The Coalition must be thrilled today that the Australian Labor Party want to run the next election on the carbon tax. Could there be better news for Tony Abbott? Labor has vowed “to fight for “a serious, credible climate change policy’’ .”
The Carbon Tax was a centrepiece at the last election and the voters threw it out. Current polls show only 35% of voters want it. So far it has brought down two prime ministers and an opposition leader. The damage looks set to continue.
For Labor, nothing has changed. They still think it was right to tell the voters there would be no carbon tax in the 2010 election campaign, and then bring in a carbon tax. (Who cares what the voters think?) The Labor Party still thinks a tax can change the weather. They still are the gullible patsies for large financial houses bringing in a fake market in a product that nobody wants, that depends on unknowable “intentions”, and is prone to fraud. The Labor Party plan to help workers by transferring billions of dollars from citizens to the financial sector and green-renewable industry patrons, all in a quest to reduce the global temperature by 0.0C 50 years from now.
The Australian — Mr Shorten, speaking against the repeal, said Labor had been right to introduce a carbon price but “did the second best” when it walked away from calling an election in early 2010 “that the nation was entitled to have’’ on an ETS.
“We were right to have international pricing,” he said. “We were right to support an emissions trading scheme.
“We were right to have climate change as a political priority of the previous government.”
Mr Shorten said Labor did not apologise nor resile from its climate change policy.
This is all about the ultimate in big-government — global energy tax and control, with virtually no accountability to voters. The big-gambit is coming again, and Bill Shorten is all too aware:
He (Shorten) said Australia faced a choice next year in Paris when world leaders would gather to develop the next set of emissions goals for 2030.
As I keep saying, the only people who want a “free market” in carbon are those that don’t know what a free market is. Free markets depend on voluntary consent, on products that people willingly buy, and on efficiencies that come from having a product that people can see and assess for themselves.
Just ask Shorten this one question?
Could you please explain how an ETS works?
Perhaps follow that question with this list.
If he had any cojones, his policy would be this.
Because this problem is so serious, our Party will immediately legislate to close down all CO2 emitting entities.
The Greens would back him to the hilt.
Tony.
Tony.
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why would we have no power plants if all we want to do is reduce carbon emissions by a certain percentage?
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Mattb,
Because: the continuing mantra is that all manmade CO2 is evil.
Therefore: if the Greens and Labor had the strength of their convictions they would close down all CO2 emitting infrastructur which includes all coal and gas fired power generators.
I would love for them to do that.
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And diesel.
40
Thanks Bulldust,
Yes, and diesel.
Lets see ’em close all that down and then try to explain why heavily tax payer subsidised solar and wind generating systems are much more expensiive for the consumer and much less reliable.
That would just about seal their collective-bargaining, consensus-based fates.
30
Yeah, when I saw that my first thought was bring on a DD election at your pleasure, Tony. Talk about manna from Gaia.
100
It would appear as though the ALP plan on losing the next election but I am mindful of a man’s conversation to his mates in the days of yore – “Look lads the Greeks have scarpered and they have left us a bloody big present let’s unwrap it”!
60
Itd be handy to close all coal plants in Aus..ok then greenies bring on NUCLEAR! Because you dont have much in the way of big rivers! (hint hydro to replace it with). Pathetic solar and wind dont do base load and many other things..even provide anything reliable at all.
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theRealUniverse, you mention here:
20 years off, at the absolute earliest, if ever. First, they have to begin the conversation.
And the Greens would fight it tooth and nail.
Tony.
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Not true. 10 years if you buy one “off the rack” from e.g. KEPCO. They’re doing 7 years from breaking ground to first generation. China has it down to about 5 years on their nuclear power plants.
The major impediment is changing the law. We just have to keep asking our elected representatives to get their act together and to allow it to happen.
As for the necessary private investment; there’s plenty of investment flight from the EU that could come Australia’s way to pay for a substantial part of the ~$3bn capital cost for the first nuclear power plant. If it goes in at e.g. Whyalla, it could make SA as “green” as it wants to be without trying to hide their coal-fired plants behind a smoke screen.
Rust-belt areas which didn’t have e.g. huge coal stockpiles are good initial candidates; because most tend to still have a very good grid connection still in situ. Other factors will have to also be considered. Environmental objections would be tenuous as nuclear power plants are usually surrounded by large, green areas; used for casual recreation and social events in populated areas. Here’s a picture of a car show held in an emergency reservoir of the Emsland NPP in Germany. The facility usually serves as a sporting field.
While the future of nuclear power is still fission; it’s more likely to end up going the molten salt route because the fuel processing gets much, much cheaper; and the “reprocessing” is largely obviated. The advantage of a NPP, even a conventional LWR one, is that a year’s stockpile of fuel can be kept onsite; hedging against market fluctuations. One year’s supply of fuel for a GWe NPP can be transported on a single semi-trailer.
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Bernd I think Tony is rightly factoring in 10+ years to reach a position to build nukes, as well as the actual time to construct which as you point out can be much shorter.
40
You can buy a fully operational nuclear reactor “of the shelf” from the Russians, mounted on a barge that could be moored in Sydney Harbour, and plugged directly into the grid.
Russia has several, as they decommission their older nuclear submarines, to be replaced by more state of the art versions.
They are offering them cheap to some African states, so I am sure Australia could do a deal.
[Pleased to see you checked me out, Matt – well done].
30
The major problem with nuclear power, is that we slow down the atmospheric replenishing of life giving CO2.
51
Nuclear is 20 years off maybe never in Australia however elsewhere in the world its go, go, go …
Mainland China has 20 nuclear power reactors in operation, 28 under construction, and more about to start construction. Additional reactors are planned, including some of the world’s most advanced, to give more than a three-fold increase in nuclear capacity to at least 58 GWe by 2020, then some 150 GWe by 2030, and much more by 2050.
Brazil has two nuclear reactors generating 3% of its electricity, and a third under construction. Its first commercial nuclear power reactor began operating in 1982. Four more large reactors are proposed to come on line in the 2020s.
Bangladesh plans to have two 1000 MWe Russian nuclear power reactors in operation from 2020.
The Czech Republic has six nuclear reactors generating about one-third of its electricity.
Belgium has seven nuclear reactors generating about half of its electricity. It’s first commercial nuclear power reactor began operating in 1974. There has been little government support for nuclear energy, and nuclear power generation, the lowest-cost source of power, incurs a EUR 0.5 cent/kWh tax.
Finland has four nuclear reactors providing nearly 30% of its electricity. A fifth reactor is now under construction and two more are planned. Provisions for radioactive waste disposal are well advanced.
Japan is poised to rejoin the world nuclear club. Two reactors in Sendai may begin operating as soon as October or November. Two more units may be working by the end of the year.
France derives over 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy. This is due to a long-standing policy based on energy security. France is the world’s largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, and gains over EUR 3 billion per year from this. France has been very active in developing nuclear technology. Reactors and fuel products and services are a major export. It is building its first Generation III reactor. About 17% of France’s electricity is from recycled nuclear fuel.
20
Alas, France’s far-left President has called for the shutting down of nuclear power plants.
Maybe he doesn’t want people to have lights so that they can see the dismal state of government.
00
Bolt hammers home a few inconvient truths for Shorten in his update in this post.
If the labor party didn’t get the message at the last election they never will.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/andrewbolt/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/there_will_be_a_carbon_tax_again_under_a_government_shorten_leads/
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I would like to see the Direct Action policy created as Prof Bob Carter has suggested by looking after Australian climate issues such as droughts, floods, storms, cyclones and fires. These climate disasters can be better managed if more Money is brought into an agency created to manage real climate, as opposed to hysterical science.
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Cameron, I’m beginning to think someone cloned me and called him Cameron! Yes, Bob Carter is right. Rather than building windmills, we should build cyclone shelters, rather than installing solar panels we should install dams to protect from drought. Rather than burning food as fuel we should feed it to the starving millions. Rather than spending billions on green quick fixes and climate research we should spend those billions on medicine and research for medicines for the sick.
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This is truly a great country, our Australia. Peaceful, productive, an enviable lifestyle, great climate, relatively egalitarian (compared to most of the rest of the world). It’s a huge shame that so many of our politicians want to ruin it.
We have:
Labor politicians who have totally lost touch with reality.
Green politicians who must think that they are fairies from the bottom of the garden.
PUP’s who follow the orders of a shyster from Queensland who really only thinks of Number One.
Ricky Muir (yes, really!)
I’m ashamed to say that when I was growing up I was a staunch ALP supporter. A few months of Gough Whitlam was enough to cure me of that. But, boy-oh-boy, am I still SO disappointed with the ALP’s disregard of the real interests of ordinary Australians.
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J K
I voted for Labour, Hawke, once and only ever once. That Government screwed my career as an analytical chemist. Never, ever again. And being a chemist I deduced that CAGW alias climate change is just a BIG scam. Bring on a DD. I’ll be voting for Tony A.
Ron Cook
R-COO- K+
00
Australia just does not seem to realise how fortunate it is in having climate realists in power.
The Asian governments don’t care about supposed ‘climate change’, demand the western developed countries pay reparations for ‘polluting’ the atmosphere with CO2, while accelerating construction of their own coal fired energy plants.
Most western countries now have moderately insane, or totally insane, energy policies that are increasingly dedicated to unreliable and expensive electricity production, which will clearly beggar their economies in the not too distant future. Yet, the electorates do not seem to care – in the UK, the three major political parties are all dedicated to “Goofier than thou” energy policies, as they try and outdo each other on being seen to “acting to save the planet”. The fourth party UKIP is the only one believing in reliable and cheap sources of electrical generation, so not surprisingly the other three parties and the Establishment BBC seek to tar them as being “nutters, racists and people belonging to a party with no real policies”.
Gazprom and Greenpeace are the puppet masters of Europe’s high cost and unreliable energy policies, which will achieve absolutely nothing in mitigating supposed climate change.
In the extremely unlikely event the IPCC and other alarmist organisations are correct on the relationship between CO2 and global temperature, then the EU has dedicated itself to economic hari-kari for potentially slowing the global temperature increase by an amount of significantly less than 0.1 degrees C per century.
In the USA, the Obamocrats have resorted to the use of ‘executive powers’ allowing the EPA to force through draconian measures by the back door, also ensuring a future of expensive and unreliable energy.
Australia, you just do not realise how lucky you are.
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No, you fail to realize that this repeal is to reverse the introduction of a grand Carbon Tax that is something like 20x more expensive than Europe’s in a country with a population of a fraction of Europes’s.
We’ve been stupid like Obama ALREADY!
We’re not lucky, Just chastened.
50
“Most western countries now have moderately insane, or totally insane, energy policies that are increasingly dedicated to unreliable and expensive electricity production, which will clearly beggar their economies in the not too distant future. Yet, the electorates do not seem to care -”
Peter Miller: You don’t have to look any further than the Province of Ontario here in Canada. Ten years of this nonsense (closed all of the coal fired power plants – erected thousands of windmills – and dozens of other stupid stuff) which all resulted in the decimation of their manufacturing base (can’t quantify but I’ve heard that about 300,000 manufacturing jobs went the route of the Dodo bird). And to top this all off, the people of Ontario just re-elected this bunch with a majority government. I just shake my head and ask “How stupid can people be?”
20
Jo, global warming also brought down Howard (in part) along with workchoices. Of course at that time it was because Howard wouldn’t sign Kyoto (So it was the warmies that brought him down). I might add it also took down 5 state governments.
Political poison, that’s why Obarmy in the US conveniently didn’t mention his little plan for doubled electricity bills in the USA at the last Presidential election.
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Oh he mentioned it alright bobl, but his protective media allies realised letting that get out would be poison for his election so they just ignored it. Those of us who were paying attention knew all about it.
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Thanks Chris… I wondered why we didn’t hear about it, sometimes hard to read from across the planet. One wonders how he got reelected with policies like that… Oh, don’t bother answering that, I know how he did that.
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Obama’s now laying the same “financial landmines” as Gillard did on her way out the door.
Your next government is going to have as much trouble “disarming” them as Abbott and the coalition is here.
Gillard was so confident about economy wrecking CO/2 tax.
That she even goaded Abbott about how the complexity of it would prevent him from dismantling it.
Hence the reason for so many bills to be introduced to the senate to repeal the damned thing.
Obama is like Gillard did, trashing America’s economy for what?
America really does need to get its act together and fast to at least try and minimize what he is doing.
Negative publicity about what he is doing with peoples power bills would appear to your best shot.
Your EPA and his executive powers are to powerful in a democracy for my liking.
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I agree, the President should be stripped of his regulating power, which should be returned to congress. The Majority party can nominate ministers to manage the Public Service like in Westminster democracies. This crazy devolution of all power over the public service to the President is very dangerous for democracy. The US states need to act to curb this in a constitutional convention.
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I agree. But it will not happen as long as Obama is in office. The racist press and left will not allow it.
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Racism yes, I don’t know how Obama gets away with the blatant oppression of the American race.
A movie will be made of this injustice titled “8 years a slave”
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It will have to be made in another country as Hollywood will never allow it here.
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Phil, I wonder if it is Hollywood that is the cause of our troubles. The PC Nanny state garbage pouring out of there tells people that they can have as much free money, (social justice) as they want and that it’s good to hold nature above humans to the point your government is having to appease a public clamouring to acheive what is in effect a fantasy created by hollywood (Obamacare is a manifestation, AGW is a claer other one driven by AL Gores science fiction classic)
The difficulty being that A. Hollywood deals in FANTASY and B. That acheiving that fantasy precludes the adventurous, tough type of America that has built the capitalism that can deliver that fanstasy. Has Holywood generated a demand for un deliverable Fantasies that our Governments are struggling to deliver?
Note I say OUR because Australia is subject to Hollywood influence too
00
@bobl – Hollywood is merely a symptom. I really do not care how much money an over inflated ego actor/actress makes, nor do I care what their ignorant opinion is. But I am not typical. Too many look to them as the new role models because they get so much face time. it is the Movie Dave all over.
The problem is the education system. It has stopped teaching and started indoctrinating. The most important thing I learned in school was HOW to learn. And kids are not getting that today. The left knows that when you control education, you control the populace, so they intentionally make sure that kids never learn how to learn.
00
This highlights a difference between governance styles in Oz and the US. What the labor party wants, it gets as the party is running, not necessarily the person.
In the US, Obama wants democrats to run on Obamacare. But that is just one man’s opinion and most of them (not in what is considered ‘safe’ districts) are running from that subject faster than a speeding bullet!
The only mention of Obamacare is by the opposition. The democrats want none of it (but they will never vote to repeal it).
40
Governance styles are affected by the fact that it’s virtually impossible to remove a sitting President. Here a sitting prime minister can be removed by the mere majority vote of the Prime Minister’s own Party, and a Whole government can be brought down by the simple majority vote of the house of representatives and can be brought down by the senate refusing supply also on a simple majority of one vote(IE refusing an appropriation to fund the government) leading to a joint sitting and an election. In Australia strictly speaking a shutdown or default can’t happen, in practise parliament would be dissolved an election held and the matter resolved at a joint sitting of the reps and senate.
Every Australian Prime Minister is on notice, US Presidents are virtually untouchable – therein lies the difference.
40
I must admit I’m flabbergasted to read that Shorten wants a carbon tax still! What a loser. Fool. Idiot.
But then I read his speech and realise this website is just making it up… a bit like Monckton’s 100%.
Why let the truth get in the way of a scaremongering headline eh?
012
Nah . . . you’re missing the point.
Electricity Bill has made an excellent opposition leader.
I reckon we should vote him in for another term . . . as opposition leader. 🙂
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Mattb, you see a “carbon tax” as a loser, but an ETS as a winner, am I right?
And similarly an ETS as a free market thing, and not just a complex form of taxation, and you think that the public will find it more appealing than something called a tax?
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I just pointing out that your headline is a lie. that’s all.
06
You just do not understand Matt. Whether it’s a “Carbon Tax” (like we are now getting rid of) or an “ETS” it’s still a TAX.
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no it’s not.
04
yes it is … its a tax …. its a tax on CO2. Emitters of CO2 will have to (forced to) purchase permits. These permits will be traded on an exchange. Emitters are forced to purchase a product they don’t want and cannot use (no free market). the only ones benefiting will be the trading brokers. All costs will be passed back on to the consumer in the form of higher prices on ALL products purchased. Regulation of these permits will be by unelected elites in Europe who will continuously manipulate the market (sic) to their benefit. It’s just tax in another from …. it’s being proposed because idiots like you don’t understand this …
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Wake up puhleez….. yes it is.
10
Yes it is.
00
Shorten like Gillard is again like a true socialist spelling out that he and labor are still willing to link us to the fraud that is global warming.
Rebadging your fraud from a CO/2 tax to an ETS is still a fraud.
It still has the same affect on you and me.
Lifting our cost of living which the less fortunate in our country just cannot afford.
It still supplys a massive wealth flow into coffers of a select few.
With nothing other than promises of saving the world.
Right about now sane people hear the alarm bells ringing.
But you and a diminishing number are deaf to those alarm bells Matt.
The question you should ask youself is, to save us from exactly what Matt?
From your dear leader the honorable Bill Shorten.
“Labor’s ETS provides an added commercial incentive for better carbon capture and storage, natural gas and clean coal — delivering more benefit for Australian industries. And Labor’s ETS is ready to link to the world’s biggest emissions trading market — the European Union.”
Final question Matt and then I’m done with you.
Why is it dirty coal when we burn it in Australia yet nobody refers to it as dirty when we ship it overseas to burn?
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If it’s all burned under an internationally recognised ETS then it’s all clean coal to me.
09
Mattb,
That makes absolutely no sense.
50
So.. it really is ALL ABOUT THE MONEY !!
Its not about the CO2 at all… is it.
You have just admitted to the green agenda and how it is all about getting MONEY for that agenda.
You have just effectively said, ..
“Its ok to release CO2, so long as we give the green agenda the money.”
80
So what you are saying Matt is that, so long as there is an ETS, we can dig up and burn all the coal in the World…. and this will save the planet????
80
no what I’m saying is that if coal is burned and emissions are covered by an ETS, with the total emissions within a cap that is deemed appropriate to keep atmospheric GHGs below a certain level, then it’s fine with me. The CO2 emissions would be of no concern whatsoever.
04
But that is the problem, is it not? NO PLAN out there, not the carbon tax (just repealed), the ETS or any thing even PROPOSED by alarmists are designed to keep GHGs below ANY level. They all admit it. The best they can promise is that the level will not increase as fast! And that is an empty promise because they still do not know all the factors that are increasing GHGs.
00
Despite the fact that the main GHG remains completely unregulated.
Despite the fact that near-enough; 100% of GHG aren’t anthroprogenic.
How is an emissions trading scheme going to change what nature does?
It’s just as futile as trying to control the size of the ozone hole by denying the use of manmade CFC’s for effective heat pumps, fire-fighting and as a safe propellant; when the biosphere is dumping a million times as much (mainly methyl bromides) into the air.
10
I have to say, there is every reason to be worried. Abbott is very unpopular, at least amongst those I know, and they are will most certainly vote against him, not because they are for a carbon tax, but because they think he is mysogynistic nincompoop.
The problem is, if labour run for a carbon tax and are voted in simply because Abbott is so unpopular, it would give them a mandate to reimplement it.
11
well to be fair Abbott is only in because Rudd was so unpopular. We are in a cycle of voting for people because we hate the incumbent, then spending 1-2 terms realising we should have paid attention to policy. So we vote in the other nice folks, only to repeat the cycle of realising we voted for crap policy.
210
Well, that’s a fair point, but Abbott is in because of what made Julia Gillard so unpopular – the deal she had to make to keep power. After saying there would be no carbon tax, and having to accept that in order to keep power she had to break her word, she created as shaky a foundation for leadership you could possibly imagine. It was inevitable that it would all fall apart, and Rudd came back far too late to save the day.
Abbott’s biggest problem is Abbott. His policies might be alright, but they do have to be seen to be alright. It’s not enough to have good ideas (or repeal bad ones), you have to take the country with you. That’s leadership.
31
Noting that Abbott offered the same deal… the words “everything but my own a*****” were similar to what he used in discussions with Windsor.
03
Agnostic,
All true, but it is hard to take the country with you when most of the private media and all of the public media is working actively against you.
Nothing he says or does will be reported accurately. Nothing that Labor or The Greens do or say will be scrutinised effectively.
50
Over the past 10 years being in opposition seems to have become the easiest political job on offer.
01
Yet, quite recently; all of that has changed.
The public question opposition to competence.
00
This is good news indeed. I have been more and more convinced for some time now that the warming has topped out and will start to drop and Jo and Davids notch model is another reason to feel positive. I am getting ahead of myself probably but I just cannot help but lick my lips at the prospect of a Federal election with pretty much 20 years of “pause” and possibly a distinct down trend emerging. The hysterical screams of terrified anguish coming from Green-Labor and the inner city,leftard, hipster ecoloons will be like watching the Orcs get a right going over at the end of Lord of the Rings. Buy popcorn futures now.
80
PS And backstabbin Billy Shorten is the perfect candidate to take Labor to such an election. I think the guy is a shallow, insubstantial grub. I watched him hang around the Beaconsfield mine like bad smell and it was obvious he was there for HIS own benefit, for HIS national profile, HIS recognition factor. Meanwhile my wife babysat for the mine workers families as they went through the real anguish of recovering their workmates and supporting each other, all the while feeling lucky and guilty that it was not them down there in the blackness… while Billy soaked up the limelight.
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If it wouldn’t hurt already hurting Aussies I could say go for it and wish them good luck. They’d be bound to fail for reasons we all could probably recite in our sleep by now.
20
Well they say “voters with nothing to lose are the most dangerous voters of all” umm I actually made that up but you get the idea.
Seriously I gave up trying to reason how or why people cast their vote ages ago, but I have learnt that the biggest risk to a fair democracy is unfair anti constitutional ideals, the ownership of the MSM is one that is very universal for such ideals.
30
Then I would ask, dangerous to whom, Yonni? If the danger is to the right people then I’d whip up all the sentiment against them that I could manage. After all, that’s how Obama started out. It’s exactly the job of a “community organizer” — to be a provocateur, pure and simple. He’s carried that skill into the White House and uses it to divide the country he said he would unite.
He appears to be proud of that role in life, so sauce for the goose…
10
I’m ashamed to say that when I was growing up I was a staunch ALP supporter.
40
I was a teacher until last year.
And yes.. I voted Labor… Rudd and Gillard woke me up to reality !!
30
Heck I voted Labor once… good ole carpet-bagger Kev in ’07. Was a bit tired of Howard’s devisiveness and accumulated baggage. Kev promised to be Howard Lite. Won’t make that mistake again in a hurry.
Gillard has an unenviable talent for patronising people to the point where even a good policy (not that she had many of these) sounds awful. Wong and Swan were the same way – forever talking down to the populace. It was like watching bad, old skool animatronics.
Gillard’s greatest achievement in my book? Forever ridding us of “moving forward” in the spoken word.
Speaking of forward … I see she still hasn’t put in for the Bulldogs Full Forward position….
I have probably posted this before, but this site is well worth it IMHO:
http://www.convictcreations.com/history/primemine.htm
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We’re allowed misteaks as long as we learn from them and don’t repeat the error.
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Milne – “I think at some point we will have a website of climate criminals …”
http://australianpolitics.com/2014/07/15/christine-milne-carbon-tax-repeal-speech.html
20
And the list she made:
Sorry Jo … you didn’t make teh cut 🙁
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The Greens need to change their name to the Gestapo if they are into taking names. I wonder which education camp the aforementioned people will be sent to.
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Maybe it should include Patrick Moore, cofounder of Greenpeace?
10
Milne et al should be the first on the list … Australians will not forget the mess her and her mates created for us and the waste of taxpayer funds.
10
“To the Left, there is no scientific method—just whatever method gives them the outcome that feels nicest.” (Patriot Update)
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Whoopee ! The Carbon Tax is Gone !
00
The left thinks it understand free markets yet condemns capitalism … it think that if it uses terms like free markets that it’ll bring the rest of us along with it. Trouble for the left is …… we ain’t that stupid …
10