Election 2010: Labor is just so last year

31 July, 2010 by

Old and falling to pieces, like Labor

Out of touch, out of control, and with a bit of luck, soon to be out of power. Magnificent timing by Labor. No sooner has Joooolya Gillard launched her innovative and original “cash for clunkers” policy to “tackle climate change” than the Yanks have, er, yanked theirs:

The White House says its cash for clunkers scheme worked well but that it will not be repeating the offer.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said she will introduce a similar scheme if re-elected.

The US cash for clunkers scheme was created last year as part of president Barack Obama’s bid to help the car industry during the financial crisis. [But Joolya’s policy isn’t about helping the car industry, because the Greens want everyone to give up cars and ride ethnic peace bicycles™, but to save the planet, of course.]

More than 500,000 drivers received rebates of up to $4,500 to upgrade their cars.

The scheme was so popular the government had to provide another $2 billion. (source)

Such a scheme here would be yet more money down the drain on pointless climate policies that could be better spent on, you know, education, health, roads, infrastructure – in fact anything else.

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Election 2010: Greens want 100% renewables by 2030

25 July, 2010 by

Vote Labor and this is what you will get

100% out of touch with reality. 100% deluded. 100% on another planet. 100% dangerous for the future of Australia. That just about sums up the Greens, who, as we must keep reminding everyone, will have the balance of power in the Senate after their shady back-room deal with Labor (which Jooolia Gillard doesn’t want to talk about for obvious reasons). To propose 100% renewables by 2030 is pure madness – let’s just think for a moment what that actually means: no coal-fired power stations at all (and no nuclear, of course, no, no, no, we can’t have that), no petrol or diesel driven vehicles at all, no natural gas at all, and all within the next 20 years! Not only that, but they plan to rely on fart power and sunbeams instead! Words cannot begin to describe the utter lunacy of this. But this is precisely what they want, and what they will demand when they hold the balance of power in the Senate. As the Sydney Morning Herald reports:

The Greens want to completely replace Australia’s reliance on coal with renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

Greens Senator Christine Milne said yesterday: “Australia can harness our tremendous resources of the sun, wind, ocean, Earth and human ingenuity to replace our reliance on coal with 100 per cent renewable energy within decades.”

Senator Milne said this could be achieved by 2030 with the right preparation and infrastructure. (source)

And Miranda Devine, also in the Herald yesterday, spelt out exactly what life under the Greens would be like:

There’s a lot more Brown and the Greens want if Labor wins: mandated zero net greenhouse gas emissions, the effective end of coal-fired power generation, phasing out of coal exports, a ban on new coalmines or power stations, removal of GM crops, and active discouragement of cars. They want a ban on the exploration, mining and export of uranium, and closure of the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, which produces medical isotopes used for cancer treatment. They want to restrict funding of private schools. They want to abolish mandatory detention of asylum seekers, and to expand the definition of refugee to include ”environmental” or ”sexuality” refugees. They want to legislate for same-sex marriage, tinker with age of consent laws, establish ”intersex” as a legal gender, fund gender reassignment, require government to consult lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex people on policy, and provide easier access to abortion. On drugs, they are harm minimisation all the way, with more needle exchange programs and injecting rooms. And be prepared for a barrage of nanny-statism, starting with a ban on junk food advertising [which ACM commented on here].

The Greens’ published policies are carefully couched in escape clauses, to avoid the scare campaigns of past elections, when their extreme social agenda cost them votes. But the effect will be the same. And of course, their big-ticket policy, the one with the most nation-changing consequences, is an ETS or carbon tax, with householders paying the price in soaring energy costs. (source)

I have written to Tony Abbott this morning encouraging him to expose the Greens for the extremist, far-Left, hysterical environmental advocacy group that they are, who are not fit to participate in politics full stop, let alone determining the future of Australia under a Labor government. I encourage all Australians to do the same.

UPDATE: To contact Tony Abbott, go to: http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/ContactTony.aspx, or email: tony.abbott@liberal.org.au (Liberals) or Tony.Abbott.MP@aph.gov.au (Parliamentary). Thanks to Sean for the suggestion.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Election 2010: Gillard's desperate "citizens' assembly" on climate

23 July, 2010 by

A horse designed by a committee

When in doubt, set up a committee – or in this case, two committees. Julia Gillard and Labor don’t have a clue how to address the climate change policy issue, especially with the Coalition stealing the thunder with their direct action plan [even though this blog believes that no policy on climate change is required at all; it’s like having a policy on “the sun rising in the morning” – it will happen anyway, so why bother having a policy on it?] so they plan to set up a brace of committees, one of scientists and one of the general public:

The ABC understands Ms Gillard will outline plans to set up a committee of scientists to advise the Government on climate change.

The committee will be paired with a citizens’ assembly, consisting of 100-200 volunteers who will gauge feeling of the community on its attitude towards putting a price on carbon, and feed it back to the Government.

And we can all imagine who will be on the scientists committee – usual suspect alarmists like David “Asteroid” Karoly and Will Steffen, maybe headed up by someone independent like Penny Wong, perhaps? Hang on a minute, I wonder if they’ll ask Ian Plimer or Bob Carter? Yeah, right. If they did, this author would fall off his perch. And we can guess the “volunteers” will all be paid up Labor/Green warmists who have all been brainwashed by government propaganda and a compliant media to give the answers the government want to hear.

The Coalition have already, and rightly, rubbished the proposal:

Shadow Environment Spokesman Greg Hunt says Julia Gillard’s proposed “citizens assembly” will fail to produce action.

He says the Opposition is promising a $2.5 billion fund to battle emissions.

“It’s a recipe for endless Rudd-type talks,” he said.

“Kevin Rudd himself would be proud of the 2020 summit meets Copenhagen.”

I disagree that it will fail to produce action, it probably will produce action – an ETS or a carbon tax, both of which would trash Australia’s already weakened economy for no benefit to the climate, locally or globally, whatsoever.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Election 2010: a vote for Labor is a vote for the Greens

21 July, 2010 by

Not fit for politics

That’s the inevitable result of the cosy little back-room deal for preferences struck by Labor and the Greens earlier this week.  The Greens will hold the balance of power in the Senate, meaning that no piece of legislation which does not have bipartisan support will get through without the Greens’ say so. The question that must be asked, therefore, is: what have Labor secretly agreed to in order to secure their support for government legislation? Who knows. The media obviously don’t care, but the people should care.

The Greens are an extremist, single-issue, far-Left environmental advocacy group that shouldn’t even be dignified by calling them a political party. Once they get their hands on the levers of power in the Senate, who knows what nonsense they will force Labor to enact – maybe interfering, meddling, nanny-state anti-Libertarian claptrap like this, or much worse: an ETS or carbon tax.

The Australian people should be afraid, very afraid.

And whilst we’re on the subject of extremist, single-issue, far-Left environmental advocacy groups, the WWF today proves that if you ask the right questions in a poll, you’ll get the right answers:

A new Galaxy poll of four marginal Queensland seats has found support for an emissions trading scheme (ETS) continues to grow.

The poll was commissioned by World Wildlife Fund Australia.

It found 74 per cent of respondents in the seats of Brisbane, Bowman, Petrie and Ryan say they are in favour of an ETS to reduce carbon pollution.

The figure is up 4 per cent from the previous poll conducted in June.

The survey also found 87 per cent of those who identified themselves as Labor voters want an ETS by next year. (source)

I am currently trying to source the question wording, and I’m sure we won’t be surprised when we see it.

UPDATE: Fair play to WWF for courteously providing the information requested. The primary question asked regarding the ETS was:

Overall, are you in favour or opposed to the introduction of an Emissions Trading Scheme to help reduce carbon pollution in Australia?

66% responded “in favour”. My gripe with this is the reference to “carbon pollution” rather than “carbon dioxide”. Any question that asks “do you want to reduce pollution” will predispose respondents to answer in the affirmative – I mean, who doesn’t want to reduce pollution? Unfortunately, the public do not understand enough about the real meaning of an ETS, and that’s thanks to a politically correct media. I wonder what the response would be if the question had been worded “are you in favour of an ETS to reduce the harmless trace gas carbon dioxide and which will increase your electricity bills by 50% and have no discernible effect on climate either locally or globally”?

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Labor and Greens bicker over ETS failure

14 June, 2010 by

Labor v. Greens

Labor can see votes leaking away to the Greens thanks to the abandoning of the ETS, so are now in damage control, attacking the Greens as the ulimate reason for the scheme’s demise:

Government frontbencher Anthony Albanese says the Greens need to be held to account for their role in blocking the legislation late last year.

“If they had voted for a price on carbon, we’d have one today,” he told Channel Ten on Sunday.

“We did everything possible to get a CPRS (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) introduced.”

Greens leader Bob Brown says his party has no regrets about voting down the scheme.

He says the ETS did not pass the Senate because Labor chose to negotiate with the Coalition.

“They got into bed with the Liberals; now they are crying foul,” he said.

“The Greens have the Ross Garnaut alternative of a carbon tax before the Parliament, before the Government. It can take it up now, get it through before the election and get back the lost public esteem.”

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says the Government could have negotiated a deal with the Greens, but chose not to.

“If Kevin Rudd was serious about tackling climate change, why has he not met with Bob Brown?” she said. [Because he realises that doing a deal with the Greens would turn off more voters than he’s losing already]

“Why has he refused to negotiate with the Greens? This is a Government that has made mistake after mistake, backflip after backflip, and they don’t want to wear the consequences or take any responsibility.”

Now, now, children. At least we all agree on that last summary of Rudd and Labor.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Rudd: Climate will be "core election issue"

8 June, 2010 by

You can tell when he's spouting horse-shit, his lips move…

Music to my ears. This is great news for the Opposition and Tony Abbott, as Kevin Rudd claims he will be going to the election with two massive new taxes, the 40% super profits tax on resources, and the threat of an ETS to push up the prices of virtually everything. When you add this to the disastrous poll results for Labor this week, it’s a double whammy that will knock Rudd for six (with luck). But of course, you can never trust a single word Rudd says, so it’s probably all horse-shit anyway and he’ll conveniently forget the ETS again, but for today at least, it’s the story:

Climate change will be still be a core issue at the federal election, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.

The federal government has officially delayed its emissions trading scheme (ETS) until at least 2013 after failing to convince the Liberals to pass it.

But that doesn’t mean the government isn’t fully committed to tackling climate change, Mr Rudd says.

He said that, unlike Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who has a different view on the subject “depending on what day of the week you happen to ask” [I think you’ll find that’s a description of you], the government has always accepted [the dodgy, corrupt, fudged, politically and financially motivated, biased and discredited IPCC version of] the science of climate change.

“It is clear to me and always has been, for years and years and years, that climate change is happening,” Mr Rudd told Fairfax Radio on Tuesday. [Yeah, it’s happening mate, and has since the dawn of time – get the f**k used to it]

“That is why I ratified Kyoto. The Liberals were opposed to ratifying Kyoto.”

Yeah, and what did Kyoto do for the climate, Kev? Speak up, can’t hear you! That’s right: nothing, nada, zip. And yet it has cost global economies billions which could have been spent on, oh, I don’t know, how about better healthcare, or better schools or in fact anything else rather than pointless emissions reductions.

But I’m not complaining. Rudd has already shot himself in one foot with the resources tax, and raising the spectre of an ETS again will be a bullet straight through the other. I don’t know about a lame duck PM, more like a terminally crippled one.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Wong "misled Senate" on ETS dumping

7 June, 2010 by

Responsibility? Me?

The Australian reports that Penny Wong may have misled the Senate about the precise details of the dumping of the ETS:

CLIMATE Change Minister Penny Wong has been accused of deliberately misleading the Senate over the dumping of the government’s centrepiece emissions trading scheme after she said cabinet had decided on shelving the plan.

The opposition attacked Senator Wong yesterday over her evidence to the Senate estimates committee after Environment Minister and cabinet colleague Peter Garrett admitted he had not been consulted about the government’s decision and had learned about it by reading a newspaper. (see here)

Mr Garrett revealed the decision was taken by Kevin Rudd’s four-person kitchen cabinet as part of the budget process.

He said it was disappointing that the decision had been leaked and he revealed that the first he had known about it was when he had read a newspaper report on April 27.

“That was an announcement and a decision that was leaked and I found out about it when it was leaked,” Mr Garrett told Sky News’s Saturday Agenda.

But under cross-examination in Senate estimates last month, Senator Wong said the entire cabinet had made the decision.

“Yes, it was a cabinet decision, and I have said the decision was made shortly before announcement, and that is as far as I propose to go in relation to cabinet processes and deliberations,” she said.

But don’t forget – this is Labor, so there’s always a way to spin it so that no-one ever has to accept responsibility for anything. In this case, the paper thin excuse is that the term “cabinet” includes any committee of cabinet, and the entirely unofficial assembly of the gang of four counts as a cabinet committee, despite the fact that it doesn’t even have a name, less still a documented role (other than Kevin Rudd’s personal claque).

Phew, that’s OK then.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

AFL = All For Labor

6 June, 2010 by

Wong-bot runs the "play footy" app

We reported back in March how the AFL wanted to get involved in climate change campaigning. Well now we discover (thanks to Andrew Bolt) that the AFL and its moonbat boss Andrew Demetriou, are the latest to embrace politically correct environmentalism by spruiking Labor’s climate change policies through a Green Clubs program, which also includes targeting children with climate propaganda:

THE AUSTRALIAN Football League has this week launched a new online training module called Green Clubs for community football clubs and the broader Australian football industry.

One of the biggest challenges facing Australian football is the impact of climate change on community football grounds. [Like what, exactly?  It’s not as if clubs are being forced to save electricity by abandoning massive floodlights for night matches…]

Green Clubs aims to educate clubs about ways they can reduce their impact on the environment, while ensuring the sustainability of sporting grounds.  The module includes strategies for saving water, reducing energy use and the amount of waste sent to landfill.

The Green Clubs module is one component of a partnership established last year with the Australian Government’s Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.

In addition to the introduction of the module, an interactive climate change awareness program for families and children involved in junior football programs has also been developed.

…

Speaking at the Carlton Football Club today, the Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water, Senator Penny Wong, [who she?] commended the AFL and Carlton Football Club for helping to raise awareness of climate change amongst football clubs and their fans.

“We know Australians want to do their fair share in tackling climate change [don’t include me in that, by the way], and now the AFL is helping Australians to do that while they are at the football,” Senator Wong said.

Funny – because I thought that sport was something for all of us, a rare place where politics doesn’t intrude. Not any more it appears. I don’t know how many Coalition voters watch AFL, but I sincerely hope it will drop pretty dramatically after this.

AFL = All For Labor.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Climate staff discovered ETS was dumped via media

29 May, 2010 by

Not good at communicating…

Kind of like ditching your girlfriend via text message. Strange the government was so shy in telling its own staff that the ETS had been scrapped, when it plans to spend millions of your taxpayer dollars (in breach of its own advertising guidelines) about how the nasty, evil mining companies are “misleading” the electorate on the super profits tax:

SENIOR officials in the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency were unaware of the government’s decision to shelve the emissions trading scheme until it was leaked to the media, a Senate estimates committee was told yesterday.

The department’s secretary, Martin Parkinson, said the decision had also left many officials ”terribly, terribly disappointed”.

Dr Parkinson said staff were establishing ”time capsules” of their work to be opened ”whenever this current impasse is broken and we can have an appropriate debate … around climate change”. ”For many people, they could see their hard work, their commitment and their professionalism was not going to have a pay off at the moment,” he said, though he respected the Prime Minister’s decision.

Dr Parkinson added ”there is no point gilding the lily” and there were people within the department who ”were terribly terribly disappointed” about the decision to delay.

”For many people they could see their hard work, their commitment and their professionalism was not going to have a pay off at the moment.” Dr Parkinson said.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Rudd in deep strife

20 May, 2010 by

Five major policy backflips and counting…

The Herald Sun lays bare the problems for Kevin Rudd. He has the inverse midas touch at the moment, everything he touches turns to dust. Even his attacks on Tony Abbott’s “gaffe” have backfired, with public opinion solidly behind Abbott:

FOR the past three weeks, opinion polls have shown, decidedly and emphatically, that the prime ministership of Kevin Rudd is in dramatic decline.

The figures have come back with one clear thread – Australia’s very brief and intense love affair with Rudd has come to a screaming halt.

God only knows what sort of meltdown the PM experienced as he opened his newspapers. Unlike John Howard, who faced his executioners with a brave face each time the polls were released in his last year of power, Rudd went missing in action.

Like a bad loser, Rudd hates facing failure. There were no hospital visits on those three dark days after these polls. No hard hats, no slapping the workers’ backs, no door-stops outside the local church. Dead silence from the man who turned Channel 7’s Sunrise into his own marketing weapon during the last election campaign.

By hiding, and sending Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan out to do his dirty work, Rudd told us even more about himself than if he had held dozens of press conferences.

His prime ministership was built on populism. But his backflips on the ETS, immigration policy and on the roof insulation scheme proved to many of us who voted for him that Rudd does not stand for much at all.

If there is one thing Australians can’t stand, it is a fake.

Is it too much to hope that Rudd will be a one-termer?

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,
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