They are calling it “Carbon Sunday”.
This is a collection of links and excerpts regarding PM Julia Gillard’s speech announcing the tax. In a nutshell, from what I can see, the majority of Australians are pissed, and she’s toast, partly because she lied about it before taking office, partly due to the fact it is being implemented as a deficit from the get-go. Oh and then there’s the fact that it won’t make a bit of difference to the temperature, and will be nullified by China.
Apparently, the way it is structured, it looks “Almost bordering on a bribe” (-Andrew Bolt, see his interview with Lindzen below) .
You can download the new climate policy here (PDF).
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Carbon tax backlash in national plebiscite hosted by News Ltd websites | Courier Mail
ANGRY Australians have vowed to vote Prime Minister Julia Gillard from office at the next election after the controversial carbon tax announcement.
Scores of voters rejected the plan soon after details of the $24.5 billion package to tackle climate change were revealed, with more than 80 per cent who voted in a national online poll saying Australia shouldn’t have a carbon tax.
…
“They’re calling it ‘Carbon Sunday’ but I like to refer to today as ‘Suicide Sunday’ for a PM and three independents,” one reader wrote.
…
Just eight per cent of voters said they were confident it wouldn’t affect their hip pocket.
An anti-carbon tax group said its website crashed after being overwhelmed with people trying to sign up to a campaign rejecting the tax.
The organisers of the site, no-carbon-tax.org, said the site crashed because of the “sheer numbers of people signing up.”
In the Queensland polls hosted by couriermail.com.au, about 7000 readers voted on four questions, with about 90 per cent believing we should not have a carbon tax, over 60 per cent saying climate change was a myth, and 75 per cent saying they were now more likely to vote for the Coalition.
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My editorial on the carbon tax fraud. I then interview Professor Richard Lindzen, who says Gillard’s tax wouldn’t work, even if man really was warming the globe. Which he doubts.
Carbon Sunday
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, July 10, 11 (11:36 am)
Vent here while venting is still legal.
The Climate Change Committee deal here.
UPDATE
Some initial, quick thoughts:
– $4.3 billion over four years is going to be spent above what the tax raises to buy off the public with tax cuts and handouts. That’s one wild way to sell a tax, spending more than it raises.
– the compensation must soon run out if the Government doesn’t want to broke. The deal says that after three years, companies can buy offsets overseas for up to half their emissions. This means that costs here will rise, but the revenue to compensate for these rises is sent overseas.
– The Government claims this package will reduce emissions by 160 millions tonnes by 2020. But the immediate tax and spending levels cannot do that. This target can be achieved only with a dramatic raising of the tax. No figure is given for how much of our emissions will be cut by the tax as it.
– The Government refuses to nominate employment effects on the specific industries involved.
– No figure is given for what effect this will have on the world’s temperature.
– Julia Gillard cites in her support Margaret Thatcher, who indeed did warn in 1988 that we should worry about global warming. What Gillard fails to add was that by 2002, Thatcher had developed second thoughts about the alarmists, writing that global warming “provides a marvelous excuse for worldwide, supra-national socialism”.
– The Government is spending $2.7 billion extra over the next financial year alone – before the tax even gets imposed – to buy support throught tax cuts and handouts.
– It’s a magic tax:
Cost increases: <a title=”Households to see average cost increases of $9.90 a week. However, they will also receive assistance of $10.10 a week on average.Households to see average cost increases of $9.90 a week. However, they will also receive assistance of $10.10 a week on average.
– Gillard announces also she’ll buy out a 2000 Megawatt power station over the next decade at a price not revealed. That’s billions to actually reduce our power supplies, not increase them.
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Australian Climate Madness Blog:
Just to put all this nonsense in perspective, the policy is due to reduce Australia’s emissions by 160 million tonnes of CO2 by 2020. Sounds impressive right? Well, China’s emissions rose in just one year by 750 million tonnes, nearly five times Australia’s planned reduction by 2020 – in just one year. Climate Madness.
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Gillard’s tax on “carbon pollution”: the facts « JoNova: Science, carbon, climate and tax
Forestalling all of the 0.24 C° global warming predicted by 2020 would demand almost $60,000 from every man, woman and child on the planet.
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Many Australians to be better off under tax deal: Gillard | The Australian
According to a recent Newspoll, just 30 per cent of people support the tax.
“The presumption in the Newspoll that the majority of Australians don’t want action on climate change will change,” Senator Brown told reporters in Brisbane yesterday.
Ms Gillard warned the government would not be cowed by opposition to the tax and accused the Coalition of “lies and distortion” and “attacks on our economists and scientists.
“After all that, I simply say to our opponents: is that the best you can do,” she said.
“Because if you think that’s enough to knock us off course, you’ve got another think coming.”
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Climate change: Gillard or Abbott | thetelegraph.com.au
[Piers Akerman] The carbon dioxide tax has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with raising an extra $11 billion in revenue.
The tax is not a reform, it is economic suicide.
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READ the full text of Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s address to the nation following the carbon tax plan:
I WANT to talk to you tonight about why the Government is putting a price on carbon and what this means for you.
The decisions I announced today mean:
AROUND five hundred big polluters will pay for every tonne of carbon pollution they put into our atmosphere.
BY 2020 this will cut carbon pollution by 160 million tonnes a year.
AND because some businesses will put prices up, there will be tax cuts, increased pensions and increased family payments.
We have had a long debate about climate change in this country.
Most Australians now agree our climate is changing, this is caused by carbon pollution, this has harmful effects on our environment and on the economy – and the Government should act.
Economists and experts agree that the best way is to make polluters pay by putting a price on carbon.
The first Australian Government to announce a plan for a carbon price was John Howard’s back in 2007.
A lot has happened since then; the debate has been difficult and divisive.
And no government – no political party or leader – can claim to have got everything right during this time.
But we have now had the debate, 2011 is the year we decide that as a nation we want a clean energy future.
Now is the time to move from words to deeds.
That’s why I announced today how Australia’s carbon price will work.
From 1 July next year, big polluters will pay $23 for every tonne of carbon they put into our atmosphere.
They now know how much they will pay unless they cut their pollution.
And they can start planning to cut pollution now.
By 2020 our carbon price will take 160 million tonnes of pollution out of the atmosphere every year.
That’s the equivalent of taking forty five million cars off the road.
Some of the cost paid by big polluters will be passed through to the prices of the goods you buy.
The price impact will be modest but I know family budgets are always tight.
So I have decided most of the money raised from the carbon price will be used to fund tax cuts, pension increases and higher family payments.
These will be permanent, matching the carbon price over time.
Not everyone will be financially better off – there is no money tree. The budget has to add up. But I want people who need help most to get the help they need.
That’s why 9 in 10 households will get a combination of tax cuts and payment increases.
For almost six million households this will fully meet your average extra costs.
And of these, four million Australian households – including every older Australian who relies solely on the pension – will get a “buffer” for your budget, with the extra payments being 20 per cent higher than your average extra costs.
When you have some time, you should have a look at the cleanenergyfuture.gov.au website.
It’ll help you find out what you’re entitled to.
And it will link you to ideas for how to cut power bills and cut pollution without cutting back on life’s essentials.
I also understand that there is nothing more important to families than having a job.
So I have decided we will take special measures to support jobs and keep Australia competitive internationally. And some of the money paid by polluters will also fund billions of dollars of investments in clean technologies like solar, wind and geothermal.
All up, the carbon price will support $100 billion worth of investment in renewables in the next forty years.
Putting a price on carbon is a big change for our country.
I know we can do it together.
Our economy is the envy of the world.
We have world-leading renewable technology, a coal industry determined to cut pollution among the world’s richest reserves of natural gas.
And we are a confident, creative people.
I see a great clean energy future for our great country.
I know we can get there together.
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Now look at the polling from the Herald Sun:
You can weigh in here
Finally, keep your eye on the prize.
h/t to Tom Nelson for collecting many of these
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UPDATE: Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. points out the absurdity of a basic claim.
Australia has released its much awaited carbon tax proposal (here in PDF). I am just now browsing through it. This analogy in the document strikes me as particularly unfortunate:
The Government has committed to reduce carbon pollution by 5 per cent from 2000 levels by 2020 irrespective of what other countries do, and by up to 15 or 25 per cent depending on the scale of global action.
Meeting the 5 per cent target will require abatement of at least 159 Mt CO2-e, or 23 per cent, in 2020 (Figure 2.4).1 This is equivalent to taking over 45 million cars off the road by 2020.
Why do I say an unfortunate analogy?
Well, Australia has only about 12 million cars (and 16 million total vehicles), so using a reduction of 45 million cars “off the road” to illustrate the unilateral emissions reduction goal simply illustrates the impossibility of the task.
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This new policy was of such national importance that Gillard had to pre-empt regular TV programming on Sunday to announce it….and they couldn’t even get the basic math right.
“Carbon pollution” is just one big lie. Politicians have no shame and no honesty.
Regarding the fact that Gillard lied about the carbon tax before she took office, I’m not surprised. Obama also lied about a few things before he took office. I think this is the strategy of the left. Lie about unpopular things when running for office and then when you get in, implement them.
And notice how part of this Australian carbon tax is going to be redistributed back to the low income groups. This has LONG been mentioned in many climate papers and books I have read. They usually mention redistribute wealth both within and among nations. This is the within part. I wouldn’t be surprised if part of their carbon taxes will make it to other nations.
Here in California, I believe part of our cap-and-trade carbon taxes will be sent to countries with huge forests (under a REDD type scheme).
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/capandtrade/meetings/073010/notice.pdf
Doesn’t anybody see what I see here? What I see is that this (AGW) is more about equalizing the economies of the world (lowering developed economies while raising developing countries economies), redistributing wealth within and among nations, control of the world’s natural resources by the UN (or some other supranational agency) and hence by proxy control of the economies of all nations than it is about reducing global warming.
The basic problem with socialism (AKA”Labour”) is their idea that everything comes down to money. “We can solve this (supposed) problem by taking money away from it”. Or, “We can solve this problem by throwing money at it”.
The basic problem with this line of thinking is that it is always OUR money, and we are quickly running out of it. What will they do then? Probably print some more. That is always their solution.
“Economists and experts agree that the best way is to make polluters pay by putting a price on carbon.”
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In Ontario Canada the largest polluter is Ontario Hydro which supplies electricity for the Province. I wonder if the average voter even knows this as they scream “make polluters pay”.
My electricity bill is up 18% over last year. A few months back I received a refund – a 10% discount on my hydro bill from the Provincial Government. So they raise rates to pay for a $700 million wind turbine deal and then issue a refund a few months before an election. Hmmm….
It could be worse. I could live in Australia.
Although I love that country. Even the rats (and they’re big) have a bounce to their step.
The ‘majority of Australians’ may be ‘pissed off’ about this Anthony, but according to that wonderful organ of record and truthfulness – at least as far as it allows its commenters to say (be displayed), the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14096750 , many think it is a great idea and that Bob Carter is an amateur. They are obviously people who did not watch her video – where she managed to get away with claiming that the one trace gas in our atmosphere that allows for life to exist on this planet is now a pollutant!.
I despair of my countrymen, especially the people who will happily accept a ‘tax on air’. I hope Gillard gets her come-uppance.
Gee a socialist politician lies and then rams through insane policies that are doomed to failure and which will leave the economy in shambles. She must be an admirer of Obama.
Together with a colleague I ran a thread on ‘the futility of carbon reduction’ . The facts and figures are shown in the link below, together with a useful table as to what temperature reduction each country can achieve and how much it will cost.
The Australian figures are there, but in the UK’s case we are talking of an expenditure of some £30 billion a year for the next forty years in order to reduce temperatures in total by around 15thousands of a degree Centigrade by 2100.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/05/26/the-futility-of-carbon-reduction/
The trouble is of course that an increasing majority of the world intends to have nothing whatsoever to do with carbon reduction, so the sacrifices that a small number of western countries is making is completely symbolic, but will have a massive consequece for the economy, an individuals finances and for methods of energy production.
The 50MW wind farms the UK Govt intends to litter our countryside with will make a difference of 10 millionths of a degree Centigrade.
The West has truly gone mad and our competitors and enemies must be rubbing their eyes in disbelief.
tonyb
There is one thing about your welsh wizard, she happy to lie to your face when most politicians lie behind their hands.
A betrayal of the first magnitude!
The Australian Government and Labor party is now on a deathwatch, due to self-inflicted wounds!
Watch peoples standard of living nosedive. Watch industry and manufacturing flee this poor broken country thanks to the lunatics running the country.
PM JULIAR (THERE WON’T BE A CARBON TAX) Gillard may ram is hateful CO2 ETS/tax through but is spells the end of the Labor government, the slimy backstabbing independents and the greens in the next election. Maybe they can join the threatened CO2 climate destroying Camels in the lonely outback. Because they won’t see anymore political power or deserve trust for the following 20 years after that, if their lucky.
From the sounds of it, I’d say that PM Julia Gillard is going to go from making history to becoming history.
Carl Chapman says:
July 10, 2011 at 6:04 am
“I can’t even gloat about the fools in the Labor Party committing political suicide. When one of the two major parties goes this bad, it’s bad for democracy.”
I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment here. Back in November 2009 when I first became involved with the AGW issue due to Climategate – well – I went a little bit crazy shall we say. I wrote to everyone – friends, family, anyone who had ever sent me a politically themed email, it was quite a list. I wrote a letter. In that letter I outlined the argument that should CAGW be backed by a candidate, or a party, or a sitting member of government particularly the executive, eventually it would not be good for said candidate/leader/government member.
Why? I had checked out the claims; read some papers on the weak conjecture that is AGW. Pretty much figured out that if Mankind’s CO2 is doing anything at all, it isn’t much…maybe minutely warming the frozen wastelands on northern Canada and Siberia at night-time; but so far said warming is so minute it could just be “noise” and add that to the fact that our ability to measure AGW itself is in constant dispute.
So we have what is most probably a non-problem in AGW. Now let’s have a couple of mild summers and wet, cool winters. Eventually the world populace figures out that AGW is a non-problem. And they figure out that quite possibly some unscrupulous types have been gaming it and scamming it. Pseudo-scientists/politicians/journalists/bureaucrats. And public anger builds into public rage.
Now all it takes is a charismatic leader to stand up and rail against AGW. Said leader may actually be either incompetent or evil, but gets elected simply by capitalizing on public rage over a single issue. Has this ever happened? Look at modern American history and the public rage over Nixon and rage against the republican party after the Watergate scandal. Gerald Ford was an excellent president IMO but Carter (a bumbling nincompoop IMO) beat him at the polls. At least Carter wasn’t evil; but he could have been.
Much disagreement can be mustered against my example; my point is that politicians can, and do make much hay by over-emotionalizing issues; they cleverly use an issue by, in a sense, projecting the issue though a prism backwards to cast their opponent an unfavorable light.
Here’s a made up thought experiment to illustrate my point: “You can’t trust my opponent on fisheries; the fool bought in hook-line-and sinker on AGW, and is incompetent to evaluate scientific data.” Perhaps the politician being attacked was simply going along with the party-line back then, is an ex-fisherman and knows exactly what he is talking about when it comes to fishing; would make an excellent (fill-in-the-blank for political position) but loses the election to a blustering idiot – because said blustering idiot had the simple virtue of not buying into AGW (or claiming they didn’t.) And, the electorate gets another buffoon for a leader.
The Btitish and Australian Labour parties have many things in common, such as: i) the inability to listen to reason, and ii) insisting on implementing populist policies which inevitably cause huge and unnecessary economic damage.
This can all be summed up by the concept of asking the question: “Does it work in theory?”, while ignoring the far more important question of: “Will it work in practice?”. Neither Labour Party ever asks the latter question.
It is self-evident that this is a really goofy policy, which will create a huge, unnecessary and expensive bureaucracy and make absolutely no impact on the world’s so called ‘carbon problem’.
Australians will rightly punish these goofy politicians at the next election and the policy will be reversed – but in the meantime, how many billions of dollars will have gone pointlessly to money heaven.
I like Australia and Australians are down-to-Earth, sensible people with a healthy disrespect for authority. Juliar is doing a Mugabe … destroying her nation to remain in power.
Ye Gods! A convoluted, mishmash of non-economics gibberish justifying a ‘tax solution’ to a nonexistent problem. All of it stated with the certainty that only the confirmed elitists among us can deliver, as they tell us poor dim bulbs ‘what is good for us’!
Mates, it’s time for the peasants to take pitchforks and torches to hand and drive this Frankenstein law and it’s creators out of the castle… again.
John Marshall, Gillard isn’t stupid or an idiot … she is desperately clinging to power by her finger-nails. One vote less in parliament and she’s out; new election. This is the green party policy she is implementing because she doesn’t give a fode about anything other than her political vanity. I am quite surprised how the three “Independants” propping up her government are going along with this, it will be their political death as well. How much are they being paid?
Agreed — to an extent. In fact, we cannot calculate any of this to the precision implied. Please stop pretending that we can. What we should probably say is that to adjust future temperatures by a resolvable amount will require more than every man, woman, child can afford.
Hey, I have a great idea! Let’s send more money to the politicians so they can send some of it back to us! That way they can buy our votes with our own money!
Oh wait, they already do…
kramer: “Were there is a will there is a way! During world war II the US Americans rationed . . .
There can be a certain amount of kwh rationed to all for very little or no charge . . . just like eggs, milk and toilet paper . . . after that you purchase . . . . being circumspect I already know the downside it called “gaming the system” . . . some will collect two (or more) rations . . . and some will sell rations . . . there are ways to make society more just . . . . takes thought and forethought.
I don’t have all the answers, nor does any mere imperfect mortal human . . . but, it starts will resolve. And the assumption that if you are born, there is a place for you . . . so everyone move over and make a space and a place! In my opinion . . . .
Personally speaking, I’d like to congratulate PM Gillard and her carbon tax on industry and other carbon users. One less competitor on the global stage to worry about. We (Canada) need all the breaks we can get trading on the open market. No doubt starting this summer Australian temperatures will drop allowing us to sell winter clothes to this market as we are experts in this field, no more flooding ever again, cyclones will disappear and never again ravage Australia, the hinterlands, previously hot and dry, will turn green and droughts will be a thing of the distant past. All in all a win/win for Australia – and on top of that – feed the little people. What’s not to love?
Psst… Australia.
Like us, you get what you vote for.
Mac the Knife: “Ye Gods! A convoluted, mishmash of non-economics gibberish justifying a ‘tax solution’ to a nonexistent problem.”
The problem is real . . . “they” truly believe that their “inheritance” and “their childrens inheritance” is abject, absolute, control of the whole world for their own personal satisfaction . . . and any one who disagrees . . . . is, was, and always will be damned! And that’s darned tootin’! I think they call it the “prosperity ministry” . . . . God blessed them with you and me for peons! Get with the “program” . . . peasant! Just where do you think their vast weath derives . . . The land, the labor . . . and the “capital” is all theirs’, theirs’ and just theirs’! Bow! Now! If “they” deem it wise to burden you, who do you think you are to question a superior being! Albeit a hue-man being!
Western civilizations industry and wealth is based on national strategies of inexpensive energy. They are fools who are changing this strategy for the tactics of expensive energy and pursuing the dogma of Green ideology. In reality we can have inexpensive energy and green, we are capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time, only the only the mental slow people can’t see this.
What the Juliard communists are trying to do is no different then what the old sov.s did when they decided what was to be produced, by whom, and by how much.
When half the industry produces shoes and half is producing vodka is it a wonder then that all end up getting paid in shoes or vodka for producing shoes and vodka and the rest be starving for they have neither shoe leather to eat nor distilled potatoes to drink?
Sadly, people only need to look at EU to know what will happen when all sorts of carbon taxes are introduced. Industry quickly adapts by raising prices on the internal market, thereby making consumers out of tax payers otherwise higher income taxes. It was already decided that the EU behemoth needed more cash, the only question was how to raise that cash, and in a predominantly socialist union healthy consumerism was not an option but could be disguised as such by taxing producers thereby making it look like the consumers market. Here’s the kicker though, by doing like this, is the wet dream of a socialist, because it looks like it’s all about consumerism, and it sounds like saving the planet (which was the propaganda to sell it to the voter), and the consuming of the higher prices are still taxed by value on a relative basis. So win win win for the socialist, instant green, politician.
It’s all hogwash of course, which is starting to be seen since the all that money that is generated by thrice taxing, isn’t going back into the internal market, it is used to further the EU government (which has yet to reach its full design size) who are also giving it all away, with out asking for anything in return and without common check and balances requirement attached to it, to countries who don’t buy expensive technology or help from EU, since India and China are so much cheaper (this is the supposed wealth redistribution logic.)
So,essentially, it is no major weirdness as to why more and more countries in EU are having financial problems and failing internal markets. What’s ironic is that the why EU don’t fund all the necessary new high speed, and green, rail road system, is because they’ve already decided to give all the money to the wind mill industry and the food for ethanol industry. So don’t be surprised if you start getting paid with ethanol when working as a blow hard in front of a wind mill. :p
Canada rejected this madness a couple of years ago and recently put the last nail in the coffin electing a Conservative majority in May 2011. The parties that advocated carbon taxes cap and trade buried it so deep in their campaign rhetoric it scarcely was mentioned. A lot of people believed that the left liberal parties would have done exactly what Gillard did in Oz,.
I’m thinking the theme song to Gilligan’s Island re-titled and re-written to “Gillard’s Island”
Last verse:
So this is the tale of our carbon tax,
it’s here for a long long time.
They’ll have to make the best of things,
it’s an uphill climb.
My mates and kangaroo’s too
will do their very best,
to make the others comf’terble
in their tropic island nest.
No phone ,no lights, no motor car,
not a single luxury
like Robinson Crusoe
it’s primitive as can be.
So join us here each week my friends,
you’re sure to get a smile,
from 23 million stranded castaways
here on Gillard’s Isle!