Carbon Tax

Did you know that ostriches do not actually bury their heads in the sand? They do scratch around a bit in the dirt and bury their eggs, but they don’t actually believe that if they can’t see trouble, trouble can’t see them.

The Government, on the other hand – perhaps with some help from new spin-doctor-in-chief John McTernan – somehow thinks if they don’t name their Achilles heels, those weaknesses will magically disappear.

In the new era of Things Which Shall Not Be Named they scrubbed any mention of the carbon tax, or a carbon price, from their advertisements for the compensation that starts to flow through today.

Continue reading "Labor’s new strategy of Speaking No Evil" »

The biggest reader reaction I have ever had to a column involved a fight with the power company AGL, which had hit me with a baffling bill which had jumped by $700 in just one quarter.

The column examined the question of actual meter readings versus estimated readings, and the issuing of so-called “catch-up” bills by power companies which for whatever reason had undercooked an earlier bill, leaving them with no choice but to whack the consumer with a kind of one-off bill which would force you to sell one of your kidneys.

In researching the piece I was snowed with some largely (and possibly deliberately) confusing explanations from power providers as to how the meters were read by a different company which was at arms length from their business. Both the power providers and the meter readers seemed more than happy to blame each other for all the confusion, and the subsequent one-off impost.

Continue reading "The shocking truth about the Greens and power" »

The carbon tax is burley in the water and the feeding frenzies are fierce. Circling this morning are a few stories that look ominous for the government.

The Institute of Public Affairs, a conservative think tank, says there’s a possible legal challenge to the tax in the offing because it’s unconstitutional.

Prominent barrister Bryan Pape provided legal advice to the IPA that ‘‘the Commonwealth cannot tax State property: Legally carbon dioxide emissions are State property’‘, and that “the Commonwealth cannot impose a carbon tax and other related penalties within the same Act. The Commonwealth cannot introduce a carbon tax within its external affairs powers’‘.

Continue reading "Don’t dump this carbon tax junk on the government" »

There are sentences which in politics can sum up the mood of the times. In the United States in 1992 it was Bill Clinton’s “It’s the economy, stupid” which encapsulated the sense among voters that George Bush Snr was not focussed on bread and butter issues affecting family budgets.

For all the heat in Australia around issues such as border protection and gay marriage, the number one concern for put-upon families is the cost of living. It is simply staggering how expensive Australia has become. Once, tourists from the United States and Europe would come here and live like kings off the back of our low dollar; today they must think long and hard about whether a visit Down Under is affordable.

For those of us who actually do live here, the joys of a cheap holiday to the States, where you can do a year’s clothes shopping at stores like Gap for less than $200, in no way erase the often depressing budgetary reality of life in a country where the cost of power, real estate, petrol, clothes and food have been off the scale for the past few years.

Continue reading "Voters ready to shoot from the hip pocket" »

John Howard notched up his final election victory in 2004 by pointedly asking voters “who do you trust?’‘

Years of experience had taught the incumbent prime minister that if you were being outgunned by populism, there was always the core matter of trust - the very foundation-stone of representative democracy.

Tony Abbott learned his political stage-craft at the foot of the great man so he too knows the currency of trust, gaining it, holding it, and presumably extending it to others.

Continue reading "Tony Abbott is losing faith" »

If you are confused by debate over company tax cuts don’t feel alone. The chap miffed he won’t be guardian-in-chief of the $73 billion Future Fund also is unsure of his way on the issue.

“Well look Chris, I’m in favour of lower company taxes … ” former Treasurer Peter Costello told Chris Uhlman on the ABC’s 7.30 last week.

“But the price … if the price of cutting taxes is to impose a carbon tax - in other words to impose a huge, mammoth new tax of which you give back a very small amount - frankly I’d rather they do nothing.” Familiar sentiment; wrong “tax”.

Continue reading "The taxing business of the politics of tax" »

The Opposition’s constant nagging of Julia Gillard about her personal integrity was hugely successful over the past 12 months but it is starting to outlive its function.

It’s crowding out Opposition responses to other issues and beginning to be a problem for the Coalition, not an asset.

At some stage Tony Abbott has to mount a credible case for superior economic policy and the more he demands a snap election the more voters will demand to see the goods.

Continue reading "The Liberal Party is offering opposition but no alternative" »

Julia Gillard wanted her huge compensation package to give the carbon pricing scheme a soft landing in July. But Qantas has shot down that hope with February price rises.

The carbon scheme pushing up Qantas fares is the European version. But their penalty on emissions is much smaller than our $23 a tonne will be. The impact here could be greater. Opposition leader Tony Abbott will use this to further underline his claim that carbon pricing will hurt the economy, and to question whether families will be fully protected from rises in expenses.

The airline has preempted by two months the start of the Government’s carbon pricing compensation, $1.5 billion which was to go to welfare recipients in May and June as advance payments.

Continue reading "Fuelled by carbon tax, plane fares have lift off" »

Those in the business of applying the defibrillators to Julia Gillard’s prime ministership have been quick to talk up her grace and decency during the tent embassy mayhem, while also pointing an accusatory finger at Tony Abbott for inciting the chaos.

Whatever sympathy Gillard may have received after her frightening ordeal will now be undermined by the resignation late Friday of a junior staffer who had stupidly worded up the protesters as to Abbott’s whereabouts. Nevertheless the PM clearly handled herself with courage and compassion.

The footage revealing her asking the security service to ensure Abbott would also be safely escorted from the restaurant was a credit to her. She didn’t know she was on camera, and there was nothing confected about her concern. Laudable, too, was her comment later that day that her only regret was the violence had disrupted an event recognising the courage of emergency services crews. At a more human level, Gillard simply looked terrified as she was rushed from the building. Only the most jaundiced critic would have felt for her as she was dragged to safety.

Continue reading "Year starts with shoe off, trouble ahead is a shoo-in" »

It was a common question over the break: “What’s going to happen in Canberra this coming year - will there be an election?’‘

Politics has always been a rough game but in recent times it’s become a virtual blood-sport with a constant sense that there’s another big event around every corner.

It matters less whether it’s an early election or perhaps a leadership contest on one or both sides. This “what’s-gonna-happen” fascination goes not merely to whether Tony Abbott can maintain the pressure on Julia Gillard he so relentlessly applied in 2011, but also to whether her own colleagues will hold fast or do the unthinkable.

Continue reading "2012: Julia Gillard’s year of living precariously" »

In a democratic polity like Australia, there is a compact between the governing party and the governed people. Under it, the people make a choice and thereby give their consent to be governed after having been informed of the policies and platform of the respective parties.

This information is provided in a variety of ways: through official party platforms, policy documents, media releases, communications to organisations and individuals, and media statements. Together, it constitutes the basis upon which the citizens make a choice at an election.

Some of this material is vague and general, but much of it is detailed and precise. Parties make commitments to do – or not to do – certain things, knowing that their word will be relied upon by the people in casting their votes.

Continue reading "The wooden puppet who dreamed of becoming PM…" »

What happened
On March 23 some 2000 to 3000 people gathered in Federation Mall in front of Parliament House in Canberra to protest against the Government’s carbon pricing policy. This No Carbon Tax rally was the first demonstration in the national capital of a grassroots opposition to the policy, a protest movement Opposition Leader Tony Abbott had been attempting to marshall.

The event’s aim was overwhelmed by the starkly hostile and sexist signs and placards wielded by the demonstrators. Prime Minister Julia Gillard was called “JuLIAR,” as pioneered by 2GB broadcaster Alan Jones.

She was called a “bitch’’ and a “witch” and speakers at the rally reflected the tone of the signs held by listeners. Government MPs were furious, particularly women, and the rally was condemned from Labor benches in Parliament during Question Time. Tony Abbott spoke from the protest platform and embarrassingly was photographed in front of a sign reading “JuLIAR Gillard…Bob Browns (sic) Bitch”.

Continue reading "Biggest moments of 2011 #11 Carbon outrage hits Canberra" »

Here’s the real problem with the climate change debate. It’s not that the deniers have hijacked the overwhelming scientific consensus, sneakily turning a huge body of evidence into what many now perceive to be a 50/50 proposition.

Neither is the problem the fact that the carbon tax will bankrupt us (which it won’t) or that Bob Brown has become our de facto prime minister (which he hasn’t) or that we’re pissing some perfectly good industries down the drain in the search for new clean jobs (which we aren’t).

The problem with the climate change debate is that this whole endless shouting match is supposedly about saving the environment, yet no one is actually talking about the environment.

Continue reading "Climate change debate is the enemy of environmentalism" »

With Julia Gillard’s carbon price finally locked in, several questions in national politics can be pared back to one suggesting Tony Abbot’s enviably straight run toward the 2013 election might require a tack or two.

So what is this “big question”?

It centres on the single most important difference around which Tony Abbott has constructed his strategy and it goes something like this: will the carbon price lose its current locomotive power in Australian politics and come to resemble a Medicare-slash-GST phenomena, or will it remain where it is now, more akin to say, the toxicity of WorkChoices?

Continue reading "The carbon baby is cooing, but wait till the terrible twos" »

We’re entering a new phase of the carbon pricing ‘debate’ this week, because it’s now too late for anyone to do much about it, despite Opposition Leader Tony Abbott promising there will be no carbon tax under a Government which he leads.

The Gillard Government has pinned its hopes on the electorate absorbing the costs of the tax – and the compensation for the tax – and realising that things, relatively speaking, are not going to tip over into some fetid abyss of poverty from which there is no return.

What they’re overlooking in their optimism, though, is how deep the distrust of the Government now runs, and how firmly embedded the notion of the Prime Minister as a liar is.

Continue reading "ICB: Are Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s pants really on fire?" »

Julia Gillard might still need the Greens for support on important legislation, but the success of the carbon pricing package doesn’t mean a solid partnership has been formed.

In fact, it is possible there will be some big brawls ahead as Labor minister stop biting their tongues and tell the Greens what they really think.

Or more accurately, tell the electorate.

Continue reading "This could be the end of a beautiful fake friendship" »

The Opposition will keep fighting the carbon pricing scheme because there isn’t a lot else of similar weight which would recommend a vote for Tony Abbott’s troops at the next election.

And it’s easier than coming up with functional policies Mr Abbott could call his own.

The Nationals’ Barnaby Joyce joined the chorus of outrage after the passage of the Clean Energy Future bills: “It is not a defeat; it’s an adjournment.”

Continue reading "Abbott will keep flogging the carbon horse, of course" »

You’ve put a price on carbon and stumped up $13 billion dollars for renewable energy. It doesn’t sound very hard when you say it quickly.

Actually, it has been excruciatingly hard. Is there anyone who isn’t completely sick and tired of the whole debate?

From the moment Tony Abbott got the leadership, he and his dogged faction of supporters in the media have been biting and snarling at anyone associated with climate action. As Laurie Oakes wrote of Mr Abbott recently, “His style is pure attack dog, as feral as you’d get.”

Continue reading "The carbon tax is a done deal. Now stop your whingeing" »

Two years after Kevin Rudd’s carbon pollution reduction scheme crashed in Parliament, Julia Gillard is poised to achieve what he could not: a fixed price on carbon leading to a full emissions trading scheme from 2015.

Debate in the Senate will be “guillotined” later today to bring on a vote on the bills thereby concluding the crucial legislative phase of what has become the most divisive political argument in decades.

The 19 bill package setting a $23-a-tonne price rising by 5 per cent for the following two years is expected to pass on a combination of Greens and Labor votes.

Continue reading "Gillard’s carbon victory more toxic than sweet" »

The Australian Senate is currently debating the Government’s Clean Energy Future package and will shortly vote on these historic reforms.

Earlier this week, during debate on the legislation, I spoke about the unrivalled natural beauty of the Australian environment and landscape and of our profound relationship with the land on which we forge our lives.

We are a unique nation, and our identity stems from our landscape. We have developed our character through our values. We believe in mateship, we believe in backing the underdog and, importantly, we believe in a fair go.

Continue reading "Carbon pricing is about more than a warm, fuzzy feeling" »

I remember vividly a very long (and unbelievably frustrating) conversation I once had with someone who was genuinely convinced that he was “playing it safe” by not wearing a seatbelt whilst driving.

I told this man that seatbelts are one of the most simple-yet-effective life-saving devices ever invented in modern societies, and, backed-up by mountains of independent research, any road safety expert will tell you that you’re crazy not to wear one every time you get in a car.

But, this clown thought that the experts were “idiots”, and that he knew better.

Continue reading "FOOI #11: Listen to the experts, they know their stuff" »

By her own definition, Julia Gillard is the leader of a government which has lost its way. This was the rationale she famously used to justify the removal of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister last year. Sixteen months on and Julia Gillard yesterday found herself in the invidious position of having to convene a meeting of the Federal Cabinet where she looked each of her ministers in the eye and declared she would not tolerate any more leaks from within their ranks.

There can be no greater demonstration of government dysfunction than a breach of Cabinet solidarity as seen last week over border protection. The ability to debate policy vigorously in secret is central to the effective running of government. Julia Gillard has lost this privilege. It is something which never happened to her predecessor, Kevin Rudd, albeit possibly because he was such a control freak that he never told his colleagues what he was up to anyway.

Gillard is also in more strife than Rudd ever was on border protection. Rudd might have flip-flopped on asylum seekers but Gillard has performed a 12-month tumbling routine with the result being that hardly anybody supports or, worse, understands her policy.

Continue reading "Government that lost its way, Opposition that cannot lose" »

A government goes to the polls, wins, and then within months breaks one of its core election promises. How does the politician who made the promise justify the breach of faith?

“Obviously, when circumstances change, governments do change their opinions, and that is actually the responsible course of action.”

If Julia Gillard said that, the zealots who see themselves as the vanguard of Tony Abbott’s “people’s revolt” would be off their faces. Coalition MPs would be apoplectic.

Continue reading "Tony Abbott is just as trustworthy as Julia Gillard" »

You know things have sunk pretty low when forcing an electorally toxic broken promise through Parliament prompts high-fives and kisses on the Government benches, and counts as its best week in memory.

But that is where we are. Tony Abbott dubbed Julia Gillard’s carbon price triumph “a betrayal sealed with a kiss”. It was an appropriately Shakespearean description for events in Canberra this week which, quite frankly, seemed tailor-made for a Bard-style comic farce.

And Mr Abbott, as usual, did much on his own to enrich the thespian feel with his dramatic last minute “pledge in blood” promise to repeal the toxic tax.

Continue reading "The carbon comic farce and Gillard’s pound of flesh" »

When I think of regional Australia, I think of long drives, lots of wildlife and lights in the sky not on the ground. There is another thing that now distinguishes regional Australia: an absolute rejection of the carbon tax.

Senator John Williams recently conducted a poll in the seats of New England (based around Tamworth) and Lyne (based around Port Macquarie). After receiving over 9,400 responses, 89 per cent of residents are against the carbon tax.

The reason for this is not that hard to fathom. When it comes to the carbon tax, the greater the distance, the greater the cost.

Continue reading "An unaffordable tax beyond all regional doubt" »

Given the bitterness of political exchange, Julia Gillard may be excused for crowing, for basking in the warm light of an all-too-rare win.

Even before clearing the final hurdle of a Senate vote next month - where the numbers are assured - yesterday’s House of Representatives victory on the carbon tax bills is being hailed as “historic”.

It is a very deliberate term crafted to dove-tail with the embattled PM’s view that through his frothing opposition to the package, Tony Abbott has over-reached and will find it was he who ended up “on the wrong side of history”.

Continue reading "Just like Medicare, except Australians don’t want it" »

And you can be sure the shouting’s not over yet. Before the carbon tax begins on July 1, 2012, we may even see blood shed if Opposition Leader Tony Abbott goes through with his pledge. But the tax now just has to be rubber stamped by the Senate.

There were some histrionics on the floor of Parliament with the Liberal’s Sophie Mirabella being thrown out (we wonder which way she was planning to vote?) and THAT so-called “Judas kiss”.

The very vocal opposition to the carbon price will not settle into acquiescent bitterness, so this won’t be the last you hear of it. For now, here’s what was said on the inarguably historic day in Australian Parliament.

Continue reading "Carbon tax reax: It’s all over bar the shouting" »

The Australian economy is in danger of being torn apart by the resources boom.

The high prices being paid for our minerals, the unprecedented foreign investment to dig up those minerals and the rising value of the dollar are already reshaping our economy.  This is only the beginning.

It will end, all booms do, but this one will take some time and it will bring great change.

Continue reading "The carbon tax won’t kill the economy, greedy miners will" »

So the Gillard government has now rammed its 19 carbon tax bills through the House of Representatives.

This is despite an emphatic pre-election promise that there would be no carbon tax under a Gillard led government, in defiance of strong public opposition to the tax and in spite of overwhelming evidence that a carbon tax is not in our national interest.

The bills will now move to the Senate.

Continue reading "The carbon tax: all economic pain, no environmental gain" »

The tiny nation of Tuvalu is facing a crisis. A number of the islands including the capital Funafuti are suffering acute water shortages. On the island of Nukulaelae it is estimated that without intervention the water supplies would have run out by week’s end.

Australia and New Zealand are immediately responding by shipping in temporary desalination plants and fresh water supplies and helping repair existing desalination units. Water tanks, the great bulk of which have been supplied through Australian aid, are part of the longer term solution.

Yet water tanks are only of use if it rains. And here, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Tuvalu is experiencing a drought.

Continue reading "Climate change poses a Pacific problem" »

A number of times in each federal Parliament, the elected representatives of the people face important tests of their values, ideas and policy credentials. This week will see one of these tests when the House of Representatives votes on the Gillard Government’s clean energy future legislation.

MPs will be asked whether they want to respond to scientific advice and take action to leave a cleaner environment for future generations or whether they prefer to ignore the advice of scientists and squander the opportunity to tackle climate change.

They face a choice between a market-based reform and the discredited nostrums of subsidies and politicians picking winners.

Continue reading "Punch: it’s about jobs and clean energy, not a tax slug" »

Australians want to help improve the world in which they live. Most would therefore rightly assume that if they pay a Carbon Tax this will at least clean up emissions in Australia.

Certainly this is the impression given by the Government’s Carbon Tax ad campaign and from the debate as the Parliament this week votes on the legislation. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Australia’s emissions will go up, not down, under the Carbon Tax. And on top of the $105 billion the tax is to raise between now and 2020, Treasury’s own modelling shows that we will also have to spend an additional $3.5bn each year on foreign carbon credits.

Continue reading "Counterpunch: we need real incentives, not another tax" »

The Government is transparently attempting to bore us to death with tax talk as part of this sop to Rob Oakeshott. So far the biggest surprise has been unions and business disagreeing with each other.

It’s safe to assume Prime Minister Julia Gillard would prefer to commit hara kiri with a blunt old pair of Tim Mathieson’s scissors than create more headlines that tie her and tax together, so they’re really hoping to fly under the radar. Treasurer Wayne Swan went so far as to warn any reform would be ‘painstaking’, a ‘slog’. Nothing to see here folks.

Well here at The Punch we think he’s underestimating the appeal of taxes. Look at the shenanigans we saw from the GST, the mining tax, and the carbon tax. Gadzooks, fun times! And while they’re off the cards at the Canberra gabfest, there are plenty of quirky and interesting taxes to talk about. Australia only has around 120 taxes, so there’s room for more. See here, we’ve put together a list for you.

Continue reading "When too much tax is barely enough, here’s some more" »

Sometimes it’s all too easy to dismiss the significance of public protests.

Like so many others, I scoffed contemptuously at the truck convoy that rolled into Canberra last month, with its very clear statement of anger against… something? I know it had something vaguely to do with the carbon tax, but that message got lost somewhere amidst all the frothing at the mouth, and the placards warning us that the United Nations is secretly plotting to take over the world.

Of course, it’s easy for me, as a young, commie, pinko elitist to have a go at a bunch of hard-working truckies, so in the interests of balance it’s worth acknowledging that many of the rallies attended by people who share similar ideological dispositions to me are often no better.

Continue reading "Bloody rabblerousers and their ridiculous protests" »

The carbon tax debate has completely missed the point when it comes to looking after our environment and our health. It’s time to broaden the debate and realise that a healthy planet means much more than just the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Does it really matter if the earth remains a nice balmy temperature if the fish I eat are full of mercury, the air I breathe is full of particulate pollution and my fruit and veg are laced with organophosphates?

A new law is set to be passed in Bolivia - it’s called the ‘Law of Mother Earth’ (la Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra). Once enshrined it will grant nature the same rights and protections as human beings; it refers to natural resources as ‘blessings’. Sounds pretty out there, doesn’t it?

Continue reading "We’re drowning in pollution - a carbon tax won’t stop that" »

As the carbon tax starts to make its way through the legislative process, the Federal Opposition and peak business groups like the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Australian Industry Group, the Master Builders Association and others claim our economy or their part of it will be ruined by a price on carbon.

A similar view was apparent at a recent Oxford-style debate organised by Tom Switzer, editor of the conservative Spectator Magazine Australia.

The topic debated was “is a carbon tax needed to combat global warming”.

Continue reading "We can’t look beyond coal without pricing carbon" »

It’s probably a bit late in the show but this still needs to be said: IT IS NOT A BLOODY CARBON TAX.

I know what taxes are. I see them every day in too many manifestations. They are everywhere, but there is no trace of a tax on carbon in the 18 pieces of legislation which will be debated in Parliament from today.

Now, I have on rare occasions come across speeding fines - penalties designed to encourage me to drive at acceptable speeds. The “clean energy” legislation has what closely resembles a speeding fine, except in this case it is intended to encourage acceptable levels of carbon emissions.

Continue reading "This is NOT a bloody carbon tax" »

Going through legislation is part of the job of a Member of Parliament. After a piece of legislation is introduced into the Parliament, it is then carefully considered by the appropriate Shadow Minister, who consults widely with stakeholders and other experts to examine how the Government’s changes will impact upon everyday Australians.

Sometimes the Parliament may choose to send the proposals to a Parliamentary committee for further inquiry. Naturally all of this takes time.

The Gillard Government introduced the carbon tax legislation in the Parliament yesterday and it is over one thousand pages and eighteen separate Bills. Today they plan to push the legislation up the list and debate it immediately.

Continue reading "Labor crashes through on carbon" »

When Hurricane Irene pummelled the US East Coast last week, some Queenslanders probably felt a sense of déjà vu for the natural disasters that demolished swathes of their state earlier this year.

Just like the floods and Cyclone Yasi, Hurricane Irene inflicted a terrible human and financial cost on the US. The death toll from Irene stands at 45 and the damage bill is at least $US7-10 billion. 

But they wouldn’t just be feeling déjà vu over the disaster damage. If they’ve been paying attention to international news, they’d also be feeling it over the political reaction to Irene in the US.

Continue reading "We shouldn’t be scared by flood of political fear" »

Australia, which includes the national government and parliament, faces a number of crucial issues.

A short list: the carbon tax; the two-speed economy; problems for the manufacturing sector; real difficulties in the steel industry; coal seam gas extraction versus prime farming land.

Further, there are serious worries about productivity levels; concern about the need for a review and revamp of the industrial laws, which everyone except the unions and the government are suggesting are too rigid.

Continue reading "Shut the hell up and get back to running the nation" »

A “CT’” scan of the Gillard Government shows up the problems clearly enough.

Two of them actually: the Carbon Tax and Craig Thomson.

Two seemingly harmless initials that in this case spell disaster. But what to do about it?

Continue reading "Craig Thomson, carbon tax and a risky road to nowhere" »

The Sunday before last, Gordon Crawford, the CEO of a five-truck Perth furniture removal company, sat down with his wife to make an unusual investment decision.

Gordon had just received an email from a mate telling him about the “Convoy of No Confidence”, a platoon of truckie convoys travelling from across the country to Canberra to call for a new election. A convoy was leaving Perth that Thursday. Did Gordon want to be a part of it?

Gordon and his wife sure had no confidence in the government. But were they disgusted enough with Labor it was worth them spending $10,000 for Gordon to take his truck on a four-and-a-bit day trek across the country?

Continue reading "Why I spent $10k trucking from Perth to Parly House" »

The exhaustion and anger that came with getting Mabo laws through Parliament nearly 18 years ago are set to be repeated with the carbon pricing legislation.

Maybe even magnified, establishing a new record for bitter, marathon debate.

We will see whether a new record will be set when the bills are introduced next month, but already the Government is drawing up strategies it hopes will see carbon pricing become law by the end of the year.

Continue reading "The real carbon fight is only just beginning" »

This week the right to peaceful public assembly got a bit of a battering. And those wielding the sticks were none other than freedom-of-speech-loving journalists.

The derision with which many critiqued the anti carbon tax rally seemed, to use one of their favourite descriptors, extreme.

The determination to find an offensive placard, to photograph someone looking unhinged, to find fault with the tone of the event should be a little concerning for those who champion free speech and peaceful public assembly as tenets of democracy.

Continue reading "You journos are the freaks, not us carbon protestors" »

Like a moth to a flame, Tony Abbott has now attended and addressed a second convention of the downtrodden, desperate and dispossessed. On Tuesday, Federal Parliament again became the venue for this people’s rally, or whatever it called itself, which was ostensibly convened to denounce the carbon tax and demand a fresh election in the absence of a government mandate to act on climate change.

Let’s insert a couple of quick caveats here. Everyone who attended these rallies is obviously entitled to hold the views of their choice. And many of the people who attended this rally, and the first one, were salt-of-the-earth punters with a legitimate and sensibly-expressed beef against the government of the day.

Many of them were also barking mad.

Continue reading "Tony’s flawed friendship with the freaks and flat-earthers" »

Let’s get a bunch of things straight, right from the top.

Yes, Julia Gillard lied. Yes, the carbon tax won’t make a bee’s dick worth of difference in reducing global emissions. Yes, people in a robust democracy like ours are entitled to hold a peaceful rally anywhere they like.

Now for one more indisputable fact. Today’s carbon tax rally was a freak show. Worse, it was woefully unrepresentative of the millions of everyday Australians who have genuine concerns about this tax. Here are eight reasons why.

Continue reading "Carbon freak show" »

When busloads of people descended on Canberra to protest against the carbon tax in March, signs in the crowd said “Juliar” was “Bob Brown’s bitch”. They said they wanted to “ditch the witch” and told Labor they wanted to “shove the tax up your ass”.

.

I was there. The protesters were mad as hell and they weren’t going to take it anymore. And boy, were they loud about it.

The entire crowd would erupt in spontaneous chanting of “Liar! Liar! Liar!” Some protesters got stuck into a few young people for looking like “GetUp spies”. A few extremists handed out pamphlets blaming the Queen and the British Empire for the carbon tax.

Continue reading "Carbon Rally 2: Attack of the Clones" »

A well-intentioned old mate has led Tony Abbott into an ambush which could expose the Opposition Leader to the charge he is an empty policy vessel.

Abbott has damaged his close ties with the mining industry by appearing to back the right of land owners to deny access to those search for oil and gas deposits.

At issue is the coal seam gas industry in Queensland, the target of some $45 billion worth of projected investment. Further, he has alarmed the sector by pledging to stand up against foreign investment.

Continue reading "Abbott’s policy vacuum bites him on the bum" »

Australian politicians have spent more than 20 years thinking up reasons not to tackle climate change, but the latest from Tony Abbott really must take the cake.

According to the Opposition Leader, it now seems that until Communist China introduces a market-based mechanism to reduce their emissions, Australia shouldn’t either.

That should buy us some time then.

Continue reading "Abbott reads from Mao’s little green book of nonsense" »

Apologies in advance to those with fixed views on a carbon tax. It is time the majority of Australians had a say. Well over half of us have shifted from supporting carbon pricing leading into Copenhagen to now opposing. In early 2008, my seat of Bowman had the highest carbon trading scepticism of seats polled by the Climate Institute; at 16 per cent. It now runs at nearly 70 per cent and it helps to remember why.

Let’s deal with the shame issue up front. Most Australians have little interest in national shame, be it border policies, the apology, shame about our live exports or the fact we mine and smelt.

Most Aussies are tired of being told by the elite we should be ashamed of our per capita emissions. We don’t leave our vehicles on in the garage at night. Our emissions correlate perfectly with our wealth, our energy intense export profile and that with the world’s second lowest population density; we travel further. I see no shame in that

Continue reading "No guilt, no shame in rejecting this tax, Australia" »

As one of Australia’s pre-eminent forelock-tuggers for the royal family, there was something faintly hilarious in hearing Tony Abbott firing up about the cultural cringe over the weekend.

It’s a term which dates back to the 1950s and 1960s, lamenting the drift of talented young Australians to emigrate and work in the UK in the belief there was something culturally and intellectually superior about the Old Country.

With the revelation that Britain’s conservative Prime Minister David Cameron had written to Julia Gillard applauding her “bold step” of putting a price on carbon, Abbott came over all republican, saying the Poms could do what they liked and Labor should stop kowtowing to the motherland.

Continue reading "One rule for Britannia, another for Abbott" »

Punchers enjoyed a carbon-tax-free week last week, but with many people still angry about the policy, we’re getting back into the discussion with gusto. Its opponents say the carbon tax will ruin the economy, cost jobs, hurt families and make the Spice Girls get back together, so what’s the alternative?

What is Tony Abbott’s Direct Action Plan for Climate Change?

The Direct Action Plan is a Coalition policy designed to reduce carbon emissions through Government-funded incentives without the need for an economy-wide carbon price.  The policy allows industry to sell carbon abatement back to the Government and also includes funding for widespread soil-carbon, solar and tree-planting initiatives. 

Continue reading "Abbott’s Direct Action Plan: Frequently Asked Questions" »

OK – time to wake The Punch out of its self-imposed-carbon-tax-debate-hibernation… a-thon.

It’s been a nice reprieve, but a debate this frustrating, and this ridiculously overblown, can’t be ignored forever. Especially when so much of the debate rests on weak foundations.

Let me just say upfront that I am not exactly what you would call undecided on this issue of a carbon tax. In fact, I am totally in favour of it.

Continue reading "Australia should innovate and let China copy" »

Even Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott might want to wind down a bit on their competing carbon pricing campaigns, but we certainly think the general public need a break. Therefore, this will be the first and only mention in The Punch this week of the climate change contest. Hereafter for the week The Punch will give our readers a respite from what increasingly is becoming a circular debate. But first, this is where we leave the protagonists in that debate.

It was refreshing last Sunday week when a Prime Minister was interviewed on television.

The interview was with John Howard on Insiders. Of course, he isn’t actually PM, not even an MP, after being tossed out of both jobs at the 2007 election.

But he sounded like one with answers rather than slogans, confidence rather than diffidence, and a resonance of competence across a number of issues.

Continue reading "Screw the carbon tax; let’s move forward" »

If Julia Gillard is looking for a shoulder to cry on about the torrid media coverage she has been receiving she could always pick up the phone to another recent prime minister in John Howard. If she were to do so she would find that, far from getting a sympathetic ear, she’d be politely advised to stop whining, harden up and get on with governing.

Ms Gillard once said, misleadingly, that her chances of seizing the leadership of the Labor Party from Kevin Rudd were as great as being picked to play for her beloved Western Bulldogs. To use an AFL analogy Ms Gillard is currently like the hapless footy coach who finds their team 10 goals down at half time and starts complaining about the umpiring.

It might be an over-simplification but the question Ms Gillard should ask herself is this. Is Labor on a record low primary vote of 27 per cent because of negative media coverage? Or is Labor getting negative media coverage because it’s got a primary vote of 27 per cent – that is, because its leadership has been so haphazard and its policies so poorly sold that the media is simply reflecting, not creating, public disquiet at its performance?

Continue reading "Crappy coach complains about the umpiring" »

“Breaker, breaker Rubber Ducky, looks like we’ve got us a convoy… “. Well, actually we’ve got eight of them now and soon the wheels will be turning across the length and breadth of Australia in what promises to be the biggest mobile protest we have ever seen, with the Labor Government and an early election as the targets.

The “Convoy of No Confidence in the Federal Government - Coalition of Industries” will rumble towards Canberra next month from every mainland state.

What originated as a plan for a peaceful protest starting from Darwin and calling for an early election has gone viral in the space of less than a week. Organisers, the National Road Freighters Association, soon realised from expressions of interest and promises to participate that Darwin would not be able to cater for the expected numbers, and routes have now been planned for eight separate convoys including several in Queensland and others in all mainland states.

Continue reading "Telling the Government to go and get trucked" »

I have always been sceptical of televised people’s forums. I always assumed that the audience participants were not truly uncommitted voters and that poll results or “worm” results were not a true reflection of the event.

I have often felt the programs are simply propaganda designed for the question under review.  In this specific case - to implement a carbon tax.

An audience member of a recent ABC episode of Q & A confirmed my scepticism. They claimed the whole thing is staged from start to finish including the producers urging the audience to look thoughtful just in case the cameras panned in on their faces. This audience member claimed they were contacted by email for possible questions and every question was deliberately hand picked from those submitted.

Continue reading "Talking to pollies: You’re forum or against ‘em" »

Clover Moo here, reporting once again from the shady corner of the paddock.

I know what you’re thinking in that oversized human brain of yours. Wait a minute, I sound like that godawful ANZ ad.

Anyway, I’m guessing you’re sick of the carbon tax, right? Well, me too. If I read one more word about it in the old newsprint down in the chook shed, I swear I’ll start squirting Yakult out my udders.

Continue reading "Flatulence will get you nowhere" »

I was at the Press Club debate - how could I resist? I’ve also been lucky enough to see Ian Plimer talk.  Both Monckton and Plimer are wonderful, persuasive speakers. They are entirely affable, avuncular individuals who are entirely unafraid to blend fact and fiction in such a way that, to the uninformed listener, what they say can seem both reasonable and reassuring. 

Unconstrained by the need to actually tell the truth, and with a gift for cherrypicking facts that support their world-view (especially when taken out of context) they rattle off non-sequiturs and utter nonsense to support their main argument which is, in a nutshell, that the world is not warming, even if it was warming it’s not human activity driving it, and even if human activity is driving global warming, doing nothing at all about it is the best solution.

In one of two rather oblique references to the Nazi party, Monckton quoted Albert Einstein who maintained, quite rightly, that 100 people’s (ie a consensus) opinion is not needed to disprove a theory; in fact only one single fact is needed.

Continue reading "It’s time for direct action. No, not the Abbott kind." »

Lord Christopher Monckton’s determination to have a win against carbon pricing yesterday drove him to make a genuinely dopey statement at the National Press Club.

“Australia is now regarded as a sovereign risk,” he said as a jarring conclusion to his opening statement in the debate with economist Dr Richard Denniss, executive director of the Australia Institute.

It wasn’t something that a touring expert - on climate change or anything else - should have said lightly. It meant that financial centres overseas fear Australia will default on its debts and other payments, despite the AAA rating from both the major credit assessors S&P and Moodys.

Continue reading "Debunking the bunkum of that dopey Monckton" »

With the debate raging about the carbon tax and whether the initial carbon price of $23 will lead to any meaningful reductions in greenhouse tax emissions, a new front has opened up in the debate concerning the real possibility that businesses will use the carbon tax as an excuse to price gouge.

Price gouging is already a problem in such areas as petrol, airport parking and even groceries. The petrol rip off is now ongoing in many regional areas and even in the city average petrol prices do not come down as quickly as they should when there are falls in the Singapore benchmark price used to calculate local prices.

Airport parking rates keep going up and visitors to major airports are held hostage to the monopoly power of the airport owners who get nasty with parking infringements if you dare to pick up a loved one from the “wrong” area.

Continue reading "We need CarbonWatch to stop price gouging" »

Climate change sceptic and mathematician Christopher Monckton has just debated economist and Executive Director of the Australia Institute Richard Denniss at the National Press Club.

The real winner was probably the weather. According to the Bureau of Meteorology, our massively overheating globe could muster just four degrees for Canberra at the time of the debate.

The Punch team watched the debate, first with (de)bated breath, then with waning enthusiasm as all the old arguments resurfaced. Then we bought a sandwich and a coffee. Our quick summary is below. Who do you think came out on top?

Continue reading "No knockout blow in great climate stoush" »

Tony Abbott has undermined his own multi-billion dollar climate change policy declaring the bipartisan target of 5 per cent emissions cuts by 2020 was “crazy” given China’s growth.

In an exercise the Government has dubbed “audience shopping”, Mr Abbott told a seniors forum in Queensland on Monday that China’s burgeoning emissions growth would wipe out Australia’s carbon efforts in days.

“The other crazy thing about this is that, at the same time that our country is proposing to reduce its emissions by 5 per cent, just five per cent, the Chinese are proposing to increase their emissions by 500 per cent,” he said.

Continue reading "Labor’s dilemma: Plan B is to stick to Plan A" »

“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”

Those are the most famous fighting words in modern history, uttered by Britain’s war-time Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill.

They inspired a nation to ultimate victory, but these days if he were an Australian Prime Minister or Opposition Leader, he could be talking about the Gillard Government’s controversial carbon tax.

Continue reading "Verbal battle lines drawn on carbon tax" »

Monday 11/06/2011

6am
Had to spend weekend in Canberra. Was unclear on how carbon tax fell within ambit of my Future Building and Values portfolio, but then Abbott issued edict that tax on everything touches every portfolio. Says it is a threat to our way of life.

Had to cancel golf game. Who announces a tax on a Sunday?

Continue reading "Diary of a Liberal Front Bencher: Carbon Crusade" »

The most interesting thing I’ve read all year about the climate-change debate is a book that has nothing directly to do with it.

Dan Gardner’s Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail and Why We Believe Them Anyway explores, well, the title pretty sums it up. Gardner runs through a laundry list of culture-shaping fears and hopes and points out that they were almost always wrong.

Capitalism didn’t end up on the ash heap of history. World War I didn’t turn out to be the war to end all wars. Society wasn’t plunged into anarchy by the Y2K bug. The nightmare scenario of overpopulation Malthusians have been banging on about since 1798 is yet to play out.

Continue reading "Warmist or denier, ye shall pay for your beliefs" »

When John Howard finally called an election in 2004, he had a cunning plan.

The ageing PM had trailed for much of the previous 12 months as the unorthodox Mark Latham repeatedly wrong-footed him on politicians’ super, the US/Australia free trade agreement and childhood literacy.

Morale waned. Senior ministers wondered if the jig was up. But the wily Howard, whom many voters believed had lied to them on the GST, children overboard, and Iraq, politely eschewed the prevailing view opting instead to meet the situation head-on.

Continue reading "In Abbott we trust, sort of" »

Well we’re a few days into what will come to be known in days to come as the great “carbon election” of 2011 and two things are becoming clear.

Firstly, the carbon tax is sellable. Some people are coming around. Prime Minister Julia Gillard is showing the mettle and persuasion that made her the first female PM in Australia’s history.

Secondly, nobody trusts her anymore. It seems constituents aren’t taken in by the “real Julia” or the “sunshine” talk anymore with the PM repeatedly fielding questions about lies, trust, and deception.

Continue reading "When political sunshine means democratic melanoma" »

The bad manners of the internet are now turning up on the air waves and on the street to create one of the rudest political debates Australia has seen.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is being hit by the type of public nastiness which would have embarrassed and horrified most people a decade ago.

She has been called a liar to her face by a woman who constantly referred to the Prime Minister as Julia; Sydney radio figure Ray Hadley this week called her an imbecile; at anti-carbon price rallies she appears on banners as a witch or even a bitch.

Continue reading "Strap yourselves in, things are only going to get ruder" »

Australia, how low can we go? The biggest casualty of the whole carbon tax debate is not the truth, but our capacity for serious, informed debate in what once passed for our robust democracy.

It doesn’t matter which political donkey you pin your tail on, or what side of the warmist debate you’re on, or indeed how you feel about the carbon tax itself. People from both sides of all these fences have been carrying on like the proverbial pork chops. And all over a tax which, by any measure, is hardly going to bankrupt anyone.

Nothing better symbolises the moshpit than yesterday’s slanging matches in Brisbane shopping centres as the Prime Minister toured the Sunshine State.

Continue reading "The Great Dividing Rage" »

The carbon pricing plan is now a millstone around the neck of Labor, dragging it down at a rate being starkly charted by recent opinion polls.

But, to confuse rock-based metaphors, the party and its most apprehensive members have no choice but to keep their shoulders to that millstone.

To relent by dropping the policy or dropping its mistress, Julia Gillard, would condemn the ALP to a decade out of power marked by internal animosities and blame placing. If the carbon pricing scheme is abandoned between now and its scheduled start next July the Government will have established that for five years it as been incapable of implementing its highest policy priority. That is not a recommendation for re-election.

Continue reading "Carbon tax: The lady’s not for turning" »

Labor strategists believe that in normal circumstances, their Prime Minister has both sufficient time and enough fibre to turn things around.

Indeed, “fibre”, in this case “carbon fibre” is perhaps Julia Gillard’s last best hope. But first, she must get voters to listen.

And that is the hard part. As today’s Galaxy Poll suggests, many voters may never again be inclined to tune into `Gillard FM’, bruised as they are from what they see as an unforgivable breach of trust on the carbon tax.

Continue reading "No one’s tuning in to Gillard FM" »

A 20 cent piece is all that stands between the Gillard Government and electoral oblivion. Shorn of its complexities and its environmental intent and reduced to its most basic vote-driving element – its impact on the cost of living – the carbon tax proposition can be summarised as follows.

The average family will suffer a $9.90 a week increase in its cost of living and pocket $10.10 a week in tax relief. This leaves them 20 cents ahead.

The tax comes in on July 1 next year, about 12 months from the 2013 election. The Government is juggling the imposition of a new tax with the delivery of compensation and saying to average families: trust us, you won’t feel a thing. But if the cost of living impact has been underestimated, and instead of gaining 20 cents a week, families find themselves losing a few bucks, maybe 10 bucks or even 20 bucks a week, Labor will face an electoral drubbing the likes of which may never have been seen.

Continue reading "20 cents stands between Labor and electoral oblivion" »

ALP Headquarters, Canberra, Sunday 7pm

JULIA: Well, what an incredible victory. Couldn’t have gone better if we’d tried.

VOICE AT THE BACK: Shame you didn’t try in 2010.

JULIA: Is that you Kevin?

Continue reading "If you see one crappy film this winter, make sure it’s…" »

Winston Churchill once said a lie can get halfway round the world before the truth has a chance to put its boots on.

That’s what we’ve seen over the last few months when it comes to the Government’s carbon price.

While the government has sat down with industry and business, unions and community groups to painstakingly sort out the details of the carbon price, how it will work and who will be compensated, fear campaigns have been able to dominate the agenda.

Continue reading "The only thing to fear from the carbon tax is fear itself" »

With the debate on the carbon tax getting very emotive it’s essential to understand the economics of the tax and whether it will achieve what it’s setting out to do.

Here the issue is very simple. Will the introduction of a carbon tax lead to a significant reduction in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions?

Given that the stated objective of a carbon tax is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it’s clear that the success or failure of the tax will depend on the whether or not a reduction is achieved and at what cost. Understanding the cost of the carbon tax is fundamental to understanding its impact on the consumer, particularly given that it’s the consumer who will ultimately pay the tax.

Continue reading "Carbonomics is nice in theory but does it add up?" »

Julia Gillard is asking many in middle Australia, maybe half of the electorate, if they are prepared to forego around $1 a day to prevent climate change getting a lot worse.

She is arguing that the $1 is a fair and realistic investment with a worthy and guaranteed dividend.

That’s the essential message from the huge bundle of spending and levying and tax cutting announced yesterday with the release of the carbon pollution pricing scheme.

Continue reading "Gillard’s won this skirmish but there’s a battle ahead" »

The Carbon Tax? It’s all about the vibe. Whether the Prime Minister stands or falls and whether the damn thing works, it’s all about the vibe.

First, the PM vibe – since her survival seems to be a topic for more immediate concern than the survival of the planet.

There are two crucial questions to ask about that. Are voters still listening to what Julia Gillard says or have they already switched off and are just waiting for an election? And just how much credibility does she have?

Continue reading "Carbon tax is no answer for all these questions" »

Julia Gillard has attempted the political equivalent of cold fusion - making a big new tax popular. Having backflipped on a promise not to introduce a carbon tax, and against trenchant opposition from a barnstorming Tony Abbott, Ms Gillard had little choice but to plough on, to crash or crash through.

Her solution after months of tortuous negotiations and endless parried questions on the details, is either genius or lunacy. Time will tell.

It has involved transforming what was expected to be a painful exercise in de-carbonising the economy into a big win for most voters.

Continue reading "Spoonful of sugar helps carbon medicine go down" »

It’s been a long journey, people, from the days when there was not going to be a carbon tax to now, when there very much is going to be a carbon tax. So what will it all mean?

Ask political reporter Gemma Jones in this Cover It Live, or head to news.com.au where they’ll have all the details and analysis.

Share your thoughts above in the live blog, or below.

Continue reading "Carbon tax: Open thread and live blog" »

At long last, Julia Gillard today releases her carbon tax blueprint. For her struggling government the launch could not have come soon enough. It may also have come too late.

In the scramble to retain power after last year’s non-election result, when she was in buttering-up mode, Julia Gillard said she wanted to “shine a light” on the workings of government. Since then two things have happened, neither of which scream transparency. Due to her deal with the Greens, Gillard changed position on putting a price on carbon. And the process of pricing carbon and creating a new tax was conducted in secret by a parliamentary committee stacked with Green and Independent MPs who delivered her the most tenuous of victories.

These factors have conspired to push Labor to record lows in the polls. Thousands of voters clearly believe that she does not have a mandate for a tax, especially a tax which she has not explained.

Continue reading "Can Julia Gillard turn Tony Abbott into Kim Beazley?" »

It should be possible to sell Julia Gillard’s climate change package to voters. Despite Tony Abbott’s alarmist claims, it can be portrayed as a good news story.

Take what Treasurer Wayne Swan has dubbed the “battlers’ buffer” - an undertaking that low-income families will be generously over-compensated.

The promise is that these people will be reimbursed in full for the extra costs they face under a carbon tax, and then get an extra 20 per cent on top of that. They will, in other words, be financially better off. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer told us a couple of weeks ago that around three million households would be in this category.

Continue reading "Gillard’s hanging out at the Last Chance Saloon" »

In this country we are blessed with some outstanding economists.  But can they be collectively wrong?  The Gillard Government thinks not. They claim that no economist is backing the Coalition’s Direct Action Plan, which therefore proves that it is the wrong policy.  Case closed.

Gillard’s claim is false: there are economists who back alternative approaches to her carbon tax including Nobel laureates and Reserve Bank board members.  However, even when there is a massive consensus among economists, history shows that they can be wildly off the mark.

A prominent example of this was the letter that 364 economists signed against Margaret Thatcher’s Budget in 1981.  Thatcher broke economic orthodoxy by cutting borrowings with aggressive fiscal measures in order to make it easier to control monetary policy and get inflation under control.

Continue reading "Believe it or not, economists have been wrong before" »

Christopher Monckton – the British hereditary peer formerly known as ‘Lord’* – has revealed plans of a possible Government plot to silence him.

The renowned climate change sceptic has had a turbulent visit to our shores, with a string of appearances cancelled, an on-air dust up with Adam Spencer, and a reported order from Fairfax to remove the title ‘Lord’ when referring to his Monckness.

This morning, Monckton told the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster (please do note the irony here) that he had wind of a plot to shut him up. He told Adelaide breakfast radio duo Matthew Abraham and David Bevan:

Continue reading "Oh Lordy, Monckton, it’s a Government plot" »

As the winter fog settles over Canberra and the nation’s politicians return to their electorates, there could be no more relieved Australians than the people of Queanbeyan.

Sitting just across the border from Canberra, the city’s small businesses have become a daily stage for the Leader of the Opposition to perform his stunts.

Usually directed against the proposed price on carbon, the hyped-up vitriol is mirrored in broader attacks around the country on anyone who doesn’t support his views whether they be scientists, economists or everyday Australians who dare to believe that dealing with climate change is necessary and urgent.

Continue reading "This Opposition can’t even oppose properly" »

If the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, for Canberra reporters this weekend the price of vigilance will mean surrendering their freedom - albeit temporarily.

The “lock-up” as it is known in Canberra parlance, will be in play this weekend to release the Government’s carbon tax / emissions trading plan.

Commonly deployed for the federal Budget, they work like this: Reporters agree to shed all communications devices, phones, wireless computer connections etc. and enter a secure windowless room in Parliament House for a period of several hours leading up the official public release of a policy or reform.

Continue reading "Carbon tax: A lock up or a stitch up?" »

The second most appallingly idiotic consequence of the Greens’ decision to block an emissions trading scheme – and let’s face it there is some very strong competition – is that it has managed to turn a debate over what to do about climate change into a debate over whether it is even real or not.

It’s hard to believe, but just a couple of years ago the vast majority of the public overwhelmingly supported action on man-made global warming and a comprehensive carbon pollution reduction scheme was all but inevitable, with strong bi-partisan support led by the top minds of the Labor and Liberal parties.

But then the flat-earth faction of the Coalition revolted and Malcolm Turnbull was assassinated in one of the more disappointing but thoroughly entertaining episodes of Australian politics. (Remember when Kevin Andrews was going to be Opposition Leader? Good times.)

Continue reading "ETS backflip makes me feel green about the gills" »

When the sun rose yesterday morning, optimistic Federal Labor MPs must have woken up thinking: “Monday morning – time for damage control”. Their more pessimistic comrades would probably have been thinking: “A new week, a new fiasco”.

The weekend announcement that some motor vehicle users will be exempt from a carbon tax on petrol proved to be yet another example of the Gillard’s Government shocking ineptitude and deviousness.

It rivals the desperate knee-jerk reactions that were the East Timor “solution” (now abandoned), the Malaysian “solution” (still not finalised), the ban on all live cattle exports (which is killing an industry vital to northern Australia), and indeed the carbon tax announcement itself.

Continue reading "Another week, another new Labor fiasco" »

A common theory is that the Libs, like other conservatives around the world, have derailed the climate change debate by portraying the near universal consensus of serious scientists as an either/or thing. It’s like arguing that a 100-1 shot at the races is an even money chance because it either will win or it won’t.

To push their agenda, the conservatives have paraded attention-seeking deniers like “Lord” Monckton as heroes. They have also seized on so-called data manipulators, like that mob at the Uni of East Anglia, and trumpeted their alleged conspiracy to the world, even though their science has since been shown to be totally kosher.

The ploy has worked spectacularly, too. Any number of polls show that Australians are more or less split down the middle on whether anthropogenic climate change is happening. But phase two of the anti-AGW campaign is much more insidious. Phase two is about boring the public to death. And it’s working a treat.

Continue reading "Climate tax carbon change blah blah blah…" »

It seems that everyone is having their say on the impact of a carbon tax on low income earners, except low income earners themselves, the “ordinary” Australian workers on very modest rates of pay. I’m not referring to the $150K “middle-class battlers” of the Budget debate fretting over mortgages and private school fees, but the 20 per cent of the Australian workforce in low paid jobs, who may be taking home just $25K or $35K, and for whom a poorly designed carbon tax may be one blow too many to the family budget.

United Voice represents over 120,000 of Australia’s lowest paid workers in industries like aged care, child care, cleaning, hospitality, tourism and security. We know what “cost of living” pressures really mean, because it is our members whose low pay forces them into making tough decisions like forgoing doctor’s visits or no longer buying meat, even on a full-time wage.

When there’s already nothing left at the end of the week - and while many of our jobs remained casualised and insecure - what will a price on carbon mean?

Continue reading "Ordinary Aussies need to be heard on carbon tax" »

Tony Abbott’s proposed people’s vote on the carbon tax is either a shallow stunt, a cunning manoeuvre, or both.

The fact that he equivocated when asked if he too would observe the people’s verdict, as he is demanding of the PM, suggests it is firmly in the former camp. Which BTW, makes it a giant waste of money as well as being an exercise in unattenuated hypocrisy.

What else is there to conclude from his promise, restated yesterday, to rescind the carbon tax in office even if the people have backed it in?

Continue reading "Abbott’s carbon outrage is all part of his cunning plan…" »

The high political farce of the last few days is unprecedented. Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd are tearing each other to shreds and nameless Labor MPs are also leaping into the fray. It’s rapidly turned into a can’t-look-away episode of Jerry Springer; “Knifed in the back a year ago and still mad as hell”.

The invective has become a bloody spectator sport, with one Labor source declaring the backbench would rather chew their right arm off than have Kevin lead the Party again.

But the most telling comments of the debacle belong to Julia, who believes that opposition to the carbon tax will fade with time and an expensive taxpayer-funded advertising campaign. She also declared that the tax is part of her “vision” to “remake our experience of what it is to be an Australian”.

Continue reading "Labor is carrying on like a pack of pork chops" »

I’m going to go out on a limb here. I reckon Opposition Leader Tony Abbott would get the result he’s looking for if a vote on the carbon tax goes ahead.

As with Royal Commissions, you don’t start them unless you’re pretty sure of the outcome.

So it’s a mighty stunt he’s pulling, then, calling for a plebiscite on the carbon tax. It aims to solidify all the damage he’s already done to Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s cause, to drive the wedge deeper than mere polls can go.

Continue reading "Carbon tax vote: Democracy, but not as we know it" »

Adelaide Crows coach Neil Craig is a man of unique vision. We know this because he has told the public as much on several occasions. Where Crows’ fans see a rabble who currently sit 14th on the AFL ladder with three wins from 12 games, Craig sees great things ahead.

“It’s the most exciting group I think this club has ever had. I can just see this group of players doing great things,” Craig said in April, after his side’s loss to the Blues. Even this weekend, after yet another loss, he was largely upbeat. “It’s an inexperienced team that I think is showing some really good signs,” he babbled.

Visionaries are great. Without them, the oceans would never have been sailed, the heavens conquered, nor the Snowy dammed for hydro power and water. But true visionaries are rare. It’s one thing to claim to be able to see over the horizon. Another entirely to fail to see the bleeding obvious two feet in front of your face. Which brings us to Julia Gillard…

Continue reading "Real leaders have vision the rest of us can see too" »

This time last year Labor’s factional bosses were loading the bullets into the chamber so that Julia Gillard could pull the trigger on Kevin Rudd’s prime ministership. No-one saw it coming - even on the night of the coup the most senior members of the government were dismissing the reports as a beat-up – and few predicted the chaos which would ensue.

Caucus was so quick to fall into line that Kevin Rudd ducked a leadership ballot after confidantes advised he would receive a humiliating handful of votes. The party believed that Julia was its saviour and two months later it failed to win a majority, with Ms Gillard having taken the government from its unassailable 2007 landslide position to a shambolic day-to-day operation, reliant on the vagaries of rural independents and inner-city Greens.

The polls now all point to a comfortable Coalition win at the next election.

Continue reading "Nothing to celebrate on Julia’s 1st birthday as PM" »

Islands may sink beneath seas; coral may die; species may become extinct. Floods and droughts and heat-related deaths may soar. But sit down, people – climate change is also threatening our wine industry!

Such a shame that the so-called chardonnay socialists are probably on the climate change bandwagon already – but maybe all those doctors’ wives we hear so much about at election time will see their beloved niche varietals under threat and decide the time to act is upon us.

According to climate change scientist and wine expert Leanne Webb temperature increases mean grapes ripen earlier, creating more full-bodied wines, while consumers are keener on more elegant drops.

Continue reading "Who would you turn ‘warmist’ for?" »

Who is Labor listening to when it comes to policy?

Senator John Faulkner last week blasted his party for setting its policies based on focus groups tapping public opinion, instead of heeding the voices of its own members. He warned that Labor risked losing a generation of supporters and voters if it did not listen to its inner voice and accept that internal debate was not disunity.

In that case, whose opinion is Labor heeding in persisting with its pursuit of a proposed carbon tax?

Continue reading "Carbon tax: Labor’s not listening to the people" »

A spat this morning over the release of Treasury modelling which showed the marginal economic impact of a carbon price is indicative of what is wrong with the current ultra-consultative process.

A mini-tantrum ensued after the modelling was made public with some members of the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee (MPCC) reportedly upset that they’d not been given first dibs. What this showed in turn was that even the morally righteous supporters of action on climate change are so convinced of their role that they’ve lost sight of the goal.

Labor’s halting, stumbling, uncertain progress towards decisive action on climate change has been a lesson in serial dissembling. Yet despite that, progress apparently is being made. The self-imposed July 1, deadline for finalisation of the carbon tax details, looms large.

Continue reading "Climate Committee is arguing for argument’s sake" »

The Labor Government’s carbon pricing plans have come under fire again, with polls showing most Australians think they’ll be losing out - but does the Liberal Government have an alternative plan? Last night Q and A showed a clip of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott convincingly arguing that a carbon tax could work… Here, Amanda Rishworth casts her eye over Tony Abbott’s Direct Action Plan.

In recent weeks Tony Abbott has stepped up his hysterical tour of dry cleaning services, cereal factories, fish markets and even nappy factories to tout the potential increase in cost of living pressures under a carbon price. However, during these visits he pointedly avoids making any mention of his own climate change policy - a policy which Professor Ross Garnaut has said in his recent report will cost more and do less.

Tony Abbott continues to mount his fear campaign about the Government’s plan to price carbon in the Parliament, and yet you would be hard pressed to recall him ever mentioning his own plan.

Continue reading "Naysayer Abbott’s plan is no alternative" »

Well, that was a weird weekend. Thousands of regular Australians, plus the usual assortment of activists, went for a nice Sunday stroll to demand their right to pay more tax. Strange days indeed.

The last time Australians took to the streets to protest in numbers so large was the February 2003 rallies to protest Australia’s involvement in Iraq. John Howard duly took no notice, as was his right, and off our troops went.

The interesting thing about the 2003 protests was that the crowds were truly a cross-section of society. There were the old and young, the left and the right, the hardened activists and the first-time protestors. Compare that to the two carbon rallies, where the crowds were totally fractured along political lines. That contrast says a lot about the current state of public debate, and what it says is this:

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