Wow, Australia’s parliament just imploded over discord due to emissions trading scheme being pushed by opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull (website here). Here’s the news from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:
Pretty heavy stuff when Liberal MP’s resign rather than vote for a cap and trade scheme. The vote seems rather difficult now.
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“macumazan (02:14:50) :
At least Australia still has five politicians, honest and true. How many does Great Britain have?”
A “trick” question, right?
Geoff C (00:18:08) :
The Liberals (conservatives) yesterday had a party meeting and decided not to have a vote for leadership. Turnbull won 45-37.
That should read 48-35.
It might be a different story on the next ballot.
“Deadman (03:25:32) :
I can’t vote, so I comment on websites.”
Australia is a constitutional monarchy. There are “benefits” to that title, but they are debateable.
Until January this year, I too could not vote in Australia, my current abode (Migrant – And at my age and my tavelling/working/living in many countries etc, I am now tired of “migration” – Sheesh). Sadly, there is no politician in this land who has earnt my vote.
I think only two stood up against our version of this legislation in parliament. One of them was Peter Lilley. Lilley is best known for his hilariously embarrassing Conservative Party conference speech sometime in the early 1990’s.
The amazing thing is that none of our MP’s have bothered to inform themselves on the issue, simply accepting the science as is without even questioning its probity. Unfortunately this is how our country is run today. Diktat from the top (the executive or the EU) and a rubber stamp from our lazy, stupid MP’s.
I wrote to my MP James Paice three weeks ago and have received no reply so far. I’m sure he’s busy though and possibly this isn’t high on the agenda in his stream of consciousness. Why would it be? The Scientists all agree, the politicians all agree, the talking heads all agree, it’s just us “deniers” who don’t, and we’re all creationists, UFO believers and conspiracy theorists.
The only issue has been C02 versus global temps other issues are open for discussion ie local land use re pielke sr etc… I think we should be forgiving. Its obvious they have lost lets all move on…
Update – according to the “Lateline” news program, the liberals may make a deferral motion tomorrow morning in the senate. If the liberals all vote in favour of the motion, it is likely that they will have the numbers to defer the vote until AFTER any leadership decision on Monday or Tuesday.
Take a look…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017987/climategate-what-gores-useful-idiot-ed-begley-jr-doesnt-get-about-the-peer-review-process/
This graph convinced David Attenborough that ‘global warming’ was anthropogenic.Can someone point out the fault with it and maybe set him straight? (He’s a very influential person to the man in the street).I originally saw a better quality copy but you can make it out still.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoLfPKp5uwI&hl=en_GB&fs=1&]
Turnbull, for those of you outside Australia, is also a notorious and arrogant bully and appears to believe that bullying all those he considers his inferiors (i.e., eveyone) is the best way to achieve what he wants. It worked for him when he was a merchant banker, and it worked for him as very adversarial, belligerent and not always completely scrupulous barrister. British folk may remember the Spycatcher trial wherein Turnbull represented Peter Wright and ridiculed Sir Robert Armstrong (as he then was), the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Michael Havers (as he then was), the Attorney General, and Mrs Margaret Thatcher (as she then was), the PM, to the delight of the Australian media. (Armstrong during the trial famously mentioned being “economical with the truth”, and Turnbull seized on the expression with glee.)
Unfortunately for Turnbull, a party room meeting over such a contentious policy might not the best place to practice aggressive intimidation as a persuasive technique.
Penny Wong was asked about “climategate” on the 7:30 repoort 2 days ago. She answered with the old “theres still an overwhelming consensus”, unfortunately I dont think she realises that most of the “overwhelming consensus” was based on the climategate data.
Turnbull is a dead man crawling. I’ve emailed every Liberal Senator that is rumoured to be considering voting for this scheme.
It’s now at about 13 members of Shadow Cabinet who have resigned (that’s over 1/3rd).
For non-Australian readers Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet (the Opposition’s Cabinet) is made up from members of Parliament only – unlike the US.
On another site, commenter Tom Forrester-Paton calls the scandal “Fabrigate”.
Those who can’t understand Turnbull have to remember he represents a greenish electorate. To reject an ETS would cost him votes in his own seat. At the end of the day you have to recognise that the greatest motivator for any politician is re-election.
As someone who works for the state with the most at stake (Western Australia) I am terrified that this will have a major impact on our resources industry. We can pretty much kiss value-adding goodbye because it is too energy intensive. The crazy thing is that they are still trying to work out what to tax the LNG industry… FFS that is improving overseas emissions levels (assuming it replacing coal-fired power) and is likely to be penlised at home, creating a disincentive to develop new LNG projects. It is sheer lunacy. So instead of China buying more of our LNGthey will end up firing up more coal stations… good job Rudd.
Given that our reductions are to be based on 2000 emission levels we can’t afford new emission intensive industries, as the permits will not be there to “pollute” CO2. After price caps are removed the pressure of demand on diminishing permits will shoot the carbon price through the roof… if base metal prices are still low, kiss goodbye to aluminium, alumina, and other base metals in that order. We will be shipping ore and concentrates overseas to refineries and smelters in countries without ETS systems.
Ironically coal won’t disappear because it is ridiculously cheap comapred to other fuel sources. So we will continue to dig up and burn coal and sequester the CO2, resulting in a doubling of electricity prices.
I am rambling a bit… but I don’t think these are crazy scenarios. Our state has not modeled the impacts realistically, and I doubt the Federal Treasury has much more of a clue. Even if they did, their findings would be hidden by the Rudd collective.
All this because Emperor Rudd wants his moment in the sun at Copenhagen.
The Turnbull ballot was 48-35 because the only contender at the time was a jerk… he was just the political fluffer to prompt the resignations* which shall be followed by a second challenge from a real contender – likely, Tony Abbott, Andrew Robb or Joe Hockey.
* Resignation simply means they dropped their role as shadow not that they dropped their political seat. They still have all the voting power they had before the resignation.
Hey Patrick Ive also repeatedly written to Turnbull over the years and he used to be open to alternative debates over climate change. However I notice green lobbyists target politicians – particularly ones in power. WWF seem to have a strong history of doing this. They seem to get on with politicians to influence as much as possible.
Turnbull I thought was bright but cannot understand this except for the reasons youve given. As public perception of climategate expands and law suites start I think the likes of Turnbull and Rudd will be history. But whether that will be too late for the rest of us.
I think there are a lot of labor MPs who are skeptics and these also need to stand up to KRudd
Hopes for a treaty at Copenhagen rise after this came out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/science/earth/27climate.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
Obviously the Chinese Government has not taken notice of Climategate and even if they did, eliminating the free world by undersigning a climate treaty must be the Chinese’s ultimate wet dream.
No mater how the media spins it, the truth can and does get out.
Australians are to be congratulated on defeating the AGW promotion community in this round of the fight.
Now we need someone in the US to leak GISS e-mails and show us how sausage is made in the world of Hansen and Schmidt.
Informal (Deadman) wrote: “I can’t vote, so I comment on websites.”
And write funny parodies about our politicians 🙂 Perhaps you could write something about the current situation.
For the vast majority who don’t know this fine classical scholar and logician, he changed his name by deedpoll to Informal when he stood for election some years ago. Unfortunately, the Electoral Commissioner won’t accept the name change, so while he is free to stand for election, he cannot vote. You can’t make this stuff up 🙂
Rudd has lost a lot of popularity because of his immigration policy,THAT is what Aussie voters care about,I am not so sure that Rudd would win the next election,solely because the immigrants keep coming,now is not the right time for the opposition,Turnbull knows that.Another year of being flooded by immigrants,then the opposition has a chance.Turnbull is between a rock and a hard place.I still think he could have bluffed Rudd,and insisted on a delay,but Rudd may have called his bluff,and won handsomely,giving him the power to pass any ETS legislation he wants.There is only one person to blame for the ETS,that is Rudd.it will go through tomorrow,my faint hope is that Turnbull will hold out for the changes he wants,but Rudd will probably gain the upper hand by saying “double dissolution”.
I was trying to follow this late last night via The Australian and Australian Climate Madness–back benchers, front benchers, is 27 crossing the aisle enough?. I had to get some sleep. Thanks for some good news with my coffee, Anthony.
Keeps getting interesting.
Lateline (national late evening news program on ABC1 Australia) was devoted almost entirely to this issue. An absolute rarity, they had a sceptical contributer Senator Bernardi of the Liberal party. This ETS may or may not pass yet; I’ll be holding my breath until at least 3.45pm Friday Australian time (the apparent deadline, unless a postponement is moved and accepted in the senate).
This may look like an Australian issue, but I suspect it’s a microcosm representative of other places (or maybe I just hope that). The defecting senators discussed above, described a “flood”, “torrent” etc of grass roots commentary, emails, phone calls and so on, damning the ETS and demanding their members and senators vote it down. I hope that latent and mostly silent group are present everywhere.
a jones (00:27:22); apologies assumed you were in the U.S. – I should have realised it was not a sociable time in the states for someone to be posting. Good that this is a transnational dialogue.
Due to quoting of emails within other emails, there are actually as many as 2429 messages, not 1073. No doubt some of the emails appear multiple times, but it would not be difficult to locate quoted emails that do not appear as originals and highlight them for examination, etc.
Oh dear – more strange data found
javascript:ajaxFunction(‘http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/newscore/comments_form_thread/tips_for_thursday_november_26/2868244/Ripper’,2868244)
If that link doesn’t work – its the first post on page 12 of this blog
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/tips_for_thursday_november_26/P220/
I’m old enough to remember the Union Pacific Challenger Locomotives- the Wheel arrangement was 4-6-6-4 they were/are BIG.They made lots of smoke and noise,
watching one move a heavy freight out of the yard was amazing.Now where am I going?
Well,climategate is like a heavy frieght being pulled by that Challenger.Slowly almost imperceptibly,The drivers and rods move, as the Hogger moves the throttle forward.
A little wheel slip,then she bites.This is where we are at. Climategate’s pulling out of the yard. Pretty soon it will hit the tangent and the line is clear.The no one can ignore
it as the symphony of sound,steam,smoke,-and weight, moves down the track. Up ahead, running the gated crossing is the AGW donkey cart. The Donkey being smart
has bailed but the owners of the cart struggle mightily to get it off the tracks ignoring the 75 mph heavy freight coming at them.
Just for grins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OgSNQOTw2U
Caution-lots of smoke and noise. If offered a life of being a Shuttle Command pilot
or an Engineer of a Challenger of Big Boy-I’d have to think about it…
“or an Engineer or a Challenger of Big Boy-I’d have to think about it…”
-too early in the Western US ….