Today is a great day not only in Australian history, but also in world history. It marks the day when people of character and sensibility pushed back against an overwrought and pointless green agenda, and pushed back in a big way. They’ve had enough, and they’ve scraped the Krudd off their shoes and are moving forward.
Tony Abbott has won the Australian election in a landslide, and vows to abolish the carbon tax as a first order of business. Abbott has declared Australia is “once more open for business” in claiming victory in Saturday’s election.
It is a huge blow to the Rudd-Gillard labor party and their green goals, which were built on a lie foisted on the Australian people. In 2010 when Gillard said “no carbon tax” in a videotaped speech that has been seen as the key moment Australians lost trust:
Then, shortly after she was elected prime minister, she acted as if those words were never spoken, and implemented a carbon tax anyway. There’s nothing worse than a liar who is oblivious to their own lies, and in my opinion, this was the catalyst that set the stage for the end of labor’s green dream as well as their dominance in government.
Abott says he will abolish the carbon tax. In an August 5th Herald Sun article:
If elected, the coalition on day one would suspend the CEFC (Clean Energy Finance Corporation) and prepare legislation to shut it down permanently. It’s vowed to introduce legislation within a fortnight designed to abolish the carbon tax, and all government climate agencies associated with Labor’s clean energy laws.
From the Herald Sun today:
“Today the people of Australia have declared that the right to govern this country does not belong to Mr Rudd or to me or to his party or to ours but it belongs to you, the people of Australia,” Abbott said.
“And you will punish anyone who takes you for granted.”
Andrew Bolt wrote on his blog: “Finally, a man worthy of the office of Prime Minister – and humble enough to hope it.”
Congratulations to my friends in Australia, the Krudd is kaput and the carbon tax is going away, and almost certainly Flim Flam Flannery too. What a great day!
Cook, Ove, and Sou, this Krudd’s for you!
Meanwhile, back in the USA, the Washington Post seems oblivious to this loud message from down under (h/t to Steve Milloy):
The first thing to do is to build the cost of pollution into the price of energy through a simple carbon tax or other market-based mechanism. Though the tax revenue could be rebated right back to people, higher sticker prices for fossil fuel-derived energy would still give them reason to change behaviors and demand more energy-efficient appliances.
It’s like deju vu all over again, because Australia’s carbon tax was setup just like that, and it was flatly rejected by the people of Australia today. Let’s hope we don’t have to deal with the same madness here in the States.
UPDATE: Australian Eric Worrall writes in a short story submitted to WUWT just moments after this was published says:
Tony Abbott, the man who once described climate change as crap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Abbott#Climate_change , has won a landslide victory in the Australian election, an election which has seen substantial swings against Labor and the Greens.
While we Australians have been disappointed by Abbott’s genuflection towards green dogma, with his promise to replace the hated carbon tax with a watered down form of carbon pricing, we live in hope that it is simply window dressing, to appease greens within his party. Abbott has given us grounds for such hope, with statements to the effect that his budget to mitigate climate change will be capped, regardless of whether the allocated funding achieves its stated goals, and a promise to tighten up the allocation of the national science budget. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/abbott-vows-to-cut-futile-research/story-fni0cx12-1226710934260
Abbott has also spoken out against Tim Flannery http://joannenova.com.au/2013/04/jobs-and-junkets-are-on-the-line-abbott-could-axe-flannery-and-the-climate-commission/ , the government doommonger general, who did more than anyone to deliver Australia’s white elephant desalination plants, with his strident support for predictions of permanent drought (end of snow, anybody?).
So its exciting times for climate skeptics down under – and potentially, a global warning for the ambitions of politicians and political parties which are getting too cosy with the greens.
Is everybody expecting electricity prices to go down and the economy to improve?
LA Times out with the expected cheap shot on Abbott this morning. Widely reprinted. Showed up in the Anchorage McClatchy fish wrapper. Typical leftist.
http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-australia-election-tony-abbott-kevin-rudd-20130906,0,1851884.story
Congratulations to all in Oz for showing us the way. Now if we here in the US are smart enough to follow that lead……..
Cheers –
Geoff, your zealotry and collectivist rhetoric is scaring me. It’s probably better that Labor are out but it’s simply ridiculous to say this is a great day for Australia. Australia, like the entire western world, is on a downward spiral due to bipartisan economic idiocy and the debt financing of the welfare state.
Preferential democracy still reigns and Labor will be back in power. SO this “change in government” doesn’t particularly matter in the long term.
Sadly most major policies are now made behind the scenes in the UN under Agenda 21 and then filtered down through national governments as if the parties actually chose them themselves. I have yet to find a single ruling or opposition party in the ‘democratic’ world who has not adopted these policies, and until the people understand what they are they will continue to dominate our lives to the exclusion of anything local and national.
This has made my day, well played you aussies!
Problem is now is when he kills off the bull shit Carbon taxes hows the shortfall in revenue going to made up.
UK gets over £30 billion a year in emmission taxes I read. So I reckon Govts will stick their ear plugs in and “Keep calm and carry on” taxing the crap out of us.
Whats the bet they’ll change it from a CO2 tax to a pollution tax.
Anyways I’m looking forward to see the climate Quango closers start but I wont hold my breath about it.
QUOTE
david says:
September 7, 2013 at 7:19 am
After they get rid of the Green agenda crap they need to restore the gun rights to their citizens /QUOTE
Well as a fellow poster (Les Francis) pointed out our Political system is terribly complicated, however there is hope! the Liberal Democratic party under David Leyonhjelm picked up a senate seat, one of their core policies is a Carry a Conceal Firearm for personal Defence, but it will be a long hard road, rolling back Aus’s draconian gun laws will be as hard as…well… say rolling back Gay Rights (I’m just using that as an example)
Carbon taxes were sold as saving the planet, not revenue raising. We all know the actual reasons were for revenue but they should be honest and say they need the money for that if they do and drop the whole story behind them. If it really did make a difference then the CO2 would be dropping like a stone worldwide as a result but they haven’t made a ppm of difference. Even if CO2 was a problem then they’ve had over a decade to prove taxing it won’t stop it being emitted as it’s essential to leading a civilised life.
Well done Oz!
Here in the UK our chance will come in the spring of 2014 when we can vote for UKIP and Nigel Farage in the european elections.
A bloody nose for Cameron, Milliband and Clegg and several thorns in the side of the undemocratic and hated EU politbureau to be sent to Brussels.
Bring it on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have snobbishly (but in good humor) often repeated that the carbon tax in Oz was the best thing for the US economy. Our community organizer president was too busy playing video games with military drones to take advantage of that good fortune. Now I’m very happy to offer congratulations to Oz on the pending dissolution of the carbon tax – the best thing for Oz since Julia packed her bags. Never ever forget!
“…and with the election of Tony Abbott, sweet rains began falling across the centre of Australia, and the barren red-soiled land became fertile once more…”
I half-expected that line in the genuflection above.
Politicians are judged by what they have done, not what they say they are going to achieve. So its simply too early to tell what Abbott’s Liberal/National coalition will do in government.
And because I’m a pluralist, I worry about the affect on Australian democratic system of an absolute majority such as the Coalition has managed to achieve. A weak, infighting opposition without a recognized leader will necessarily mean that scrutiny will be reduced with cronyism being the consequence.
I wish Tony Abbott well (really I do), and I hope that Australia goes from strength to strength but I’m too old now to forget all of the new dawns and fresh starts that have failed in the past.
According to today’s NORSEX SSM/I Ice Area graph on the Sea Ice page, this year’s icemelt in the Arctic is bottoming out.
It looks like even Mother Nature celebrates the result of Australia’s national elections.
Now “historical” speech, Oz Senator Bernardi giving the watermelons what-for.
Far many years now,in the English speaking world, the skeptical view has been politically unsafe in national elections. The ebb tide of this foolishness may have just begun. Time will tell
I’m have been an interested watcher of the climate debate for a number of years. I am a geologist by training, and like many I was (and remain) deeply concerned by the claims about the science.
But you’ve lost me Anthony. The triumphalism (and political positioning) displayed by you in this article, and trumpeted by the followers here is naive, simplistic and quite frankly a bit obscene.
Too many agendas here for my liking……… I’m off.
This is encouraging! Congratulations, Australia! The test now is to see whether the campaign promises were real, or just another bait and switch. Here in the Staes, both parties have waxed fat by perfecting the art of never delivered campaign promises. Additionally, neither party ever rescinds the horrible legislation passed by their rivals.
I hope this recent election works well for you, but don’t let the politicians weasel out of their promises!
Where’s Nick to tell us what the numbers really mean ?
Applying a carbon tax to “raise revenue” is akin to killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Certainly any other form of taxation would be better. A dead goose lays no eggs at all.
The BBC’s report was the most mealy mouthed, sour-grape filled load of garbage that they could come up with. They cannot believe that a county could vote for a man who is conservative, anti homosexual marriage, and a climate realist. According to the prevailing BBC mentality, such people are a tiny, mentally unstable bunch of extremist nutcases. In fact the BBC are much kinder to the Al Qaeda backed rebels in Syria, than they are to climate realists, or those who feel that marriage should be left as a religious commitment between a man and a woman.
The BBC give kinder coverage to the sort of hate-filled beheading loving terrorists, than they do for climate realists.
“And I can inform you that the Australian Labor Party vote is at the lowest level in more than 100 years,” [Abbott] said.
The coalition policy costings audited by the treasury show that repealing the carbon tax will result in a saving of A$1.1 Billion, once the subsidies to support business affected by the tax are also removed – go figure…
SamG says:
September 7, 2013 at 8:21 am
“…but it’s simply ridiculous to say this is a great day for Australia.”
————————————————————————————————————–
I wont dignify the personal comments with a direct reply.
As it may not be obvious to some, so for their benefit, allow me outline why a change of government is in fact a great day for freedom in Australia and by example, around the world.
Background
Senior members of the Greens in Australia include self proclaimed socialists, communists and were shaped by their then lead Bob Brown. Brown believes people are not served by the self interest of National Sovereignty. In this speech Brown delivers the 3rd annual Green Oration: http://greensmps.org.au/content/news-stories/bob-brown-delivers-3rd-annual-green-oration
In it Brown refers to people as Earthians and advocates Global Government, . A claim he repeated here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzJm-ZosEbo
Greens Hold Balance of Power in Hung Parliament (2010)
Brown advocates shutting down coal mining in Australia (core source of base load power in Australia, competitive advantage to many industries and a major export) and heavily increasing taxes on other mining activities. After the 2010 election, the Socialist lead ALP (promising no CarbonTax), signed an alliance with the Greens to form a majority govt. Shortly there after came a raft of new Greens designed taxes and a $23/tonne CarbonTax, to be latter converted to an ETS linked to the wildly unstable EU market. The govt projection for the price of Co2 was to quickly rise to $38 to eventually $350 per tonne by 2050. The impact was to greatly increase the cost of doing business in Australia and diminish certainty over the input cost of energy to industry and consumers. Needless to say, this had a devastating impact on investment, business and consumer confidence.
The LNP Exposed the True Costs of Ineffective Co2 Policy
Tony Abbott and the LNP opposition party opposed each of the measures from the start and has consistently campaigned to repeal the Carbon and Mining taxes and remove the Green-tape. As stated by others, there will be opposition from the remaining Greens in the senate, but after three years of consistent policy advocacy, there is no reason to doubt Tony Abbott & LNP will not be active to repeal the offending legislation. Abbott doggedly pointed out the cost of the CarbonTax/ETS and today was successful in gaining the approval of a previously skeptical electorate.
Conclusion
Having lived it everyday, I have no doubt with that in fighting the ALP/Greens, we are talking about the fight for freedom and in the long run, the sovereignty of Australia itself. But I will leave it up to others to judge by their own definitions.
[For out-of-country readers,
ALP =
ETS =
LNP =
The former leading party was =
The new (next) leading party will be =
Mod.]
Had Labor won an outright victory, Gillard probably would not have implemented the carbon tax but Labor was one seat short. In order to form a government, they had to create an alliance with the one Green party seat. The carbon tax was the cost of that coalition with the Green seat. They compromised their position for political power.
Can’t_stand_Rudd_or_Abbott says:
September 7, 2013 at 9:21 am
I’m have been an interested watcher of the climate debate for a number of years. I am a geologist by training, and like many I was (and remain) deeply concerned by the claims about the science.
But you’ve lost me Anthony. The triumphalism (and political positioning) displayed by you in this article, and trumpeted by the followers here is naive, simplistic and quite frankly a bit obscene.
Too many agendas here for my liking……… I’m off.
======================
I know I shouldn’t but….
The commenter above seems to be a glutton for punishment, or why even read this deep 🙂
Then insult the host !!
“The triumphalism (and political positioning) displayed by you in this article, and trumpeted by the followers here is naive, simplistic and quite frankly a bit obscene.”
Comment looks like it was a lefty “concern troll” trying not to act like one in the comments. Some typical key giveaways:
“Can’t_stand_Rudd_or_Abbott ” concern trolls often pretend they aren’t aligned with either side when in fact they are. “I’m have been an interested watcher of the climate debate for a number of years. I am a geologist by training, and like many I was (and remain) deeply concerned by the claims about the science.” They start off with something that shows they were leaning toward you or are sympathetic but now they don’t/aren’t. Then finally, the part I posted above. Obvious butthurt that their side lost results in a hissy fit along with an ad hominem (naive, simplistic, obscene) attack.
Probability here is quite high that we have a disgruntled watermelon pretending to be a neutral observer here but is nothing of the sort.