From Reuters Point Carbon:
Australia axes ministerial role for climate change
The new Australian Cabinet will be the first in six years to not have a ministerial role for climate change issues, merging instead global warming with the wider environment portfolio.
Announcing his Cabinet on Monday, incoming Prime Minister Tony Abbott appointed Greg Hunt, the Liberal-National Coalition’s spokesman on climate change issues since 2009, as the new Minister for the Environment.
“(Hunt) will have responsibility for the abolition of the carbon tax, implementation of the Coalition’s Direct Action plan, the establishment of the Green Army and the creation of a one-stop-shop for environmental approvals,” Abbott said in a statement.
Hunt, 47 and a member of parliament since 2001, has had the main responsibility of developing and promoting the Direct Action Plan, the Coalition policy to reach the national target of reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions 5 percent below 2000 levels by 2020.
Under the plan, the new government will set up a fund to buy emission cuts from those companies that pledge to achieve them at the lowest cost.
“The change signals that as expected, the Abbott government will not give climate change the same weight as the previous government,” said Frank Jotzo, deputy director of Australia National University’s Climate Change Institute.
“The environment ministry traditionally holds less sway in cabinet than many others, and the integration of the climate policy bureaucracy into the Environment department will also tend to diminish its role,” he said by email.
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Read the full story here
In related news, I expect the laughable Tim Flannery will be out of a job, but I also expect he’ll land at some NGO like Greenpeace or WWF, since these organizations have money to burn and embrace high paid fools that have failed elsewhere.
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Hey, they’re gonna need that Minister if it cools like I expect.
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Well, it sounds generally promising, but I do think that “the establishment of the Green Army” has a rather ominous ring to it …
I can imagine the screaming if that happened in Canada. Oh, that’s right. We don’t have a Climate Change Ministry. A Canadian posted the other night that Canada was becoming semi tropical. She thinks that is scary? If only it was true, I would not have to shuttle between two houses.
This begs the question – what government in their right mind would have a **Climate Change Ministry** in the first place?? Aren’t there more important problems like jobs and the economy?
Good for Australia!
Sounds suspiciously like some backtracking going on.
I think this is greatly significant. Politicians love to wrap themselves in everything Green. Something having to do with moral superiority, opportunism and taxes. But above all, politicians want to be elected. So … here’s a lesson for all you politicians out there: NO GREEN TAX or THE AXE.
The “Direct Action” plan is pretty misguided itself, but at least it will waste much less money in pursuit of a pointless cause than the last government did. But there is some hope that while this government will be successful in getting rid of the Carbon Tax, the opposition will be against anything they propose, and will help to kill “Direct Action”. So, Australia, thanks to the backbiting of party politics, may end up doing nothing at all for “climate change” from now on – which is probably the Best of All Possible Outcomes down there!
@Eve
Since I live in Canada, and see no signs of the climate becoming semi-tropical, I wonder what that Canadian lady was smoking? There is one spot in southern Ontario, south of Windsor that has a subtropcial humid climate, but it has always been so and it is a very small area and it is also known as Canada’s tornado ally. There is also the west coast of Canada which has a Mediterranean climate, but this too, has always been so. The rest of Canada is pretty darn cold during our winters, and this coming winter is projected as being very, very cold with lotsa snow. Maybe this Canadian lady is confused, retired and living in Florida?
The intellectual wind is from a new direction. It is freshening. And it carries the unmistakable scent of healthy, reasonable and normal skepticism.
Now, assuming the intellectual wind travels via the 5th and 6th estates (MSM & blogosphere respectively)
Well…I would say that a coyote in sheep’s clothing is better than a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but I wouldn’t say that climate warming related government taxing and intrusion is dead. It’s just in a smaller canine with smaller teeth. But a canine nonetheless. And sorry if I have insulted man’s best friend.
Sanity returns to Oz.
Let us hope that Direct Action involves a lot of inaction.
There was some punditry discussing the state of the Aussie Senate (the electoral rules of which look quite curious) which at present is polluted with Greens. It’s been posited that the current Senate could block repeal of the carbon tax until July; the next crop of Senators – in which the voters mostly purged the Greens in favor of a gaggle of minor-party candidates – will certainly vote its repeal, but they may also block implementation of ‘Direct Action’.
So we’ll see where Abbott’s heart really is on this issue.
I’d guess he could go to the current Senate with the carbon-tax repeal and sell them ‘Direct Action’ as the half-a-loaf on the basis that if they turn it down come next July the Greens and the crypto-green urban Labor contingent are likely to get nothing at all, or he can slow-walk it, wait until July and get the carbon-tax repeal and a little hand-wringing for show about how ‘Direct Action’ died in the Senate…
“In related news, I expect the laughable Tim Flannery will be out of a job, but I also expect he’ll land at some NGO like Greenpeace or WWF, since these organizations have money to burn and embrace high paid fools that have failed elsewhere.”
In my humble opinion, Flannery’s heart is with Greenpeace and Greenpeace’s heart is with Flannery. Both are modern hoodlums and they share the delusion that they are modern Robin Hoods, as they steal from the poor to give to the rich. Of course, Flannery won’t be able to do the “war on whalers” gig.
Friends:
I write because I am genuinely curious concerning the importance of this change.
In the UK a Ministerial Department is scrutinised by Select Committees. So, if a Ministerial Department is established then appropriate Select Committees are established. But if a Ministerial Department is abolished or subsumed into another department then the appropriate Select Committees are abolished. And if a Ministerial Department is subsumed into another Department then scrutiny of its work becomes part of the appropriate Select Committees for the subsuming Department.
Can anyone from Oz please tell me if this is the same in their Parliament.
Richard
This all sounds good for a start but the character assassins of the Labor Party will gear up to bring back the climate change Talliban in due time.
Of course where politics are concerned you always have to deal with elements in your own party that are green and zealous towards saving everything including the planet, and the bottom line is that the last mob ran up a huge line of debt to pay for their wasteful ways so you move carefully and purposefully to free up the system and get the economics right. Even this steady correction will alarm the wailing willies and those who benefitted from the waste – a snout held back from its trough has a powerful squeal!!
Pity the intellectuals of the climate-fossil fuel scare.
Now they are significantly more scared of public exposure and loss of income.
Fund sequestration is coming around to their backdoors . . . to their front doors is ridicule by the public.
John
“Direct Action Plan, the Coalition policy to reach the national target of reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions 5 percent below 2000 levels by 2020.”
Sanity may be a relative thing…the above sounds like the lesser of two weevils.
Reblogged this on Mothers Against Wind Turbines and commented:
The Aussies have smartened up….when will we???
Some rays of light down under…. meanwhile, in the UK an angry MP has declared “the greatest threat to our planet’s existence” (I kid you not):
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/09/luciana-berger-lambasts-ed-davey-over-inaccuracies-in-his-conference-speech/
Perhaps the angry Labour MP imagines that CO2 will make the earth explode….
The green army… is that another name for a Barmy Army?
Steve C says:
September 17, 2013 at 10:05 am
Well, it sounds generally promising, but I do think that “the establishment of the Green Army” has a rather ominous ring to it …
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Abbott has to sound “green” entirely for political perceptions. But there’s nothing ominous about it:
http://www.news.com.au/national-news/federal-election/tony-abbott-to-launch-revamped-green-army-policy/story-fnho52ip-1226674574310
In summary:
“AN Abbott “Green Army” of 15,000 young Australians recruited to rejuvenate bushland and waterways would be deployed around the country under a Coalition government.
Young people aged 17 -24 would be paid up to $16.03 an hour for six months’ work and could use the experience towards certificate qualifications in land management and horticulture.”
In effect a “planting tree spree” to “absorb” more CO2 !!
Incidentally there was no Minister for Science announced. Abbott at this stage just doesn’t want to entirely “rock the climate boat”.
I googled “green army australia” It was established in 1996 as something like our old Civilian Conservation Corps. It is a work/jobs plan for youth.
“(Hunt) will have responsibility for the abolition of the carbon tax, implementation of the Coalition’s Direct Action plan, the establishment of the Green Army and the creation of a one-stop-shop for environmental approvals,” Abbott said in a statement.
Hunt, has had the main responsibility of developing and promoting the Direct Action Plan, the Coalition policy to reach the national target of reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions 5 percent below 2000 levels by 2020.
Under the plan, the new government will set up a fund to buy emission cuts from those companies that pledge to achieve them at the lowest cost.
So, more of the same then? While the carbon tax may be abolished, they will still have the Carbon Cap in place, with the emissions trading scheme, while at the same time having a “Green Army” similar to the Obama Brown-Shirt Army.
One wonders where the monies for this emission cutting fund will come from.
I’m not seeing anything to be positive about here.