Climate at the heart of Abbott’s election victory

9 September, 2013 by

So claims Tom Switzer, in an article at WSJ Online:

For two years, the global warming debate had been conducted in a heretic-hunting and illiberal environment. It was deemed blasphemy for anyone to dare question not only the climate science but the policy consensus to decarbonize the economy. Mr. Rudd even claimed that climate change was the “great moral challenge” of our time and even denounced critics of cap and trade as “deniers” and “conspiracy theorists.” The hapless Liberals led by Mr. Turnbull—an Oz version of Mitt Romney—were in the deepest political valley.

Mr. Abbott, then widely written off as a remnant of the Howard era, decided to challenge the media-political zeitgeist. Cap and trade, he argued, merely amounted to economic pain for no environmental gain, especially for a nation that accounted for only 1.4% of greenhouse gas emissions. He contested the Liberal party leadership, winning by a single vote.

Like Margaret Thatcher‘s victory in the U.K. Conservative party leadership ballot and Ronald Reagan’s nomination as the Republican presidential candidate in 1980, this delighted the left. They considered him too divisive and—gasp!—conservative to be electable. According to one distinguished intellectual, under Mr. Abbott’s leadership the Liberals would become “a down-market protest party of angry old men and the outer suburbs.”

Then along came the failed 2009 Copenhagen summit, which exposed the Rudd agenda as a sham. When the rest of the world refused to endorse the climate enthusiasts’ fanciful notions for slashing carbon emissions, Mr. Rudd imploded. Mr. Abbott seized the moment and highlighted the higher energy costs created by Labor’s emissions trading scheme.

Almost overnight, Mr. Rudd’s stratospheric poll figures cratered. Facing a changing (political) climate, he ditched the emissions trading scheme, his government’s key-note legislation.

Rudd’s popularity slipped and he was knifed by his own party soon afterwards. In the election of 2010, as climate alarmism’s downward spiral was well underway, Julia Gillard shackled her fortunes to the Greens, environmental extremists who demanded urgent action on climate as part of the deal to support Labor. Gillard was forced to break her pre-election promise on the introduction of a carbon [dioxide] tax, and from that moment, trust in her and Labor was gone.

Once again languishing in the polls, Labor, in a fit of desperation, reinstated Kevin Rudd, forgetting all the leadership dysfunction and chaos of his first stint, and believing him to be the Messianic figure that would transform Labor’s fortunes. Wrong. The veneer of “new Kevin” chipped and cracked within days to reveal the same “old Kevin” underneath. Voters (and his own party) had had enough.

Thus, Tony Abbott became Prime Minister of this great country.

From the archives: How Australian Climate Madness reported on Abbott’s victory in the leadership election, 1 December 2009:

Abbott claims the leadership

Abbott claims the leadership

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Australia awakens from the Labor/Green nightmare

8 September, 2013 by

Abbott - PM at last

Abbott – PM at last

The six-year Labor/Green nightmare is finally over. Tony Abbott is the nation’s new Prime Minister.

Abbott gave a brief, dignified victory speech, promising to govern for all Australians, in stark contrast to Labor who only sought to entrench division and disunity. Rudd, on the other hand, rambled on for what seemed like an eternity in his concession speech, as if he himself was the victor – delusional to the last.

Whilst Rudd will not contest the Labor leadership, he will remain in parliament as an ever-present threat of destabilisation.

Labor’s nightmare has only just begun.

UPDATE: James Delingpole – Go, Tony, go!

Filed Under: Aussie Politics Tagged With: ,

Abbott on the verge

7 September, 2013 by

Out in the gutter with all the other trash…

Out in the gutter with all the other trash…

The Coalition, led by Tony Abbott, is on the verge of regaining power after the worst six years of government in Australia’s Federal history.

The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd-again experiment proved to be the most untrustworthy, incompetent and arrogant administration one could conceivably imagine. Broken promises, failed policies, epic waste, smear, lies and corruption lay strewn in its wake. Labor’s shabby deal with the Greens in 2010 was bought with a promise of urgent action on climate change, which gave Australia the most pointless emissions tax on the planet.

Producing barely 1.5% of global emissions, Australia has always been a bit-part in the fairytale theatrics of global climate action, and Labor’s tax was supposed to reduce that tiny figure by a paltry 5%, all at a cost of billions of dollars to the Australian economy. And what effect would it have on the climate? Nothing. Well, as close to nothing as one could get, something like a twenty-thousandth of a degree Celsius.

But that didn’t matter, because the Greens are ideologically blind to harsh decisions and realities, putting their fluffy, feel-good pet causes above the quality of life of ordinary Australians. Labor tied itself to this party of nut-jobs and extremists, and with luck, by the end of today, they will have paid the ultimate price for having done so.

I look forward to seeing the end of the carbon [dioxide] tax, the ETS, the abolition of the Climate Commission and with it, the disappearance of Tim Flannery, Will Steffen, and all the other climate rent-seekers suckling on the public teat for the past six years.

But no matter how much you may agree or disagree with Labor’s policies, it has been the style of government that has shamed Labor most. Their currency has been utter incompetence, personal smear and abuse. Gillard’s misogyny rant went viral – surprise, surprise, given what a hot-bed of Lefties social media has become – and Abbott was portrayed as an unreconstructed bully and a thug. The approach failed miserably, as people have realised that it is not Abbott but Kevin Rudd that has the sociopathic tendencies.

Also, the Left’s ever-present totalitarian instincts, always bubbling away just under the surface, were almost given free rein when the truly frightening Finkelstein report was released, which advocated a government-appointed watchdog to “regulate” news media (i.e. muzzle any criticism of the government and shackle the Murdoch “hate media”). Whither free speech in our so-called democracy? Thankfully, it never made it, but boy, was it close.

Their standards in public life have also been reprehensible, with the Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper affairs sullying the reputation of the Australian parliament. The recent ICAC investigations have demonstrated the level of corruption and back-scratching that went on within New South Wales Labor when it was in power. Cannot imagine that Federal Labor is much different.

If all the polls are even vaguely correct, the delinquent adolescents who have been playing at running our country for the last six years will be punished severely, and the adults will once again form the government of Australia.

Filed Under: Aussie Politics, Climate Tagged With:

Reform of the ABC long overdue

6 September, 2013 by

Leans to the Left

Always leaning to the Left

This blog has frequently exposed the barely-concealed left-wing bias of our publicly funded broadcaster, the ABC. As Gerard Henderson points out regularly on his must-read Media Watch Dog, there isn’t a single conservative presenter or editor on any mainstream current affairs programme, earning the corporation’s acronym the alternative interpretation of “Anything but Conservatives”.

In their stead we have had to suffer “Red” Kerry O’Brien (whose “old leather bag” visage will be gracing the ABC’s election coverage tomorrow, naturally), Tony Jones (adding another lefty voice to the already skewed Q&A panel every week), Fran Kelly (activist presenter of Radio National’s Breakfast show), News Radio’s political editor and resident Lefty, Marius Benson, Jonathan Green (editor of the Drum, which is banged repeatedly for Labor/Green causes) and Mark Scott himself – wilfully blind to the “groupthink” that is endemic in his organisation – to name but a few.

Then we have all the climate change alarmists, like Dr Karl, Robyn Williams, Adam Spencer, Bernie Hobbs, Tony Jones again, all the Catalyst team etc., 95% of the contributors on the online site, extremists like Clive Hamilton, Stephan Lewandowsky etc, and the list goes on.

It is galling that taxes paid by all Australians go towards funding that Lefty/Green echo-chamber, which caters for a small urban elite, staffed with inner-city Ultimo types who couldn’t run a chook raffle. Privately owned media organisations stand or fall on their output, witness the enduring success of News Corp, and the rapid decline of Fairfax, as it too panders to the latte-sipping, sandal-wearing intelligentsia, and in the process ignores the vast majority of Australians. The Age astonishingly endorses Labor for the election tomorrow – as one commentator pointed out, after asylum disasters, NBN, massive debt, waste, dysfunctional leadership, knifings, in-fighting, Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper, what would it take for them not to endorse Labor?

But the ABC is paid for by all of us, and it should be representative of the views of all Australians, not just a mouthpiece for the Left. It is probable that a Coalition government will be elected tomorrow, sweeping away six years of Labor incompetence. Yet you wouldn’t believe it listening to the ABC this morning, with the majority of stories either puff pieces for Rudd and Labor, or criticism of the Coalition and Abbott. Maybe they realise that the clock is ticking, time is running out, so they have to make the most of it, like the last gasp of the Roman Empire.

It’s time for the ABC to be subjected to significant reform. Balance must be restored in current affairs broadcasting, and the ABC must fully reflect the diversity of Australian opinion. Whether this is by some form of privatisation or otherwise, the population have switched off in droves, with Sky taking over as the de facto national broadcaster.

When the ABC isn’t trusted to run the election debates, something is seriously wrong. Let’s hope Tony Abbott and the Coalition will start to fix it.

Filed Under: ABC Bias, Aussie Politics Tagged With: , ,

Election 2013: Rudd promises to put Aussie on Moon

27 August, 2013 by

Bushwacker Bruce

Bushwacker Bruce said “Geez, I’m on the f*cking moon”

[Satire alert] Kevin Rudd has pledged that if re-elected on 7 September, he will commit Australia to land a fair dinkum Aussie on the Moon.

Speaking at a campaign function, where he had just announced a bunch of random, back-of-the-envelope, thought-bubble, far-fetched and completely un-costed policies so far into the future that nobody will remember, Rudd said that he asked the electorate to return a Labor government so that it could put Australia at the forefront of the space race.

“Australia has a proud history of space exploration [no it doesn’t – Ed] and I cannot think up a more brazenly populist and vote-grabbing policy than promising to put an Aussie on the Moon at some point far in the future, when both I, and this ridiculous promise, will have been long forgotten. The East Coast rail link was pretty much out there, with a budget of $115 billion and a completion date at least fifty years away, but the ABC and Fairfax really thought I was serious. So let’s see how many of them fall for this one, with a budget of $1 trillion and a target date of 2100.”

Mr Rudd said he had considered offering free time travel for all senior citizens, but thought that even the ABC wouldn’t be dumb enough to run that story [want a bet?].

[Enough – Ed.]

Filed Under: Aussie Politics Tagged With: , ,

Rudd the psychopath

21 August, 2013 by

Total weirdo.

Total weirdo.

UPDATE: Rudd is branded an “elitist grub who thinks he is superior to all” by someone who had the misfortune to have to work with him, whereas Abbott is a “gentleman with a capital G”. Following the debate last night, the make-up artist who worked on both Rudd and Abbott wrote on her Facebook page:

“One of them was absolutely lovely, engaged in genuine conversation with me, acknowledge that I had a job to do and was very appreciative. The other did the exact opposite! Oh boy, I have ever had anyone treat me so badly whilst trying to do my job. Political opinions aside… from one human being to another… Mr Abbott, you win hands down.”

Just confirms the fact (if such confirmation were needed) that Rudd is a pompous, arrogant, sociopathic bully, disconnected with real people to the point of autism.  [via Bolt]

Janet Albrechtsen is on sparkling form in The Australian today:

Rudd knows he is not like the rest of us and that’s why he works so hard to prove that he is. Whether it’s the weird way he talks or the cheesy smile he wears for those few seconds too long, or his unnatural hand gestures, Rudd is trying hard to fit in. The problem is the more Rudd tries to be like us, the less he is.

When Rudd was removed in 2010, it was not just about policy mistakes, though they weighed heavily. Rudd was also removed because of his temperament, the way he governed as PM. Plenty within Labor were anxious that Rudd’s disturbing personality flaws would become known to the public. There were already slips: his hissy fits, his crude language, the white anger caught on camera and the rude, dismissive treatment of colleagues.

When Labor MPs spoke about the arrogance of Rudd, what Peter Beattie called his “fatal political flaw”, his dysfunctional, grandiose and chaotic governing style – it wasn’t hard to find evidence. Rudd’s character translated into rushed policies (think the National Broadband Network, the school halls, the resource super profits tax), overblown rhetoric that only highlighted under-delivery (how many policies were “revolutions”), arrogance that he always knew better (ignoring warnings about the consequences of dismantling John Howard’s immigration policy and safety concerns about pink batts) and thrilling symbolism over tangible outcomes (the apology to indigenous people was Rudd’s crowning achievement as PM).

Read it here.

Filed Under: Aussie Politics Tagged With: ,
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