http://www.thepunch.com.au/tags/cprs/ Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/carbon-pricing-were-being-treated-like-mushrooms/ On Monday, March 28, the Department of Climate Change offered a briefing on carbon pricing and business executives flew in from around the country to get longed-for insights. They were ``peak stakeholders’’ from 45 companies and organisations in a liaison group plugged directly into the Government. This would be the big moment for a run-down on the carbon tax big picture for representatives of the biggest energy generators, retailers, and users. It was a case of so many questions, so many points of interest, so few chairs. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/carbon-pricing-were-being-treated-like-mushrooms/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/carbon-pricing-were-being-treated-like-mushrooms/#item5645 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 There won’t be mass lay-offs of lawyers, advertising executives and journalists if policy makers get it wrong on climate change. Trade in skinny lattes is not tipped to move offshore. Sales of Birkenstock sandals are also expected to remain unaffected. Inner-city proponents of tough action on climate change don’t always get it. That’s because middle-class professional jobs and communities aren’t the battleground of climate change policy. If you wear steel capped boots to work and drink instant coffee you might not spend much time talking about climate change; but it is the blue-collar workers in Western Sydney and our great industrial regions that have a real stake in the debate. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/yuppies-have-nothing-to-fear-from-a-price-on-carbon/ There won’t be mass lay-offs of lawyers, advertising executives and journalists if policy makers get it wrong on climate change. Trade in skinny lattes is not tipped to move offshore. Sales of Birkenstock sandals are also expected to remain unaffected. Inner-city proponents of tough action on climate change don’t always get it. That’s because middle-class professional jobs and communities aren’t the battleground of climate change policy. If you wear steel capped boots to work and drink instant coffee you might not spend much time talking about climate change; but it is the blue-collar workers in Western Sydney and our great industrial regions that have a real stake in the debate. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/yuppies-have-nothing-to-fear-from-a-price-on-carbon/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/yuppies-have-nothing-to-fear-from-a-price-on-carbon/#item4102 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 There won’t be mass lay-offs of lawyers, advertising executives and journalists if policy makers get it wrong on climate change. Trade in skinny lattes is not tipped to move offshore. Sales of Birkenstock sandals are also expected to remain unaffected. Inner-city proponents of tough action on climate change don’t always get it. That’s because middle-class professional jobs and communities aren’t the battleground of climate change policy. If you wear steel capped boots to work and drink instant coffee you might not spend much time talking about climate change; but it is the blue-collar workers in Western Sydney and our great industrial regions that have a real stake in the debate. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/climate-change-were-cooked/ It gives me no pleasure to say this. But cataclysmic climate change is going to happen, with all its promised attendant devastation, and neither you nor I nor anyone in power is going to do anything about it. People don’t fix predictions. People fix problems. And until the western world truly feels the burn, then climate change is a prediction, not a problem. Lethal floods in Pakistan haven’t swayed us.  Drought in Africa hasn’t swayed us.  The worst heatwave in Russia in a thousand years hasn’t swayed us. Even our own murderous Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 haven’t knocked any sense into our heads. Perhaps if Sydney’s waterfront mansions plunge into the harbour, taking property prices with them, we might demand action. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/climate-change-were-cooked/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/climate-change-were-cooked/#item3777 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 There won’t be mass lay-offs of lawyers, advertising executives and journalists if policy makers get it wrong on climate change. Trade in skinny lattes is not tipped to move offshore. Sales of Birkenstock sandals are also expected to remain unaffected. Inner-city proponents of tough action on climate change don’t always get it. That’s because middle-class professional jobs and communities aren’t the battleground of climate change policy. If you wear steel capped boots to work and drink instant coffee you might not spend much time talking about climate change; but it is the blue-collar workers in Western Sydney and our great industrial regions that have a real stake in the debate. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/liberals-should-cut-the-crap-on-climate/ I’m just trying to work something out here. Since December, the Rudd Labor Government has been under siege from the Abbott-led Liberals for pushing ahead with a “great big tax on everything” in the form of an ETS. The Liberals blocked the ETS. The Liberals urged Kevin Rudd to drop it on the grounds that it was the wrong policy for Australia. The Liberals argued that the rest of the world wasn’t taking such drastic action on climate change and nor should we. So today Kevin Rudd dumped the ETS, not just because of the political reality that he can’t pass it anyway, and noting also that the rest of the world wasn’t taking such drastic action on climate change. As a result of all this the Liberal Party is now attacking Kevin Rudd for breaking his promise. There are days when the adversarial nature of our effective two-party system delivers point-scoring so transparent and juvenile that it’s an insult to our collective intelligence, and today is such a day. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/liberals-should-cut-the-crap-on-climate/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/liberals-should-cut-the-crap-on-climate/#item2938 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 There won’t be mass lay-offs of lawyers, advertising executives and journalists if policy makers get it wrong on climate change. Trade in skinny lattes is not tipped to move offshore. Sales of Birkenstock sandals are also expected to remain unaffected. Inner-city proponents of tough action on climate change don’t always get it. That’s because middle-class professional jobs and communities aren’t the battleground of climate change policy. If you wear steel capped boots to work and drink instant coffee you might not spend much time talking about climate change; but it is the blue-collar workers in Western Sydney and our great industrial regions that have a real stake in the debate. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-many-number-one-priorities-does-one-pm-need/ If Kevin Rudd made a New Year’s resolution he could have done worse than vow in 2010 to only say something is his number one priority if indeed he really means it. But to do so would throw a spanner in the works of the Labor spin machine, which remains obsessed with the 24-hour news cycle and opinion polls. A quick search reveals that Mr Rudd has nominated more than half a dozen issues as his supposed number one priority over the past two years and there are probably more. This tally does not include climate change which he of course described as “the great moral challenge of our generation”. It would seem Mr Rudd’s top priority changes according to the issue of the day that is running in the media, or the audience he is addressing. It is an extremely cynical practice and the most absurd thing is he must think nobody notices. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-many-number-one-priorities-does-one-pm-need/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/how-many-number-one-priorities-does-one-pm-need/#item2108 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 There won’t be mass lay-offs of lawyers, advertising executives and journalists if policy makers get it wrong on climate change. Trade in skinny lattes is not tipped to move offshore. Sales of Birkenstock sandals are also expected to remain unaffected. Inner-city proponents of tough action on climate change don’t always get it. That’s because middle-class professional jobs and communities aren’t the battleground of climate change policy. If you wear steel capped boots to work and drink instant coffee you might not spend much time talking about climate change; but it is the blue-collar workers in Western Sydney and our great industrial regions that have a real stake in the debate. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/You-cant-google-your-way-out-of-climate-change/ Google ‘Google’ and you break the Internet – or so the urban myth goes.  Google ‘emissions trading’ and ‘Liberal Party’ and you almost have the same effect.  News articles, blogs, superseded media releases and the random night thoughts of IT addicted insomniacs await to take you on a virtual walk down memory lane – like one of those ‘best and worst of 2009’ montages we endured before New Years Eve. But just as relying on fake emails to mount a political case has its pitfalls, Googling facts and peddling them as truth opens up more cracks in credibility than a last-day pitch at the SCG. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/You-cant-google-your-way-out-of-climate-change/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/You-cant-google-your-way-out-of-climate-change/#item2086 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 There won’t be mass lay-offs of lawyers, advertising executives and journalists if policy makers get it wrong on climate change. Trade in skinny lattes is not tipped to move offshore. Sales of Birkenstock sandals are also expected to remain unaffected. Inner-city proponents of tough action on climate change don’t always get it. That’s because middle-class professional jobs and communities aren’t the battleground of climate change policy. If you wear steel capped boots to work and drink instant coffee you might not spend much time talking about climate change; but it is the blue-collar workers in Western Sydney and our great industrial regions that have a real stake in the debate. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/i-hope-you-packed-light-copenhagen-delegates/ Yes, the Australian Government might have flown a few AFL teams worth of people to Copenhagen in a big stinking jet plane for the Climate Change summit but rest assured, Penny Wong is “actively encouraging” them to catch public transport while they’re there. So you can stop the ironic groans now thanks very much. While this gesture of carbon reduction behaviour is commendable, The Punch can’t help worrying about the “baggage officer”, who’ll be ferrying bits of luggage all over Princess Mary’s home town, presumably on the Copenhagen Metro (his/her plight was first brought to out attention by @GregAtkinson_jp on Twitter). Hopefully Senator Wong also “actively encouraged” the delegates to pack light. You know, two pairs of undies - one on, one slung over the hotel shower rack after you’ve hand washed them in the sink. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/i-hope-you-packed-light-copenhagen-delegates/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/i-hope-you-packed-light-copenhagen-delegates/#item1975 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 There won’t be mass lay-offs of lawyers, advertising executives and journalists if policy makers get it wrong on climate change. Trade in skinny lattes is not tipped to move offshore. Sales of Birkenstock sandals are also expected to remain unaffected. Inner-city proponents of tough action on climate change don’t always get it. That’s because middle-class professional jobs and communities aren’t the battleground of climate change policy. If you wear steel capped boots to work and drink instant coffee you might not spend much time talking about climate change; but it is the blue-collar workers in Western Sydney and our great industrial regions that have a real stake in the debate. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-mirror-messiahs-dogged-by-bad-policy/ While Kevin Rudd desperately reschedules his attendance at the Copenhagen Summit in a craven attempt to ensure he’s in the presence of US President Barack Obama, there are very interesting parallels in the political scenarios on either side of the Pacific. These are two political leaders elected in almost Messiah-style euphoria. Their elevation was supposed to ring in “change” after long periods of conservative Government that the elites and media had openly grown to loathe.  There was little public scrutiny of the substantive skills each man would bring to the job – their popularity was a triumph of style over substance. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-mirror-messiahs-dogged-by-bad-policy/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-mirror-messiahs-dogged-by-bad-policy/#item1972 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 There won’t be mass lay-offs of lawyers, advertising executives and journalists if policy makers get it wrong on climate change. Trade in skinny lattes is not tipped to move offshore. Sales of Birkenstock sandals are also expected to remain unaffected. Inner-city proponents of tough action on climate change don’t always get it. That’s because middle-class professional jobs and communities aren’t the battleground of climate change policy. If you wear steel capped boots to work and drink instant coffee you might not spend much time talking about climate change; but it is the blue-collar workers in Western Sydney and our great industrial regions that have a real stake in the debate. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/this-is-close-to-brainwashing-kids-on-climate-change/ IF YOUR job involves one of Australia’s major export industries such as mining or manufacturing, then you probably return home to your family content in the knowledge you are being well paid for a hard day’s work. You help build the profits that keep the shareholders happy and you are making a valuable contribution to your nation’s economy. But what if you came home from a hot day at the coal face, the aluminium or steel smelter, to kids accusing you of killing off the planet?  That would never happen, right? feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/this-is-close-to-brainwashing-kids-on-climate-change/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/this-is-close-to-brainwashing-kids-on-climate-change/#item1973 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 There won’t be mass lay-offs of lawyers, advertising executives and journalists if policy makers get it wrong on climate change. Trade in skinny lattes is not tipped to move offshore. Sales of Birkenstock sandals are also expected to remain unaffected. Inner-city proponents of tough action on climate change don’t always get it. That’s because middle-class professional jobs and communities aren’t the battleground of climate change policy. If you wear steel capped boots to work and drink instant coffee you might not spend much time talking about climate change; but it is the blue-collar workers in Western Sydney and our great industrial regions that have a real stake in the debate. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/industry-is-people-at-their-best.-why-curb-it-for-climate/ IF climate change really represents a threat to our civilisation comparable to the Nazis than it is time for us to stop backing off in half-hearted surrender and instead tell Mother Nature to shove it. Recently in arguing against the “disaster track” of a Copenhagen UN compromise agreement on reducing emissions, NASA scientist James Hansen - in many ways the granddaddy of climate change theory - said global warming should be treated like an evil enemy. “This is analogous to the issue of slavery faced by Abraham Lincoln or the issue of Nazism faced by Winston Churchill,” Hansen said. How did Winston Churchill and more broadly the Allied powers defeat the Nazis and their Axis partners? feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/industry-is-people-at-their-best.-why-curb-it-for-climate/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/industry-is-people-at-their-best.-why-curb-it-for-climate/#item1945 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:45:28 +0000 There won’t be mass lay-offs of lawyers, advertising executives and journalists if policy makers get it wrong on climate change. Trade in skinny lattes is not tipped to move offshore. Sales of Birkenstock sandals are also expected to remain unaffected. Inner-city proponents of tough action on climate change don’t always get it. That’s because middle-class professional jobs and communities aren’t the battleground of climate change policy. If you wear steel capped boots to work and drink instant coffee you might not spend much time talking about climate change; but it is the blue-collar workers in Western Sydney and our great industrial regions that have a real stake in the debate.