From The Australian, the beginning of a nationwide convoy protesting the carbon tax. I’m sure the delicate sensibilities of the ruling class in Canberra, most of which don’t know the meaning of actual work, will be greatly offended when these folks roll into town.
Note that there are some familiar faces to WUWT involved. Read on.
Mass convoy to make ‘real’ voices heard
Peter Whyteroff (third from left) with other members from the convoy of No Confidence to Canberra, who will take the longest trip to the country’s capital, photographed in Port Hedland where they leave from on Tuesday. Picture: Aaron Bunch Source: The Australian
FOR some it’s climate change alarmism; for others too much wasted taxpayers’ money on boatpeople, school halls, or pink batts; and for others still it’s the importation of Chinese apples, the temporary ban on the live cattle trade, or same-sex couples rearing children.
But the common thread in what is emerging as a national Tea Party-style revolt in the form of a “Convoy of No Confidence” to Canberra is a burning conviction that politicians of all persuasions have lost touch with the real-life needs of the common man and woman they are supposed to represent.
What began as a truckies protest against the carbon tax has grown into a mass alliance of those outside the urban elites who feel they have lost their voice.
It’s an amalgam of butchers, bakers and candlestick makers who are mad as hell and not going to take it any more.
The convoy, whose drivers will start their engines this week from around the country and converge on Canberra next Monday, was conceived by the National Road Freight Association.
…
But it now looks likely to be joined by a wide range of supporters and vehicles ranging from big rigs to utes to campervans, and even motorcycles.
They will ride under the banner “Real people — facing the forgotten issues with friendship and a little fun.”
The first of a total of 11 convoys — each with its own leaders and colours — will set off tomorrow from Port Hedland in Western Australia, led by truck owner-driver Peter Whytcross.
…
Mr Whytcross’s convoy will sport brown balloons and streamers. The convoy starting in Perth and led by cattle producer Matt Thompson and his wife, Janet, will emblazon theirs with orange.
Mr Thompson led grain feedlot cattle farmers in a campaign against having the greenhouse gas emissions from their belching beasts included in the national reporting regime, presenting the sceptic’s view at a public meeting.
That speech, Ms Thompson said, led to a backlash from the Greens. “He put us on the radar screen in terms of the environmental lobby,” she said.
The Thompsons will pile their four young children into a campervan for the trip to Canberra, taking the message, Ms Thompson said, “to all political parties to not just ignore our existence”.
The carbon tax, she said, was just one example of how the government “takes us to centralised control rather than allowing the market to work”.
Here’s the map:
And the website at:
http://justgroundsonline.com/forum/topics/convoy-of-no-confidence-in-the
I think it is going to be like “Mad Max” meets “Smokey and the Bandit”.
In the meantime, some campy Americana from the movie “Convoy”:
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Good on ya!! Hope the poms in the capital realize they’ve bit off more than they can chew.
The conviction.
“same-sex couples rearing children”
Is that really considered a problem?
This is great!
Simply wonderful to see so many from all walks of life come together to fight corruption and incompetence.
10-4 Rubber Duck, looks like we got ourselves a convoy!
( My apologies to C.W McCall.)
I hope they keep this up…..and all the success in this world
The American Tea Party was just as disjointed in the beginning….
….Australia has some wonderful people that can step up, get them better organized, and focused
When they do….the Australian Tea Party will be a force they will have to deal with
Here’s one fellow in the USA that’s pullin’ for you!
Now go put ’em on proper notice.
Matthew Sullivan says:
same-sex couples rearing children
“Is that really considered a problem?”
It depends on your definition of “rearing.”☺
Good Luck ……Just remember you are dealing with people who think
a Big Mack is fast food……..
….and they are the only Prime Movers!
Power to the People
Smokey 14 Aug 5.27: bravo, more please, ☺☺☺☺☺
The Dodd-Frank paper-work trail allowed by the state may be the cheatingly ‘straight’ but the genetic lineage will ‘out’ in the end …
Oh – and Go Australian Tea Party!
.
Boy, that “Convoy” song takes me back. It sparked a run on CB radios, and there was some grumbling when First Lady Betty Ford was bumped to the front of the line for a license. I guess the CB was the iPhone of its time. 🙂
Good luck to the Australian convoys. Julia Gillard would be well advised not to ignore her constituents.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK
Meanwhile the Kiwis across the moat reckon we should all just relax and- “Chill out dudes!”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10745187
but perhaps a few intrepid Kiwi soulmates will hitch up the huskies and sled it to Canberra 😉
CURSE YOU !! Now I cant get that song out of my head
Was the dark of the moon on the sixth of June
In a Kenworth pullin’ logs
Hope someone adapts this and blairs it from the speakers on every truck. “We just ain’t gonna pay no toll.” Says what needs to be said.
Was the dark of the moon on the sixth of June
In a Kenworth pullin’ logs
Cab-over Pete with a reefer on
And a Jimmy haulin’ hogs
We is headin’ for bear on I-one-oh
‘Bout a mile outta Shaky Town
I says, “;Pig Pen, this here’s the Rubber Duck.
“;And I’m about to put the hammer down.”;
[Chorus]
‘Cause we got a little convoy
Rockin’ through the night.
Yeah, we got a little convoy,
Ain’t she a beautiful sight?
Come on and join our convoy
Ain’t nothin’ gonna get in our way.
We gonna roll this truckin’ convoy
‘Cross the U-S-A.
Convoy!
By the time we got into Tulsa Town,
We had eighty-five trucks in all.
But they’s a roadblock up on the cloverleaf,
And them bears was wall-to-wall.
Yeah, them smokies is thick as bugs on a bumper;
They even had a bear in the air!
I says, “;Callin’ all trucks, this here’s the Duck.
“;We about to go a-huntin’ bear.”;
[Chorus]
‘Cause we got a great big convoy
Rockin’ through the night.
Yeah, we got a great big convoy,
Ain’t she a beautiful sight?
Come on and join our convoy
Ain’t nothin’ gonna get in our way.
We gonna roll this truckin’ convoy
‘Cross the U-S-A.
Convoy!
Well, we rolled up Interstate 44
Like a rocket sled on rails.
We tore up all of our swindle sheets,
And left ’em settin’ on the scales.
By the time we hit that Chi-town,
Them bears was a-gettin’ smart:
They’d brought up some reinforcements
From the Illinoise National Guard.
There’s armored cars, and tanks, and jeeps,
And rigs of ev’ry size.
Yeah, them chicken coops was full’a bears
And choppers filled the skies.
Well, we shot the line and we went for broke
With a thousand screamin’ trucks
An’ eleven long-haired Friends a’ Jesus
In a chartreuse micra-bus.
Well, we laid a strip for the Jersey shore
And prepared to cross the line
I could see the bridge was lined with bears
But I didn’t have a dog-goned dime.
I says, “;Pig Pen, this here’s the Rubber Duck.
“;We just ain’t a-gonna pay no toll.”;
So we crashed the gate doing ninety-eight
I says “;Let them truckers roll, 10-4.”;
[Chorus]
‘Cause we got a mighty convoy
Rockin’ through the night.
Yeah, we got a mighty convoy,
Ain’t she a beautiful sight?
Come on and join our convoy
Ain’t nothin’ gonna get in our way.
We gonna roll this truckin’ convoy
‘Cross the U-S-A.
What’s the ealiest opportunity for those guys to vote those morons out of office?
MattN says:
“What’s the ealiest opportunity for those guys to vote those morons out of office?”
No matter how bad or tyrannical the Australian gov’t is, or becomes, the vote is the only tool they have, because they don’t have a 2nd Amendment.
Fellas, I hope your trucks are all you need.
The country can’t survive without trucking. It is like the ideologues have a punitive attitude towrd commerce.
@MattN — The problem is that the only replacements available for election are put there by the same political parties, which are all the same as far as screwing new taxes from the surfs go.
Same problem as in the USA. Probably requiring the same ultimate solution.
There is the easy way – the Tea Party, or if that fails, the hard way.
Lets hope it never comes to the hard way.
Peter Whyteroff or Peter Whytcross? Sorry.
Good luck down under. We need a role model!
And for Americans, happy Government Burden Day!
The earliest opportunity could come, in theory, five weeks from next Saturday, as it is within the Prime Minister’s power to request the Governor-General to dissolve parliament and set a date for an election. However, it is very unlikely that the Prime Minister would choose to call an election that she knew that she was going to lose.
Alternatively, two of the independents could withdraw their guarantees of supply, meaning that either that power could pass to the opposition without an election (unlikely) or that the Governor-General would call an election as neither side could guarantee her that they enjoyed the confidence of the House of Representatives.
However, the most probable course of events is that the current government will continue for as long as it can, which means an election towards the end of 2013 or at latest early 2014 (the latter not likely, for a variety of historical and procedural reasons).
When I see an article like this I really worry that WUWT is getting too far from putting the science of climate change under the microscope and becoming more of a political advocacy site. An Australian Tea Party?
Yes it is very fustrating working against entrenched views that the science is settled, especially in governments and NGO’s, but a steady insistance that climate science is tested against real world observations will win support from the general public eventually, especially as these observations diverge more and more from the computer models.
Going to extremes of the political right or left will turn the majority of people off listening at all. Someone comming to this site for the first time and reading this article
could be turned off by the political slant – what have boat people and same-sex couples got to do with climate change?
I think Anthony you have done more than most to expose the bastardisation of the scientific process that has happened with climate science. Please keep a steady pressure on that science and away from politics.
Just a point of view.
Correction:
“A full term Gillard government would go to a normal House and Half Senate election between 3 August and 30 November 2013.”
http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2011/06/what-chance-a-double-dissolution-in-the-next-three-years.html
So there is no chance of it being in early 2014.