Lies and spin launch carbon tax bills

14 September, 2011 by

The eighteen carbon [dioxide] tax bills were introduced into Parliament yesterday. As usual, Julia Gillard couched the introduction in lies, misrepresentations and spin.

Let us not forget what Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan said in August 2010, days before the last general election:

But, desperate to stay in power after the narrowest of election victories, and having sold out to the Greens for their support, Gillard and Swan promptly executed a 180 degree about turn, betraying the electorate to appease Bob Brown and his band of eco-tards.

Here is Gillard’s introduction, from Hansard (PDF), with some comments included:

This House has been debating climate change for decades. Parliamentary debate of this issue predates this building itself. My predecessor as member for Lalor, Barry Jones, once said this about climate change, ‘If we are only prepared to plan five years, 10 years, 15 years or 20 years down the track all the dangers that are feared can be avoided.’

Those words were spoken 24 years ago next week.

We have now had decades of heated public argument and political opinion.

Alongside decades of enlightened scientific research and economic analysis. [But this government only listens to the research and analysis that fits its pre-conceived agenda]

After all those opinions have been expressed, most Australians now agree [FALSE – most Australian’s strongly DISAGREE]:

  • our climate is changing [TRUE – as it has for 4.5 billion years]
  • this is caused by carbon pollution [FALSE – the relative contributions of natural and anthropogenic drivers is completely unknown]
  • this has harmful effects on our environment and on the economy [UNKNOWN – the effects of a natural global cooling could be far, far worse]
  • and the government should act. [FALSE – nothing Australia does alone will make any difference to the climate]

And after all that analysis has been done, most economists and experts [that I have selectively chosen to listen to, that is] also now agree: The best way is to make polluters pay [Australia’s most productive industries suffer] by putting a price on carbon. [Gillard still continues to refer to the harmless trace gas carbon dioxide as “carbon”]

So that is the policy of the government I lead. [Ironic that she chooses the identical phraseology to that used in the video above – just to rub it in, perhaps?]

And that is the plan which is before the House now.

A plan for a carbon-pricing mechanism which means around 500 big polluters pay [most productive Australian industries suffer] for every tonne of carbon pollution they put into our atmosphere.

A plan to cut carbon pollution by at least 160 million tonnes a year in 2020. [Which in real terms is square-root of bugger all]

A plan for tax cuts, increased pensions and increased family payments. [If you want people to reduce their usage of fossil fuels, why are we compensating them? Is it because this is more about wealth redistribution than climate change?]

A plan for clean energy jobs and investment [Total nonsense – every manufactured “green” job costs real people REAL jobs]. A plan for a clean energy future for our country [people will use “clean energy” by themselves when it is competitive. Forcing them to do so simply skews the market and allows green industries to cream massive subsidies].

Today we move from words to deeds. This parliament is going to get this done. [We’ll see]

This government is riding roughshod over the electorate of Australia. It has no mandate to introduce this tax, and should rightly put the question to the people of Australia at an election. The opinion polls tell the story. Ordinary Australians have had enough of the lies and spin. We can only hope that one or two Labor MPs with a conscience (are there any??) will vote it down out of principle. But I think that is highly unlikely. Just a bunch of brainwashed lemmings that do as they are told.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

59-41: Newspoll disaster for Labor

6 September, 2011 by

Inconsequential

Could we see Labor on sub-40%? Very possibly if they carry on like this. And Tony Abbott now leads Gillard by a clear margin as preferred PM:

JULIA Gillard’s personal support has plunged to a new low as Tony Abbott outstrips her as preferred prime minister and Kevin Rudd surges ahead as the best person to lead Labor.

The Prime Minister appears to have borne the brunt of public disapproval over the failure last week of the government’s plan to send 800 asylum-seekers to Malaysia. Voter satisfaction with Ms Gillard, who is now forced to deal with the Opposition Leader to keep alive the option of processing asylum-seekers overseas, fell six points to a record low of 23 per cent as dissatisfaction jumped seven points to 68 per cent. The only modern prime minister with worse personal support was Paul Keating, who had a satisfaction level of 17 per cent and dissatisfaction of 74 per cent in August 1993.

Ms Gillard’s net satisfaction rating – the difference between voter satisfaction and dissatisfaction – is now minus 45 per cent. As Ms Gillard’s personal standing fell, Mr Abbott jumped clear to a nine-point lead over her as the preferred prime minister, with a rise in support from 39 per cent to 43 per cent. Ms Gillard’s support fell four points to a new low of 34 per cent.

…

Based on preference flows at the last election, the Coalition has an all-time high two-party-preferred vote of 59 per cent compared with Labor’s 41 per cent. Such a result at an election would reduce Labor to a rump of a party, wiping out dozens of Labor MPs including many ministers. (source)

Treat the electorate with contempt, as Labor has done over and over again, and this is the result.

How do you feel now, Anthony Albanese, about your snide remarks to the Carbon Tax protesters? Labor is the Party of No Consequence, and the Government of Incompetence.

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China urged to take more climate action, so Australia will be "left behind"

1 September, 2011 by

"Low carbon" China

In public, Labor claims that China is at the forefront of tackling climate change, and therefore Australia will be “left behind” unless we enact a pointless carbon tax. However, in the shadows (as revealed by Wikileaks), Australia has secretly complained to China about their lack of real commitment to such action. In other words, please improve your action on climate change so we can use it to justify our own:

THE Gillard government has always publicly insisted China is taking significant steps to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, but WikiLeaks cables reveal senior Australian bureaucrats complained privately to China about the ”lack of ambition” in that country’s targets.

A confidential cable sent from the US embassy in Canberra in January last year, weeks after the disastrous Copenhagen climate change conference, reported the then secretary of the Department of Climate Change, Dr Martin Parkinson, said his department ”expressed concern to Chinese diplomats over the lack of ambition in the [Chinese] stated goal of a 40 to 45 per cent reduction in carbon intensity by 2020.” [ACM Note: don’t forget, “carbon [dioxide] intensity” is emissions per unit GDP, and since China’s GDP is going through the roof, emissions in absolute terms will continue to rise]

The 40 to 45 per cent reduction in emissions intensity target was pledged by China at Copenhagen and remains that country’s target. The government’s climate change adviser, Professor Ross Garnaut, judged it to be more than China’s ”fair share” of global emission reductions.

Dr Parkinson, now Treasury secretary, told US officials Australia’s emissions trading legislation would be ”seriously jeopardised” if China did not inscribe its target in the UN agreement. China eventually did, but the legislation failed anyway. (source)

Yet another example of a government addicted to spin, that will say one thing to the electorate, and yet believe precisely the opposite in private.

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Labor: clueless on climate, abysmal on asylum seekers

1 September, 2011 by

Not a climate story, but really THE story here in Australia today, is the High Court’s demolition of Gillard’s asylum seeker policy, which, in brief, was an agreement to send 800 boat arrivals to Malaysia in exchange for 4000 genuine refugees. The policy is now in tatters, having been ruled unlawful – the 800 will stay in Australia, but we still must accept the 4000 from Malaysia.

On climate, the government has treated the electorate with contempt, using blatant lies to mislead the public about the carbon tax. In the case of asylum seekers, the Malaysia solution was formulated SOLELY to cling on to political pride – the Gillard government was unable to bring itself to admit that the former Coalition’s Pacific solution actually worked. The Malaysia solution was therefore labelled the “anywhere but Nauru” policy by the Coalition, after the processing centre previously used, very successfully, by the government of John Howard. And now the whole thing has been torn down, leaving yet another key Labor policy area shredded.

This government is incompetent, arrogant, contemptuous, disconnected, compromised, and, thanks to the ongoing grubby saga of Craig Thomson, sleazy as well. When will it end? Somebody spare us.

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Head slap: Coalition climate policy "racist" – Combet

23 August, 2011 by

Idiot. No other word, sorry.

No matter how low Labor sink in their smears of anyone that disagrees with their deceitful carbon tax, they still manage to amaze by pulling a real shocker out of the bag:

Federal Climate Change Minister Greg Combet has accused Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of having a racist climate change policy.

Mr Abbott has warned that Australian businesses buying carbon permits under an emissions trading scheme could be conned by unscrupulous international traders.

…

Mr Combet described Mr Abbott’s position as “economic xenophobia” in an address to the National Press Club.

“It sends the signal that it’s somehow dubious to trade with foreigners. It’s typical dog-whistle politics, trashing the commitment that’s existed for many years on both sides of politics to economic liberalisation and open trade,” he said.

“It is in effect a white carbon policy designed to harvest more votes no matter what the cost.” (source)

Greg, you are a copper-bottomed idiot, I’m afraid [and no, that isn’t an ad hom, because it is conclusion drawn from a statement which any rational person would consider utterly and completely insane – Ed]. The small facts that (a) the biggest carbon trading market, namely that in the EU, is mired in fraud and corruption, and (b) as part of the carbon tax package we will be sending billions of dollars to dodgy third world dictatorships to purchase “carbon credits” in order to meet hopelessly unattainable emissions reduction targets, seem to have somehow escaped him.

Face-palm. But I guess we should be pleased that Combet is so desperate he has descended to this level.

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Labor abandons its core vote

23 August, 2011 by

Albanese

… in favour of an urban green intelligentsia. Summed up by that front-bench schoolyard bully Anthony Albanese, ridiculing the Convoy of No Confidence:

“The Convoy of No Consequence outside. The Convoy of No Consequence, Mr Speaker. The Convoy of No Consequence, where a coupla hundred people gathered with no support from the mainstream organisations, the people who believe in one world government.” (source)

These are core Labor voters, battlers, truckies, hard working Australians who have been abandoned by their natural party, a party which now pours scorn on their petty complaints, and prefers the company of the inner city liberal green elite. The message is clear – traditional Labor voters are not wanted anymore.

And in return, those formerly loyal voters continue to abandon Labor, with the party’s primary vote back to its lowest ever: 27%.

Oh, how Labor will be punished. It’s really not a matter of “if”, but “when”.

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Labor: political survival above national interest

16 August, 2011 by

"Ha ha! F*** you, Australia!"

Ironic that this story breaks on the one year anniversary of “There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.” A more obvious sign that Labor and Gillard are more interested in clinging on to power than doing what is in the best interests of the country is difficult to imagine – a damning indictment of any political leader.

Why else would she refuse to reconsider the carbon [dioxide] tax in the face of serious international financial concerns, and the possibility of a GFC Mark II? There couldn’t be a worse time to introduce yet another tax – especially a tax on everything like this one (ignore the 400/500 biggest polluters nonsense – it’s all spin. Everyone will pay more for just about anything you care to mention). Even in sound economic times it would be suicidal, but with the US faltering and European countries lining up to default, it is beyond madness.

So why is she pressing on? Because she knows if she backs away from the toxic tax, the Greens support will evaporate (don’t forget, Labor bribed the Greens with a cowardly promise of urgent action on climate), and there will be an election – which Labor will lose catastrophically. So political survival takes precedence of the interests of the nation and the people whom she is supposed to represent. Disgraceful.

THE Gillard government has vowed to forge ahead with its carbon tax amid growing financial uncertainty, saying the “manageable” economic reform” will deliver certainty to Australian businesses.

While the worsening economic outlook has the government edging away from its 2012-13 return-to-surplus deadline, Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said the carbon tax would go ahead regardless.

“Yes we have had a period unfortunately of great uncertainty in international markets driven by debt concerns in Europe in particular,” he told ABC radio, as protesters gathered for a new anti-carbon tax rally outside Parliament House.

“However this is a reform to our economy that is necessary in the long term, it is a manageable economic reform, what’s more it will deliver certainty.” (source)

Maybe Greg will front up at the carbon dioxide tax demonstration in Canberra today to explain… Ha, not a chance. This government has abandoned the country.

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Figures fudged to justify carbon price

15 August, 2011 by

China's carbon price is lower, Greg

This is what happens when ideology and a tawdry deal with the Greens takes precedence over the best interests of the nation.

THE Gillard government’s claims that Australia lags behind China in the effective price on carbon have been discredited by its Climate Change Department.

The revelations, in documents obtained through a Freedom of Information application, show that rather than trailing China’s implicit carbon price by more than $12 per tonne, Australia’s effective price could already be higher.

This undermines the government’s argument for Australia to introduce a carbon tax now at an additional cost of $23 per tonne.

The documents, obtained by the Institute of Public Affairs, show the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency warned that a crucial draft report on comparative implicit carbon prices overestimated China’s figure more than sixfold.

Despite that warning, the higher figure remained in the report and has been quoted by Climate Change Minister Greg Combet.

…

The report the minister referred to was not as independent as it sounds — it was funded by government through a $70,000 payment that went via the “non-partisan” Climate Institute.  (source)

The Climate Institute? Non-partisan? Oh, please.

Read Tim Wilson’s article in The Australian here.

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Embarrassing: Gillard wanted direct action approach to climate

25 July, 2011 by

You won't be laughing...

In other words, Julia Gillard wanted to pursue a policy very similar to that presently advocated by, er, the Coalition. Oops.

It’s common knowledge that Gillard opposed the ETS being pushed by Kevin Rudd in 2009, and now it has been revealed that she encouraged alternatives to a carbon [dioxide] price, which can only realistically mean some kind of direct action policy.

It’s also common knowledge that the carbon dioxide price is the Greens’ policy, but even so, the revelation that she favoured an approach other than a carbon dioxide price is deeply embarrassing for Labor and Gillard, desperate to force through a carbon tax without a mandate and in the face of huge public opposition:

JULIA Gillard faces new pressure over her climate change convictions as Tony Abbott seized on a report revealing she previously pushed for a bipartisan approach that didn’t involve a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme.

Mr Abbott today questioned what Ms Gillard stood for, saying her post-election carbon tax plan had been dictated by the Greens.

“What that shows is that the Prime Minister’s attacks on our policy aren’t genuine,” Mr Abbott told ABC radio today.

“It demonstrates that the policy that the government is currently adopting is Bob Brown’s policy. Not Julia Gillard’s policy.”

The Australian Financial Review reports that Ms Gillard, as deputy prime minister, had encouraged the Rudd government’s “kitchen cabinet” to shelve plans for a carbon price in favour of other alternatives.

The revelation is extremely damaging for Ms Gillard, who with Treasurer Wayne Swan urged Kevin Rudd to dump his emissions trading scheme.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister today said the government did not comment on cabinet processes, but did not refute the story.

Mr Abbott said it now appeared Ms Gillard had backed the Coalition’s direct action policy.

“No-one can take her seriously,” he said.

“The nearest we get to ‘real Julia’ when it comes to climate change policy is the note that she gave to the inner cabinet just before she became prime minister herself where she said what the government should do is embrace the kind of policy the Coalition’s got.” (source)

Like Combet and the rest of her government, they have been blackmailed by the Greens to take urgent action on climate change, in direct opposition to Gillard’s previous position.

So when Gillard says “It’s the right thing to do”, she says that with a loaded gun to her head, wielded by Bob Brown and Christine Milne.

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Arrogant Combet to plough on with carbon tax

24 July, 2011 by

Contempt for the electorate

Poor Greg. He’s got no choice of course. Blackmailed by the Greens into taking urgent action on climate change (thanks Adam Bandt for that bit of intelligence), Labor has the unenviable choice of either:

(a) abandoning the most unpopular tax in Australian history quickly, losing the Greens’ support in parliament, thereby precipitating an early election… which they will inevitably lose; or,

(b) forcing through the most unpopular tax in Australian history, and then having to survive until the next election… which they will, er, inevitably lose.

They’ve plumped for the second option and you have to admit Combet is playing the part well, with plenty of huff, puff and bluster and swagger (none of which he probably believes himself), and in the process managing to alienate even more of the electorate – if that were possible – with his play-acted arrogance and conceit:

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet has lashed out over criticisms at how long it’s taking the public to warm to the carbon tax.

It’s two weeks since the federal government released the long-awaited details of its carbon price, and the polls are still indicating a lukewarm response. [“Lukewarm”? More like freezing your nuts off – Ed]

Asked if the government will be forced to rework the tax or consider alternatives if support doesn’t pick up, Mr Combet gave an exasperated response.

“Give us a break will you, God, this is such rubbish,” he told Network Ten on Sunday. [Does he mean the tax or the question? – Ed]

“The detail (of the carbon price) has been out for two weeks. There has been months of deceitful, misrepresentative campaigning by (Opposition Leader) Tony Abbott, supported by some others.” [Which is of course nothing compared to the deceitful, misrepresentative campaigning by the Government on the carbon tax – see the Eight Lies – Ed]

He insisted the government won’t waver on its plan to price carbon at $23 a tonne starting July 1, 2012.

“The government is going to stick to its guns here.

“We will continue to explain this to people, in particular that the price impacts are modest.”

As always, they think that the public is plain stupid, and just by explaining it more they will learn to love the tax. But they won’t. You can’t polish a turd. And the carbon tax is a turd alright…

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