Carbon taxing greens routed in NSW Australia elections

Maybe there is hope and change after all:

Zorro says:

March 26, 2011 at 5:16 am

The AGW promoting, carbon tax toting, Australian NSW Labour government has just been virtually annihilated in the State elections – there is hope folks.

“It’s cataclysmic, I mean it’s a bloodbath,” Mr Foley, an upper house member, told ABC Television.

“The accumulated dysfunction … is what’s driving this result. It’s an accumulated dysfunction of four years, not 16.

Full story:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/state-election-2011/coalition-romps-to-victory-in-nsw-20110326-1cbbt.html

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1DandyTroll
March 26, 2011 4:25 pm

Carbon tax is an insult to every rational breathing living human being.

ianl8888
March 26, 2011 4:25 pm

Aynsley Kellow
>There is much more to the the ALP rout in NSW, although the carbon tax was one factor, particularly in the coal mining areas in the Illawarra and the Hunter Valley – traditionally ALP, but they swung to the Coalition.<
I hope you revert here to read this
Agree to your comment above, but you are missing the most cogent piece of evidence here
Look at the seat of Bathurst. The two major population centres are Bathurst and Lithgow. The swing against the ALP was about 30%. Bathurst is generally conservative and the vote there didn't much change. What did change was the Lithgow vote – staunch ALP-all-their-lives voters actually changed to the Libs for the 1st time in their lives, and did so in droves. And what is the major industry in Lithgow ? Coal mining (I worked in the very heart of Lithgow for about 15 years). So in essence we have the three regional centres of coal mining – Newcastle/Hunter, Illawarra and Lithgow – voting Lib for the 1st time ever.
Gee, I wonder why ?

Les Francis
March 26, 2011 4:34 pm

The White Australia Policy happened along when the “Eugenics Hysteria” was in full swing. There were very strict rules.
A famous court case was bought against a Eurasian girl to prove whether or not she was white Caucasian or Asian. Asians have different coccyx than Caucasians. The girl had to strip off her clothes in full view of the court while a doctor examined her coccyx. She was determined to be Asian and not entitled to be an Australian citizen.
During the Australian Gold Rush days of 1850 -1890, Chinese people were only allowed into Australia as guest workers. No chance of citizenship. If not working directly or indirectly for the Gold mining industry they had to be deported.
Australia is not a backwater in the primary or mining industry sense.
It is a backwater in politics. It’s hard to get good politicians when the cook on an offshore drilling rig has a bigger salary than the Prime Minister of Australia.

4 eyes
March 26, 2011 4:42 pm

Anthony, a poor article for your site. It adds nothing to the debate, it reeks of gloating and it implies something that may or may not be true, that being, that the routing had something to do with peoples’ attitudes on climate change. NSW had much higher profile problems than climate change so i think the connection that the article draws between CO2 taxing greens and the loss of government is at best tenuous. I use your site a lot to persuade people away from the rigid global warming dogma and junk science. Article like this one undermine your credibilty amongst readers who are intelligent enough to want meaningful information and genuinely logical argument.

Taniwha
March 26, 2011 4:52 pm

The Labor party knew it was on the way out, and indulged itself in the worst exercise of cynical scorched earth politics that I have ever seen in anticipation of losing the election. It emptied state coffers and sold off state assets (which it knew the Libs planned to sell) preemptively for next to nothing in order to leave the incoming government with no easy way to raise money.

charles nelson
March 26, 2011 5:24 pm

I love Australia, the country and its people but let’s face it, Australian politics is both opaque and visceral. Here, political leaders are found, groomed and catapulted into power by mostly hidden party machinery; paid for by big business and media ‘mates’. Oddly though, given the shallowness of the National political culture, loyalties run deep, there is a sense of history too, some of it pretty nasty and recent.
I think this goes some way to explaining the popularity of the Greens. Given the choice between venal and corrupt politicians and a remote, vaguely degenerate English Monarchy; many Australians identify with the Environmentalist
position – they love their country…but not necessarily their flag!
sHx above, said something like…’I’d have voted Green if they hadn’t hitched themselves up to CO2 climate apocalypse nonsense.’
Absolutely! That’s because we are all quite rightly worried when something that is: irrational, exploitative, obviously based on unsound observations and poorly constructed falsehoods, is first: Media Hyped at us using absurd scare tactics – then finally elevated to the position of Government Sanctioned Truth…then Law…then Tax. Feels a bit too close to ‘totalitarian’ for comfort.
Our distaste for the AGW global apparatus is the same as our distaste for Religous Fundamentalist States, Communism and Fascism. We do not like being governed by people who have got BIG WRONG ideas about things. It’s dangerous.
Few nations on earth could have been more susceptible to the Global Warming Scare than Australia. With its slow, massive climatic cycles, it was easy for the ‘Greenies’… (slightly derogatory term in use here) to hitch their message to the tail end of a perfectly natural fifteen year drought…
Tim ‘Ghost Metropolis’ Flannery, was the chief ringleader. His numerous bizzare predictions about the Australian Climate, Rivers, Rainforest, Reefs, Bushfires, Aquifers, which got him so much attention and money just a few years back….must make him blush with shame today. Just how wrong can one man be and still hang onto any credibility? Oh hang on a second… PM Julia Gillard just gave him a rather well paid, part time job in the Carbon Tax Dept or some such nonsensical body!
Now that the climate cycle has turned maybe the Warmists will slip from power but the struggle is not over yet. The Climate Changers are in power, they want that tax money. The rivers may be full, the desert in bloom but the huddled, urban dwelling Greens don’t care. They are believers, tuned in to their religious broadcasts. And there is plenty of material there to support them. If Climate Change is a religion then ABC is like the Choir of the Sistene Chapel!
Another vile organ of propaganda is the Sydney Morning Herald. Last week there was an article about ‘Denial’ in which AGW Skeptics where bundled with deniers of Evolution, Aids, Vaccination, etc. Of course there’s no where to point out that what makes AGW Skeptics different is that we rely on BETTER science to refute the opposition theory…that’s what they can’t stand!…and that’s why we’re winning slowly.

dz alexander
March 26, 2011 5:26 pm

// Carbon taxing greens routed in NSW Australia elections //
Your headline is worthy of the dailymail.
Labour have been in power 16 years
Add recent problems regarding privatization of electricity, scandals, several leaders …
Green had no seats before. They still have no seats [although one is too close to call] Their vote percentage went up.

Peter Walsh
March 26, 2011 5:29 pm

Go Greens Go and vanish forever you arrogant fools.
Peter Walsh, Dublin, Ireland

R James
March 26, 2011 5:32 pm

Jerome – don’t get too carried away with praising Australia and inviting people to move here. As it is, I sometimes have to battle against about 20 people to catch a wave in the surf. I see no need to push our population higher.

Douglas
March 26, 2011 5:50 pm

Shub Niggurath says: March 26, 2011 at 1:08 pm
[I keep hearing that Australians are very level-headed, practical-minded etc, etc. But it is in their country that a prime minister lady is blabbering nonsense about ‘carbon’ and taxes all the time. How did it get to this stage? How did it get so bad?[
————————————————————————–
Shub Niggurath. This extract might shed some light upon the situation in Australia. Draw you own conclusions. Same for N.Z.
In response to a question at Senate Estimates from Senator Cameron about what role the scientific community can play to educate the general public about global warming in the face of such confusion, Chief Scientist for Australia, Professor Penny Sackett provided the following response:
23 February 2011
Senator CAMERON—Could I also congratulate you on the work that you have done and thank you for that work. Back on 17 March 2009 in a speech, you said that the largest single challenge facing the world was to ‘transform the world’ in a way ‘as profound as that witnessed in the dawn of the industrial age’—this was in relation to global warming. Given the amount of fight-back there has been against governments all over the world in relation to taking action on global warming, what role can the scientific community play to educate
Wednesday, 23 February 2011 Senate E 17 ECONOMICS the sceptics, the deniers and the general public who are fed some of this nonsense continually? How do you deal with that?
Prof. Sackett—Thank you for that question which I believe is a very important question. It is one that scientists are struggling with, I think it is fair to say, all over the world. This is an enormously important time in history, probably unlike any before it, for a number of reasons. Science is not the complete answer but science does provide a way to provide evidence on which decisions can be made. Science does not tell us which decisions to make. Many factors go into making a decision, a policy decision, if it be a matter of policy—and there are decisions that are not a matter of policy, but are individual decisions. Science does not tell us which of those decisions to make but it does tell us the possible consequences of some of those decisions.
Because this is an enormously important issue—perhaps one of the most important—facing the world, it is important that scientists engage. I believe that scientists are attempting to do that. They face challenges in doing that. To do so, I believe they need to be clear about when they are talking about science and when they are talking about policy, and that line needs to be very clear so there is no confusion. I think in this country, and in other countries around the world, that line has been blurred to the detriment of both science and those in government charged with those who elect them for making policy decisions.
First and foremost, I would like to see a clean, clear and continual reminder of the division between what is science and what is policy. That is what I have attempted to do, and continue to do even here today, because I think it is a disservice to both important areas of human endeavour not to do so. Scientists in every area of science are broadly telling us the same thing. And, when I say ‘scientists’, I would like to point out again—because I think it has been mentioned in these chambers before—that we are talking about all of science; we are talking about physics, we are talking about chemistry, we are talking about the science of the oceans. That is a very important message for people to hear. It is not a particular sort of scientist. It is not a scientist who works in government labs but not those who do not. It is not the scientists of one country only or a few countries only. It is scientists of all sorts in all countries, in all sorts of laboratories that are telling us the same thing. That is a message that I have great concern is not reaching the general populous at a level that engages them and enables them to ask the questions that they have in an environment where those discussions can take place without distractions of policy, without distractions of politics, if I may say. That is a great concern to me. (see full transcript here)
http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/senate-estimates-march11.pdf
Douglas

Douglas
March 26, 2011 6:11 pm

Shub Niggurath says: March 26, 2011 at 1:08 pm
[I keep hearing that Australians are very level-headed, practical-minded etc, etc. But it is in their country that a prime minister lady is blabbering nonsense about ‘carbon’ and taxes all the time. How did it get to this stage? How did it get so bad?]
—————————————————————————–
And Shub – here is the situation in N.Z. As you can see no real difference between our
Aussie cuzzies and we New Zealanders.
Professor Sir Peter Gluckman has just released a report looking at how he progressed in his first year as the country’s Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister.
As someone who keeps a very close eye on how science is covered in the media and has the help of a media tracking service to do so, I can say that Sir Peter Gluckman has attracted a stack of headlines in the last year. There’s been nothing particularly scandalous, nothing massively controversial. The climate sceptics called on him to resign, but that’s really a badge of honour.
Draw you own conclusions from the last comment above!!
http://www.pmcsa.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Climate-Change-website-printable-version.pdf

TomRude
March 26, 2011 6:42 pm

There is hope for Canada… may the greens go defeated

Robertvdl
March 26, 2011 6:53 pm

I’m sorry , but after reading
http://liberal.org.au/~/media/Files/Policies%20and%20Media/Environment/The%20Coalitions%20Direct%20Action%20Plan%20Policy.ashx
a WUWT reader can’t vote in Australia. The Coolition also believe in man made climate change and that CO2 is to blame. They are as stupid as the rest. It’s like jumping out of the boiling water into the fire.
So who should I vote ?

Robertvdl
March 26, 2011 6:56 pm

Sorry The Coolition should be Coalition

sierra117
March 26, 2011 6:59 pm

sHx, DZ Alexander…
Dont get too carried away with the Greens vote increasing by 1.5%.
In my opinion, that is an ominous sign for the Greens. Over the last decade, every time the Labor party’s vote fell, the majority of it was picked up by the greens.
In this case, there has been a 17% swing against the Labor party…and only a tiny part of that went to the Greens; most of it went to the Liberal party. The 1.5% that went to the Greens would have been the extreme left few that were deserting the Labor Party and just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a conservative party.
Make no mistake, this result is a resounding comment on what the people here think of Juliar Gillards carbon tax. the clearest sign of this is what happened in the seat of Port Macquarie.
This seat was held by an independent (Peter Besseling) whom had aligned himself with Rob Oakshott, another independent from essentially the same electorate but in the Federal Parliament. Oakshott put Gillard in power by supporting her in forming a minority government.
While there was a state wide swing was 17%, the swing against *the independent* in Port Macquarie was over 34%.
Why is this significant? Well, the NSW electorate judged the state Labor Party on its overall economic performance as well as linking it with the carbon tax. But in Port Macquarie, the electorate has said we are really, really angry at the support Oakshott has given Gillard (and the carbon tax) and we are NEVER going to let that happen again.
Look out Juliar, yesterday’s election is an omen for you.

R James
March 26, 2011 7:01 pm

Tony Abbott (opposition) has indicated that he believes that the treat of anthropogenic global warming is overestimated. The party has already stepped away from Turnbull’s support for a carbon trading scheme. They would therefore seem the obvious choice.

william gray
March 26, 2011 8:07 pm

Wow I attended the canberra rally and have some great banners on the drawing board.
Here in Katoomba on election day my niece and I went searching for the polling booth, we decided to vote at the local school and I was so happy and surprised to see a election poster saying Quote ‘Rosa Sage does not believe in man made climate change.’
Just after voting there she passed us by. I hailed her and she came towards us and I said how happy I was that a candidate had the guts to be open about the issue. She also new of Tim Flannery’s 1000yrs statement.
I still don’t know if she has won the seat.

Brian H
March 26, 2011 8:23 pm

What happens when the masks come off and the dissimulations are revealed.
And, when the real policy implications of the “feel good” mottos are laid out. The proportion of people who are fooled drops dramatically. And the Left takes a bath.

Tom Harley
March 26, 2011 8:31 pm

“Gary Pearse says:
March 26, 2011 at 11:54 am
I read the article – no where did it say it was because of Labor’s GHG policies. I hope the joy is justified.”
The paper concerned is a shill for the warmers, of course there is no way they would tie GHG to this election, it may be bad for the federal Labor government. You only need to look at results from the coal mining regions to know the real truth…

Mike Borgelt
March 26, 2011 8:39 pm

Jer0me says:
March 26, 2011 at 3:51 pm
Don’t get carried away. There’s a nasty strain of extreme authoritarianism in Australia. While claiming to be laid back and anti authority, Australians are in fact sheep. Easily shorn and easy to lead to slaughter. If there is a stupid war going, we’re there. Liberty is not valued at all , it is much more important to fit in, conform and not make waves.
Don’t get carried away about our economy either. Wait and see what happens in the next couple of years. There are no actual adults running the government and some smart decisions may need to be made. They won’t be.
If your hobby/sport/interest happens to be shooting don’t bother moving to Australia either. The Conservatives under John Howard passed gun control laws that would delight the extreme gun control lobby in the US.

william gray
March 26, 2011 8:44 pm

Can I make a request to anyone who may attend the upcomming Carbon dioxide rallies here in Australia.
KEPT THE BANNERS POLITE.
STAY ON TOPIC.
Thanks.

AusieDan
March 26, 2011 8:45 pm

King of Cool said in part on March 26, 2011 at 3:49 pm:
“This is more than a landslide victory. It is a clap of thunder from down under.”
He went on to report that: “Voters have also reacted violently to the Independents presently holding Australia’s fate in Federal Parliament. In Tamworth, Tony Windsor’s state successor and Independent candidate Peter Draper has been booted out of office losing 15% of his vote and the Nationals gaining 9%. And in Port Macquarie, Rob Oakeshott’s successor Peter Besseling has been categorically sacked with an emphatic 35% swing to the National Party. ”
Unquote
This needs to be translated for those who do not live in Australia.
Messers Windsor and Oakshot are independent members of our federal parliament with no party alignment. They sided with the Labor Party after the last election to give Good Queen Green-Julia the job of Prime Minister. She now leads a minority governement with the help of the Green Party and the Independents.
Messers W & O come from conservative rural electorates who are furious at their betrayal and who have thus risen up and thrown out their State parliamentary equivalents.
Messers Windsor and Oakshot are now in a difficult position, having burnt their bridges behind them.
Good Queen Green-Julia must have had a rather troubled sleep last night, having promised, the day before she was elected, not to levy a tax on carbon.
Since the election, she has now announced that she will levy a tax on carbon.
Our new Premier, Barry O’Farrell, before his election, asked voters for their support to send a message to Canberra.
In his victory speach he repeated that he would “send a message to Canberra”.
That got the biggest cheer of the night.
This was a watershead moment last night.
The tide just may be turning.
We do live in Australia after all and not in a land of make believe.

richcar that 1225
March 26, 2011 9:05 pm

We are now seeing a similar response from the Labor and Green parties in Australia to the NSW election results that we heard in the US after the mid term elections:
“It wasnt about the carbon tax”
‘It wasnt about cap and trade”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/ofarrell-vows-to-tackle-pm-on-carbon-tax/story-fn7r7bxz-1226028849473
They doth protest too much

AusieDan
March 26, 2011 9:09 pm

4 eyes you wrote in part on March 26, 2011 at 4:42 pm:
QUOTE Anthony, a poor article for your site UNQUOTE
No 4eyes, you have got that wrong.
Please read all the above comments.
While there is no doubt that poor administration, cronyness and worse was enough to cause a change of government, Barry O’Farrell’s request to “send a message to Canberra” and his statements that he will “take the fight to Canberra to beat the carbon tax”, also carried much weight.
You only have to look at the very strong anti Labor and anti Green vote in the industrial and coal mining areas of the state, which have ALWAYS previously voted Labor, to see this was an anti carbon tax vote.
Also you should look at the Independents poor showing and loss of seats in last night’s election, in the areas that had last year elected Messers Windsor and Oakshoot to Canberra, to see that this was an anti carbon tax vote.
The federal Labor party only won their precarious minority government role, because of support from Messers W & O, plus a failure of the NSW Liberals generally to win sufficient support.
NOW, the NSW Liberals do have that support.
We are now all a year older and much, much wiser than we were when Good Queen Green-Julia had her moment of triumph last year.

davidc
March 26, 2011 10:19 pm

Coalition (conservative) parties here in Oz have appeared to be ambivalent about AGW, I think because of fears about the votes they could lose. The NSW election could be regarded as a test for the anti-AGW position because the Coalition would probably get home even if being against a carbon (sic) tax was a mistake.
The result shows that far from being a mistake it was a big vote-winner. This is clear because the big losses by Labor did not transfer to the Greens. I think that the Federal Coalition (the one that matters most) will now be much more bold.