Pensioners - vote for the ETS and you'll get more money

She was just talking with John Burgess on ACA. Burgess was asking what she was going to do about the pittance that pensioners were living on.

She said, paraphrased, that 'lectricity is going to rise more and, when the ETS comes in pensioners will find that they will get more money back.

Yeah.

My Aunt and Mum were discussing the plight of pensioners with the cost of electricity rising all the time. My Aunt pointed out that pensioners living as they do on very limited income, would cut back on their electricity usage - I read recently about pensioners who think they're saving money on electricity by turning off their hot water systems, and I've heard of pensioners turning off their water to their hot water system to keep their bills down. There are problems with these practices.

Heard today.... Woine whining

It shouldn't have happened in the first place.

WAYNE SWAN: Well it will certainly be quite expensive, there's no doubt about that. The Government is determined to put safety first. We will account for this as soon as we practically can. You will see the full outcomes in the budget and if we can do more along the way, we will.

At last!

This made me laugh like a drain:

LYNDAL CURTIS: There are reports today that Tony Abbott's paid parental leave scheme will cost big business as much as your emissions trading scheme. Doesn't that show that whoever wins at the next election, big business is going to be slugged?

WAYNE SWAN: No, I think what it shows is that Tony Abbott is a risk to family budgets and I think a risk to the economy. This is, in Tony Abbott's terms, something like an $11 billion tax on business which will be passed on in terms of prices at the supermarket, at the petrol station, at the local bank.

LYNDAL CURTIS: Isn't that exactly a description that could be applied to your emissions trading scheme?

Then this:

LYNDAL CURTIS: But costs were going to go up.

WAYNE SWAN: Yes costs were going up and compensation was being provided to industries which were trade exposed and also to households.

But Tony Abbott's policy is absolutely chaotic. What he has done is imposed an $11 billion tax on Australian business which will be passed on at the supermarket, at the local bank and, of course, that will impact upon pensioners and working families, and he's doing all of that to provide a benefit of up to $75,000 to some people earning as much as $150,000. There's no equity there.

LYNDAL CURTIS: Five ministers came out yesterday to complain that the Senate is the most obstructionist in 30 years. If it's that unworkable don't you have an obligation to go to an election to try and rectify the problem?

WAYNE SWAN: What we've got an obligation to do is to put policy before the Parliament and to put it before the Australian people.

More here.

How can anyone, honestly, take anything seriously that the current government says about carefully assessing anything, or about one of their members being frank and honest (Gargle describing Rudd's apology and admission of a cockup with the insulation debacle), just how? I wonder how many people who voted for these numbskulls because they didn't like Howard (anything/anyone but Howard), are regretting their vote?

Risk Assessment

Which threat is real?

a) This one...

or

b) This one?

Let me say I think that a) is an immediate threat. We should do everything in our power to stop any pandering to anyone who believes that they can control the climate.

Then let me say that the real threat is the pandering which appears to be occurring as far as b) is concerned. Note the victim statements from the professional victims...

Libs endorse changes to ETS for Turnbull

Arrgh

Just reported on ABC news.

ARRRRRGH!

Copenhagen Treaty

Before our government (or any government) becomes a signatory, I think it's a good idea for us to know what it means....

From a speech by Lord Monckton you can find this here at Watts Up With That?

Here were Monckton’s closing remarks, as dictated from my audio recording:

At [the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in] Copenhagen, this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed. Your president will sign it. Most of the third world countries will sign it, because they think they’re going to get money out of it. Most of the left-wing regime from the European Union will rubber stamp it. Virtually nobody won’t sign it.

I read that treaty. And what it says is this, that a world government is going to be created. The word “government” actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity. The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to third world countries, in satisfication of what is called, coyly, “climate debt” – because we’ve been burning CO2 and they haven’t. We’ve been screwing up the climate and they haven’t. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement.

How many of you think that the word “election” or “democracy” or “vote” or “ballot” occurs anywhere in the 200 pages of that treaty? Quite right, it doesn’t appear once. So, at last, the communists who piled out of the Berlin Wall and into the environmental movement, who took over Greenpeace so that my friends who funded it left within a year, because [the communists] captured it – Now the apotheosis as at hand. They are about to impose a communist world government on the world. You have a president who has very strong sympathies with that point of view. He’s going to sign it. He’ll sign anything. He’s a Nobel Peace Prize [winner]; of course he’ll sign it.

[laughter]

And the trouble is this; if that treaty is signed, if your Constitution says that it takes precedence over your Constitution (sic), and you can’t resign from that treaty unless you get agreement from all the other state parties – And because you’ll be the biggest paying country, they’re not going to let you out of it.

So, thank you, America. You were the beacon of freedom to the world. It is a privilege merely to stand on this soil of freedom while it is still free. But, in the next few weeks, unless you stop it, your president will sign your freedom, your democracy, and your humanity away forever. And neither you nor any subsequent government you may elect will have any power whatsoever to take it back. That is how serious it is. I’ve read the treaty. I’ve seen this stuff about [world] government and climate debt and enforcement. They are going to do this to you whether you like it or not.

But I think it is here, here in your great nation, which I so love and I so admire – it is here that perhaps, at this eleventh hour, at the fifty-ninth minute and fifty-ninth second, you will rise up and you will stop your president from signing that dreadful treaty, that purposeless treaty. For there is no problem with climate and, even if there were, an economic treaty does nothing to [help] it.

So I end by saying to you the words that Winston Churchill addressed to your president in the darkest hour before the dawn of freedom in the Second World War. He quoted from your great poet Longfellow:

Sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

Link posted earlier under Wand's guest post, but it deserves its own post.

Thank you, Wand!

Guest Post: Tax Carbon to Stop Corruption

The story titled “Tax carbon to stop corruption” in this morning’s Australian by Peter Walsh was based on his President's Report 2009 for the Lavoisier Institute.

Of course Peter Walsh from the Hawke Labor government and Labor's chief internal sceptic has never been backward in calling a spade a spade. So it is both refreshing but no suprise to see him call the ETS, AGW and all the attendant rent seekers and carpetbaggers for what they are - frauds.

Some gems from his report:

The Kyoto junkies wallow in belief but ignore factual evidence. Until they change any national Government should spurn their disastrous advice.

In the late 1980s Global Warming became a favourite topic for the 'chattering classes' who recognised it as a viable excuse for sabotaging the economy.

'Global Warming' has since morphed into 'Climate Change'... because it is more nebulous, offered more opportunities for activists to peddle their junk science and terrify the masses.

The IPCC record is disgraceful, even by UN standards. It habitually concocts evidence to prop up its predetermined conclusions.

The Kyoto junkies, as part of their brainwashing programme, assert that renewable energy, solar and wind, are suitable for base load power. That is another bare faced lie.

Al Gore, champion charlatan of 'global warming' and 'climate change'

It is almost beyond 'reasonable doubt' that the Kyoto hypothesis is a hoax, for which the Rudd Government and Turnbull Opposition have fallen.

But why does he suggest a Carbon Tax? The answer is simple: a tax can be easily abolished when the scam is exposed but the ETS will be exceedingly difficult to remove.

Thanks to Wand for his guest post after my exhausting week!

And another link to words from Lord Monkton.

Quadrant Online ETS Forum

Doomed Planet

Have a read.

They're nuts

The federal opposition appears to have had a change of heart on emissions trading, flagging that it will negotiate over a scheme this year.

and

The opposition and Independent Senator Nick Xenophon are commissioning research from Frontier Economics on the impact of emissions trading and of alternative schemes to cut pollution.

Perhaps they should commission research on the impact of emissions trading on (carbon) pollution. Read the whole article here.

Thanks to Wand

ABC AM today 14/1/09, worth listening to Barney

Barney dumps on the ETS...

Linky (should be up soon.)

My ETS Question

THE Rudd Government’s own climate adviser has lashed its compensation deal for heavy polluters in the climate change white paper as ‘‘ over the top’’, arguing it could outstrip collections from the emissions trading scheme and force taxpayers to foot the bill.

Sorry I have to swear here.

Who the fuck does Garnaut think will be footing the ETS bill anyway? The fairies?

Garnaut attacks climate compensation

UPDATE: ABC Local Radio Steve Austen interview with CC guru and Bob Carter (skeptic from JCU)

He doesn't say when exactly, but here's the link to his programme and the streaming...

http://www.abc.net.au/brisbane/radio/

Steve Austin interviews a John Connor, a CC guru , and Bob Carter. Asks about Tibet and Nth America freezing over and the CC guru ignores and avoids the question, but Bob Carter explains why.

Should be interesting...

More scales falling?I have to do stuff so I can't listen to it all.

UPDATE: It's on now. He'll be interviewing them at about 7:30 Qld time (8:30 NSW/Vic time).

UPDATE II: It appears that adding the word "pollution" to the word carbon has done the trick. There are a lot of people who think that AGW is a crock of shit, or really don't understand it or an ETS, but they'll agree to a 5% reduction because it's reducing pollution. (One said, 5%, that's nothing. Noone bothered to tell him that emissions have increased by 2% over a certain period. That probably wouldn't make a difference to him, he's too clueless.)

No wonder the ALP keeps getting into government in Queensland.

UPDATE III: Bob Carter is finished. He was good.

UPDATE IV: And Bob Beige is getting excited about the 5% rudduction on the news.

UPDATE V: Steve Austen will try to put the interviews up on his blog.

UPDATE VI 18/12/08: Here's the link to Bob Carter's interview.

Kev's cuts will cut deep

Andrew Bolt's editorial is excellent.

So what is Rudd’s noble example to a deaf world going to cost you?

Rudd claims your cost of living will rise just 1.1 per cent a year, mainly through a $6-a-week hike in power bills.

He’s kidding you. Even Rudd seems to doubt his own there-theres, since he’s giving poor families almost double that in compensation, leaving singles and the rest of us to pay for the lot.

And there will be much more to come, because Rudd has left the real pain until after the next election. That’s when he’ll have to ramp up the cost of the new licences to emit carbon dioxide that he’s issuing if he wants us to reach his crazy target.

So in three years, he says, he may include petrol in his emissions scheme, to make it so pricey you’ll think twice about driving. Farmers will also be included later, and must then pay for all their belching and farting cows, sheep and pigs. That’s food prices up.

Then there’s the new technology you’ll have to fund - through extra taxes and charges - as we switch to less gassy ways of doing business.

and

And here’s the last and maybe worst of the costs of Rudd’s grand scheme.

From 2010, he plans to rip at least $11.5 billion a year out of the economy by charging business for a licence to emit carbon dioxide, hoping to price some out of the market or into “cleaner” technology, some of which hasn’t even been invented or trialled.

Wong slips one under the radar at London School of Economics

Last week Penny Wong delivered a 14 page speech to the London School of Economics about The Australian Government's plans for emissions trading, without mentioning how the industries which will be affected will not be losing a million plus jobs.

The speech was delivered far away as the $10.4 billion Rudd rescue package for retailers, via consumer pockets, was being unveiled, so it slipped under the domestic media radar.

Wong found time and space to trot out statistics about Australia's per capita emissions but not to mention that more than 70per cent of the growth in national electricity consumption since 1990 has been business related and facilitated by access tosome of the world's cheapest, coal-fired power. In round terms, power stations in Victoria, NSW and Queensland, which supply most of Australia's power and a large part of generation-based emissions, are burning 20million tonnes more black coal and 21.5million tonnes more brown coal today than in 1990, and this is feeding business demand that is three-quarters more than it was then.

One-third of total electricity consumed is used by the energy-intensive manufacturers, another number that would have provided context to the data used by Wong.

She took the opportunity of the speech, delivered soon after her colleague Wayne Swan had ducked a television current affairs question about whether the global crisis might cause the Government to put off implementation of emissions trading, to strenuously assert the need for sticking to the mid-2010 deadline.

The author was the CEO of the Electricity Supply Association of Australia.

Read more here.

(Stolen from Wand in comments...)

Kevin Rudd to give carbon polluters a fair go

from The Weekend Australian, Saturday 30 August 2008.

The Government has been warned in recent weeks that its proposed formula for compensation would drive new investment offshore and could cause some operations to close.

Resources Minister Martin Ferguson convened a meeting in Canberra yesterday with the chief executives of major businesses and industry lobby groups to discuss the design of the scheme, which will place a cap on Australia's greenhouse pollution from 2010, and establish a market in emission permits within that limit.

Department of Climate Change secretary Martin Parkinson told the closed-door meeting the Government would work with business on different ways of distributing the allocated pool of free emission permits among those trade-exposed industries that cannot pass on the cost of carbon to their customers*.

But he said the new proposed formula - likely to be based on a company's profit margins and wages costs rather than revenue - would have to be agreed across industries so it was not the source of endless disputes with the Government or the proposed new climate change regulator.

How on earth are they going to make this work without crippling Australia's economy, and screwing over all those "Working Families" they championed before they were elected?

The government is absolutely clueless, it makes so much more sense to err on the side of caution - and it's time for all the skeptics, particularly those who have power - politicians, businessmen and others - who can see that an ETS is a very, very bad idea, to speak out.

A hint as to what is in store is that the meeting was "closed door", and it appears that discussion will be stifled (sounds familiar with the Rudd Empirical System of Micro Management Government).

*Just who do the lay/green/sucked-in champions of AGW/CC "carbon pollution" think will be paying for an ETS? The buck stops with the minnows... "Working Families" et al.

Australia
Leading the world

In Stupid.

Thanks Wand.