Dishonest Julia cops an earful

13 July, 2011 by

A very bad look…

It’s the shameless dishonesty that irks people, the never-ending economy with the truth, the incessant misrepresentations.

Julia Gillard cannot even bring herself to call carbon dioxide by its proper name, maliciously and deceitfully labelling it “carbon pollution” in a deliberate attempt to mislead and confuse the Australian public.

It is not elemental carbon that is being taxed, it is the gaseous compound carbon dioxide, and it is not a pollutant, it is a harmless trace gas essential for plant life. If she is unable to tell the difference, she is not fit to be an MP, let alone the Prime Minister.

If she lies about the one thing that is the VERY SUBJECT of her tax, how on earth can people trust her on anything else?

At least one voter got to tell Julia to her face what she thought, encapsulating the frustration many of us feel:

“Why did you lie to us and why are you continuing to lie?” one woman said.

Gillard: “I can give you an answer right now if you’ll let me [note the snarky tone as well – Ed]. What I want to do is put a price on carbon pollution. The big polluters are going to pay.

Woman: “I understand that. I’m not stupid.” (source)

And that’s exactly the point. Gillard and her team think we are stupid, that we won’t be able to see through the spin and propaganda and think for ourselves.

Treat the electorate with contempt and you will surely be banished to political oblivion at the first opportunity.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Poll: 60% oppose the carbon [dioxide] tax

13 July, 2011 by

Online poll result

In the first poll to be taken after Julia Gillard’s announcement of the carbon [dioxide] tax on Sunday, the message is clear:

AUSTRALIANS have given the carbon tax the thumbs down, with 68 per cent saying it will leave them worse off and 63 per cent calling for Julia Gillard to bring on an early election.

The exclusive Galaxy Poll for the Herald Sun – the first major survey since the release of the carbon tax package on Sunday – also found 60 per cent of voters opposed the tax, 29 per cent were in favour and 11 per cent undecided.

The nationwide telephone poll of 500 people conducted on Monday night suggests voters believe the personal cost of the carbon tax outweighs the environmental benefits. [When the environmental benefits are nil, any cost, no matter how small, outweighs them – Ed]

Voters have not accepted Ms Gillard’s promise that more than six out of 10 households would be fully compensated or better off after compensation for the rise in the cost of living.

Only 10 per cent of voters said they would be better off and only 28 per cent believe Ms Gillard has a mandate to introduce the tax without holding another election.

The poll reveals 62 per cent of people think the Greens, who negotiated the package with Labor and the independents, have too much influence over the Government, while 30 per cent say the Greens are working effectively.

It finds 81 per cent believe the carbon tax will have little or no impact on the environment and 67 per cent believe it will be bad for the economy compared with 22 per cent who think it will be good. (source)

What do the other 19% think the carbon tax will do, I wonder? And another online poll shows much the same (see image).

Labor are heading for a massive hiding at the next election, all because Gillard was so desperate to stay in power that she sold her soul and that of the party to the environmental extremists. The (Green) chickens are coming home to roost.

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Peabody's $5bn coal takeover planned in 24 hours?

12 July, 2011 by

Hey, I know, let's spend $5bn!

Julia Gillard, desperate to jump on anything that will support her pointless carbon tax, claims that a massive takeover offer is a sign that her tax won’t hurt coal:

JULIA Gillard has seized on a $4.7 billion coal takeover bid as proof of the industry’s ongoing viability as it emerged Tony Abbott repeatedly questioned the purchasing company’s prospects under a carbon tax.

Shrugging off record low opinion polls this morning, the Prime Minister said the takeover of Queensland-based Macarthur Coal by US-owned Peabody Energy was an endorsement of her climate change plan.

“We are seeing the biggest takeover bid in Australian history for a coal company, ” she told ABC radio.

“You couldn’t get a better indication that business people see a good future in coal mining in this country. There’s more certainty now than there was before Sunday.” (source)

Are you seriously suggesting that a five BILLION dollar takeover proposal was conceived and executed in the 24 hours since your carbon tax announcement? That a business about to make such a massive investment just “did it on a whim” after seeing you on the telly on Sunday night?

You’re a lawyer, Julia. You know how these things work. It would have taken months of planning, research and due diligence before this announcement was made. And there’s plenty of that still to be done before the deal is signed. This would have been in the pipeline for ages, and Julia’s announcement had nothing to do with it whatsoever.

And Peabody has had its eye on Macarthur for ages, see here from 2010.

Delusional and desperate (and the media reported it all without any critical thought, as per usual).

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Proof-reading the Guardian

11 July, 2011 by

Richard North

The incomparable Richard North, over at the EU Referendum blog, takes his blue pencil to the Guardian’s article about our dear leader’s “great big new tax on everything” (© T Abbott):

The Australian government has unveiled foisted on its people one of the world’s most ambitious insane schemes to tackle climate change destroy its economy, a plan to tax carbon dioxide emissions from the country’s worst polluters most productive industries.

After a bruising political battle to win support for crush opposition to the measure, the prime minister, Julia Gillard, said on Sunday that from July next year, 500 companies would pay $23 (£15) a ton for their carbon emissions in the largest emissions trading scheme episode of collective suicide outside Europe.

The government predicts that by 2029 the plan will lead to a reduction in emissions equivalent to taking 45 million cars off the road. The government will fix the tax for three years, before moving to a market-set price in 2015.

“It’s time to get on with this; we are going to get this done”, said Gillard.

In other words, as Richard says: “If we’re going to commit suicide, ’tis better it’s done quickly”.

Read it here.

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Terry McCrann: Julia in Wonderland

11 July, 2011 by

Climate sense

Another stinging attack on the nonsensical carbon tax policy:

HOW do you sensibly analyse an utter policy mishmash conceived in some phantasmagorical Julia-in-Wonderland Canberra world?

That is a mind-boggling combination of insanity and stupidity?

This is a policy that proudly boasts the average household will get $10.10 in compensation each week to cover the $9.90 in extra costs that households purportedly will face.

You can all save the Barrier Reef if not indeed the entire planet and be a thumping 20c a week better off. Every five months or so the average household will be able to shout itself a single cafe latte in collective celebration.

That a treasury could prepare figures of such exactitude, that a government and a prime minister could announce them, without the slightest sense of their fundamental and total absurdity, shows a major disconnect from reality.

That’s reality in the broad: you reckon you can calculate the consequences of such mammoth and wide-sweeping change to our economy and our lives down to an exact 20c?

But also a disconnect in the privileged palaces and ivory towers of Canberra from the reality of people’s everyday lives dealing with power price rises and those of food and all the rest in supermarkets.

We now have as official Gillard Government policy that the emissions from petrol used in cars and small trucks are OK; but the emissions from diesel used in semis are evil.

That a tonne of coal going into a power station is so bad that we must spend billions buying back and closing a big chunk of our coal-fired electricity sector.

But a tonne of our coal going into a Chinese power station is wonderful.

So it’s bad for Australians to have cheap power from our coal, but it’s just great for the Chinese to have cheap power from our coal. Can you get more Julia-in-Wonderland than that?

Read it all.

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Carbon tax a "brazen fraud"

11 July, 2011 by

Bad for Gillard

Andrew Bolt’s column on the carbon tax announcement sums up the frustration and disenfranchisement many of us are feeling this morning:

JULIA Gillard’s carbon tax is the most brazen fraud perpetrated by an Australian government.

Warming believers should be outraged that the tax is so useless. Sceptics should be outraged it’s so pointless.

It offends the intelligence of everyone and threatens the jobs of thousands.

For nothing.

The Prime Minister yesterday claimed “the science is in” and man’s gasses were heating the planet dangerously.

But not even Gillard dares to claim that the tax she’s finally unveiled will stop any of that warming, or change the climate in any way – because it won’t. It can’t. (source)

News.com.au runs a poll on the carbon tax, and the results aren’t pretty. However, GetUp has obviously been mobilised to vote on this, as the results are far less dramatic than they were yesterday evening, but they are still damning (see graphic):

ANGRY Australians have vowed to vote Julia Gillard from office at the next election after today’s controversial carbon tax announcement.

Scores of voters rejected the plan soon after details of the $24.5 billion package to tackle climate change were revealed, with more than 80 per cent who voted in a national online poll saying Australia shouldn’t have a carbon tax.

Almost 100,000 votes were cast by more than 25,000 people across four polls in News Limited’s “Carbon Tax Plebiscite”, with 87.1 per cent saying they planned to change their vote at the next election in light of the tax.

More than 70 per cent of voters, or 15,866 people, said they now planned to vote for the Coalition at the next election while just 8.51 per cent said they would support a Labor government.

Just 13 per cent of voters said they wouldn’t change their vote at the next election. (source – vote at the link)

Industry is unimpressed:

CANBERRA’S grand carbon tax reform package will only raise the growing alarm in the business community that the Gillard government just doesn’t understand the meaning of the bottom line or the pressures facing industry and the economy.

It will be hard enough to convince highly sceptical voters that the carbon tax is an important economic and environmental reform that won’t leave most of their budgets worse off.

But most of the business community, already coping with massive structural changes, will be even less persuaded that this scheme has merit, let alone that it deserves the title of major reform. The $23 a tonne tax is high enough to increase costs on business but not sufficiently high to do what the government promises it will — drive substantial change in energy use, provide investment certainty or reduce global warming.

What it does produce is the churning of billions of dollars in and out of Canberra, intrusive and inefficient regulation and a (hopefully) modest drag on economic growth just when the non-mining sector feels so weighed down. (source)

Tim Blair takes Gillard’s address to pieces:

“Most Australians now agree our climate is changing, this is caused by carbon pollution, this has harmful effects on our environment and on the economy and the government should act.”

Most Australians don’t want a carbon tax.

“The first Australian government to announce a plan for a carbon price was John Howard’s back in 2007.”

And look where it got him. And Kevin Rudd. And Malcolm Turnbull. Gillard is shooting for a climate change four-peat.

“A lot has happened since then; the debate has been difficult and divisive. But we have now had the debate – 2011 is the year we decide that as a nation we want a clean energy future.”

Whoa! The debate is over now? The Prime Minister’s powers evidently now extend to public opinion.

Frankly, she could do with a little more practice on her own cabinet first.

“Now is the time to move from words to deeds.”

Several words from which the Prime Minister dearly wishes we could move: “There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.”

That sentence didn’t survive as fact for even one year. (source)

Jo Nova:

“Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.” Henning Webb Prentis, Jr., President of the Armstrong Cork Company 1943

The quoted passage from Prentis is known as “the fatal sequence”, and the only good news is that we don’t have to stay on the road to bondage. The message about the real science and economics is spreading from BBQ to BBQ, dinner to dinner, through letters to the editors, and through phone calls to radio stations. Information is our friend, and when it comes down to it, we can do it without the lamestream media, and the ABC. They can rubber-stamp the government PR, and union sponsored activists can try to cancel speeches that might reveal the truth, but these distant messengers don’t come between family and friends.

Word-of-mouth spreads the story with an exponential growth curve. There’s a one way stream of people leaving the “carbon faith” and shifting to skepticism, there’s  virtually no flow the other way.

Sooner or later the hard rock meets the immovable force and when 70% of the country know that the tax is a lie, based on deceit, wallowing in corruption and plastered with vested interests it will be all over — all over for the tax, all over for Labor Party credibility, all over for the witchdoctors who think they can change the weather. (source)

Letter from Viv Forbes:

Carbon Tax Mark 4 is flimsy but dangerous.

Because of public opposition to a new tax on everything, the tax has been gutted. The PM hopes to buy public support by giving exemptions to almost everyone and offering widespread bribes to voters. It is now feeble and ineffective.

But the Green-Gillard coalition is desperate and such people cannot be trusted. They will say or promise anything in order to get this new tax introduced.

Once on the law books, the exemptions will be whittled away, the tax rate will increase and the tax bribes will disappear. It is a stealthy cancer in the gut of the Australian economy.

The cost of electricity, food, fuel and travel will increase, but few people will recognise the root cause. Politicians will blame “Woolworths, power suppliers and Big Oil” for the pain.

This new stealth tax is the thin edge of the wedge.

It will have no effect on the climate, but is a fiscal weapon too dangerous to be left in the hands of green extremists.

Leaving Bob Brown loose with the vast powers of a carbon tax is like leaving the grandkids alone in the hayshed with a box of matches.

“Abolish the Stealth Tax” will be the next election slogan. (source)

As everyone now knows, the tax will do nothing for the climate, and even warmist Adam Morton from the Sydney Morning Herald acknowledges that fact. And points out what many commentators miss, namely that Australia will have to buy permits to reach even the modest target set for 2020:

ONCE you can get past the extraordinary compensation packages – some justifiable, others less so – the real test of the carbon price package is pretty basic: will it cut Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions?

Beyond that, will it set up the economy for potentially even deeper cuts down the track?

The answer to the first question is probably yes, though it depends on how you define a cut in emissions.

…

What does all this mean for emissions? It depends on your perspective. Treasury modelling suggests Australia’s emissions will rise slightly in the years ahead before starting to fall in a couple of decades.

They will quickly be significantly lower than they would be without a carbon price, or under most analyses of the Coalition’s ”direct action” policy. But it also means Australia will only reach its targets by buying international carbon permits – 101 million tonnes worth in 2020, and many more by 2050. (source)

With such lukewarm support from one of Gillard’s cheerleaders, it looks as though the tax will annoy everyone. Not enough to please the Greens, and too much for everyone else. And we hope voters have long, long memories.

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Gillard address: empty platitudes and a sickly grin

10 July, 2011 by

More spin

A prime ministerial address to the nation – are we at war or something? No, just introducing a tax in breach of an explicit pre-election promise. I guess the fact that she felt the need to conduct such an address shows how desperate she is to smooth the feathers of a very angry electorate. It won’t work – despite an over-the-top make-over and a forced rictus that looked so fake it was embarrassing.

I know I said I wasn’t going to watch it, but I’m prepared to suffer for my work… As expected, the address was full of nauseating, sickly clichés, lacking substance and credibility. Here’s an example:

Putting a price on carbon is a big change for our country.

I know we can do it together.

Our economy is the envy of the world.

We have world-leading renewable technology, a coal industry determined to cut pollution among the world’s richest reserves of natural gas.

And we are a confident, creative people.

I see a great clean energy future for our great country.

I know we can get there together. (source)

Pass the sick bag. By my count the phrase “carbon pollution” was used four times, “carbon” and “pollution” individually seven each. Every one a lie. She doesn’t even have the honesty or integrity to use the correct terminology – it is carbon dioxide and it is not pollution. But who cares? We can lie and mislead just to get our way and appease the Greens.

Tony Abbott must have read ACM because he said exactly what I said this morning:

“This is socialism masquerading as environmentalism.”

Julia, Wayne, Greg, Bob, Rob and Tony: the battle has only just begun. It will get far, far worse.

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Carbon madness: 80% emissions reduction by 2050

10 July, 2011 by

Forget for a moment the $23 a tonne carbon price, the really shocking figure in the Government’s new climate policy is its “ambitious” (read: suicidal) target of reducing emissions by 80% on 2000 levels by 2050. This is a figure which has “added to appease Green extremists” written all over it.

But at least the government have set this insane target well into the future, with no hope of it ever being legislated or achieved.

The rest of it is moving money around for no reason whatsoever (your money, that is).

You can download the climate policy here (PDF).

UPDATE: Just to put all this nonsense in perspective, the policy is due to reduce Australia’s emissions by 160 million tonnes of CO2 by 2020. Sounds impressive right? Well, China’s emissions rose in just one year by 750 million tonnes, nearly five times Australia’s planned reduction by 2020 – in just one year. Climate Madness.

P.S. No mention of how much of the revenue will by siphoned off to the UN either…

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Ignorance and arrogance drive carbon crusade

10 July, 2011 by

Hubris

I assume Julia Gillard must be a reasonably intelligent person to have achieved the rank of Prime Minister. And you don’t make partner of a law firm without a modicum of ability. However, her wilful blindness on the subject of climate change and Australia’s response to it is breathtaking – and embarrassing. She has abandoned all critical thought on the subject and is guided by a toxic mixture of ignorance and arrogance, as this quote reveals:

Ms Gillard said yesterday the Government had no option but to take action on climate change.

“We know we must lead because the science says we must,” Ms Gillard told the NSW ALP state conference.

“From July 1 next year, the freedom to pollute our skies must cease – polluters will have to pay.” (source)

Ignoring the disingenuous, but now ubiquitous, use of the word pollution for a harmless trace gas, the hubris at work here is astonishing.

  • Australia has “no option” on climate change action, but China, India, the US and most of the rest of the world have, apparently, because they aren’t doing anything.
  • Why must Australia lead the pack? We produce less than 1.3% of global emissions. Nothing we do will make any difference to the climate, globally or locally. This is pure arrogance. And the rest of the world isn’t going to follow our lead, believe me.
  • “The science says we must”? Really? If you surround yourself with alarmist advisers, all of whom have their snouts in the global warming hysteria funding trough, exclude or suppress any dissent, only listen to one side of a highly complex story, and suspend all rational thought processes, then I guess you’re right! Simple!
  • “Freedom to pollute our skies”? Amazing how words can be twisted when there is a political agenda to force through. Nothing about the carbon tax has anything to do with pollution. And her assumption that a carbon tax in Australia will somehow “clean up” Australian skies alone, ignores the fact that we don’t live in a polythene bubble, isolated from the rest of the global atmosphere.

As this blog has said many times before, a price on carbon in Australia will do nothing for the climate, locally or globally. Judging by the newspaper reports this morning, all it will do is redistribute wealth amongst the population, from rich to poor.

Stealth socialism at work, under the guise of environmentalism. Let’s hope the people aren’t fooled.

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Power surge due: 6.30pm Sunday

8 July, 2011 by

Power surge

Hey kids, I hope Charlie the Coal-Fired Power Station is ready for this. Of course he is, he’s always ready for anything, thankfully (unlike his pitiful playmates, Wussy Wind and Sissy Solar).

Just as well, because on Sunday evening, at about 6.30pm, there will be a massive spike of electricity demand as everyone abandons their TV sets, goes into their kitchens and switches on their 2.4kW electric kettles to make a cup of tea and while away the next five minutes.

Why? Because Julia will be spruiking her pointless carbon tax to the nation. Here’s a checklist of the lies and spin we can expect to hear:

  • how “climate change is real” and we must take action
  • how Australia is “lagging behind the rest of the world”
  • repeated references to “carbon pollution”
  • repeated references to “big polluters”
  • how climate change is damaging Australia (but omitting to mention the tax will do nothing to change that…)
  • lots and lots of compensation for everyone (which kinda cancels out the intended effect of the tax, but still…)
  • how a carbon price is in the national interest
  • how a carbon tax will do nothing for the climate, oops sorry, that one slipped out.
  • how I was forced into this at gunpoint by the Greens, oops, sorry, that too.
Make sure you have those kettles at the ready folks.
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