The question is, how long will this last, and how long will the public tolerate these two kissy faced politicians?
The vote in the lower house, which was applauded by Labor MPs and spectators in the public gallery, was a crucial test for the government, given its wafer-thin majority. The bills will now go the Senate for debate but will pass comfortably with help from the Greens, probably next month.
After the vote, Prime Minister Julia Gillard embraced Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, who had the difficult job of steering the policy, and even exchanged a peck on the cheek with Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd, whose reported ambitions to retake the leadership are proving a headache for the Prime Minister.
The passage of the bills are a crucial victory for Ms Gillard, whose popularity has fallen steadily since last year.
Under the legislation, about 500 of the biggest carbon-emitting companies in Australia will pay a price for each tonne of carbon. Most of the biggest emitters are electricity generating firms, mining companies and heavy industry manufacturers.
To compensate households, the government is cutting income taxes and boosting payments such as pensions and other benefits, as well as offering various lump sum payments.
The average household is expected to pay about $9.90 a week in extra living costs, including $3.30 on electricity.
However this will be offset by an estimated $10.10 in extra benefits and tax breaks. The Australian scheme will cover about 60 per cent of Australia’s emissions, making it the most broad-based in the world.
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“The average household is expected to pay about $9.90 a week in extra living costs, including $3.30 on electricity.However this will be offset by an estimated $10.10 in extra benefits and tax breaks. ”
Of course this is the thin edge of the wedge, over time the government will steadily reduce the $10.10 offset and retain complete control of Australian citizens lives. There is no such thing as a neutral tax, Ozzies should know this by now. Since almost no other countries outside the EU are planning to play the carbon game, the Australians are once again isolating themselves. Nothing new there.
Wasn’t it Lindzen who said He who controls carbon, controls life?
I actually took the time to read this ‘paper’ and, even though I will readily admit I am NOT a scientist, it appears to me to be almost complete pseudo-scientific gibberish.
“Emissions reductions of the order or larger than about 80%, relative to whatever peak global
emissions rate may be realized, are required to approximately
stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations for a century or so at
any chosen target level.This is the reason that the Copenhagen
Accord recognized a ‘target’ CO2 reduction of 80% by 2050,
though without binding commitments of the parties to the
Accord.”
So at what point will we know that the ‘peak global emission rate’ has occurred?
Near as I can tell the Copenhagen Accord did no such thing as ‘recognize a ‘target’ CO2 reduction of 80% by 2050 (assuming the good Professor meant ‘CO2 emission rate’ rather than ‘CO2 reduction’). It was in preliminary discussions, but was not in the final accord so it is inaccurate to state that the Accord ‘recognized a ‘target’ CO2 (emission) rate of 80% by 2050. Further, the emission reductions the Copenhagen Accord were targeting were not to ‘stabilize CO2 concentrations for a century or so’, they were meant to limit temperature increase to 2C or less by 2100. A ‘century or so’ — how long is that exactly? 100 years? 150 years? 200 years?
Sloppy, lazy and inaccurate.
JuLIAR wasnt elected, she got in by colluding with the( unelected also) green party. it still took the added 3 independants to turn against their own electorates to get her sorry a**into the Pm seat.
cant say what I really feel you’d have to edit it all heavily.
heard the news as I was about to eat, gave the food to the dogs, too upset to eat.
theres an old aussie rule needs using on this *****
Rule 303!
Spent two years living in Sydney, now living in Hong Kong. I won’t be going back.
Surely I must be able to buy a pacific island going cheap – what with all the rising oceans and all – I can no longer live in Australia.
Cedarhill, you might be interested to know that “Bless ‘Em All,” as originally written by my grandfather Fred Godfrey in 1917, actually was “[another word] ‘Em All.” The lyrics were cleaned up by two staff writers at Keith Prowse Music for publication in 1940 and the song was then popularized by a George Formby recording. For the full story of this famous song, please see my website at http://www.fredgodfreysongs.ca.
Incidentally, I agree that Gillard’s carbon tax is sheer madness; at least we in Canada have a prime minister (with a majority government) who is rightly skeptical of Lysenkoism, and we are sitting on the world’s second-largest reserves of oil that we are going to develop and sell come hell or high-dudgeoned greenies.
Hey, didn’t Gillard say she would never introduce a carbon tax?
It would be an idea to deconstruct the Oz carbon tax in a new thread so that people can understand the logic behind the decision to tax carbon. I don’t get it personally. Australia is a world leader in exporting carbon. Why would you want to tax that?
Never in the history of our land has so much been wrecked by so few.
Well, Mr. Delingpole has weighed in on this issue. He begins:
Hm. D’you think that la Gillard and her “Coalition” would’ve tried this insanity if the Australian people she holds in such contempt hadn’t been disarmed by government fiat?
Pointless? Failure is such a great teacher. It’s only pointless if the rest of the world doesn’t learn from Australia’s mistake.
OTH, the cynic in me says to watch for the battle cry to follow Australia’s lead and jump off the cliff so we won’t be ‘left behind.’ We saw the results of Spain’s green energy experiment and our current administration hailed it as a model.
I thought it was “Read my lips”, not “Kiss my lips”. Politicians lie. Film at 11.
Looks like one of the companies being targeted is Delta Electricity, owned by the Government of New South Wales. It has a portfolio of generating stations most using thermal coal. They burn 20 million tonnes of emissions a year. If this were all carbon that would amount to $460,000,000 in carbon tax from (what is essentially) a public utility.
1. Can the federal Australian government of Gillard tax a state/territory owned company? If the answer is yes, what a brilliant way to raise taxes – steal it from another government.
2. Do Australians know that they will be the net payers of the carbon tax through higher electricity rates?
3. How can a company with revenue of $1 billion pay a carbon tax of $0.46 billion when it only has net income of $.075 billion? (20 million tonnes x $23 per tonne).
4. How do convert 20 million tonnes of emissions into tonnes of taxable carbon?
Glad I live in Canada.
the dark ages are upon you….
Thanks Ozzies for volunteering to host this experiment! I will be watching with great interest.
I’d love to see Tim Flannery answering questions in front of a Royal Commissioner. A sweet idea to go to bed on.
fairsuckofthesaucebottle says:
October 11, 2011 at 11:27 pm
As an ashamed Australian, I am looking for a not too cold democratic country to spend the rest of my working life. Any suggestions?
________________________________________
We will ship all our green watermelons to Australia, along with our House and Senate and in exchange for the “awake” Australians.
Do you have a nice piece of outback full of snakes where we can dump them?
Luke Warm said on October 12, 2011 at 4:09 am:
Hate to disillusion you, Luke Warm, but when it comes to repealing a tax the likelihood is that the opposition of the day will use the mealy-mouthed argument: ‘What will you replace the lost revenue with?’ You see, once any government gets used to a revenue stream they hang on to it like grim death. The fact that the country survived without the revenue before today makes no difference, the politicians will want to know what you have to replace it. They, you see, do not see taxation as theft.
For all that, I support you in the hope that Labour/Greens get their cum-upance.
Being old enough to have been taught grammar, this annoys me:
“The passage of the bills are a crucial victory for Ms Gillard, whose popularity has fallen steadily since last year.”
Parse the sentence:
Subject: “The passage” singular (whether of time, bills, years, or miles doesn’t matter)
verb: to be, conjugate for the sentence subject, singular, therefore “is”
The nearest noun, as seems to be current fashion and as Word’s useless so-called grammar check, just won’t do.
SandyInDerby says:
October 11, 2011 at 11:55 pm
In a few years expect to see a similar picture of Ms Gilliard….
__________________
Naah,
She will probably follow in the footsteps of Tony Blair and become a part time consultant for JP Morgan at £2 million a year
To my Aussie friends. We made a similar leadership mistake here in the U.S. We partly rectified the problem in 2010 and will complete the job via the democratic process in 2012.
Remember, if you don’t like what’s happening, get out and VOTE (and bring a friend when you do).
So, when is their next election cycle?
I am sure the warmists are counting on the compensation to the individual to sway (buy) their support. I certainly hope not—I believe Aussies are not only the most fun people in the world, but they are also very smart in practical matters. Politics not so much, but they can learn.
The BBC 1PM News has come and gone and still not a mention of Julia’s success in negotiating the passage of the planet saving ETS bill.
Could it be that the freeze on the Licencing Fee has cut the numbers of reporters to such an extent that the Antipodes no longer have coverage, or could it be that the hysteria at Copenhagen stretched credulity too far and that the past two years of failed projections amid cool, sobering reality has finally slain the dragon myth that was AGW.
For whatever reason, the BBC are determined that this example of green stupidity will be kept from the British population and I for one have no doubt that they and our government now regard AGW as a lost cause.
Will we bail out their losses on green investments in their pension pots? I very much hope not.
Now is the time to turn our attentions to wind farms. Already the subject of sceptical scrutiny in a good part of our press, they now have a vulnerability that was not there just a few short months ago.
Chris Watson says:
October 12, 2011 at 1:28 am
It’s a bad policy, nevertheless your commentors shouldn’t be so hysterical. It won’t lead to economic catastrophe, and emotive hyperbole is unmanly and un-Australian!
_______________________________________________
You are forgetting that YOUR Aussie dollars are being sent to China and India and where ever to build up THEIR ECONOMIES. Economies that will not be saddled with a carbon tax, stringent pollution laws or high wages.
So yes it is. Just think of what has happened to the USA do to bad (GREEN) policy. We went from 24% of the work force in manufacturing to under 9% and now have a real unemployment rate headed for 25%
The wealth of a country is created by what your factory workers make and what your farmers grow. Both industries have been under attack in recent years by those who wish to push forward Global Governance It seems like the data is set at 2025
As someone else said, like lambs to the slaughter. From the working of the EU we have seen how the set-up strips away our self governing rights and replaces them with self appointed bureaucrats.
What has happened in BC since a carbon tax came into effect shows the unintended consequences of the legislation. Schools and hospitals are now spending millions annually to pay carbon taxes, rather than spending money to cut carbon emissions through such things as installing insulation and better furnaces.
Where does this money go? To BC Carbon Exchange who buy offsets from BC corporations that cut their own carbon emission by not building new plants in BC. It is corporate welfare of the worst kind. Companies being paid to not invest, using taxpayer money that was raised originally to improve schools and hospitals. Perhaps the most idiotic legislation every invented.
http://www.bluelikeyou.com/2011/05/10/b-c-school-boards-subsidizing-energy-companies/
.
The green totalitarism will foment civil war.