Guest essay by Eric Worrall
With the growing likelihood of an open party revolt and a leadership challenge, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been forced into a humiliating backdown over his efforts to enshrine Australia’s Paris Agreement pledges into legislation.
Turnbull backflips on emissions as Dutton challenge emerges
by Malcolm Farr and Charis Chang
18th Aug 2018 4:43 AMAN INTERNAL coalition uprising has forced Malcolm Turnbull to dump plans to legislate cuts in carbon emissions.
The Prime Minister is now planning to control emissions by regulation instead – an option he condemned only days ago.A 26 per cent reduction target was established by the 2015 Paris Agreement and settled when Tony Abbott was Prime Mimister. It is an integral part of Mr Turnbull’s National Energy Guarantee.
Mr Turnbull now looks to be dumping the target from his energy policy as he faces the prospect of a rebellion in the House of Representatives and running battles in the Senate.
…
“Labor wants to have it done by regulation so that the Parliament would not have a voice,” Mr Turnbull said on Tuesday. “Now, we believe in democracy.
“We believe the Parliament should have a say in this and so if we legislate that, then a subsequent government – whether it’s of our side of politics or the other – would have to persuade both houses of parliament to make any change to it, and that is a great security.”
Senior ministers Friday rallied to support Mr Turnbull’s leadership after suggestion former Prime Minister was supporting a challenge.
“Anyone who listens to Tony Abbott has rocks in his head,” said one minister.
However, the NEG policy, strongly supported by business and industry, was looking like a victim of the unrest.
Leadership rumours swirled on Friday with 2GB Ray Hadley saying there will “100 per cent” be a move against the PM in the next two weeks.
…
Malcolm Turnbull’s “Dog Pooh Yoghurt” green energy policy, which attempts to enshrine the position of renewables in Australia’s energy mix, has gone down like a lead balloon with the right wing of the Liberal Party (Australian Conservatives). Turnbull’s position has not been helped by a long string of news polls indicating his government will lose when he calls an election.
We don’t know if we shall get Tony Abbott back – but at least we shall get rid of Malcolm Turnbull, either in the next few weeks, or after he loses the next election.
Every tide turns…..
To our Aussie friends: Good on ya, Mates!
Turnbull ain’t really crying yet or saying he’s sorry so… Keep hitting him!
Turnbull is the quisling crony of the UN Global Communist Party. He is a double-agent who specifically infiltrated the so-called centre-right Lieboral Party to subvert its agenda and force Australia inescapably into the global-socialist fold. In that he has been very successful.
We desperately need a Trump down under.
Not so much that as the Prime Minister for Goldman Sachs. Don’t need a conspiracy theory when simple greed explains it adequately. Occam’s Razor and all that…
I should add, he was set to leave politics when Tony Abbott dethroned him some years ago. Then someone approached him and convinced him otherwise. Find out who that was and you will know why. Again, it is far more plausible to believe it was monetary interests than a Jonesian conspiracy, but I assume you were jesting of course.
Where’s the previous comment – this system is dodgy.
“We desperately need a Trump down under.”
We’ve got a Trump for sale. We take U.S. dollars or Russian rubles.
Funny thing is, it was Hillary who was actually paid off since the mid-1990’s. (Even earlier, if you account for the Arkansas schemes.) By the Russians, the Chinese, the Suadi’s, the Kuwait’s, the Eremites, the Moroccans, the Libyan dictators and rebels, the Indonesians, and the rest of the known world. Trump didn’t take their money – Hillary did!
Your (cough) “quisling crony of the UN Global Communist Party” (a multi-millionaire ex-banker) now has the opportunity to lead (splutter, giggle) Australia “inescapably into the global-socialist fold”. Another, different multi-millionaire is probably not the answer you’re looking for.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-21/politics-live-malcolm-turnbull-in-partyroom-meeting/10146280
Join the discussion…Update 23/08/18 – Turnbull is all but gone. The party room is about to kick him in favour of either ScoMo (Scott Morrison) or the potato (Peter Dutton). This makes more than a handful PMs toppled over climate change in Australia in the last decade.
Please Tony, we need you back ! Don’t stop kicking this passive aggressive scum until they’ve fled the building.. Australia needs real conservatives not the paper mache variety like Turnbull.
The Trump Domino Effect ??
Without question.
More likely without US tax payer funding.
Apparently the Australian Liberal Party has the same problem with squishes as the US Republican party.
Our universities were still young and impressionable when the Gramscian left started its long march. Tom. They fell early to the communist corruption.
Most of our political class are university-indoctrinated, leaving them with such a skewed left-wing world view that some in the Lieboral Party who view themselves as conservatives are actually where the left was only twenty years ago.
I am afraid you are right Peter. The new “normal” is distinctly to the left of some years ago. JFK would now ask what can your country do for you (to earn your vote)?
True. JFK would be viewed as far right now.
I’ve seen studies where they take the economic and foreign policies of past politicians and show them to current college students.
The policies are almost universally condemned as being something from the far right.
What really gets funny is when you ask these same students what made politicians like JFK great.
Same as the US and Canada
Why is this even an issue….Gillard promised it wouldn’t happen……./snark
The Australian Liberal party cannot be classed as “Conservative” these days, certainly not under the leadership of closet socialist Malcolm Turncoat.
Not so much a closet socialist as an inheritor of the Rum Rebellion elite who started to run things for them and their cronies, i.e. the then ‘big end of town. He even lives in the same part of Sydney where the then officer elite aspired to. He held out for as long as he could on a Royal Commssion into our banks and financial institutions (cos he knows all the people involved, they are his bloody neighbours) only to have that blow up in his face and shred his (remnant) credibility.
Now he comes up with a policy ostensibly about ensuring ‘dispatchable pwer’, i.e. power to the grid in an orderly way such that wind and solar do not completely disrupt and commercially outflank coal/gas generation but what does it end up hinging on? The bloody Paris ‘commitments’. Utterly irrelevent to the main issue, a red rag toanyone with half a brain and a free kick to both the Greens loons and his immediate opponents, the Labor party.
What a godammed galoot. Not that Tony Abbott is the solution, he is probably a bigger galoot in his own way.
It’s the same in the UK. The Conservative Party is no longer “Conservative” under the leadership of closet socialist Theresa (Treason) May and her Remoaner supporters.
Here too in Canada our federal “Conservative” party is nothing more than Liberals in Blue Suites. Scheer talks against the Liberal’s carbon measures (well supposedly he does) but then offers his own silly ones.
Fortunately the new Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, is doing away with all the green nonsense, windmills, solar, conracts, taxes and all.
Pete North sums things up well, democracy is being side-lined by beurocracy .. http://peterjnorth.blogspot.com/2018/08/britain-has-forgotten-what-democracy.html
This was leaving me confused so I googled Australian parliament. What a mess. For the benefit of us who aren’t from Australia …
They have the house and the senate. In both cases Labor has more seats than the Liberals. The Liberals rely on coalitions in both cases to retain power.
The prime minister can easily be removed by a vote in the house.
The parties in the coalition can basically decide to turf the Liberals and replace them with Labor.
In theory, the appointed Governor General could dissolve parliament and force an election. That’s not likely to happen unless no coalition can be formed.
Australia looks like a good example of why not to have ranked ballots. Look at all the small parties.
In British Columbia (BC, Canada) the NDP relies on the Green party to stay in power. That means the Greens control the government. That means BC gets policies unsupported by a large majority of the voters. I assume the same thing happens in Australia.
Pretty good summary, commieBob. We have compulsory voting, which forces every disinterested dolt to the ballot box. Worse, it’s compulsory preferential (number-every-square) voting – so every voter is forced to preference the Greenfilth somewhere on their ballot.
It fair dinkum makes ya skin crawl.
That’s disgusting.
In Canada, some provinces have the option of formally refusing the ballot as a protest … sort of none-of-the-above. Anyway, refused ballots have to be counted and reported as such.
No way should you have to provide any kind of support for a party that you hate.
Compulsory voting forces us to the ballot box, but there is always the option of voting ‘informally’. For years I have been scribbling across the paper: A pox on both your houses, CO2 doesn’t cause global warming.
Fortunately my local member has joined the ginger group, so I’m throwing my full support behind him. I want a coup and I want it now.
it does indeedy
however at least we can put the greens dead last
but I wish we could change things so a collective of the smaller parties could get a look in.
anythings better than trubull n the termite bishop and freydenberg the weasel
There is no reason to put Greens anywhere on your ballot if you don’t want to, and besides if you put the major parties before them (i.e. Coalition and Labor) there is no way your preference will fall to them even in the Greenist of Green seats. Inevitably it will be Labor vs Greens as the last two candidates in such count offs. So the whole “forced to preference Greens” argument is a furphy.
In my most recent vote (by-election in Perth a few weeks ago) I would have placed Greens dead last along with the other fruit bat parties. I didn’t even have the option to vote Coalition because they fielded no candidate this time around. So Lib Dems instead and a bunch of others first, but inevitably my vote would have flowed to Labor. Better that than the Greens.
The preference voting system is vastly superior to the US system as it allows your vote to count regardless of your first preference. Let’s say you want a Libertarian in a US vote, but know full well they won’t win. With the US voting system your vote for the Libertarian is wasted, and not only that you end up undermining the candidate that was your second preference. It therefore pushes the country towards a two party system. Reducing politics to the choice of two devils is hardly what I would call a good system. Having more choices as a voter means a greater chance of finding a party/candidate which matches your political orientation. Yes that means coalition governments for the most part. I am yet to see a convincing argument why that is a bad thing, or, at least worse than the two party alternative.
Do you think things are developing in favor of transparent majoritarian rule?
If it’s a secret ballot, surely you can spoil your vote ?
Correct.
The subtly most people fail to realise is there is no way to legally force a voter to vote ‘correctly’.
The process is as follows; you turn up and enter the polling station. A nice person from the AEC (Aust Electoral Commission) will direct you to a desk where someone will ask you if you voted before (honour system – there is no proof) and cross your name off the electoral role. They will then give you a green form for the House and a massive white sheet the size of a table cloth for the Senate.
Then you can go off to the little private booths or you can leave. What you can’t do is remote the ballots from the building but apart from that…
The despite how the law may or may not be worded, the truth is it is compulsory to ATTEND an election. No one actually has any ability to enforce the actual voting part.
In the uk we DON’T have a secret ballot;
every voting slip is numbered & that number is recorded next to your name on the electoral role. (so very easy to find who voted for what)
Over history 1,000s have died for us to have the right to vote, it’s our duty to them to use that right…….BUT…..if you dont like who is on the paper write –
‘None of the above’
…..”It fair dinkum”…..please translate.
Truely, genuinely, really etc
“Truly”. It truly makes your skin crawl.
Oops. Spelling wasn’t invented when I was at school.
The issue left out is the federal government has also only been ceded certain powers from the states with unanimous agreement. For powers that have been ceded Federal law overrides State law, but the federal government can’t interfere with State rights that have not been relinquished.
The issue for the federal government is power generation is still a State controlled power with Western Australia blocking the release of that responsibility to the feds. There is very little the fed can do without all States agreeing and given some Liberal and some Labour State governments only a very middle road proposal will get thru.
Assuming labour wins the next election they will fair no better with whatever changes they put up they will have to pass COAG.
“The prime minister can easily be removed by a vote in the house.”
A few things wrong there. A prime minister is leader of the governing party and is usually removed by being replaced with another in a party ballot. Losing a vote in the house would bring down the government, and usually require an election. Very rare.
“The parties in the coalition can basically decide to turf the Liberals and replace them with Labor.”
The coalition is between the Liberals and a rural party (Nationals) as minor partner. They might split, but that wouldn’t replace with Labor. An election would be the resolution.
“Australia looks like a good example of why not to have ranked ballots. Look at all the small parties.”
No. Ranked ballots are a very good idea, and don’t have that effect. In the House, with single member seats, there are very few minority members, and the government usually has a clear majority. The immediate problem in the Senate is not ranked ballots but a crazy system for distributing preferences by backroom operations. The underlying problem is that six (or sometimes 12) representative for each State have to be elected, and so you only need a sixth (actually, seventh) of the votes to be elected. That isn’t a ranked ballots issue.
“I assume the same thing happens in Australia.”
The Federal Government does not rely on the Greens to remain in power. But what this article isn’t telling you is that both the part of the Liberals led by Turnbull, and the opposition Labor party, agree on implementing the Paris agreement. Abbott and Co can cause trouble within the Liberal Party, but could never get anything through the Parliament.
As long as a credible coalition can present itself to the Governor General, she can accept them as the government.
Here are the powers of the Australian Governor General:
There’s nothing to prevent the ruling party from replacing its leader. It doesn’t have to result in an election. Margaret Thatcher would be exhibit ‘A’.
A coalition can reform, defeat the government, present itself to the Governor General, and become the new government. The refusal of Michaëlle Jean to do so became a constitutional crisis in Canada. link
Bottom line: Parliament gets to select the Prime Minister.
“Margaret Thatcher would be exhibit ‘A’.”
MT lost a ballot of her parliamentary party members, in a party meeting. She did not lose a confidence vote in the House. If a PM loses a confidence vote in the Parliament, it means that his party was so disorganised that it couldn’t elect a leader that they themselves had confidence in, or they have lost their majority. That is vary rare, and means the government can’t continue.
“Bottom line: Parliament gets to select the Prime Minister.”
No, it doesn’t. Technically, the GG selects him. But it is on the basis that he is the leader of the majority party, and they determine their leader.
It would be vary rare for a GG to accept a change in PM and the governing coalition without insisting on an election ASAP, as John Kerr did in 1975.
Nick,
Have a read of “The Enemy Within”.
It is about people like you – who tried hard to stop Thatcher from doing what was right.
So Turnbull?
Technically they don’t have to have a majority they just need to convince the GG that they can win a vote on the floor of the house. The Gillard minority government of 2010 was such a beast with 4 cross benchers supplying a confidence of supply letter to the GG to convince him that they would on most issues vote with the Labour party.
“Technically they don’t have to have a majority they just need to convince the GG that they can win a vote on the floor of the house”
And the they have to prove it.
“No. Ranked ballots are a very good idea, and don’t have that effect.”
You lose all credibility with that statement. Of course it has the effect of promoting smaller parties. All or nothing votes reward only the first preference. Whether I rank a fringe party like greens/communists 2nd or 10th is inconsequential. Doing the opposite obviously elevates their status.
Now we know there is yet another field of study where you pretend like you know what you are talking about but actually don’t.
“Doing the opposite obviously elevates their status.”
It elevates their status. But it doesn’t get them elected, in single member seats. It lets them negotiate about how they allocate their preferences, but that happens only after being eliminated. The test is results. In 2016 HoR only 5 (out of 150) seats went to crossbench, and only one (Green) was from a real party. Katter was first elected as a national, and the rest are independents.
Set a hurdle of 7% of the national vote to get a seat in Parliament, allow a voter not to rank a party at all, and that should fix some of the objections.
I must defend Nick in this. For the House of Representatives, it is required that all squares be numbered from 1 upwards, except that the last square may remain blank. As only the best or most popular candidates get more than 50% of ballot papers numbered 1 for them, all less popular candidates are eliminated in order and their votes are transferred to their second preference. This is repeated till one candidate has 50% or more of the votes.
For the Senate, it is required that 12 squares be consecutively numbered from one upwards. However, rather oddly, a vote is formal if it actually numbers only from 1 to 6! As an alternative a voter may mark his preferences “above the line” which converts the system from the PR by Single Transferable Vote to PR by Party List. The majority of voters still vote above the line – a relic of the days where it was necessary to mark all the candidates with a preference – which could often be over 100 candidates, and woe betide you if you missed out on a number or duplicated a number!
At a normal Senate election – ie for half the Senate – the quota for election is 1/7th plus 1. For the three main political parties this is normally easy for their most preferred candidate. Almost always he obtains a quota and his surplus is transferred to the second preferences, etc.
Sometimes a low ranking candidate can rise to the top – the case of Sam Benson is noteworthy. He was elected to the Australian House of Representatives in 1962 as the Labor member for Batman … . Benson was re-elected in 1963, but three years later was expelled from the ALP. … Thereafter he served in parliament as an independent. He was re-elected as an independent in 1966. At this election, he stood against the official Labor candidate, an managed to be second last in the poll. The lowest candidate was eliminated, and most of his votes went to Sam, who then became second last again. This was repeated and eventually Sam Benson was elected. (Info from Wikipaedia and personal knowledge.)
This happened with several candidates in the 2013 and 2016 elections, with candidates having received primary votes in the low hundreds.
The ranked system creates bizarre coalitions that gives kooks power they don’t deserve.
Like a troll poster thinking they are actually in charge….
WR2 – I too have to defend Nick Stokes here. Ranked ballots work in a way that ensures that the winner of the ballot is preferred by the majority of voters to the one who finished second. In the UK’s “first past the post” system, it is perfectly possible – and does actually happen – that the 2nd in the ballot (or even both the 2nd and 3rd) was preferred by the majority of voters to the winner. That’s because in the UK two similar candidates split their vote. In Australia their votes end up being combined. IMHO the Australian system may not be perfect but it is about the best possible – it’s just that the candidates aren’t always the best and of course the voters can have funny ideas too.
On compulsory voting in Australia: You only have to turn up, you don’t have to vote.
Mike Jonas
I can only repeat the old reply:
“Yes, but you know how foolish, short-sighted and stupid the average person can be, right?
Well, half the people are even more stupid that that!”
“Yes, but you know how foolish, short-sighted and stupid the average voter
personactually is, right?Well, half the voters and half the politicians they elect are even more stupid that that!”
Time to have a polling test and economics exam … for the politicians!
Sorry WR2, All or nothing also has it’s flaws.
Let’s do an example.
Five people running.
A is Murder your Firstborn
B is Blue
C is Cyan
D is… Dark
E is… Emerald
Now the voters go ‘Murder your Firstborn? No way, but I really like colours!’ and pick their favourite colour. So 79.9% of people pick there favourite colour and 20.1% hate children. Because none of various colours managed to get over 20% as all the colour voters were evenly divided the winner is Murder your Firstborn.
Extreme example with numbers deliberately fixed to make it happen but it does show how despite the fact that a vast majority would have been happy with anyone else but ‘A’, ‘A’ still wins.
The problem in Australia with Pref voting is very few actually understand how it works. The following…
– I hate Labor, so I voted for the Greens.
– And where did you put your preference?
– Huh? What is that?
… is unfortunately very common.
‘Turnbull, and the opposition Labor party, agree on implementing the Paris agreement. Abbott and Co can cause trouble within the Liberal Party, but could never get anything through the Parliament.’
Thats true, but the sticking point, among others was not this.
The problem for ‘Abbott and Co’ was that the Liberal National coalition was being asked to make the Paris Accords compulsory, ie legislated for, instead of being targets.
They also don’t think that if we send China, India and Japan our clean coal [low sulphate, high calories],not to mention our LPG, and they burn it, that reaching our targets would mean much at all to the global climate.
Now to legislate means that if some ’emitter’ produces too much ‘carbon’ then there will be punative consequences.
This then is the moral hazard of a disproportionate response to a tiny problem.
Now I appreciate this is a judgement call.
However it is actually supported in one poll which states that a majority of Aussies want to pull out of Paris.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/newspoll/voters-prefer-cut-in-power-prices-to-paris-climate-accord/news-story/52debc51d1a5c0fda935cf15259
You see, its how the question is put.
More unreliable electricity, more price hikes, best be on the winning side.
In politics, as in climate science, the future is not known.
Top temperature today in Sydney is 17C, my daughter just asked me to put on the A/C.
Our house is heavily insulated.
We face drought worse than that of the 60’s, will putting solar panels on our rooves really change that?
Perhaps Abbott and Co are right.
Thats the best side to be on, the public will catch on.
17C? That’s close to what I set my AC’s thermostat TO.
(I’m in Oklahoma where summer highs can regularly hit 40C. With 90%+ humidity.)
I don’t really need it that low, but setting it higher makes the compressor kick on and off too often and threaten to throw the breaker. (Home AC compressors pull a LOT of current for the first few seconds they’re running.)
She has special needs and a poor circulation.
She just was discharged from two and a half weeks of hospitalisation.
I personally just put on more clothes.
The green ideology is bad for the disabled.
With your A/c’s it may be an idea to upgrade to an inverter, so you do not have the same current draw.
“Home AC compressors pull a LOT of current for the first few seconds they’re running.”
==========
Inverters get around that problem:
https://www.carrierair.com.au/inverter-air-conditioner/
So bureaucracies, dominated around the world by faux prgressives, wn in the long run because the people are kept divided.
The Prime Minister can be removed by a vote in the ruling group. He/she is not elected by the people , just another member of parliament elected by other members to lead.
Which does away with the messianic fervour of a President. The “Prime Minister” is just the top politician, nothing more.
The problem is not ranked ballots, the problem is having the legislature pick the prime minister.
In systems like the US, you will always wind up with two entrenched parties both of whom try to near duplicates of the other.
Same in NZ, with a small Labour party supported by a small NZ First party, and a few mad Greens, holding just a few seats more combined than the National party which has the most seats of any party. The result is crazy unrealistic idealistic nonsense from the Greens, and far left socialist policies from Labour led by a communistic young woman who has never had a worthwhile job in her life. Except in a fish-and-chip shop. We too need a Trump!
we had it in the Uk – if a minority party is needed to form a coalition they hold more power than their percentage voting power should allow – they are in a position to block any or all policies and so have a completely unbalanced share of power
It’s the one big weakness of parliamentary democracy and proportional representation. Too often it creates a tail that wags the dog.
The US system has its own problems (many of which have their root in so-called Progressives attempting to sabotage it), but at least it near-guarantees that the plurality party will also have a governing majority.
When introduced in NZ in about 1996, MMP looked like a dogs breakfast leading to the situation you describe.
Small parties don’t give more democracy; they can actually destroy it. Schicklgruber’s Germany had 34 political parties. Their failure to unify against him put him in power.
If you want a real ‘What the?!?!’ you need to look at how the Senate system ‘works’.
Senate seats are for each state or territory and winning one requires getting the ‘quota’ of votes.
A quota is 1/(n+1) where n is the number of seats up for grabs, usually 6 for most elections for each state. There is some ‘above or below’ the line stuff that I wont go into but basically most people vote for the major parties with the last 5 or so % voting for some weird ‘micro’ party.
So what you normally end up with so something like this:
(rough example – numbers will not add up)
Party A – 3.1 quotas
B – 2.6 quotas
C – 0.3 quotas
D – 0.1
etc
X – 0.002
Y – 0.0015
Z – 0.001
So you go from hundreds of thousands of votes to about 100 pretty quickly.
Now seats are awarded from the top, to they take the full quotas and give them out.
In our example A gets 3 and B gets 2 as they have full quotas for those.
There is still one spot so they take away the 3 and 2 until we get
A – 0.1
B – 0.6
C – 0.3 etc etc
then what they do is go right down to the bottom and remove that person and redistribute their votes based on preferences. So the hundred votes from Z go to someone else. Then they find out who now the last place and do the same until the redistribution of votes means that someone has a full quota and the final seat can be awarded.
What normally happens is that party C (in Oz usually The Greens) gets all the minor party votes from those who hate the two major parties and gets in and everyone things ‘yeah… fair enough… they got a lot of votes, whatever’ and no one really cries.
What started happening is that the micro parties started horse trading and made sure that they all agreed to preference each other over the major parties. Remember that you only have to remain off the very bottom not to be cut and there is still 2 full quotas of votes to share around.
So a person with only a couple of hundred first preference votes could slowly pick up 100 votes here, then 500 votes there, then 1000 votes then another 1000 votes until suddenly they have a full quota and congrats, you have a highly paid job in Canberra for six years.
Meanwhile the 0.6 quotas (which could be hundreds of thousands of votes depending on the state) from party B go ‘WTF? What about our votes?!’
Well, they DON’T GET COUNTED because under the system all six spots have now been legally filled.
This has been 100% legal for just about forever and the comment I was told by a politics professor from Uni of Adelaide was (paraphrase) ‘not so much how did this happen and more why did it take so long for people to work out how to do it’.
This happened in the 2013 election much to everyone’s shock and there was an attempt at Senate reform to prevent this. Naturally the micro senators didn’t want to vote themselves out of existence and resisted and one of the platforms for the 2016 election was to force a clean out of the Senate.
Which he then utterly failed to do.
Even if you remove all this Green and Carbon beliefs, Turnbull really hasn’t been that good a leader.
I hope Justin Trudeau liberal part is taking notes.
The MSM and Liberals in America (and the world for that matter) are constantly castigating Trump over dumping the Paris Agreement but forget that in 1997 when put to congressional vote the US soundly rejected its’ predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol. Soundly, as in no votes supporting it. Even the Liberals at the time recognized the farce of a ‘climate agreement’ that selectively chose who to punish for CO2 emissions and gave that ability to an non elected bureaucracy.
Kyoto was never put to a vote. There was a sense of the Senate resolution that passed something like 97-0 against the treaty. As a result Clinton tabled is.
97 to 0 sounds like a vote to me…… semantics can’t change this one
The vote wasn’t on Kyoto, it was a warning shot across Clinton’s bow saying, don’t submit the thing.
Had the resolution passed 97-0, Kyoto would not have been passed.
That was a real 97% consensus.
” … whether it’s of our side of politics or the other – would have to persuade both houses of parliament to make any change to it, and that is a great security.”
Rubbish, its already a Cultural Marxist one party state and all our hopes are on the ginger group bringing down this monstrous facade.
Its one of those do or die moments in history, we have nothing to lose but our shackles.
“ironicman
Rubbish, its already a Cultural Marxist one party state and all our hopes are on the ginger group…”
I have read your posts many times but what do you mean by “…the ginger group…”?
The Ginger Group are a group of about 10 rebel Liberal Party and National Party MPs who oppose Turnbull and his Black Hand faction on energy policy, climate change and immigration policy etc. They are leading the charge against Turnbull. They are also known as the Monash Group.
Thanks beowulf.
Most readers here would be unaware that Turnbull tried to turn Australia into a Republic with himself as president, but the people rejected his generous offer.
He aimed to unite the Greens, Labor and Liberal coalition under the guise of climate change and saving the planet. For a moment he thought he was President Turnbull, but now its all starting to unravel, dreams I’ve had a few.
Hey hey! Ho ho! Malcolm Turnbull has got to go!
“Most readers here would be unaware that Turnbull tried to turn Australia into a Republic with himself as president, but the people rejected his generous offer.”
And if they believe this they are going to remain unaware. None of it is remotely true.
Incorrect. Mr Turnbull was one of the main leaders in the campaign to turn Australia into a Republic. He lost. At the time there was no suggestion that he wanted to be President, but it could have well been the case. Just kept quiet about it, possibly.
Trouble was the Republican push wanted a President to be elected by the politicians, or appointed by Parliament. The people who supported a republic wanted a President elected by the people. The politicians were having not a bar of this. So the proposal was soundly defeated. Occasionally there are rumbles from the Republican push, but they are ignored.
Irony is that our Head of State, the Governor-General, is appointed by the Prime Minister in effect. His recommendation goes to the Queen and is automatically approved.
As Dudley pointed out, Malcolm has history.
I respect the man, but its delusional to think you can unite the Australian body politic under a global warming umbrella.
When Dutton takes command, democracy will be resumed.
With the growing likelihood of an open party revolt and a leadership challenge, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been forced into a humiliating backdown over his efforts to enshrine Australia’s Paris Agreement pledges into legislation.
Ah, the Liability of Liberalism: Hypocrisy
The Prime Minister is offering a compromise. He will take out legislating the Paris targets, and set the target by Ministerial decree.
That means, instead of a 26% enforceable energy target, it can be 11%, 26% or once the current Government is dumped at the polls and the Opposition come in, 50%.
So in effect, while seeming to compromise, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet are doubling down.,
We have a saying, “poor fellow my country”
Which he can only do if the States allow. I seriously doubt you will be able to get up anything that all the States agree with. One wonders what by what brain snap did the Libs decide to tackle this idea in the first place.
Biggest problem is the % of voters who still want to believe the “climate change” scare story.
Hopefully, the tide keeps turning as energy prices skyrocket, energy supplies become compromised and…more people read about the alternative position, consider it on merit and stop blindly supporting the CAGW boondoggle.
If you read comments on any story (That allows comments) about climate change in any of the Australian media you will find most comments are from believers in the scam. Any comment in opposition is usually not posted.
The Silent Majority is not always silent by choice.
The media are at odds with the voters and many politicians have woken up to be wary. The combined support for the two main parties is down to just over 63% (34% Labour + 29% Lib). So technically others at 37% is the largest group they just aren’t all voting together and voting for a raft of minor parties. They are also the group the mainstream media largeley ignores because many of those votes currently drift to non PC groups the media dislikes.
About time. Tony Abbott has been quietly waiting in the wings until some of his Liberal Party colleagues grew some spines. Abbott couldn’t build the numbers in the Party room to spill Turnbull himself without the media losing its mind about it, it needed someone else to step up and challenge Turnbull’s incompetent leadership….. Finally Dutton is making the right noises….Hopefully it’s more than noise and Dutton has the numbers to dump Turnbull from the leadership in due course.
“right wing of the Liberal Party (Australian Conservatives)”
No, no, its all ok, stop barking, he’s one of us. I know, I know, it’s alright, there, there.
Does anyone know when Ryan decided to stop making sense?
Perhaps having to deal with people who reject his religion blew his last gasket?
When did RyanS ever make sense?
Mark, for Ryan to have stopped making sense implies that he made sense at one time in the past. I’m sorry but, based on his posting history, I’d have to say that’s there’s no evidence of him ever having made sense.
As the joke going the rounds says about Turnbull PM, “ He’ll never have Paris and he may not be long in Canberra.”
PM Turnbull appointed a chief scientist a while ago. Now that same chief scientist says publicy that if Australia closed down tomorrow and ceased emitting any CO2, that it would not make any difference to the weather come climate of th world.
So why is Turnbull still trying to make us follow the lunicy of the U.N’s IPCC and Paris.
Could it be like that Canadian who wanted to change the world, Maauruce STRONG. He too was rich, so did not suffer any problems by thing things Green, or is it the Dream of Communism all along.
MJE.
These anti CO2 nitwits are just like the recycling fraternity.
It is useless, but don’t it make you feel good?
Not particularly, no.
It’s the Green pseudo-religion’s version of penance for our eco-sins, with no prospect of absolution.
With the problem being that they want to elect people who feel the need to make normal people do it too.
Dutton is not a possibility for the job of PM. His seat is very marginal amd so if the polls are to be believed then he will lose his seat in the near future.
MJE
Prime Minister Turbull has the Greens snapping at his heels.
‘A few days later Turnbull found himself eating another bowlful of burnt offerings for breakfast. The Greens in Wentworth had decided to allocate their preferences to Labor. In 2001 the Greens won 10 per cent of the vote in Wentworth, and about 90 per cent of their preferences went to Labor.’
https://insidestory.org.au/the-battle-for-wentworth/
He has a strong leadership in ‘Clean up Australia’.
The Paris Accords gel with his electorate.
It is in the highest socioeconomic percentile of Australia.
When electricity went up 25% last year, that is not a problem for his electorate.
The cars they drive are predominantly European, so car emission legislation mirroring European legislation are a good fit.
Sauce for the Goose, sauce for the Gander.
Unless he holds his seat he cannot enter Parliament and be prime minister.
He does not want to leave as did John Howard, by losing his seat.
He has a seat now and if the Libs can’t win the next election what does it matter about how marginal his seat is. The only time it would be a problem is if the Libs won but he lost his seat. The only way that would fly is if he was personally unpopular but his government was popular????
Tony Abbott is a principled man with the best interests of all Australians at heart – We were robbed of our Prime Minister and our nation has suffered for it – let’s hope his party realises that it needs a man of the people who knows how to campaign before we are saddled with a green left Labor party intent on socialist destruction
Aren’t you being a bit alarmist Michael?
Sorry Michael by TA shot himself in the foot with his “Sir Prince Phillip” thing. Apart from that he is a very divisive operator despite being a climate realist and having talents in some other areas. He was an excellent attack dog when that what was called for but a hopeless PM IMO.
Sadly MT is also empty of political nouse and his approach mimics the elite, self important part of Sydney he lives in and has always aspured to. Mt Harbourside macsion is how he is referred to and his immediate neighbours are all his old schoolmates , fellow successful entrepreneurs and merchant bankers etc. He is Trump like in wealth and background but Obama like in temperamemt and leaning.
Always love the “divisive” complaint. You mean he won’t do what the left want him to do. Which is kinda the point.
‘Sorry Michael by TA shot himself in the foot with his “Sir Prince Phillip” thing.’
Propaganda and fake nooze.
The reality is that the Queen asked Tony to give her hubby a knighthood and he agreed. He couldn’t very well refuse her.
For this he was vilified by the Guardian, Fairfax and auntie.
Mr.Abbot, I aplaud your courage. It was a tough load but you were RIGHT!!
Abbottfinally manages to cook Turbull’s goose
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“However, the NEG policy, strongly supported by business and industry, was looking like a victim of the unrest.” By cherry picked sections of business and industry.
Some industry is being very carefull what they do.
The Banks and finance industry have come on board, but it does not affect them.
Bluescope, the steelmaker, is the canary in the coal mine.
Aluminium producers are in the crosshairs.
We will end up exporting bauxite and coal to China to make our aluminium.
Al ladders are now imported from Indonesia.
Bluescope has green washed their Australian operation, aim for 20% renewables, while moving to India and the US.
If they have to buy carbon credits they may as well do so for a while, then jump offshore.
India has cheap power and lots of workers, vast markets, the US is full of consumers, has cheap power and energy, not to mention low company taxation.
Now Bluescope is really clever.
When they lose certainty in continuous supply of cheap power, they have a plan B.
Ah, but if Turnbull loses the election, the Labor would continue the nonsense of trying to save the world. It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Tiny Australia (in terms of contribution to world energy use) is trying to save the world from CO2 while its standard of living depends on selling coal to China! They have managed to significantly reduce their standard of living with exorbitant electricity prices.
I agree. Little as I like Turnbull’s energy ideas, it isn’t the only fish I have to fry. The very last thing I want to see is a return to the hopeless Labor government, of which although Gillard has gone we would still have Tony Burke, very influential and possibly the worst environment minister ever and Chris Bowen whose economic ideas extend to looking after unions and nothing else.
I understand that people whose main concern is climate/energy feel that Abbott has been wronged, but actually he is spent as a political force, since the knighting of Prince Phillip and other blunders. The public won’t have him at any cost, no matter how much the climate obsessed like him.
So I am afraid that supporting Abbott against Turnbull is just a vote for more Labor idiocy. Sorry, on balance, i’ll Be voting liberal, whoever is in command.
I have never liked campaigns to “get out the vote”. I would be much happier if there was a campaign to urge really stupid voters to stay home – something like a skill-testing question on a billboard, with the caption:
“If you are too stupid to answer this question, STAY HOME – you’re way too stupid to vote!” 🙂
Regards, Allan 🙂
IQ stats tell us about half of the population who are on the left (appropriate) side of the bell curve are not very bright (some stupid) but there are plenty on the right side of the curve who are not stupid but are ignorant. Thank the educational system and media for those folks. And they all get to vote. And as predicted, we in the US have run out of other people’s money with which our politicians are accustomed to buy votes. So we continue to print more. No ink required, computer entries suffice today.
Thank you Jim – good comments.
Stalin killed about 50 million of his own people. Mao killed about 80 million Chinese. Then there are the lesser players like Pol Pot, etc who killed a few million Cambodians, but a much larger fraction of the country’s population.
This is the undeniable history of Marxist dictatorships – economic incompetence and huge systemic murder of civilians.
Can we not learn from history? Do we really have to do all this again?
Leftist leaders typically are psychopaths/sociopaths and leftist followers are delusional imbeciles.
Clearly, it takes people of far-less-than-average intelligence to want to relive the horrors of the 20th Century – and yet there they are, the so-called “Progressives”, concentrated in our public schools and universities, saying “This time, it’s going to be different! This time, it’s going to work! Just trust us!”
As George Carlin said, “Damn, there are a lot of really stupid people out there!”
Sometimes, just sometimes, one is hit by a great wonderation.
Life. Universe. God. Everything. All that kinda shizzle.
Right now is My Moment, listening to some chilled Balearica on the interweb, coffee down t’pub and doing email. And it *is* Sunday
How many stories on the front page of WUWT, *right now*, might these words of advice apply to?
https://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/ss/slideshow-general-anxiety-overview?
(from an email just come in)
Certainly Jerry Brown, (mention of) M Mann, top Australian politicians, the EPA and see how the slide-show starts by asking:
What *Is* Normal?
Is the coffee machine trying to tell me something…….
There *is* a God. Yup. There is.
For a lovely example of what I’m on about, see here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-45146681
Some people really *are* short of something to worry about.
Why don’t they worry about ‘Getting A Life’ – or am I missing something?
The sooner fake egoist Turnbull is gone, the better for Australia.
The climate system is easier to understand than aussie politics.
Replace the word politics with pantomime and you will have a better understanding.
I do hope Australia brings back Abbott. It will bring back the ” great” in my eyes for Australia .
It matters not what the LNP do and who they chose as leader, the LNP are history. The coming federal election will see the an ALP and Green coalition that will finally ruin Australia.
Even after this disaster week for the Libs the best polls still say 35% Labour, Greens 13% which isn’t going to give them anywhere near enough control of the senate. Then there is the crossover with the existing senate.
The government whoever forms it will be working with the cross bench same as the current one and they won’t be able to get anything to radical passed.
Thanks. That’s the only summary that made any sense in any of these comments.
One thing about polls you can rely on is that they are usually wrong. Australians vote Govn’t out. So in this term of Govn’t we have had Turnbull oust Abbott and now Dutton challenged, and failed, to oust Turnbull. It’s a joke!
Ah ..but the polls are then turned into a ‘two party shootout’ because of the preference voting. Labour plus its allies give a consistent lead over Liberals and their allies.
Everyone is making a killing (except the consumer).
Consultants, brokers, retailers, wholesalers . . .
The electricity industry is awash with money in Australia and Victoria in particular.
From lowly clerk to CEO they’re all on big money and opportunism is rampant particularly in electricity broking and renewables.
It’s the benchmark of commercial disasters squarely the fault of Government (State & Federal).
An industry legislated from Government monopoly into ‘commercial oligarchy’.
The soft corruption, greed and stupidity knows no bounds.
Our factory in Alabama pays US 4c/kW.h and in Australia AU 23c/kW.h.
We know in ten years and likely twenty the electricity market will not have changed much.
The vested interests are now so powerful that Australia is locked into expensive electricity for the foreseeable future.
Electricity intensive manufacturing in Australia is no longer viable.
.
update:
Malcolm Turnbull shelves emissions reduction target as leadership speculation mounts
https://theconversation.com/malcolm-turnbull-shelves-emissions-reduction-target-as-leadership-speculation-mounts-101811
Welcome breaking news!
Prices will stabilise but won’t drop to commercially realistic levels until there’s a revolt against the burgeoning UN-driven socialist takeover of our nation.
Old nuclear generators in the USA and old coal generators in Australia produce electricity for about 1c/kW.h. In the best regions of the USA, nuclear electricity is marked up an average of 300% to retail and in Australia coal electricity is marked up (margins and levies) an average of 2,000% to retail with large segments of the market an astounding 3,500%.
Such mark-ups are prima facie criminal and may constitute profiteering; however, in many cases there is middleman after middleman involved.
The general public don’t know the truth!
The Australian media are going ballistic with Turnbull dropping emissions targets. It’s the only thing he has done right in his term as PM. Australia is doomed to get another ALP/Green coalition.
Australia’s ACCC recently released the ultimate YES MINISTER inquiry into electricity.
The inquiry looks into all secondary aspects but deliberately avoids the main issue . . .
Turnbull Gov to ACC – –
1. Don’t investigate or disclose the cost of generation by renewables.
2. Don’t investigate or disclose the cost of generation by long established coal.
3. Under no circumstances compare the two fiscally.
The ACCC Retail Electricity Pricing Inquiry (Final Report, June 2018) is a farce beyond farces and will do nothing to reduce prices.
But the industry already knew that.
Consumers lied to again and again!
Turnbull did a similar thing in 2009
Resigned as leader, putting his Climate dogma first
“Mr Turnbull lost the Liberal Party leadership in late 2009 over his decision to support the Rudd government’s carbon pricing scheme”
He then made a big climate speech
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-22/turnbull-climate-speech/2805536
Best wishes for a successful restoration.
New Zealand is in desperate need of the same.
You have to already be famous (Arnold) or have a long track record of flaky ideas (Jerry) to play the game of climate chaos. Lesser political figures need to know the limits of climate scare as a safe topic.
Australia seems to have the same Deep State problem the USA has. When it cannot get policies properly debated and created by duly elected representatives of the people (well supposedly anyway), they let the tyranny of the technocrats take charge.
Having worked with elected officials much of my professional career I was always amazed when they continually deferred to the technocrats, not just for advice on a technical issue, but deferring actually policy making details to the technocrats. Usually our state technocrats would listen to the federal technocrats more than they listened to the wishes of our elected officials.
The political pantomime in Australia continues. I wonder when these people are going to do the jobs we pay them to do?
I suggest every supporter of Tony Abbott and his climate sceptic cohort read this. It is a very good analysis of why he is wrong and Turnbull right.
Not a chance of the dunce Abbott getting back into power. He was a complete disaster: http://mankindsdegradationofplanetearth.com/2018/08/21/why-not-wreck-the-planet-it-might-get-you-elected-cnn/
Given a choice, people will not vote for climate mitigation policies. Witness Trump vs Hillary, Orban in Hungary, Abbott vs Rudd in 2013. Abbott would have won in 2010, but technically there was no choice: Gillard promised there’d be no carbon tax under her govt.
Democracy works, and doesn’t give a rat’s for panic-stricken climate alarmists.
Ivan it may not have come to your notice that CO2 doesn’t cause global warming. Tony Abbott as Foreign Minister will tell world leaders the same and Dutton will pull us out of Paris.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-21/peter-dutton-7-votes-short-of-being-prime-minister/10139108
Abbott was a disaster? And Turnbull hasn’t been?