Gillard government's "carbon-track mind"

18 July, 2011 by

The wrong way…

The Gillard government’s obsession with pricing carbon is not only bad for Australia because of the damage it will do to our economy for no benefit whatsoever, but also because it is such an all-encompassing distraction from the myriad other problems with which the government should rightly be dealing.

Let’s just think of a few other disasters-in-waiting that would benefit from a bit of focus:

  • NBN – forgotten
  • boats – forgotten
  • health and education – forgotten
  • infrastructure – forgotten
  • possible second GFC – forgotten
  • interest rates – forgotten
  • [in fact, insert any other area of government responsibility you like here] – forgotten

Gillard and her government have a “carbon-track mind” – in their crusade to lead the world and impose a crippling carbon price on a naturally emissions-intensive economy, they have slipped into a quasi-religious trance and are suffering from acute tunnel vision which prevents them from seeing anything beyond this one dangerous path.

For the government to let a single policy area, no matter how important it believes it to be, dominate the agenda to the detriment of everything else is irresponsible and incompetent.

This government has not only lost the support of the people, it has completely lost its way.

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It gets worse: Labor 39 – Coalition 61

18 July, 2011 by

We're not laughing…

Could it get any worse? Apparently, yes. It’s like watching an aged relative die a slow and painful death. The time has come for Labor backbenchers to put this government out of its misery, show that they still have some principles, and withdraw support.

It won’t happen of course, because they are all driven by petty self-interest rather than what is best for the country, but it’s a nice thought:

THE government has flatlined, personal support for Julia Gillard has plunged and Tony Abbott is by far the nation’s favoured leader, according to the first comprehensive national poll taken since the release of the carbon price policy.

After a week of fevered campaigning by both leaders, the Herald/Nielsen poll shows Labor’s primary vote has hit a new record low of 26 per cent while Mr Abbott has opened up an 11-percentage point lead on Ms Gillard as the preferred prime minister.

And despite the generous compensation package accompanying the carbon price, 53 per cent of voters feel they will be worse off.

Previous low levels of support for the policy have not changed, with 39 per cent backing the package and 52 per cent opposing it. More than half – 56 per cent – want a fresh election.

Although Ms Gillard had told the caucus not to expect any short-term rise in the polls after the release of the policy details, this poll was being watched closely by many MPs hoping for some positive response to the $15 billion compensation package.

The telephone poll of 1400 voters, taken from Thursday night to Saturday evening, shows Labor’s primary vote fell 1 point to 26 per cent since the last poll a month ago. The Coalition’s primary vote rose 2 points to 51 per cent, and the Greens fell 1 point to 11 per cent.

On a two-party-preferred basis, the Coalition leads by a thumping 61 per cent to 39 per cent, a 4-point rise in its lead in a month and an 11-point swing towards the opposition since the federal election in August.

While Labor’s vote stayed depressed, Ms Gillard’s personal rating plunged further and, for the first time, Mr Abbott is the preferred prime minister.

In the last poll, the Opposition Leader and Ms Gillard were tied at 46 per cent, but in this poll, Mr Abbott’s rating rose 5 points to 51 per cent while Ms Gillard’s fell 6 points to 40 per cent. (source)

Glenn Milne in The Australian analyses the fix Labor finds itself in:

The sullen rejection of the tax by ordinary voters, fed by the Opposition Leader’s furious onslaught and enabled by the government’s strategic blunder in announcing the tax without details, then leaving a political vacuum for months for the Coalition to fill, appears instead to have simply become embedded.

Gillard’s window of opportunity to dismantle Abbott’s campaign is fast closing, if it hasn’t already.

In a 24/7 media cycle attention has already begin to wane. By Saturday the carbon tax had been pushed off or down page one of the broadsheets. The tabloids had abandoned it. What dominated was Westpac’s prediction the next official interest rate move could be a cut. It’s now hard to see how Gillard re-engages on the issue, how she gets the interest back of voters who have already emphatically rejected the tax.

Ironically the interest rate story is probably a clue to her problems. In light of the threatened GFC aftershock in Europe and the US, which has helped drive a collapse in consumer confidence here, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that what the electorate wants is a government that will get our two-speed economy back on track. Instead Gillard’s solution is to load them up with a new tax.

One of the most important push factors behind this sentiment, surely, is the fact that even with this carbon tax Australia’s overall emissions won’t be reduced.

And that’s not even to go to the argument that our paltry contribution to cutting greenhouse gasses will still be overwhelmed by the unrestrained belching of the major emitters, the US, China and India.

Voters assess something is amiss here, leading to Abbott’s killer line last week: “What’s the point?” (source)

Read it all.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Quote [Lie] of the Day: Julia Gillard

17 July, 2011 by

Fake

Explaining why she formed an alliance with the Greens after the election in 2010:

Ms Gillard said she could have become Prime Minister by forming a deal with conservative independents Tony Crook and Bob Katter, but she chose to ally with the Greens and accept their demand for carbon pricing because she believed it was right.

“In the 17 days (after the 2010 election) I had discussions with a lot of people – with the Greens, with (Rob) Oakeshott, (Tony) Windsor, (Bob) Katter, even some discussions with (WA National Tony) Crook. I thought it was always going to be possible for us to structure arrangements so that we would get support in this parliament,” she said. (source)

So despite the fact that Gillard:

  1. had promised the electorate just days before that there would be “no carbon tax under the government I lead”, knowing full well that government with the Greens would mean bowing to their demand for urgent climate action (as revealed by Adam Bandt yesterday);
  2. had opposed Kevin Rudd’s introduction of the ETS in 2009;
  3. could have formed government with Bob Katter and Tony Crook (allegedly); and
  4. is on record as having described the Greens as “extreme” and “not a party of government”,

she chose to ignore all of those points and, er, form a government with the Greens – “because it was right”???

So, Julia, are you lying now or were you lying then? Lies, lies and yet more lies. It never ends.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

And modest too…

15 July, 2011 by

Crocodile tears

From Julia Gillard’s faux-teary address to the Press Club yesterday:

“If that means people’s image of me is one of steely determination, I understand why.” (source)

No, Julia, that is not our image of you. It’s more like “stabbed Kevin Rudd in the back having said you wouldn’t, lied to the electorate about a carbon tax, then cynically sold the country down the river to the Greens to keep yourself in power.” How about that?

By the way, is this the “Real Julia” again, or just another fake one to try to fool the voters?

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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: ,

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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Labor's support in free-fall

12 July, 2011 by

Gillard on Q&A

And this is before the carbon tax was announced:

LABOR’S support has slumped to a record low, with the Coalition sitting at all-time highs as Tony Abbott extends his lead as preferred prime minister over Julia Gillard.

In the two-week lead-up to Sunday’s announcement of the carbon tax details, Labor’s primary vote fell three percentage points to a record low of 27 per cent, while the Coalition’s support rose three points to 49 per cent for its highest primary vote since the Howard government in October 2001.

Even with a steady Greens vote of 12 per cent favouring Labor on preferences, the Coalition recorded its highest two-party-preferred vote of 58 per cent and the ALP its lowest of 42 per cent based on preference flows at the August election last year. The Coalition’s two-party-preferred vote is the second biggest in Newspoll history, with the previous record of 63 per cent to 37 per cent set by Kevin Rudd’s Labor government during its honeymoon period in early 2008 over the Brendan Nelson-led Coalition.

All the gory details are here.

I forced myself to watch Gillard’s address to the nation, but I refuse to watch Q&A – an audience stacked with lefties, a left leaning panel and a lefty presenter (Tony Jones) makes it the media equivalent of a quick turn in the Colosseum for anyone even vaguely to the right of the far left. Here’s Andrew Bolt’s take on Gillard’s solo performance last night:

On Q&A last night, Julia Gillard:

  • dodged a question about her duty to seek an electoral mandate first before imposing this huge, risky and controversial tax.
  • dodged again a question on how her tax would affect the climate, and whether the effect was so small as to not be worth the effort.
  • again adopted her fatally patronising pitch, even suggesting we should be embarrassed at being beaten by those pesky New Zealanders who had (a very small) emissions trading scheme already. (“Just joking,” she trilled.)
  • got picked up even by warmist Tony Jones on her deceit at pretending China was cutting its emissions, when it is actually replacing small coal-fired power stations with huge ones, sending total emissions soaring.
  • was appealed to by a believer who captured the conceit of both of them by begging Gillard to use “simple” language so her “dear old mum” could be persuaded.
  • repeatedly used the deceit of calling carbon dioxide “pollution” without once being corrected by Jones.
  • twice dodges an invitation to debate Tony Abbott on the science of global warming.
  • again falsely claimed Margaret Thatcher backed what she was doing.

Gillard also claims there’s not enough respect for “the scientists”. Like this one?

Ah yes, but according to Gillard, there should only be respect for the scientists that agree with Labor’s policy. All the others are just filthy deniers funded by Big Oil. Surely you must have grasped this by now…

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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.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

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.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

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.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,
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