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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Re JB: If we needed any more proof that some folks are complete economic illiterates and Big Government tools, we now have it. How anyone could believe that enormous, unnecessary tax increases, based on a known and provable lie can possibly be good for the citizens beggars the imagination.
Visit Australia in a few years and it will look those scences from Mad Max where the few survivors of the destroyed country are at war over the remaining petrolium.
Time to re-fit the Prius as the new Road Warrior…. !
A day of infamy. The Gillard – Rudd Labor government has bombed our economy.
It’s even worse with the Australian Treasury acknowledging that the CO2 tax won’t lead to emission reductions here – instead we’ll meet our targets by wasting billions of dollars annually on carbon credit certificates bought overseas.
There is one bright spot (well, not for Australians), if Gillard gets kicked out in two years time I think many countries will think twice about introducing a carbon tax.
Considering getting a diesel generator for my home to cope with blackouts.
Graeme from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia – Now in the temporary grip of Green Fascist Tyranny.
It will take time to rebuild – but first we must bottom to illustrate to everyone the folly of the socialist/fascist/greens.
CodeTech says:
October 12, 2011 at 12:14 am
I just spent a bunch of time reading that Sydney Morning Herald article.
…..
I’d like to track down these jubilant commenters in a year or two and see how they’ve fared.
________________________________________________________________________
They’ll probably be working at Whistler or in one of the resorts of the Canadian Rockies with all the other Australian expats that come over to sample the skiing and stay for two or three years (or decades). That way they won’t have to pay but they can be happy with what they accomplished in Australia while living in dirty old Oilberta. 😉
I do hope Australians will show here and her party the door with a well placed carbon footprint …
bubbagyro says:
October 12, 2011 at 11:38 am
David Schofield says:
October 12, 2011 at 1:29 am
Oz coal industry will do very well. It’s selling as much as it can produce to China.
Yes, today it is. My point was that this situation will change when the Aussies slap a huge tax (export tariff) on coal produced in Australia and exported. Read what the law in the bill entails. The government of Australia is free to attack CO2 in any shape or form it wants. Aussies will have little toxic squiggly light bulbs coming out of their yin-yangs.
Then China at the end of the day will buy the cheaper product from the U.S. and Canada.
——————————————————————————————————————
yep – China is buying in to energy in western Canada in a big way and the CPR and CNR railways are going flat out hauling coal to the west coast terminals. Their stocks have done well even through the global financial meltdown. Gillard’s bill is probably worth a few points on investments in rail and energy in Canada and the US. That’s something Gillard clearly doesn’t understand. In today’s world, money is extremely mobile. Watch out for the next step, if she puts constraints on Australian investment outside the country then you will be in for a rough ride.
I love the shell-gaminess of this: they tax the “big emitters,” who pass along the costs to consumers, who are then given tax credits to offset the costs. So nobody pays anything! Which makes perfect sense as a non-solution for a problem which doesn’t exist.
Once the 18 parts of the new laws pass through the upper house (or senate) there is actually still some issues that would need to be cleaned up as well. Issues involve state governments ‘recouping’ losses via extra taxes themselves with NSW state government looking to bring its own mining tax in to pick up the bill of expected $950 million in losses from the carbon tax.
There is also the chance of state governments passing legislation maxing it illegal to collect tax on carbon within their confines, it has already been suggested and perhaps when QLD vote out Cap’n Bligh next year might be enacted by the conservatives.
One thing people from other countries must understand that say unlike other parties which may allow the odd politician to cross the floor and vote against something they feel strongly about the Labor party of Australia forbids this practice completely. Once the Caucus passes a bill all members of parliment who are affiliated with Labor MUST vote in favour of that bill. This leaves the independants and minor parties as the only groups that can help change the situation when Labor are in power. The radical anti-human Greens hold balance of power in the senate while 3 independants and 1 Green hold the balance in the lower house (House of Representitives). All 3 independants were actually former members of the National Party who are members of the conservitive Coalition. Of those one sided with the conservatives (Bob Katter), while the other two sides with the Labor Party. Oakeshott, one of the independants seemed to have NSW Labor roots so to me it was surprising that he managed to get Nationals representation for the seat originally before going independant, while Windsor (the other former National now independant) is cousin of a bloke called Hawker who funnily enough ran the Federal Labor campaign in the last election….. Hawker is also very chummy with Oakeshott.
In a link similar to revisionist policies practiced at SkS and removal of opposition at RealClimate the government and affiliated climate bodies refused to accept petitions in any form skeptical of their own little personal climate concensus or policy even if the committee was there to review public submission on the subject. http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2011/10/joint-select-committee-dissenting-submissions-excluded-because-they-were-not-relevant/ . In this we also have mention of the bizarre statements made by (sad to say) Australia’s Chief Scientist who is attributed to such amazingly dazzlingly brilliant statement such as “warmest decade we have ever had on this planet” http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2011/09/ian-chubb-warmest-decade-we-have-ever-had/comment-page-1/ .
So between Flannery, Garnaut, Chubb, Gillard, Rudd and the Greens we were boned to start with.
That is a kiss of death. They are going to bury themselves with the carbon.
$23AUD per tonne of CO2.
Hmmm what will $23AUD be worth in 2013?
Currencies can easily lose value.
Graeme No.3 says:
October 12, 2011 at 6:29 pm
Sunspot says:
October 12, 2011 at 3:47 am
The tax on power stations is suppose to force the move to alternate green power plants. I dread to think how high the Carbon Tax needs to go to make these alternate green power plants viable….
_____________________________________________
Sounds like it is time to talk to you neighbors about one of the mini-nuclear power plants. You even have a choice of several companies and designs. Time to study up on what option to go with. I wonder if the government woud pay you and your neighbors “carbon credits”
Toshiba Builds 100x Smaller Micro Nuclear Reactor
“Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs.
The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction….”
Mini Nuclear Power Plants Could Power 20,000 Homes
“PhysOrg.com) — Underground nuclear power plants no bigger than a hot tub may soon provide electricity for communities around the world. Measuring about 1.5 meters across, the mini reactors can each power about 20,000 homes. (Please see below for an update)
The small energy modules were originally designed by Otis “Pete” Peterson and other scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Now, the technology is being commercially developed by Hyperion Power Generation, which recently announced that it has taken its first orders and plans to start mass production within five years…..”
MiniFuji Thorium Reactor Group Talks to Potential Partners and Customers and Prototype GE-Hitachi Prism Integral Fast Reactor for Savannah River
“Mr. Fukushima stated that IThEMS is negotiating with Korean Shipbuilders over the potential sale of Mini-Fujis for ship propulsion systems. According to Mr.Fukushima the Korean shipbuilders are in competition with the Chinese, and view mini-Fuji power as potentially offering a competitive advantage…. IThEMS claims that it can build the Fuji for 30% less than conventional water cooled reactors. Thus ship propulsion would appear to represent a market opportunity for the Mini-Fuji. Industrial process heat would be another. The Mini-Fuji would also serve as the energy source for a stand alone nuclear battery system, although that field looks crowded at the moment. The Mini-Fuji would have some advantages over its competitors including superior safety and low cost….”
A prime reason why per capita Australia seems to be a large carbon producer is that nuclear power has been banned for decades.
A second reason is that we’re a large country in area, with a small population, so the per capita cost of actions like building asphaly roads and flying betwen destinations id high.
A third reason is that a large majority is convinced that Australia’s GHGs are doing nothing significant to the climate.
A final reason is that the case for claiming GHGs are damaging has been put by people who have little idea of life outside the tiny shell of ignorance under which they shelter all day, ducking out now and then to cash remarkable pay checks.
What happened to probity?
Just another round in the game, we have seen this before, except that this time we the voters didn’t bring this lot into government so it will be easier to remove. I sort of love the inane celebratory remarks of those who haven’t been around long enough to have seen labor self destruct once before, or witnessed the breast beating of those that actually voted them in, only to find that they had been sold a pup.
This time its just pup poop and taxing a non existent problem, so likely the change will come twice as fast and much harder when the celebrators find the “real” truth. The majority of us know this tax has nothing to do with climate or climate change, its an economists scheme,no more no less, and the mindless will wake up eventually to the same conclusion and the government will fall.
A word of caution though, windfall tax is hard to refuse by any incoming government, so don’t expect Tony Abbot or any other new leader to throw it out completely. Likely it will be converted partly into a tax “securing the future of Australia” creating “jobs” for those that want to work and “new clean energy” e.g. nuclear for the future proofing of our children’s future. It might even be retained as an anti pollution agent of change and used to protect industry and jobs by applying taxes to imports from countries that have polluting industries and exploitation. Maybe – China – India, and others. A new form of “legitimate” protection to our own industry, and away from restriction free trade!!
We live in interesting times and man is very adaptable, “weather” we like it or not and it IS just another game – and we like to win at sport!!
Gillard & her cronies are vacuous fraudulent criminals, they must be held accountable
in a Court of Law. When a cashier has been sentenced to nine years in prison for stealing $27 million from Flinders University, how many more years must Gillard an her cronies serve for stealing billions of dollars from Australian industry and Australian people with the fraudulent “carbon tax” ?
They are doing exactly what this crim did, and yet Gillard and chums smile and laugh about it.
Al GoreKevin Rudd is NOT THE MESSIAH … He’s a VERY Naughty Boy !Pinched from the comments in Dellers’ blog, thanks to Old Goat for this.
Once a jolly Sheila
tried to run Australia
under the shade of a wind-turbine tree
and she laughed and she sang
as she introduced a carbon tax
who’ll come and screw the economy with me
Screwing Australia,
screwing Australia
who’ll come a-screwing Australia with me?
and she laughed and she sang
as she introduced a carbon tax
who’ll come and screw the economy with me?
So the bill got passed, with a slight majority
I’m gonna screw you all said she
and she laughed as she grabbed Rudd
and tried to lick his visage off
‘You’ll be the first, Kev, come along with me’
Screwing Australia,
screwing Australia
who’ll come a-screwing Australia with me?
And she laughed and she sang
as she introduced a carbon tax
who’ll come and screw the economy with me
Up rushed a sceptic, (also a coal miner)
accusing her of ecocide
‘who’s gonna feed my kids’ said he?
‘I’m f**ked if I’m gonna pay your stupid carbon tax’
And walked to his death in the nearby sea
Screwing Australia,
screwing Australia
who’ll come a-screwing Australia with me?
and she laughed and she sang
as she introduced a carbon tax
who’ll come and screw the economy with me
Along came a Plimer (Monckton bringing up the rear)
along came Bob Carter, realists all three
and they got hold of Gillard,
grabbed her firmly round the neck
and hung her by the tonsils from a coolibah tree
Freeing Australia,
freeing Australia,
who’ll help us free Australia from this tyranny
And they laughed and they clapped
as they swept away that government
thus returning Oz to a land for the free
Crocodile Dundee must have died. I guess my long-believed myth that Aussies were that vital take-no-nonsense,-in-your-face pragmatists that no one pushes around was wrong in spades. Whatever happened to you down-unders. You used to provide hope for us politically correct types.
We the world tank our Australian friends for their self proscribed energy austerity and the lower demand that will create in the world market.
Ah who am I kidding, Australian businesses with cheat just like everyone else.
Gary Pearse says:
October 13, 2011 at 9:59 am
Crocodile Dundee must have died. I guess my long-believed myth that Aussies were that vital take-no-nonsense,-in-your-face pragmatists that no one pushes around was wrong in spades. Whatever happened to you down-unders. You used to provide hope for us politically correct types.
Gary
Were once had an abundance of that, it was called gumption and guts, but soft living and influxes from overseas diluted the stock with a new breed of greenants, who like the Australian whiteants take away from the integrity and structure of the country. Hopefully before the structure collapses completely we will again unite in the face of adversity, just like our forefathers did and stop the internal rot.
The big need now is restoring science and exposing the full extent of the deceptions and overcooked data by those who did so much damage to Climate science and by association to the world depth and breadth of science itself. When that exposure is completed, it will be hard to find any thinking person that will admit their former advocacy or how they came to be fooled in the process.
Reform will come when scientists stand up and support each other rather than toeing the line with those that have had snouts in the trough – bought and sold science”ism” might just be a thing of the past.
With both of them being the Political Whores that they are ,DID they plan this between them from the beginning ? They both have very smug smiles.
The danger faced by a person who convinces John Q. Public to spend money on behalf of a noble cause is that Mr. Public may not believe he was simply the victim of a ‘noble mistake’ if that cause is later found not to be as valid as everyone had thought.
Frank K. – we have compulsory voting in this country. All of our friends are required to vote.
Gary Pearse says:
October 13, 2011 at 9:59 am
“Crocodile Dundee must have died”
Yep. And when “Mick Dundee” himself, aka. Paul Hogan last came back to the Big Island for his Ma’s Funeral, he was houded and arrested by the Govermnet for tax avoidance, on work he had done, and payed tax on already in the USA.
Shameful, after all the man had contributed to the Tourism industry, and to comedy and drama in general over many years in Australia, before he became an international movie star.
😡