…]

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SHOCK: China to introduce a carbon tax

7 January, 2012 by

Except that it will be just over $1.50 a tonne… from 2015… possibly… compared to Australia’s $23 a tonne (fifteen times as much)… from 2012… definitely.

Still madness.

Link.

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