Apparently, on May 31, Australia’s targets for emissions cuts tripled overnight.Who knew? Answer: Christine Milne and Julia Gillard.
Australia was aiming for a 5% cut by 2020, but it’s now become a cut of 18% by 2020. The Clean Energy Act of 2011 set that savage goal as a default target that popped into existence if the current government had not jumped through some arbitrary hoop — in this case by setting an emissions cap.
Most likely this is a non-event — presumably the current government can wipe out the carbon legislation after July 1, which depends on Clive Palmer, a coal magnate. (UPDATE: Last night Palmer said he’ll repeal the carbon tax). But even so, I wonder if there is a sting in the cost? Are there contracts that are tied to the target, so that compensation for removing it automatically tripled as well?
And if the tripling of the target is meaningless, why would anyone advertise their deception in sneaking it in?
Could it be Milne and Gillard see themselves as Gods come to save us (damn those stupid voters!). Milne seems positively pleased she was able to trick Australians. The voters may have voted to remove the carbon tax but Gillard and Milne wouldn’t be stopped by the mere wishes of the people. The pair could have explained their “achievement” before the election couldn’t they? Instead, they saved it up til after it was triggered.
Greens leader Christine Milne said the measure was inserted in the act to insure against ”a government like this refusing to set a cap”.
How’s that for open and transparent government? Are we insuring against a government failure or a voter failure?
”It won’t have realised because it never put its mind to the detail,” Senator Milne said. ”By doing nothing more than we are already doing, we are getting to 18.8 [per cent] and if we put a bit of effort in, we can go even higher.”
It’s all so easy being a ruler. Just say the word and those emissions vanish. Pff!
But hey, if we have to cut emissions nearly 20% by 2020 we better start building those nuclear plants today. I’m sure Milne would be pleased…
A spokesman for Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, declined to confirm the government had overlooked the default.
”We have always said we will repeal the carbon tax – lock, stock and barrel,” the spokesman said. ”We will cut emissions by 5 per cent from 2000 levels by 2020, and we’ll do it without a carbon tax.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/
While the government remains confident it can secure enough votes in the new Senate after July 1 to repeal the carbon price, uncertainties will fester so long as the current tax remains.
For instance, should the debate linger to September trade-exposed industries will be eligible for many free emissions permits, said John Connor, chief executive of the Climate Institute.
- The official parliamentary Clean Energy Bill 2011
Given the well-established policy of the Libs wanting to remove the Carbon Tax since well before the election, I am sure any potential claimant would not have a leg to stand on. Incoming legislatoin is often back-dated to reflect the announcement of a policy position. But Aussies are becoming more letigious these days … at least if “Prof” Palmer is anything to go by, so who knows?
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Some interesting news here: Conservative leaders Cameron and Key reject Abbott’s advances for ‘anti-carbon alliance’.
It seems conservative leaders of countries which are net importers of energy are much more realistic about tackling climate change. Now why is that I wonder? Couldn’t be some kind of perverse incentive for Australia and Canada to reject scientific and economic best practice, could there? Pressure from their fossil fuel lobbies, perhaps? No, couldn’t be…
451
I don’t see why the importers of fossil fuels would be more inclined to legislate for carbon taxes… after all, it slows their economies as well. They wear the impost on top of what is a globally set price for commodity in question. It may marginally decrease the global price for, say coal, but the legislating country is wearing almost all of the deadweight loss (you do know what that is, I trust).
But please do elucidate about “scientific and economic best practice.” I am sure we’re all ears. Has it got anything to do with denying that global average temperatures haven’t budged significantly in oh… 17 years or so despite atmospheric CO2 concentrations increasing steadily? Is it something to do with denying empirical data? I am not sure what you mean by best practice in this postmodern world…
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If it isn’t obvious, it slows their economies relatively less. Canada and Australia are far more reliant on fossil fuel and mineral exports while NZ and the UK are more service-oriented economies.
Funny thing is, with investment in renewable energy and infrastructure like a decent NBN, we could be getting ahead of the curve in transforming and diversifying our economy to make it less exposed and commodity-based. In their reactive ideology and blind hatred for anything the progressive side aims for, the Coalition have pointlessly endangered and held back our economy so that as demand for our coal drops off, we’ll be left with a massive hole in our economy and much less to fall back on – recession. Thanks Tony.
352
What utter tosh you talk. You clearly have no knowledge of UK politics. For anyone living in the UK it’s pretty clear Cameron had to reject this Abbott advance, at least in public anyway, because our Dave fought the last election claiming to be the “greenest government ever”. Of course he only said that to get votes that may have leaked to the Lib Dems or Greens but he has done nothing in government to suggest it was anything other than rhetoric. However he is not about to publically change that rhetoric with another election on the horizon, it would make no sense just now. Behind the scenes very different.
181
Tut tut tut Steve,
your faith in renewable power is so hopelessly misguided.
You really need to do some research.
And hey, If you’re so confident, why is it that the so called leaders you place so much faith in with this aren’t just closing down those coal fired power plants.
If you have no understanding of electrical power generation, then it seems you’ll believe just about anything, eh!
Tony.
431
You have a business case for the NBN?
When is it projected to break even?
How did you arrive at the break even point?
What will be the impact of gigabit wireless technology on NBN takeup?
100
MOST important question – will it be installed and functional BEFORE the technology is out of date??
For the huge costs lets hope so and that it has a good service life!
90
I think Steve is suggesting we use the NBN for renewable power distribution. From henceforth power consumption will be measured in picowatts.
260
“picowatts”
is that about 10^12 times more than is circulating in Steve’s brain ?
Certainly , whatever is powering that tiny ensemble, is not very much.
A sure illustration of what happens when you put a parrot’s brain in a sub-human.
81
ps Dr Moreau would be proud.
51
Steve,
Have you experienced a recession?
All a recession does is clear the slate – good businesses grow and poor businesses close.
Businesses that: rely on grants to get started, continue to rely on generous tax payer subsidies to continue, divert imaginary profits to shareholders rather than maintenance, and rely on infrastructure that is expensive and inefficient with a built in obsolescence will collapse e.g wind farms, solar farms, electric cars, NBN, SkS and the IPCC.
Real life isn’t Sim City.
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The first three Computer games I played were Lemmings, Commander Keen 4 Secret Of The Oracle and the original Sim City.
I wish power plants were as easy as Sim City.
Click on the icon and place it on the playing board.
Sadly, that’s how the general populace views power plants these days.
Tony.
131
Do you still have commander keen? I’ve been looking for it for my wife
20
@bobl
Google C Keen, it’s available with DOS screen included
00
The ‘green’ parties are still stuck playing Doom.
30
“Have you experienced a recession?”
Since he was 12 !!
No more workable brain left.
30
Steve, “infrastructure like a decent NBN”
Have you any figures you could put up for the % of users who are currently being limited by the speed? The term “decent NBN” is gaining mantra status, much like CAGW. Perceived wisdom for some, but horribly wrong in reality. You sound like a student writing a thread at the juvenile blog “The Conversation”. Did you protest in the streets today, as some callous youths did in Melbourne?
90
Hey, Steve likes his porn…… quick and on demand….
40
Geoff,
I am currently relying on wireless broadband for both data and telephone. My data is limited to 15 GB per month for $105. The NBN tower is now in commission and I will be able to have 100 GB @25MB speed for about $60. For me NBN fixed wireless will be a huge advance.
20
Darn that’s expensive.
I get 300GB / month ADSL2 + phone for $95
Sure its not the quickest, but quick enough for me… I can set a movie download before heading off to work, then watch it in the evening.
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Meh! I spend $200 per month on broadband wireless/mobile phone for 25Gb per month. NBN no where in sight where I am. ($150 internet, $50 phone). I get a 40% signal strength 4G signal but it has it’s moments. Skype can be atrocious one day, and excellent another, and that’s voice only; video conferencing is a no no. And I am in a rural area, SE NSW, no TV or digital radio, have to pay for MOG via Telstra, and news? FM radio is the only service I can get and then it has to be highly amplified. Local radio is, err, very parochial and not my cup of tea – can’t get 2GB at all, and listening to it on the web is a no no.
10
NBN fixed wireless was apparantly saved by the Libs. Labor wanted to ditch it and cram the customers onto satellite just before the last election to make the cost figures look better. Malcolm Turnbull has now doubled it’s capacity which is a good outcome for rural users and it has a take-up rate of 2x the forecast.
In terms of it’s performance, there are some limitations due to it’s frequency allocation (2.3 Ghz) and use of TDD versus FDD LTE technology. It has a fixed maximum range of 14km from the base stations, and each cell can only provide about 70Mbps total download throughput, versus 160Mbps for FDD. This limits single user download speed plans to 25/5 Mbps. Good news is that there are plans to introde 50/10 services when carrier aggregation is rolled out, probably 2 years down the track, although that will be using 3.5Ghz which is even tougher to get through trees.
00
Steve
I suggest you read a bit more widely. In the UK they are seriously looking at having to have WWII style power cuts
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/10/uk_preps_ww2style_energy_rationing/
Also in the UK they have the worst renewable energy response to the scam I can think of –importing wood chips from the USA to keep the Drax power station ( so it meets some arbitrary EU climate policy objective). The amount of forest cut down in the USA each year is measured in square miles.
NZ does not have a service economy. Yes tourism is a relatively large part of the economy just as it is in Australia. Oil and oil products exports are about number 4 on the export list.( Yes we import lower grade oil to refine into transport fuel)
For energy we have had 75% + renewable energy production for decades -well before the AGW scam started.
Finally Abbott is floating an idea –it doesn’t surprise me John Key has not heard much about it and being election year over here his response to the SMH is not surprising.
00
Steve,
You have not a clue about investment, opportunity costs and economic growth.
The purpose of investment is to obtain positive returns. That is getting more out than what you put in. Renewables the world over get less out than what is put in. They only generate fat profits for investors by subsidies paid for ordinary people.
Opportunity costs are what is forgone when committing to economic decisions. The opportunity costs of each new job in renewables for instance is (in the UK) about three jobs in the wider economy. Investing in shale gas in the USA has done the reverse. Many investors in fracking have made quite small returns, but cheaper, cleaner, energy supplies has benefited consumers directly and created hundreds of thousands of jobs in energy-intensive industries.
Economic growth is growth in output per capita. Long-term growth is achieved by ever greater output per unit of input. In Britain, real per capita income is at least 200 times higher than in 1700, and income per hour worked 500 times. Much of that growth is transitioning from direct human energy inputs – tilling the soil by hand & walking everywhere – to harnessing other means. First it was the energy of animals, then water power, them coal-fired steam power, then oil for transportation and(mostly) coal, gas & nuclear for electricity.
A policy to convert to renewables is effectively a negative growth strategy. It is a system of permanent economic depression, high unemployment, and pessimism for the future.
The basic costs of policy in general do not add up. For Julia Gilliard’s policies, assuming effective policies and assuming the catastrophic warming hypothesis is true and completely ignoring opportunity costs have costs outweighing benefits of 50:1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw5Lda06iK0. Do you think a new pharmaceutical should be allowed on the market where for every patient whose life was saved, another 50 were killed by the adverse side affects?
Alternatively there is my own analysis. If, as is likely a small number of countries enact policy and the CAGW hypothesis is true, then the countries that will serve their future generations will be the non-policy countries.
http://manicbeancounter.com/2014/02/23/why-climate-change-mitigation-policies-will-always-fail/
So you are left with two alternatives.
If CAGW is true (despite the lack of strong evidence to the contrary) Tony Abbott is acting in the better interests of both those living and future generations of Australians than Julia Gillard. In addition, Prime Minister Abbott will have prevented a bunch of scientists, (who falsely think that being correct in a specialist area gives them infallible knowledge in the entirely different fields of economics, ethics, policy formation and policy implementation) from usurping the democratic process.
If the CAGW hypothesis is false Tony Abbott is acting in the better interests of both those living and future generations of Australians than Julia Gillard, but more so. In addition, Prime Minister Abbott will have prevented a bunch of dogmatist political activists, who falsely claim to be scientists, from usurping the democratic process.
http://manicbeancounter.com/2014/02/23/why-climate-change-mitigation-policies-will-always-fail/
So, politically are you
(1) On the side of Tony Abbott acting in the best interests of the Australian people and democracy, along with science.
(2) On the side of Tony Abbott acting in the best interests of the Australian people and democracy, along with science.
or (3) On the side of a bunch of people who want to make the Australian people poorer and Australia less democratic and open?
40
Idiots in denial.
Tonight (14 June)driving to Canberra (Aust) from my farm near Bemboka (south-eastern NSW); on from Michalego it was pouring rain. Low cloud, no wind; it was cold.
My dog (in the back) and and I were both looking forward to getting home.
The stupid greenie ACT-Government’s solar farm on Canberra’s southern outskirts was shrouded in mist. It was about 3.30 PM.
Reality is when we need some ergs to warm our homes or create jobs, they’re missing-in-action; gone-AWL.
Hopeless dreaming won’t warm, cook, or create jobs. Generalising won’t hide the thit behind the theme.
Reality is we pay for all the electricity not being made by solar. Pay more for the same stuff that used to be made by coal. Pay more for the gas we can’t access because greedy Origin makes more for sending our resources to Asia.
Except payers, everybody’s a winner.
10
FYI – I used to post as “Steve” but it seems I’ve been gazumped, hence a new moniker….
00
Well, at least you are original. 😉
00
Hi Steve,
The hypothesis of Catastrophic Man Made Global warming has it…
… that water vapour is a net positive feedback to increasing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere …
I.e. as CO2 increases, water vapour (the primary GHG in the atmosphere) increases and produces the heavy lifting to produce “Catastrophic” global warming. I.e. Increased water vapour will contribute approx 3 degrees of warming, for every 1 degree of warming by increases in CO2.
[1] Do you have any empirical evidence drawn from the fine grain radiosonde measurements of atmospheric temperature and humidity conducted over the last 3 decades that demonstrates that such a “positive feedback” exists.
[2] Positing that if such a “positive feedback” relationship exists, how did life on this world survive over the last 600 million years with CO2 levels up to 7000 parts per million (i.e. Devonian era) vs our current 400 ppm?
[3] Can you explain how a complex, nonlinear, dynamic system (Climate), can survive for any length of time with a major governing positive feedback in it.
Looking forward to your answers.
BTW: Climate models that simply explore theoretical scenarios are not empirical evidence of anything beyond the assumptions underlying their programs. – i.e. they will not count as evidence.
260
There’s that nasty dihydrogen oxide again!!!!!!!!
20
I prefer a bit of oxybicarbohexahydride, myself.
20
I fear the real reason is that the UK CANNOT have a climate change policy inconsistent with the EU directives. However the EU itself is fissuring rapidly with the approaching deadline of March 2015 for nations “with a mind to” to commit to emission reduction targets for the proposed new treaty.
I should read Pats posts of 3.16pm and 3.31pm to if you want to know how the real world is moving.
The issue is simply US verses China , Obama wishing to avoid the humiliation of Copenhagen 2009 and China adamant on not reducing emissions. What you are observing are the maneuvers
to avoid blame for the inevitable failure of Paris 2015 COP21.
20
Steve is a little naive about reale politik. Both the UK and New Zealand are moving into an election period. No political party will be wanting to spook the undecided voters with “new” ideas, right now. Come back again after the elections, and we will see which way the wind blows then.
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We could lend the UK and NZ a couple of brilliant professors to assist with establishing strategies (Julia and Clive).
In fact, they could keep the pair of them – forever.
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“Steve is a little naïve”
You spelt that wrong… It should be “knave“
20
Heh, two down and two to go. My contrarian comment from Wednesday is barely 24 hours old and is already looking quite prescient.
>> “It seems conservative leaders of countries which are net importers of energy are much more realistic about tackling climate change.”
Except for the elephant in the room, China, which is a net importer of energy and makes occasional noises about carbon dioxide pricing yet plans to emit the stuff at ever greater rates for the foreseeable future. At least one new coal-powered electricity plant every 14 days. They also have a national academy of sciences who aim at “introducing diverse academic arguments” such the NIPCC’s view of the evidence. Smart elephant.
30
And, according to Greg Sheridan, China’s seven city or province-based trading schemes are giving away almost all of their carbon permits for free.
So, not a resounding success there, either.
10
Sorry, that link’s paywalled. You can probably google it, though
00
Great point, Andrew and neatly check-mates Steve’s assertion that:
“It seems conservative leaders of countries which are net importers of energy are much more realistic about tackling climate change.”
Most of the countries that are net importers of energy are beholden to the market and a S### scared of the resources held to ransom , exploited or bid up.
The reason for that is the green movements in most of those countries prevented essential energy resource programs from commencing or from expanding and foisted upon those governments onerous renewable energy targets in return for their support to stay in power when they detected vulnerability during the global warming scare frenzy – nothing more than predatory politics.
China imports energy but because of the economic strength and buying power and no worthy competitor – China calls the shots – China will not have RET’s or CO2 reduction – China will placate the world’s green stooges, but will continue to buy coal and build cheap, reliable and efficient power plants.
We could all learn a lot from China – especially those duped by China’s grand environmental stand – beneath which is the blood of real students who stood up to a real totalitarian regime and who died for a genuine cause.
Unlike the shallow husks protesting in the streets today about the lack of toilet facilities for fourth or fifth gender persons doing Arts and Humanities for Climate Science.
Just a bunch of dead monkeys.
40
The german army in WW2 used to booby trap things, as it was beaten back by the allied advance.
No…perish the thought…..
10
I’m sure the relevant minister is aware. I’ll get back to you later.
41
Answers on the run.
Q1: Will the default target cap of 18.8% of emissions reduction become irrelevant after the repeal of the carbon tax?
Yes.
Q2: Also, is Australia liable to any body and hence, has to compensate for not meeting this ridiculous target?
No.
Q3: The way the last government inserted the default in the legislation looks like an intent to knobble industries.
Yes.
Hope this clears it up, Jo.
160
I will also add that the government was aware of the trap…elaborate traps can swing both ways. Best to do nothing.
80
Scaper, great feedback and very welcome confirmation in the grown ups we voted in to manage our country.
40
Sorry about that – I thought I’d cancelled the first post.
00
…but, are there contracts that the previous government signed which require the legislation to remain in it’s present form? Will the contracts demand that compensation be paid if the legislation is repealed? Will the Oz government be tied to grants based on the current legislation?
Yes, I know that the government can just pass a new retroactive law saying it can ignore all these responsibilities, but that just adds to the ‘sovereign risk’ – business will not want to do business in Australia, out of fear that the government might again capriciously change the rules …
Stuff like this can get very expensive, very quickly. I do hope someone is now reading the fine print – and not just the legislation; all the contracts, grants, etc., etc. …
00
GreggB,
“business will not want to do business in Australia, out of fear that the government might again capriciously change the rules”
On the other hand, businesses will see that the government recognized the insanity of the bad legislation and only hurt the parasitic ‘businesses and ngo’s’ by getting rid of it. Real business people are a lot smarter than most or else they’re no longer in business.
Perhaps the bill ridding the country of the tax should include measures to investigate and indict folks who paid/bribed the pols who passed the tax in the first place. In that case any contracts would provide convenient strings to pull while investigating.
One can only hope.
Dave t
Sacramento, CA
10
Agreed, it will undo a lot of damage done by the previous government.
But IIRC, it remains that Australia is a country in which there has been very little investment in energy infrastructure for years (Tony may correct me on this). I suspect this is largely because industry is reluctant to invest billions of dollars into coal turbines, or gas turbines, or solar turbines – or whatever tech – while the rules are still in a state of flux.
I think that it will take several years of legislative stability in the energy sector before Australia will see significant investment, and by then, with our growing population, we may be facing what the USA may be facing with cascading power failures in this next winter. Again, Tony may choose to weigh in here.
10
…but, are there contracts that the previous government signed which require the legislation to remain in it’s present form? Will the contracts require that compensation be paid if the legislation is repealed, or the contracts abaondoned? Will the Oz government be tied to grants based on the current legislation?
Yes, I know that the government can just pass a new retroactive law saying it can ignore all these responsibilities, but that just adds to the ‘sovereign risk’ – business will not want to do business in Australia, out of fear that the government might again capriciously change the rules …
Stuff like this can get very expensive, very quickly. I do hope someone is now reading the fine print – and not just the legislation; all the contracts, grants, etc., etc. …
00
Ben Pile over at Climate Resistance analyzes why Greens hate Liberty. This parting bomb toss by the former Australian leadership is a great example of the hatred the Greens/climate kooks have for other people.
362
Fantastic post thanks, it also echo’s what Jo has been saying here for years along with the very clever minds that contribute to her Blog, much respect here for such forthright honesty.
92
Interesting then that Greens senator Scott Ludlum has been virtually the only person in parliament standing up for online privacy and consumer rights against the big-business ensconced, authoritarian Coalition policy platform.
The Greens have also been pretty strident against Coalition religious indoctrination in schools, and Coalition attempts to curtail women’s reproductive rights. They sound like friends of liberty to me.
But then, I guess when ‘libertarians’ call for greater ‘liberty’, they’re really only after a tax break – and perhaps to support Bolt’s right to go off on racist and factually incorrect rants.
135
If you seriously consider any Green politician has anyone’s liberty as a concern then you are seriously deluded.
The Greens have made it perfectly clear on their value of peoples lives verses the warped green cult they savagely spew forth at any opportunity, they have zero regard for the living let alone the yet to be procreated, and all of it done in a political form not seen for over 70 years.
251
See, I’ve mentioned actual policy areas they’ve argued over, you’ve given me a frothing statement of your ideology. Isn’t that just so reflective of the standard of commentary here? An echo-chamber of meta-quinquagenarian ideolgical spite and NIMBYism.
131
So it’s ok for you to take my apparent “ideology” and use it as some overall benchmark of commentary standards here?
See even engaging in rebuttal you clearly show double standards and contradict yourself, a true watermelon.
And where the hell does NIMBY even come into this exchange?, if it means I don’t want some Green National Socialist agenda even marginally effecting my life then yes, otherwise it just comes across as odd.
241
Attacking the easy ones again, Steve.
Anyone can get away with a free shot upon a religion that turns the other cheek.
Square off against fundamentalist religious indoctrination rather than throwing a coward’s punch at Christian targets.
Lets see how far your character strengths carry defending the rights of women against genital mutilation, forced marriages, public stoning, and regressive education.
And then you come straight out into attack mode and righteous indignation when Yonniestone has the guts to stand up to you…
Now how did that go – oh yeah…
“Isn’t that just so reflective of the standard of commentary here? An echo-chamber of meta-quinquagenarian ideolgical spite and NIMBYism.”
Your own projecting nails you as a closet abuser.
You’re as weak as piss.
142
“quinquagenarian” – lovely word, sounds like Jonathon Swift but isn’t. Why not just say “baby boomers” excepting even that epithet has passed into history –
But to what meaning of “meta-” do you subscribe? To me, a chemist, it means “having two substituents in alternate positions”. Is this a reference to the “swinging sixties”?
91
Poor Steve.. still pre-pubescent… in mind at least. (but probably mid 30’s)
I bet you “agonise” over Ms Milne or S-H-Y at night in bed.
51
Come on Steve.. which do you
wetdream about?Or is it both at once.?
31
Or is it Adam ?
31
Steve I believe this video sums up the sort of moral compass you have at the moment http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/featured/prime-time/867432237001/the-real-bigots/3618031034001 and shock horror even though I’m an atheist, as a libertarian I would sooner see someone’s constitutional right upheld before any tax break.
If you weren’t so Sozi indoctrinated and opened your eyes objectively to the people that comment on this blog you would see a plethora of mixed opinions and personalities but sadly this is lost on a mind that, what was it?, oh yes is frothing with self loathing also projected on to the rest us infective bacteria.
Apart from that chin up old boy and have a good night. 🙂
80
That’s the thing Steve. when you are perpetually on the dole, YOU don’t care about where the funds come from.
Maybe once you grow up enough to be able to hold onto a worthwhile job, you will feel differently about how your money that the government takes from you, is spent.
Would you prefer it spent on hospitals, roads etc, and worthwhile progress.. or the green, cave dwelling utopia.
61
Lovely to see you here Steve and I welcome your contribution, retarded as it is.
It must get more than a bit boring over on Twitter or Fairfax or the Guardian etc with all that groupthink. It really is nice that you are over here interrupting the skeptic group think (yes we are human after all and like any bunch of blokes or women or football or netball team supporters the groupthink sauna does get a bit much after a while).
But maaaate, talking about the Greens combatting “religeous indoctrination” is risible.
The Greens are the most fundamentalist, hillbilly, ol’ timey quasi-religeous loon movement since the equivalent of “climate scientists” sprouted like weeds in the garden of the enlightenment the 18th and 19th century, crapping on about the “chain of life/being” and, exemplifying the dictum that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, rationalised racism on the basis that white europeans were at the top of the evolutionary development chain and of course Australian Aborigenes were way, way down, next to the apes.
By all means set out objective arguments for your ideas, Steve, but if you want to keep up with things over here, you need to take your skeptic supplements otherwise you will never develop. And don’t cite the Greens in some sort of appeal to authority.
Once again, Steve, welcome.
121
“meta-quinquagenarian ideolgical spite”
Sounds like obfuscatory sesquipedalianism to me.
20
Steve,
Good points but since the over arching ned of the green/climate obsessed is to impose their will, no matter the facts, on energy/climate/environment.
That requires what we see here in the US: a government spying on its citizens, takings of property, an EPA that writes regulations that deprive people of freedom, property, choice- and with little practical check or balance.
So you make some good points, but they fade out int he reality of what greens are all about.
30
Exactly, what right has this lunatic Milne have to hold the country to ransom.
This being just one of the many financial “land mines” labor and the greens have set for this government.
This is bordering on criminal in my opinion which as a voter means nothing.
“Greens leader Christine Milne said the measure was inserted in the act to insure against ”a government like this refusing to set a cap”.
A government like “this” is what the Australian people elected in a landslide.
Not the minority bunch of loony tunes she heads up.
How dare she.
200
Leigh,
Are you, like me, feeling that in recent years legislation has been passed without any significant reference to the people? Do you also feel that a host of expensive windmills appeared out of the blue, replete with RET mechanisms and subsidies from you and me, without us even being asked?
This bomb is new to me. I’ve never seen such a flagrant misuse of Parliamentary power in my 70 years.
61
Yes Geoff, like you I’m simply astounded at what they in power punt my taxes on.
I’m running ten years behind you and gaining rapidly and I don’t want to be rude or insensitive but where have you been?
When government talks about transparency, what their really doing is only allowing you to look through the one window .
It’s only years later when the window is “broken” that you can see exactly what their “transparency”was hiding.
This being a classic example.
And Milnes gloating about her deception of the Australian people.
Why am I not overly suprised?
This one is simply just another bribe by the Gillard government to its coalition partners the greens.
To curry favor to pass other legislation not related to the global warming scam.
And more often than not I read about it on a blog like Jo’s and not in the mainstream media.
Well after the dirty deed is done.
It is, never ending.
20
one part of the story may have been resolved:
11 June: ABC: Simon Cullen: Carbon tax repeal bill: PUP to support legislation, Clive Palmer willing to “compromise” over refund
The Palmer United Party has backed down on demands that the carbon tax repeal legislation be applied retrospectively, in a move that boosts the chances of the bill passing the Senate.
The party’s leader, Clive Palmer, still thinks companies should be entitled to a full carbon tax refund, but says he is prepared to “compromise”…
However, the mining billionaire is insisting that the Government amend the repeal legislation so that power companies are required by law to pass on any savings.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt says the Government has already allocated more money for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to monitor price changes once the carbon tax is removed, with the threat of significant penalties if businesses try to rip off customers.
“I can make this guarantee: that we will legislate to not just repeal the carbon tax, but to ensure through … the ACCC that electricity and gas savings are passed on to families, to consumers and to households,” he told 774 ABC Melbourne.
But Mr Palmer says that does not go far enough, describing the ACCC as a “voluntary arrangement”…
While his position on the carbon tax makes it more likely the legislation will pass the Senate, the fate of the Government’s so-called direct action climate change policy remains unclear.
In April, Mr Palmer made it clear he would not support the multi-billion-dollar plan.
“We’ll be voting against direct action, whatever form it’s in,” he said.
“If that’s what the Government wants, they can call a double dissolution [election].”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-11/pup-confirms-support-to-scrap-carbon-tax/5516068
Direct Action Bill is separate:
Dept of the Environment: Repealing the Carbon Tax
Direct Action Plan
***The Government will consult separately on the design of the Emissions Reduction Fund and the Direct Action Plan
http://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/repealing-carbon-tax
60
this ABC interview is so far down the Breakfast program schedule, u have to click “More from Episode” to even get to it, & ABC hasn’t seen fit, so far, to write up an article on it (which is a common practice when it suits their agenda) or provide a transcript.
(note the pathetic headline. couldn’t be less informative – no hint of Hunt guarantees electricity bills will be lower – or anything that might attract the public. plus the obligatory Obama reference in the summary.)
AUDIO: 12 June: ABC Breakfast: Environment Minister Greg Hunt
(interviewed by Alison Carabine)
Environment Minister Greg Hunt joins RN Breakfast to discuss the Government’s climate change policy, as Prime Minister Tony Abbott arrives in Washington for a meeting with US President Barack Obama.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/environment-minister-greg-hunt/5517546
listen to the last few minutes when Carabine asks Hunt how can the Govt be sure electricity prices will go down. altho Carabine has been demanding figures earlier in the interview, she is none too happy when Hunt starts detailing the percentage decreases for various States, & interjects “okay” as if trying to cut short his response.
Hunt also states the Govt will be legislating to ensure electricity prices go down. so you are guaranteeing that, says Carabine, in a voice that suggests ABC’s factcheck will be suitably outraged if the figures turn out to vary by .0000001%, should the legislation be passed.
50
There is an established principle in the Westminster style of Parliament, that a Government cannot move to bind a subsequent Government. Since this measure is prospective, it is not binding.
Always assuming, of course that the Australian Parliament proceedings are still aligned with the Westminster tradition, and process. The Speaker, after due consultation, should be able to make a ruling on that.
231
As I understand it, the legislative principle is designed to prevent a law saying that it cannot be repealed or amended by a subsequent parliament. There are any number of laws that have conditions that come into play after the expiry of the parliament that passed them; indexing of taxes and pensions, for example. Of course, the current parliament can vote to remove the legislation, or the tripling of the goal, or any other part of the law.
Of course, that is very different from saying that it can be done without significant expense …
30
Some democrats tried passing laws with ‘irrevocable’ clauses and language.
I submit that laws like that are in fact lawless and am confident that tehy will be of particular interest to real reformers.
10
Avoiding debate was a primary concern for the government of the time. That’s why more than 1000 pages in the parcel of bills, etc was rammed through in about a week. i.e. not enough time for anybody to read and think about the legislation.
The explanatory memoranda are a week’s reading! And then there are the bits of legislation not explained in the memoranda.
It is an inescapable conclusion that the government of the day deliberately circumvented the parliamentary mechanisms with those voting blindly in favour acting as accomplices.
It is my firm view that nobody should vote to pass legislation that they have not personally read and understood. There are options to abstain or to vote in the negative if there isn’t sufficient time to consider the legislation. Anything less is dishonest and doesn’t serve the interests of the electorate.
Far too many parliamentarian seeem to think that they are sitting to represent the interests of their party.
170
I think we all agree in principle Bernd, but the reality is that this will not happen unless bills are made to be much more concise and/or sufficient time is given for them to be analysed. Besides, bills are written in language that is difficult to interpret at the best of times. I have had to read some State Agreements (schedules to Acts of WA Parliament) in my time and the language can take ages to decipher. Written by lawyers for lawyers for the most part. Unless every member is expected to be expert in reading legalese I can’t see how they can be expected to understand every nuance of longer bills, clearly they will have to rely on staffers and other advisors.
Here’s a sample from the fourth schedule (Section 18(1)) of the Alumina Refinery (Worsley) Agreement Act 1973:
Yes, that is just one friggin sentence …
70
Oh, Sir Humphrey, you have excelled yourself!
20
Those Bills (potentially) become Law. If people don’t understand the Law, because it’s written in a “foreign language”, then requiring the people to obey them becomes onerous.
Fewer laws, in simple language don’t just serve the people well, they serve the legislative process; if the people give a damn about the law.
It’s a revolution in democracy that I think must come from “below”, from voters insisting that their elected representatives understand the bills put before them; or simply don’t pass them on party lines. The prerequisite is a more participatory democracy where the electorate is always on the ball and doesn’t just think about their elected members once every 3 or 4 years. Voters should actively engage and ask their elected members why they voted in a particular way.
For most of Australia, that could be assisted through WWW mechanisms, resulting in deeper public engagement. Obviously, trolls will need to be kept at bay. But WWW must not be the only way to engage.
A participatory democracy requires that their elected members be held continually accountable. Additonal mechanisms, such as petitions from electors to the governor for a bye-election should be looked at. Such are, in my humble opinion, an alternative to referenda on every “issue”.
Parliaments can, if they support the participatory democracy, decide to formalise and standardise, so that there are uniform presentations of bills and the arguments for/against; as well as the reason for abstaining. Parliamentary procedures must also deal with quotas of votes on bills; if too many abstain (e.g. more than a third), then the necessary quota would not be met and the bill not passed. The respective house can then decide if the bill should be dropped entirely or redrafted/reviewed.
10
Bernd,
The increasing use of COAG rather than usual Parliamentary process is also a worry. COA can ram legislation through with few to no questions asked by pesky outsiders. Your smart meters for electricity profiteering were a COAG child. (One wonders when the pressure will finally build and call for yet another inquiry like a Royal Commission, this time into smart meters.)
40
5 June: Energy Matters: Australia’s New Carbon Emissions Target – 18% Reduction
Surprised? The Abbott Government might be too.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald BLAH BLAH…
The gotcha has caused quite a stir and appears to have caught the Government with its budgie-smugglers down…
Nigel Morris, Solar Business Services:
“I’d even go so far as to say that they were all (obviously) completely unaware that the trigger even existed until they read the paper over their morning coffee. I can almost picture the jaw dropping, coffee spurting reaction.”
“By accident and incredibly ironically, one of the worlds most anti-climate and anti-renewables Governments should be enacting policies that help it meet the target it is required by law to implement.”
Mr. Morris says that by allowing the new 18% reduction target engage by default makes the government “look clumsy at best and incapable at worst”; as there are significant potential consequences…
“Tony Abbott can no longer claim that the rest of the world is not acting. The Chinese are acting, the Europeans have acted, and now the US is coming out strongly to reduce carbon pollution,” said Greens leader, Senator Christine Milne.
http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=4334
3 June: Solar Business: Nigel Morris: Australia’s energy policy cacophony
However, they have an eminently colorful character to deal with in Clive Palmer, and of course, the Greens, Labor and a few independents. Clive is the wildcard here because its just possible that despite the fact that philosophically and financially he doesn’t want a Carbon Price, he want’s Tony Abbott to have power even less. By voting against the repeal of the Carbon Price, he could force the Government to a double dissolution which in the current climate would undoubtedly cost the Government some power through lost seats…
http://solarbusiness.com.au/australias-energy-policy-cacophony/
LinkedIn: Nigel Morris
Director/Principle Consultant at SolarBusinessServices
Past: Offer Development Managerat BP Solar
Directorat RESHAPE, NSW
Nigel Morris’s Projects includes:
Clean Energy Regulator
December 2011 to January 2012
The Clean Energy Regulator manages the Renewable Energy Target in Australia. We were engaged as part of a team to help develop their forward forecasts for REC uptake.
http://au.linkedin.com/pub/nigel-morris/1a/55b/b76
41
Just ring the Macquarie Dictionary and change the definition of carbon. Worked with misogyny.
91
Quite frankly, if Greg Hunt really was caught off guard by this, he ought to be sacked from the portfolio forthwith.
If on the otherhand he knew about it and is sure he can circumvent it with the new laws repealing this whole carbon tax farce, maybe that is a different matter.
But in that case, he should have made a notice of this several weeks ago, so that it didn’t look so much like an oversight.
50
even if it were true, who cares?
Nov 2013: IPS: Japan Bails Out on CO2 Emissions Target
By Stephen Leahy
Japan will increase that gap three to four percent with its new 2020 reduction target, according to the Climate Action Tracker (CAT). It amounts to a three-percent increase compared to a 1990 baseline. Japan’s 2009 Copenhagen Accord pledge was a 25 percent reduction by 2020.
“Japan is taking us in the opposite direction,” Marion Vieweg of Climate Analytics, a German climate research organisation, told IPS here in Warsaw.
“Their revision shows the bottom up approach is not working if countries can simply drop their pledges at any time,” Vieweg said…
Japan, the fifth largest emitter of CO2, is just the latest to abandon its international commitments.
While Australia hasn’t officially torn up its reduction pledge, the newly elected Tony Abbott government has gutted nearly all the emission programmes it needs to fulfill its 2020 promise of reductions between five and 25 percent compared to 2000, said Vieweg…
Canada may be the worst offender. Itrecently said its carbon emissions will be 20 percent higher than its Copenhagen pledge. More importantly, Canada’s emissions in 2020 will be 66 -107 percent greater than what’s actually required to do its share to reach 2.0 C.
“We’re getting results,” claimed Canada’s Environment Minister Leona Agglukaq.
“Australia, Canada and now Japan are having a destructive impact on the climate negotiations,” said Kimiko Hirata, Japanese Climate Action Network spokesperson. Climate Action Network (CAN) is an international network of more than 800 NGOs.
“There has been no public discussion about this lower target. We are very embarrassed by our government’s decision,” Hirata said in a press conference here…
http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/11/japan-bails-out-on-co2-emissions-target/
4 June: ClimateActionTracker: Below 2°C or 1.5°C depends on rapid action from both Annex I and non-Annex I countries
New US Clean Power Plan rates far from what’s needed for 2°C
In light of this need for decarbonisation of the industry and energy sectors, the CAT has analysed the US Government’s “Clean Power Plan” proposed rule leading to a 30% cut (from 2005 levels) in emissions from power plants.
“While the proposal is welcome, it is insufficient to meet the US’s pledges of 17% reduction of all greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and is inconsistent with its long-term target of 83% below 2005 level by 2050,” said Dr Niklas Höhne of Ecofys.
Based on the CAT assessment, the US’s 2030 national emissions would be around 5% above 1990 levels – or 10 % below 2005 levels.
“The US’s new plan is far above the levels required for a two degree pathway,” said Dr Hare…
http://climateactiontracker.org/news/156/Below-2C-or-1.5C-depends-on-rapid-action-from-both-Annex-I-and-non-Annex-I-countries.html
it would appear any reductions, other than the 5% one, are conditional, & the conditions haven’t been met!
Dept of Environment: Australia’s emissions reduction targets
2020
Australia will reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25 per cent compared with 2000 levels by 2020 if the world agrees to an ambitious global deal capable of stabilising levels of GHGs in the atmosphere at 450 ppm (parts per million) carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e) or lower…
Australia will unconditionally reduce its emissions by 5 per cent compared with 2000 levels by 2020 and by up to 15 per cent by 2020 if there is a global agreement that falls short of securing atmospheric stabilisation at 450 ppm CO2-e under which major developing economies commit to substantially restraining their emissions and advanced economies take on commitments comparable to Australia’s.
These targets have been anchored under the Cancun Agreements. A detailed statement of Australia’s target conditions can be found below…
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/climate-change/greenhouse-gas-measurement-and-reporting/australias-emissions-projections/australias
30
All I can say about anyone who purposely behaves in this manner towards other living things is DIABOLICAL, anything more would be [snip] city.
This is mild compared to what Mrs Yonnie has just used to describe Gillard & Milne.
51
Has anyone thought about what exactly this 18% emissions reduction really entails.
If that is an 18% reduction across all sectors, then that means a reduction in Co2 emissions from the power generation sector as well.
Australia currently consumes around 230TWH of electrical power each year. An 18% reduction takes that down to 188TWH.
The last time Australia consumed that total was in 2002, twelve years ago.
So to reduce by that amount, that means everybody.
You, personally in your home, and believe me, that’s a fair whack of electricity at that personal residential level.
That’s an 18% reduction in the Commercial sector, the equivalent of closing one in five of every Coles and Woolies. one in five shopping malls, one in five shops, one in five hospitals, one in five of every high rise building taller than three stories, cutting back on the electrified rail system by 18%, street lighting by 18%, traffic control by 18%, and on and on.
In Industry, that’s the closure of one in five industries.
Now, imagine if you will just the Commerce and Industrial sectors, and the jobs entailed in that 18% closure.
Good luck with that.
Tony.
291
Tony,
Thanks for that
18% is a huge amount for Australia that I can now imagine as impossible.
What gets me is why other countries like the Ex-Super Power Russia has a 4.5% emissions reductions target? Well the World Energy Council said that “Russia is estimated to have a total potential of 80,000 TWh/yr for wind energy, 6,218 TWh/yr of which is economically feasible”
But further investigation says that “In 2008 the end use of electricity was 4.3% (726 TWh) of the world total (16,819 TWh)”
None of this adds up – why would they not go straight to wind if it can generate 80,000 TWh/yr when they only use 726 TWh
Or am I missing something here? Twh/yr versus TWh?
In 2006, Russia had a total installed wind capacity of 15 MW
In 2010, Russia had less than 17 MW installed capacity
This is like the equivalent of ONE cat diesel generator isn’t it?
So Australia’s Christine Milne is screaming that China, Russia & the EU are meeting the CO2 reduction targets, yet we’ve got a bloddy target 4 to 5 times anyone else.
I’m lost on this junk that the Greens keep on sprouting
Thanks for your patience Tony.
P.S. Just bought a Diesel generator in case all this turns to POO
40
what next? capital punishment? nothing OFFICIAL about this story so far, mind u:
11 June: Reuters: China’s Shenzhen to punish firms if carbon targets not met-media
by Kathy Chen and Stian Reklev
China’s Shenzhen will impose sanctions on companies that fail to comply with targets under the city’s carbon trading scheme, an official said according to a local media outlet, despite criticism about the rules.
The Shenzhen government, hosting the oldest of China’s six pilot carbon trading markets, last week arranged a special CO2 permit auction to help local emitters meet their targets for 2013 by the June 30 deadline.
But only around a third of the permits on offer were picked up, with some of the 635 scheme participants saying they didn’t participate because they were unhappy about scheme rules and planned to appeal to the government about how their emission targets had been set.
Guangdong province faces a similar situation in its market, casting doubt over China’s ability to enforce targets in its carbon markets, the main policy tool to cut climate-changing greenhouse gases in the world’s biggest-emitting nation…
“Non-compliers will be asked to pay a fine of three times the market value (of each permit they fail to hand over to the government),” Zhou Quanhong, head of the Shenzhen government carbon trading office, told a conference on Tuesday, according to news service provider Crystal Carbon.
He said those who failed to pay a fine would be dealt with by the court, and that violators would have their lending credibility downgraded and lose any subsidies or preferential fiscal treatment they might receive.
***The government did not immediately respond to questions regarding Zhou’s comments, but they were confirmed by several sources who participated at the conference…
Zhou’s message was seen by market players as sending a strong message that the government intends to ensure the scheme is properly implemented and reassure traders that market regulations would be upheld…
Last week’s auction offered permits at half the market price, but Zhou confirmed on Tuesday the government would not hold any more auctions, forcing emitters to meet targets by buying permits in the secondary market.
The 2013 permits last traded Wednesday at 70 yuan ($11.24), up half a yuan on the previous day.
But finding sellers could be a challenge for buyers, who only have 19 days to get their books in order.
Liquidity in the scheme is poor with only a handful of thousand permits trading each day. Some 12,000 permits changed hands on Wednesday…
The China Emissions Exchange, which hosts trading of permits in the Shenzhen market, on Wednesday began offering trading of 2014 permits.
***Bids and offers opened far apart, with the first trade going through in the afternoon at 60 yuan, but only for a single permit.
The government has issued 33 million permits for 2014, according to the exchange.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/11/idUSL4N0OS0XS20140611
this will be the conference referred to above:
WALCC (World Alliance for Low Carbon Cities): Sixth Low Carbon City Development World Forum; June 10-11, 2014, in Shenzhen, China
The event will host over 1,000 leaders from government, industry, investors, academia, international organizations, business associations, and media from over 40 countries…
Confirmed Participants include:
Graham Meadows, Special Advisor, European Commission
Mariana Fay, Chief Economist, Sustainable Development Network, World Bank
Travis Bradford, Director, Energy and Environment Concentration, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Jonathan Woetzel, Senior Director, McKinsey & Company
http://walcc.org/index.php/material-bank/events/101-sixth-low-carbon-city-development-world-forum-june-10-11-2014-shenzhen-china
20
It is high time the electorate realised that the socialist governance of Australia and indeed the world will always be based on deception, half truths and outright lies.
How did one tell when Gillard was lying………well as soon as her lips moved!!
The Greens / ALP alliance proved to be an alliance of deception just as devious as the behaviour of the then leaders and the current leader. Refer to the emerging facts of the AWU slush funds designed by the previous “Prime” Minister for the financial defrauding of Union members & for their own advantage.
The current “leader” of the ALP has been mentioned in this disgusting affair for warning a would be whistle-blower that many good people would be harmed by him making their defrauding of Union members known & the whistle-blower would be ostracised.
This is the SOCIALIST ideology in practise!!
Media criticism on both sides is muted……WHY?
If these were LNP personnel involved ALL HEADLINES , RADIO& TV REPORTS WOULD BE SHRIEKING FOR THE RESIGNATION OF THE LNP LEADER. WHY IS this SO?
The union members involved in this fraud & the former prime minister must be prosecuted.
Unfortunately on does not know how far the judicial system is infiltrated by the left. The outcome of this commission of inquiry will also have our judiciary “on trial”
The Current leader of the ALP Bill Shorten should be made to resign
71
Christine “Misery” Milne would have to be the most miserable politician going around. Old misery guts has a permanent sneer on her face and never smiles about anything and never has anything to say that is constructive, uplifting or enlightening even when interviewed by her stooge friends at the ALP Broadcasting Commissariat. About time “Misery” Milne got a life and stopped trying to punish the community because we don’t fit in with her doom and gloom world view.
171
Bringing down western society has its stresses.
120
I refer to her as “The Lemonsucker” although I once saw her smile. She had been told that her surly lemon-sucking persona turned voters off, so she gave a soliloquy on MtP about the world ending and Abbottsatan666. Then at the end turned to the camera and stretched her face into a grimace approximating a smile.
20
These are targets not legally binding commitments. What’s the problem?
00
Who Knew?
WORKING PAPER | August 2013
GHG MItIGAtION IN AustRAlIA:
AN OvERvIEW Of tHE CuRRENt POlICy lANdsCAPE (pdf)
by
OLIVIA KEMBER AND ERWIN JACKSON WITH MERRY CHANDRA
The Climate Institute, World Resources Institute
“Australia has bipartisan political support for its international commitment to reduce emissions by 5–25 percent from 2000 levels by 2020
(see Box 1), but very little bipartisan agreement as to how to achieve these reductions.”
~ ~ ~
Australian climate change policy: a chronology
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1314/ClimateChangeTimeline
00
Update:
Date: 27 February 2014
Mark Butler (Labor) MP Federal Member for Port Adelaide
“Before the election, Tony Abbott committed to the bipartisan emissions reduction target range of between 5 and 25 per cent.
The Prime Minister needs to indicate clearly whether he remains committed to this range and break with his tradition of ignoring the advice of experts,” Mr Butler said.”
00
Christine Milne and her looney tunes are communists. You don’t seriously think they have any time for democracy or we Australians who don’t follow her crazy self centred deluded view of humanity on the planet, do you ? We would likely be executed if Milne had her way. Thank God we have a powerful Australian military to put her right where she belongs if she and her mind numbing rent-a-crowd cohorts try anything in the future. One of her equally self obsessed and deluded with grandeur believers, the utterly flakey Bob Ellis, not too long ago called for all Liberal voters to have an X daubed on their front doors, as happened to jews in the past. This call of Ellis’s appeared in Crikey, hate journal of the far left lunatic green fringe, a few years ago. What Obama says about climate change is completely irrelevant as he won’t be President beyond the year after next. Hollywood Hillary won’t be either.
50
A bit OT..
Will the DMI temp get above freezing any time this year ??
Certainly needs to get a move on.
Remember that last year it had the shortest time EVER above zero C.
It is possible it may not even get there at al this year !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
00
I recall a report prior to the election of the Greiner government in NSW that Bob Carr, Minister for the Environment, and Mary Gaudron had been discussing ways in which the ALP government might have been able to make it impossible for a future government to change environmental legislation.
No credit to either of them.
40
Good boys !! 🙂
the US deep freeze will keep the CO2 pumping. 🙂
10
The incoming Tony Abbott Lib / Nat government knew that the so called carbon tax legislation had been booby trapped already in Sept of 2011.
I had a very strong feeling that I had seen and read of this deliberate booby trapping of the carbon tax legislation by Labor and the greens quite some time ago.
The blog site Australian Climate Madness has two examples of the articles in The Australian on the 16th and 17th of September 2011 and it was from the links on this site that I found the full original The Australian articles.
Gillard seeks to entrench carbon tax laws
The first article by Henry Ergas of The Australian [ below ] was partially repeated in the Herald Sun by Andrew Bolt ;
_____________
Labor plants poison pills in carbon tax
[ quoted in full ]
IT was Mark Dreyfus QC, Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change, who let the cat out of the bag.
Once the carbon change legislation is in place, he said, repeal would amount to an acquisition of property by the commonwealth, as holders of emissions permits would be deprived of a valuable asset. As a result, the commonwealth would be liable, under s.51(xxxi) of the Australian Constitution, to pay compensation, potentially in the billions of dollars. A future government would therefore find repeal prohibitively costly.
That consequence is anything but unintended. The clean energy legislation, released this week, specifically provides that “a carbon unit (its generic term for a right to emit) is personal property”.
This, the government says, is needed to give certainty to long-term trades. But that claim makes little sense, for even without such protections there are flourishing markets for fishing quotas and other tradeable entitlements.
And internationally, governments have generally ensured pollution permits are not treated as conventional property rights, precisely so as to be able to revise environmental controls as circumstances change. Rather, this provision serves one purpose only: to guarantee any attempt at repeal triggers constitutional requirements to pay compensation, shackling future governments.
Nor is it the only poison pill built into the legislation. Also crucial is what happens if a new government rejects the emissions reductions recommendations made by the carbon regulator, the Climate Change Authority.
In that event, unless the government can secure a majority for an alternative target, permitted emissions are automatically cut by up to 10 per cent in a single year, crippling economic activity.
A Coalition government, or even a Labor government less wedded to the Greens, would therefore find itself trapped.
To describe such poison pills as unusual would be an understatement. Provisions that merely hinder future parliaments have long been viewed as abhorrent, as they undermine the democratic process. But they are especially harmful where uncertainties abound, as is surely the case for climate change. With the Kyoto protocol dead, and complete uncertainty as to any successor, a government focused on the public interest would seek flexibility, not a straitjacket.
That is all the more so as the costs of that straitjacket could be so great. Global warming is a global problem. Unless major emitters engage comprehensive abatement efforts, action by Australia would not only be futile but also extraordinarily expensive.
After all, unless it lowers the risk of global warming, the only benefit of a carbon tax is that it raises government revenues. But like all taxes, it distorts economic behaviour, reducing national income. Its economic cost can therefore be measured by how much income loss it causes per dollar of revenue raised. Going by Treasury’s modelling, that ratio is 2: for each $1 of government revenue the carbon tax secures, incomes decline by about $2. By comparison, the Henry review estimated that for each dollar of revenue raised, mining royalties cause an income loss of about 50c.
A unilateral carbon tax is therefore four times more inefficient than the royalties the Henry review excoriated as the most distorting tax on our books.
And it may be even worse than that. Treasury’s estimates assume international agreement on emissions reduction is reached relatively soon. Were agreement not reached, the cost could be two to three times greater.
That is because unilateral action would undermine our international competitiveness. But it is also because Treasury expects massive purchases of abatement from overseas. By 2018, it says, those purchases will account for 60 per cent of Australia’s total abatement, and they remain above 50 per cent right through to 2045.
So if we are creating a “clean, green future”, as the Prime Minister asserts, it is not in Australia. Where then do all those low-cost emissions reductions come from? According to Treasury, well over half will come from the former Soviet Union and from “Other Asia”. But many of these countries lack any ability to monitor carbon abatement, with corruption so pervasive they are at the top of Transparency International’s list of offenders. To assume they will provide a credible source of abatement is wildly optimistic; to think they will do so absent a comprehensive international framework is fanciful.
Abatement costs could therefore prove far higher than Treasury’s numbers suggest. But a precise estimate would require access to Treasury’s models. And here Treasury’s performance has been disappointing. Appearing before the Senate Select Committee on Scrutiny of New Taxes, Treasury said its models were “publicly available” and that anyone willing to pay for those models could obtain them.
That evidence was misleading. For Treasury relied on a model developed by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics. And ABARE has now confirmed it will not make available the model Treasury used.
Moreover, Treasury blended the ABARE model with other models and data sets. Given that, only Treasury can provide users with the capacity to test its modelling: and the government clearly does not intend it to do so.
The Regulation Impact Statement released with the draft legislation does nothing to fill the gap that leaves. Indeed, it does not even meet the government’s own guidelines for such RISs: it is strikingly superficial, given what is at stake; it is vague and qualitative; and it completely ignores the risks created by locking in future governments. That it was approved by the Department of Finance merely highlights how flawed the RIS process now is. Decisions about this legislation will therefore be based on assertions, not evidence tested in the light of day. And that is a disgrace. Not only because it makes a mockery of the government’s claims about transparency. But also because the consequences of those decisions could be so great. And the poison pills built into the legislation would ensure those consequences were felt for decades to come.
Dreyfus is to be commended for stating that frankly. But whatever one may think of the carbon tax, those poison pills are public policy at its worst. If parliament had any decency, it would throw them out. That it won’t says it all.
[ / ]
_____________
The second Australian article was written by Paul Kelly and published in The Australian on the 17th Sept 2011
Carbon tax will define our politics
[quoted ]
THERE is a brave fatalism about Julia Gillard – from the weakest ever position of any prime minister she introduced this week the complex carbon pricing bills, the reform that will make or break the current Labor generation.
Australian politics now moves with a grim inevitability. For Gillard, sinking on a 27 per cent primary vote and doomed in her alliance with the Greens, this is a heroic moment for Labor.
Speaking to the historic Clean Energy Bill 2011, Gillard told parliament the vote of every MP would be judged before history.
Invoking the tradition of Labor reformism and mocking the negativism of Tony Abbott, she said: “The final test is not: are you on the right side of the politics of the week or the polls of the year? The final test is: are you on the right side of history?”
Her words capture Labor’s crisis. Confronting defeat on the politics, Gillard appeals to the judgment of history hoping debate on the policy merits can grab victory from the jaws of defeat.
Labor is now committed. Gillard will remain PM to legislate the scheme and try to stage a revival. If she is replaced later any new Labor leader inherits the policy. For better or worse, Labor has made its generation-defining policy decision. The story of the Rudd and Gillard governments is dominated by the climate change saga and, above all, how the 2007 bipartisan Labor-Coalition support for carbon pricing fell apart in one of the most spectacular and least understood transformations of public opinion in Australia’s history.
In the parallel universe of current politics Abbott’s reply to Gillard was ferocious, almost frightening, in its intensity. He offered an opposing story: this was “a bad tax based on a lie”. Gillard was “on the wrong side of truth” and her bills were “the longest suicide note in Australian history”.
Abbott intends to win the next election opposing the tax. It is now the core of his political persona. He must repeal the bills in office, otherwise he would be destroyed as prime minister. This is his bond with the people and it will drive any Abbott prime ministership. It means a two-election strategy if needed, a first election followed by a double dissolution. Abbott is thinking along these lines.
If Labor tries to support carbon pricing post-election from the opposition benches, Abbott would intensify his campaign with the prospect of destroying Labor as a viable political force for many years.
Is Gillard’s legislation the beginning of carbon pricing? Or is it the beginning of its end?
Australia has been heading towards carbon pricing since the late 1990s. In 2003 the Howard cabinet debated and rejected a scheme. In 2007, in the biggest reversal of John Howard’s prime ministership he embraced the idea based on a committee report chaired by his departmental head, Peter Shergold. The team of bureaucrats that advised Howard also advised Kevin Rudd and Gillard on the same sort of market model.
As incoming PM, Abbott would find himself having to check and reverse one of the deepest policy convictions in the senior ranks of the public service: that carbon pricing is far superior to his own direct action agenda.
Beyond that, he would need to replace an economy-wide scheme that priced carbon, treated emission permits as a property right, granted tax cuts and transfer payments as compensation and created an elaborate new structure of governance with a Clean Energy Regulator, a Climate Change Authority and a Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
Comparisons with Work Choices are false. Acting on its 2007 mandate, the Rudd government with Gillard as relevant minister replaced Howard’s laws with the Fair Work Act. But dismantling Labor’s clean energy structure is a far more formidable task. It penetrates to issues that will alarm business, face possible rejection in the Senate and could finish in the High Court. Gillard’s purpose is to entrench the new system and create a new status quo.
Labor’s scheme is one of the most elaborate in the world. The initial price of $23 a tonne from July 2012 will be fixed rising at 2.5 per cent per annum in real terms. From July 2015 it will transition to a flexible price estimated at $29 a tonne en route to an 80 per cent emissions reduction target by 2050. The coverage will be wide, reaching two-thirds of Australia’s emissions.
Upwards of 500 of the biggest polluters must pay for each tonne of carbon pollution they release. The flexible price means our scheme will be linked with other carbon markets. The heart of the policy is that companies can take action at home or purchase an international unit, thereby reducing carbon pollution abroad. This recognises that climate change is a global phenomenon and ensures domestic action occurs at the lowest cost.
The opposition is fixated on winning the political battle and how to unscramble the scheme in office. It has legal advice suggesting the issue may end in the High Court. The question is whether an Abbott government would be liable to compensation for removing property rights that were created only by this legislation. It is, unsurprisingly, a grey area.
“This is an attempt to sabotage the democratic process,” shadow finance minister Andrew Robb told The Australian yesterday. “We won’t be intimidated and we won’t be bullied. We will repeal this. If we have to return to the people at another election then we will.”
This raises another question: might Abbott in office be trapped by the High Court the way Gillard has been trapped by the High Court over asylum-seeker policy?
The Coalition believes that on carbon pricing and the National Broadband Network, Labor wants to limit in office its legal options. The depth of conflict over carbon pricing is guaranteed to intensify. The longer this parliament lasts the more complex is Abbott’s unscrambling operation. This reinforces his quest to obtain an election ASAP. For Gillard, denying an election becomes a victory in its own right.
Labor dismisses Coalition claims of attempting to fireproof its scheme. It says the property rights provision on carbon units is similar to Rudd’s earlier scheme. A Labor spokesman said: “Property rights are fundamental for any efficient and well-functioning market, whether it is a carbon market, the sharemarket or the housing market.”
This is about far more than brawling over a new tax. Indeed, that misconstrues the nature of the contest. It is turning into a battle that encompasses climate change, economic ideology, democratic practice and legal obligations.
As he repeated this week, Abbott believes Gillard became PM last year on the false claim of “no carbon tax” and this made the difference in a razor-thin poll result. It is an accusation of political betrayal. He demands an immediate election about a policy designed “to change the way every single Australian thinks and works”.
Abbott says Labor has misread the times. With economic crisis engulfing the US and Europe, he argues it is the worst time to legislate a carbon tax. Abbott rejects Labor’s core justification: that the rest of the world is moving. The collapse of any “cap and trade” momentum in the US is his prime exhibit. Abbott says: “Since Copenhagen, if anything, the rest of the world has been moving against carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes.”
His core argument, however, lies elsewhere: he says the policy will not reduce emissions at home because the scheme involves international trading. At this point Abbott rejects the market-based philosophy that has guided Australian government policy thinking for the past decade. It is a pointer to his suspicion of market solutions. It is, however, reinforced by another possibly valid fear: that global emissions trading remains suspect in terms of its integrity and utility. In short, Abbott thinks Australia has jumped the gun.
Gillard is desperate to shift the conflict on another plateau: which scheme is best, Labor or Coalition, to meet the bipartisan goal of a 5 per cent emission reduction by 2020. Labor is convinced of its policy superiority despite the poor electoral ratings for carbon pricing.
Treasury’s July 14 minute to Wayne Swan gives the expected answer on costs: Abbott’s direct action scheme “would roughly double the economic cost” of hitting the target. Why? Because of Abbott’s refusal to embrace the market mechanism.
Treasury explains: “First, direct domestic action would forego opportunities for cheaper, internationally sourced abatement. Second, direction action programs are generally less effective at driving take-up of all potential abatement opportunities.”
Treasury explains that direct action is funded on the budget. It pays polluters to cut pollution. By contrast, carbon pricing, though more complex, raises revenue to be used in variety of ways. Unlike direct action, it sends a price signal across the board to investors and consumers.
Gillard’s concession in February this year that her scheme equated to a carbon tax is the tipping point in her leadership. She misjudged Abbott’s ability to seize this concession and destroy her on the issue of trust.
Labor is now close to the brink. These bills constitute its greatest policy and political investment since returning to office in 2007. An earlier scheme was lost under Rudd in 2009. This time Gillard will succeed where Rudd failed: she will carry the parliament.
That guarantees a greater test. The next election will be a verdict on the competing policy and ideological identities Labor and Coalition now represent. This looms, unlike 2010, as a defining election. The chasm between the parties is wide. The winner will face the challenge to make their agenda work and the loser will sink into a profound identity crisis.
[ / ]
70
ROM,
Ask yourself how much of the Gillard/Gaudron plan was known to the people, was a benefit to the people, would have been approved by the people.
This was not good democratic government. This was a form of dictatorship.
61
Geoff, I ain’t holding no candle for Gillard / Gaudron or Milne.
My opinion of Gillard and Milne is unprintable.
They are both out and out “con’s” with the hope that the “vict” part will be fitted to at least one of them, preferably both as a deserving reward for their past activities.
50
ROM,
Your poet @23 was a very long one and hence may not have been read all the way through, otherwise it should have attracted a lot more attention on the thumbs!
You are right. The Poison Pills were revealed at the time. Gillard and Milne even talked about them. But somehow the damage to,our democratic process and the threat to our economic future was passed over. Most people still don’t seem to understand it.
The apparent inability of our politicians to clarify and highlight these critical issues is a huge disappointment. Tony Abbott did campaign on repealing the carbon tax, but somehow the explanations about why it is so damaging are lost. How else could it be the a lot of people still seem to,support the tax, and support the parties that introduced itt?
Ronald Reagan left a lot of the day to day work of his presidency to others, which was in fact a good thing. But he was known as the Great Communicator, and that is something we could do with more of in our politics. Question is are Tony Abbott and his front bench up to it?
20
“the commonwealth would be liable, under s.51(xxxi) of the Australian Constitution, to pay compensation, potentially in the billions of dollars”.
I don’t think so. I believe that not very much compensation would be payable.
Tony Abbott announced immediately on the passing of this legislation that when the coalition was elected to government the law would be repealed.
At that time, and for the entire perod till the election, there was a visibly high probability that the coalition would indeed be elected when the election came around.
Anybody who entered into contracts under this legislation did so in the face of that probability.
Because the announcement was clear, unequivocal and carried the probability of coming about, this government is surely entitled to backdate a repeal of that legislation within that framework.
There should be no compensation payable for non realisation of prospective gains. Any compensation would be very limited. Forget the notion of billions.
00
It’s all well and good to be representing the will of the people (versus leading a reluctant public), but the reason the public acquiesced to CO2 pricing in the first place is because scientifically unwarranted conclusions from a small number of scientists have been financially and politically boosted into uncritical acceptance. (The solution will be similar to what Ross McKitrick suggested here the other day.)
Rule #1 of government inquiries, never call for an inquiry unless you already know what the result will be.
How much more data, research, or peer-reviewed skeptical papers are needed before a Royal Commission on climate science can be called with a predictably Carter-esque result? I thought we already had everything needed, since it is the basis of climate skepticism. What’s the delay?
30
To add to Andrews post above [ # 23 ] a post by Roy Spencer repeated on WUWT on a new “Brookings survey “of the American public’s attitudes towards various current affairs.
@ Roy Spencer’s site; Brookings: Public Concern over Climate Still Bottom of the List
[quoted ]
A more recent survey of American attitudes on immigration and other matters (including how the various news outlets rank for trustworthiness) was just announced yesterday by the Brookings Institution, and buried in it was the following chart that showed how Americans with different political leanings ranked various concerns. As is usually the case, “climate” comes in dead last with all groups except self-described “liberals”:
[ / ]
Unfortunately I can’t post the tables which are shown on Roy Spencer’s site as well as WUWT.
10
Why is it that the moronic brain-dead troll are basically never at the bottom of a thread?
Is it an attention deficit disorder thingy ???
21
I used to think that the likes of Gillard and Milne were merely loathsome reptilian land-based versions of one of the vilest looking fish in Oz waters; the Northwest Blowie.
I now realize they aren’t simply gormless/simple creatures haplessly following their own nature but rather they have deliberately chosen to side to evil.
Oh well, thanks to the wonderful gift called “free will”, at least it is a case of “their life, their choice” and that, if all goes well, we won’t have to suffer (or even remember) their kind forever.
In the mean time, here is to hoping they chose to see the light before it is too late …
21
Jo, the only Australians who may feel “tricked” by this were the really fwarking stupid ones. Ok, according to the PM that’s mainly Liberal voters who didn’t listen to them closely enough pre-election, but i digress.
If its in the legislation, a public document, in fact a document that was fairly controversial at the time and examined at length by rather a lot of interested parties, to call this measure some kind of stealth “booby trap” is getting just a bit more than a touch hysterical in stoking the outrage meter. How much surprisiment! 🙂
Still, it does secure this sites status as a humor and self parody shining light. 🙂 Congrats on that.
312
Hi Cat,
If you don’t like it post somewhere else… wait, you can’t, even alarmists don’t read alarmist blogs.
Sad indictment – you crave what you loathe most.
Another victim looking for persecution.
What a self flagilator you are.
63
The correct spelling is Flagellator you moron.
Nah, just come here occasionally to run a stick across bars of the monkey cage. 🙂
111
“just come here occasionally to run a stick across bars of the monkey cage.”
From the inside.
54
Can you actually hold a stick, yet?
brain development happens in small steps.
and in your case it seems to be a step backward each time you visit.
73
Griss, have you ever considered that you are pretty much the online equivalent the monkey that craps into its hand, shrieks mindlessly, and then throws it??
And habitually misses. 🙂
You should probably go wash.
110
Look in the mirror , child mind. !
And stop projecting your ideals onto others.
72
Are you attempting a humorous jibe or an acceptance of cleverly disguised intellect? http://phys.org/news/2011-11-poop-throwing-chimps-intelligence.html
Careful too much fececal humour will get you nicknamed Scatamon oops.
72
“You should probably go wash.”
Why?. you missed,… again.
Comes from throwing into the wind, bozo.
Maybe with a few more tries you will get used to it.
Doubt you will learn, though.
63
“craps into its hand, shrieks mindlessly”
You regularly manage the latter… just keep trying for the former.
63
I think you come here occasionally to have your insanity flagellated back into a form of sanity ready for the next descent.
What’s the matter tonight, run out of peanut butter again?
73
This
from someone who wrote this
(followed by a weirdly constructed sentence but the its error is bad enough on its own.
I don’t want to call you a moron in case I get called the same as I might mistype, fail to correct and/or make other random errors and get called the same. I also have a public, government and scientific publishing record that I think is pretty good but also cognitive difficulty with spelling (I think we know what this is – thank goodness for modern spell checkers) that I’m pleased to say is tolerated in most fora. I make no excuses but also make no assumptions about others.
71
“Still, it does secure this sites status as a humor and self parody shining light”
And you are the forum clown and fool …….. once you have imbibed enough to make an appearance.
73
Lab/Green morons passed so much legislation just on the say of ‘whoever’ that no-one even in Labor actually knew what was being passed.
While they probably think that they have left little green slime traps..
…due to their gross and overwhelming incompetence of everyone involve in the Labor/green farce, one can be pretty darn sure that there are loopholes enough to drive a bus through.
All this joke of carbon legislation will be gone and dusted within a couple of months.
83
And hopefully with nothing to take its place.
Why waste any more of OUR money on a meaningless fraud
But I don’t suppose you pay tax, do you, fur-brain.!
73
Ye doGs! Have you lot ever considered just how predictably easy and boring you are? You insults have all the sophistication of brain dead 8 year olds, your assumptions are ridiculously puerile and repetitive, your mothers were obviously hamsters, and your fathers almost certainly smelled of elderberries.
112
I’m trying to match your nonsensical rantings. so can understand..
It seems 8 year old is still not low enough, sorry, its as low as I can go for you.
So I assume you don’t pay tax.
How many government allowances to you actually receive for you and your non-existent dependants?
Waiting for the NDIS I’m guessing.
63
“your assumptions are ridiculously puerile”
So almost certainly accurate where you are concerned.
Seems I hit a sore spot with the tax issue hey.. 🙂
Dole, or metal disability allowance ?
83
“But I don’t suppose you pay tax, do you, fur-brain.!”
And the Griss hits the target dead centre, once again 🙂
OUCH !!!
73
Sleep well, Fur-brain.. with your inadequacies on your mind 😉
nite, nite .
73
Yep,definitely a recipient of tax-payer largesse! Nasty polemicist
20
This is so funny…. all that it says applies the the person saying it.
31
Catamon,
And your giving out red thumbs is, predictably and boringly, from the same troll using different addresses.
Seems to keep you returning, starved of attention, craving validation from recognised authorities.
You project so many facets of your own weaknesses, failures and fears.
When you look into the abyss…
21
Quite hilarious to see the poor child go off the rails, frothing and jabbering, just at the mention of him not paying taxes. 🙂
Being on the dole must be really hurting his worthless ego.
Hint… get a job, if your mummy will let you out of your room.
31
well Griss, if this goes on much longer i am certainly going to have to file a new point on the tagging spear. 🙂
Aren’t virtual wildlife studies fun??
14
Yes, troll hunting is such fun.. Especially when they leave so emotionally scarred as you seem to have been.
Have you cleaned up your spittle yet?
20
Totally off topic;
The Bakken shale play in North Dakota extends over into the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.
The frakking of the Bakken shale plus some other seriously large shale formations in the USA is revolutionizing the American oil and gas industries and their manufacturing industries with cheap energy, turning America from the world’s major importer of hydrocarbons into a potential major exporter in the next few years.
And all done in only a dozen years or less due to the rapidly advancing technology of frakking the massive shale deposits to extract the gas and oil.
Ther are a number of oil qnd gas experts who argue that the Bakken will run out in the not so distant future and the frakking of these shale gas and oil deposits is not all it’s cracked up to be for the longetivity of the boom.
Now the next stage in the march of the frakking technology is about to commence to everybody’s great surprise.
Underlying the Bakken as well as the a couple of other very large shale plays in the USA there is another deeper again deposits of shale type rock which like the original untappable shale deposits was supposed to be beyond any present technology to even explore adequately for gas and oil.
Now that barrier has been broken through as well and it opens up a whole new and immensely larger global deposits of oil and gas origin rock formations to be explored.
As an example the British shale deposits are up to an unbelievable 1500 metres / thick / deep in one of their largest shale deposits, although most UK deposits , and there is a lot of shale in the UK which is right now being cleared by the government for frakking driving the greens into the usual heart attack hysterics, are comparable to the Bakken’s 6 to 46 metres thick seams that are being frakked today ;
The UK deposits are similar to the Bakken although each deposits has highly variable rock characteristics from one shale deposit to the next making for some hard scrambles to find the appropriate frakking technology for each shale deposit.
So this is really the first we are seeing of another immense step in the hydrocarbon fuel availability on the planet.
And we haven’t even looked at the fire ice, the methane hydrate deposits in the ocean littorals of most continents which may have as much methane hydrates / fire ice deposits down there in the deeps on the continental margins as all the combined continental energy sources of every type.
The Bakken Gets Bigger – Likely A LOT Bigger
[ quoted ]
Summary
It’s hard to imagine that the #1 oil play in all of North America could have such a huge increase in size.
Investors made fortunes with the Bakken in its early years, and we’re now discovering it’s getting bigger and BETTER than ever.
A similar investment scenario may now unfold as the Torquay/Three Forks zone gets increasingly tested in the coming months.
Crescent Point’s Torquay Discovery Reignites Southeast Saskatchewan
Just when you thought The Bakken couldn’t get any better — it does.
Oil producers are now “cracking the code” on the Torquay, or Three Forks formation below the Bakken, and coming up with incredible economics — these wells are paying back in only seven months.
This news has completely re-invigorated the Canadian side of the Bakken. And on the US side, the Three Forks is causing industry to leap-frog estimates of the amount of recoverable oil available — by about 57%.
It’s hard to imagine that the #1 oil play in all of North America could have such a huge increase in size — usually this happens in increments. This map from the Province of Manitoba shows how much potential theTorquay/Three Forks has — it ranges from 1.5-7x as thick as the Bakken!
[ / ]
A good map is included of the Bakken and the underlying Three Forks deposit.
40
🙂 Typing too fast, or should you pause, take a tissue (you being the kind who has them handy i’m sure), and wipe the froth from your screen?
Oh Dear. 🙁 Griss servicing himself for praise. A true legend in his own lunchbox. 🙂
27
Hello Cat… long time no see. Do you have anything to contribute to the discussion?
40
A bit more than Griss obviously, and with fewer assumptions. 🙂 XXX
11
You do manage “random noise” quite well… I guess you figure that is your contribution.
You certainly don’t seem to have anything else of any worth to contribute.
You are just a thread spacer. A meaningless hole in the conversation.
Thursday was dole payment day for you wasn’t it.. bought yourself a small internet allowance ?
11
“Dole, or mental disability allowance ? ”
I see you refuse to answer a simple question. 😉
I understand how the truth might hurt your ego.. poor little child.
21
“A true legend in his own lunchbox”
Nah, its just nice when a plan comes together.
Now, off you trot for another fortnight or so of psychiatric recovery.
21
can we point out the specific clause referred to?
21
I’m sure I read somewhere that while it’s difficult to repeal the legislation putting the reduction in place, it is possible to make the penalties for non adherence so inconsequential that the legislation is virtually obsolete
10
Which is pretty rich when we consider the carbon tax was not part of Julia Gillard’s election platform nor Tony Abbott’s.
Christine Milne fails to appreciate that no one actually voted for her pet project.
50
This is the part that should infuriate citizens worldwide. The climate kooks operate in politics like a ratchet. They seek to lock in each increment they get and never permit the people to challenge their decisions. It seems like Ben Pile is righ ont he mark over at Climate Resistance.
30
They think they did, yes…. which only exposes their true evil. Abbott and crew are far to smart to be even slightly bothered by it.
20
Booby trap? Or just the law of unintended consequences?
10
It’s appalling to discover the booby trap in your legislation! 🙁
But it gives one insight into things to look for, should the US ever get rid of the folks who are currently trying to drag our economy into the abyss.
But, on another tack, I have been wondering if it mightn’t be a fair strategy to achieve so-called “lower emissions” (even though that’s a worthless goal) if we just shut down commerce on weekends, like we used to. I’m old enough to remember when stores closed on Sundays, and sometimes both Saturdays and Sundays, depending on the business.
If most people actually got a day or two of rest, it might be a good thing. I wonder if the green loonies among us would like that strategy, or if it would just get their knickers in a twist?
10
Ooh, no…. Greenies are the greatest consumers evah. They consume Mobiles phones every year and Internet Electrons, and 50″ Plazma TVs(though I’m reliably informed it’s the 80″ plazma now), not to mention SUVs, and little electric chairs to run around in the shops and tonnes and tonnes of lithium.
Whereas us evil Baby – Boomers grew up on black and white TV and radio, spent most of our childhood swinging around in trees, building cubby houses and pushing around those human powered type billy carts, and had the audacity to invent all the crap they are addicted to.
21
Jo, you are actually every bit the hypocrite with all of this fake indignation of yours for money “spent” to reduce carbon emissions.
If you were serious about keeping all of the money you could in your pocket you would be outraging at the $8.5 billion annual cost ($390 per person per year) of maintaining a fire service. A service whose ultimate function is to arrive and watch fires burn themselves out, then valiantly squirt some water on the embers.
If you were serious about reducing the size of government you would be horribly offended at the $400 million spent each year on the Parks and Recreation department whose principle role is to keep people out of the bush and not have the liberty to explore their own country.
And then there is the $32 billion ineffectively spent on the police force. The figures tell us that 41% of crime is fraud is fraud and drug crime for which they slug the public $8 billion dollars to do very little. They have great travel time chacing fraudsters all over the world at the public’s expense and catch virtually non of them. Drug pushers routinely use the street on which my factory resides for their little “trades” and despite knowing all about it the cops do nothing.
But what they do enjoy doing is being extremely visible lounging in their hot cars in the morning making sure that everyone gets to work late. And they are so embarrassed at how much they waste of the public’s money on this futile exercise in diminishing “safety” returns for which they have gone to great lengths to disguise the amount of money spent (somewhere between $ 2 and 10 billion) on this pursuit. We only have one clear bit of evidence of how futile this process is by the evidence from the one week NSW Police strike back in the nineties when the traffic ran 15% faster leading to no traffic congestion and virtually no traffic accidents throughout the entire week. The main traffic role that the cops perform is to slow everything down then cash in on the accidents that this causes by fining everyone affected.
[This is great stuff Bil, keep it coming… since 1997, a 27,117 have people died on Australian roads (Source), and in the same period after 17 years of no warming, man-made climate change has killed no one. – Jo]
http://www.aic.gov.au/media_library/publications/tandi/ti247.pdf
If, Jo, you were serious about Liberty and small government you would be blustering on over the many other government intrusions into peoples lives.
[Oh my God. You are so right Bil! How can I protest one incursion and not the rest? I shall henceforth cease to sleep, eat and look after my family. I shall have no credibility unless I can match the output of the entire federal government! – Jo]
[Have you got $50 billion to spare to fund me? – Jo]
Instead you chose the one issue that is guaranteed to blow up in Abbott’s (and your) face, carbon emission and Global Warming. There is now booby trap in the legislation. It was all spelled out at great length during the extremely drawn out debate at the time of its creation for anyone who was listening. The problem with emission is that the longer reduction targets are ignored the harder the targets become to fulfill.
But the kicker is that regardless of whether CO2 emission reduction targets are adhered to for Global Warming purposes, they really should be adhered to for oil resource preservation purposes, and commercial coal purposes.
[No, wait? You’re saying you don’t believe in the consensus on CO2 emissions? “regardless”? Regardless??? You mean they might be wrong, and you are scrambling for other excuses to justify your crusade against carbon and your hatred of skeptics?! – Jo]
Clive Palmer will be a fool to vote down the Carbon Action policies as this will ultimately reduce his bottom line. Simply put any coal not used for local consumption calls a higher price on the Global Market, and from a national strategy point of view becomes an export.
Abbott’s obsession with “getting rid of the Carbon Tax” will ultimate cost Australian’s many times more than it will “save”. Abbott’s lunatic policies (killing of large scale manufacturing, building dependence on oil, squandering coal reserves, excluding average people from higher education, etc) in a range of areas will drive Australia into recession, and it will be only in his mind all Labour’s fault.
[Bil, anytime you find some evidence to back up your cult faith, go right ahead and tell us ok? Don’t hold back… Jo]
18
What universe do you live in Bill because clearly it isn’t this one.
What possible excuse do you have for thinking any government can tax their way into prosperity, oh OK we’ll just put in this booby trap that requires we shut down the entire country and go back to the caves for 1.5 days per week and ya know she’ll be right mate.
One thing we can rely on with Clive Palmer is that he will do what is in Clive Palmer’s interest, for the most part what’s in his interest (a strong business environment, low taxes, and freedom) will probably be good for the country, even if he is a bit “eccentric”. As far as I’m concerned given Clive – the Carbon Tax is a goner come July 1.
The only thing I agree with you about in this morass is that Jo might expand into other intrusions of Government into our lives. For example Warrantless Entry like that embodied in (Gasp) the Carbon Tax Bills. Damn, always seem to find government overreach in the same places, places the greens have touched…
31
bobl,
“booby trap that requires we shut down the entire country”
this is just trash talk. Australia’s electricity distributors increased the price of electricity to three fold the impact of the Carbon “tax”, and they did this several years before there was any legislation for such a “tax”, and that does not even rate a mention from Novians. If you can’t see how we have all been screwed over by business interests with the blame being piled higher and deeper on the Gillard government then any comments from you are meaningless.
To add insult to injury the Victorian electricity distributors (and possibly the rest I haven’t checked) have locked in their windfall profits (as I understand it) by isolating the electricity supply cost in their billing so that should Abbott succeed in removing the Carbon Price which affects only the power generator’s part of the bills that is the only cost reduction that will be passed through to consumers. This is likely to amount to one cent per unit(20% of the electricity component of the bill). For my household that would amount to about $80 for the year.
So you are prepared to risk the stability of our environment and climate for 80 bucks a household?
13
No I am not prepared to risk grave damage to the environment for $80 a household.
As soon as you find some empirical evidence to show that my $80 would make some difference to the global climate (I don’t know why you hide it) I’ll be back on your side.
41
“So you are prepared to risk the stability of our environment and climate for 80 bucks a household”
The stability of life on Earth requires that we DON’T WASTE the $80 on trying to reduce the major building block of life.
This anti-CO2 farce is totally ANTI-LIFE !!!
The world NEEDS MORE ATMOSPHERIC CO2 to function properly..
It has been dangerously low for a very long time, and the biosphere is thanking us for releasing a small amount of the accidentally bury carbon into the atmosphere WHERE IT BELONGS !!
400ppm is only a bit above dangerously low subsistence levels.
Towards 800+ !!!
21
Bilb,
Please explain how the carbon tax actually affects the reduction in CO2:
1. Producers of electricity pay carbon tax to government.
2. Suppliers increase costs and pass carbon tax onto consumers.
3. Consumers use less electricity, but pay more due to carbon tax.
4. Government gives consumers subsidy to offset cost of carbon tax.
5. Suppliers raise costs to maintain cash flow to compensate for lower demand.
6. Consumer subsidy advantage removed by further price increase.
Definition of stupid: an act where everybody loses.
But you probably already knew that because you and every other carbon zombie claim nobel laureates.
11
BilB,
P.S. energy use has not decreased as there is a minimum limit beyond which a standard of living required to maintain health, welfare, the nurture of children and care of the elderly is not sustainable.
I’m sure you would not deny yourself nor anyone else in this country the opportunity of a healthy living standard.
BTW – Nobel Laureates Certificates in climate science are a dime a dozen and worth less than the toner printed on them.
11
I can think of no better outcome than Carbon Dioxide tax GONE, and Direct Action Plan rejected. 🙂
Except… a real bonus would be the removal of the Renewable Energy Target as well. 🙂
31
Ah, there Jo, your blinkered Global Warming impact perception has you oblivious to what is really going on despite any amount of evidence.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/dec/12/climatechange.climatechangeenvironment
http://www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2006/update56
Jo, to give you, or anyone else $50 billion to achieve smaller government would be totally contradictory. You do understand that, don’t you?
Regardless! Regardless of Abbott’s, and your (and I say “your” as you claim that Abbott has taken your ideas into his policy structure), attitude to the rapid and blindingly obvious changes underway to our environment as a result of Anthropogenic (refer back to the link on atmospheric carbon isotopes) Carbon Dioxide driven Global Warming, Carbon Consumption Reduction targets should be adhered to for the equally desperate situation that we face from our fossil fuel dependency on this dwindling resource.
Evidence? it has been put up here repeatedly, but it is obvious that you are just not reading it. That is your choice.
13
Bilb, literally “global warming” kills (though it a net benefit – saving more lives than are lost) but it is not what I was talking about. I said man-made climate change had killed no one. Your WHO study depends entirely on climate models which use assumptions on water vapor we know are wrong (but which you deny).
Bil you are so sweet. That was satire…
Yep. That’s what you said the last 500 times. The evidence is always obvious and always “somewhere else”. Never in your comments eh?
I call your bluff buddy (again).
31
Why is it, that every time BilB says the “Evidence has been put up her repeatedly”, I get this mental image of Neville Chamberlain waving a piece of paper and declaring “Peace in our Time”? That wasn’t real either.
10
That is quite straightforward, Rereke, you are a glass half empty type person. No matter how positive or real the evidence before you is, you can only see it in a negative way.
Chamberlain was a denier of the reality to come every bit as you and most of the commenters here are the same of the Climate Change Reality that is underway right now. The sad fact is that what Hitler did to Europe is a good indicator of what Global Warming will do the our world, only the consequences time frame will be protracted into Hitler’s thousand year projection.
——
Bilb – careful, people will think I must be paying you. It’s obvious you’ve ignored my call to post that evidence that is everywhere and “overwhelming”, but which you can never find. And now it looks like you’re finding a way to put skeptics and holocaust deniers together. Keep em coming… – Jo
02
Even if there is any so-called global warming, it will only happen in the cooler places.
The maximum temperatures are regulated by the atmospheric pressure gradient.
Its the colder areas where the temps that will be slightly raised if the CO2 GHE is correct.
Now,, is anyone here from Siberia, and wouldn’t mind a couple of degrees rise in temps during any part of the year ?????
Tell us blib.. where do you choose to live? Siberia, Alaska, or somewhere a bit warmer.?
20
“fraudsters all over the
worldcountry at the public’s expense and catch virtually noneof them”Yep, The Green and Labor parties still have members not in gaol, who should probably be.
But the police look like they might actually manage something soon. 🙂
31
BilB – How many fires have there been in the last 17 years? How many climate changes?
fat tail Bilb. Learn about it.
10
Occaisional fires, one continuous Global Warming, and surging Climate Change, Phil J.
01
Yea, no change in 18 years is surging. Love your language. You will have to define it some day.
And try a spelling lesson. “Occaisional”??? I understand that there is an OCCASIONAL fire – but never heard of your type.
00
Not continual ? Specify time frame . . .
00
Abbott’s cunningly diplomatic gift to the Big Kahuna
❝ Obama will nervously accept the board, not sure of the most stylish way to tuck it under his arm, and crack a joke about rising sea levels one day making it possible to surf out the front of the White House. ❞
. . .
If indeed Abbott was sending such a message, credit where credit is due.
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“Could it be Milne and Gillard see themselves as Gods come to save us”
Um yeah, that’s about the size of it.
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Yes, that is absolutely right. But the problem is on both sides. While the leftist media are hammering away with their propaganda (just listen to the daily GW propaganda on ABC NewsRadio, for example), the conservative media are far too timid in presenting countervailing arguments. For example, why aren’t the conservative mainstream media hammering away at the frauds, lies, fabrications, exaggerations, money trails, failed green scheme scams and so on. If you have a good trawl through parliament’s records, you will find that the last government gave away a small fortune on idiotic grants to develop ‘green’ products. Many of those grants were probably given to professional scammers who target government give-aways. Many probably amounted to corruption, having been given to mates. And that’s not to mention the usual suspects who have made small fortunes – and in once case a very large fortune – from DVDs, books, lectures etc.
Here’s an amusing one for you. On NPR, the US’s equivalent of our (their) ABC, I heard a story ‘demonstrating’ the ‘real’ effects of global warming. The text and audio are here. The story initially makes a big deal about global warming and sea-level rises and the fact that the sea level in the Hampton Roads area has risen by a foot over the past 80 years. Amazing that it has risen there by that amount, but nowhere else! Then, once the seed has been planted in people’s minds, towards the end the story mentions in an ‘Oh, by the way’ manner that:
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There are 2 living examples which prove c02 does not cause warming and that the sun does. Venus and MARS , both have 95%co2 atmosphere , no humans , no industry , but a very chaotic climate , one is 400 c one is -90 c , the only difference is one is far closer to the sun and c02 certainly is not warming Mars . Climate gate is the biggest fraud of our time , and the trillions made by the Bankers on this scam is fraud .
01