Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Are Australia’s rural based Nationals, junior partners in Australia’s ruling coalition, about to switch to supporting unaffordable carbon taxes and higher fuel and energy prices?
Scott Morrison tries to defuse the climate change land mine
Jacob Greber
Senior correspondent
Oct 9, 2021 – 5.00amIt’s crunch time for Scott Morrison on climate.
The next 10 days or so will determine whether the Prime Minister can put Australia on a globally acceptable carbon reduction trajectory.
If he pulls it off, he’ll hope it defuses a politically lethal Claymore mine aimed directly at his inner-city Liberal colleagues and turns its blast field at Anthony Albanese, who is still to detail Labor’s climate ambition and policy pathway.
He needs to do it in a way that lets the National Party hold key seats in Queensland against hard-bitten, climate-action deniers and potential balance-of-power players such as Clive Palmer, Craig Kelly and Pauline Hanson.
Without a rough consensus from the National Party, Morrison’s and Barnaby Joyce’s stint on ministerial leather will be on borrowed time. The Prime Minister will be at risk of joining the list of leaders from both sides who have fallen under the climate-change, political threshing machine.
Nationals MPs are set to meet on Monday to determine how they manage the process of deciding whether to endorse an elevated 2030 emissions reduction plan and net zero by 2050. They have made clear they want Morrison to pay for their support with policies and spending they can take to their constituency.
…
And that wasn’t even the most egregious attempt to upset Morrison’s apple cart by the National Party’s hardliners. Resources Minister Keith Pitt left many of this senior Liberal colleagues speechless and then apoplectic with his demand the federal government create a $250 billion loan facility to support the resources sector.
…
Read more: https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/scott-morrison-tries-to-defuse-the-climate-change-land-mine-20211007-p58y3b
Why has this all suddenly come to a head?
One possibility is Australia has recently come under intense pressure to hand lots of climate cash to Pacific Islanders, the alleged frontline victims of the global warming crisis. If the Nationals cave, an easily overlooked line item on the agreement will likely be handing over billions of dollars to pacific islanders, to try to win votes from Australia’s faux green inner city elites and plaudits on the international stage, with no genuine benefit to Australian taxpayers whatsoever.
How Australia got blindsided in the great Pacific climate coup
By Nick O’Malley
Updated October 9, 2021 — 9.07amAs the Glasgow climate talks loomed closer this week Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama addressed an international forum hosted by the former US vice president Al Gore, with slightly more than customary bluntness.
A little greyer and a touch softer than when he led a coup to take power for his first term in 2006, there was still a whiff of the hard man about him.
Pacific leaders, he said, were tired of commending the resilience of their people in confronting a warming world and the rising seas.
They would no longer accept the role of “canary in the world’s coal mines”, they would not be the world’s “helpless songbirds”.
And then as current chair of the Pacific Islands Forum he listed priorities.
“Fiji and the Pacific’s demands are clear,” he said. “The developed world must deliver on the $100 billion dollars promised in climate finance.” He mentioned Australia and New Zealand specifically.
…
Read more: https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/how-australia-got-blindsided-in-the-great-pacific-climate-coup-20211008-p58y9d.html
Even local Fiji media say government corruption is soaring, so if the Islanders do get their COP26 cash, I’m guessing most of the money won’t make it to genuine climate resilience projects. Don’t get me wrong, we met some lovely people a few years ago when we visited Fiji – but they have no illusions about their politicians and society, and are happy to share with anyone willing to listen. The cafe owner warned us to watch our step when we left, because we’d been there long enough for the local gangs to organise. Thankfully we got away unscathed. One dodgy looking guy coming towards us suddenly veered away as we walked a short distance to our cab – I’m a big guy, and he was being a little obvious. Maybe we left just in time, before they got a crew together.
WUWT have frequently supported National Party members like federal party leader Barnaby Joyce, Bridget McKenzie and Keith Pitt, because of their principled resistance to higher fuel and energy prices for Australian voters.
Now that resistance seems close to crumbling, in the face of international and domestic pressure, perhaps we need to remind them that all paths to net zero mess up the lives of rural voters who support the Nationals. Higher energy prices would mess up the lives of farmers and miners who regularly have to cross Australia’s vast distances, and mess up the lives of people who run energy intensive businesses in remote locations. There is no getting around that.
All the voter pork in the world, new sport facilities or improved roads or schools, will not compensate voters for businesses shutting down and people losing their jobs, because under net zero they can no longer afford to operate.
And the “sinking islands” theme was bogus from the start. Darwin figured out the nature of atolls in the early 1800’s, so as long as the coral can grow faster than sea level rise, no shrinking of the atolls.
Which has been the case as measured, as the atolls are showing net growth. But the islander WaBenzi class will insist on the dread effects of Global Warming, and they really want a vacation in Gstaad.
Good call on Darwin. I saw a politician from the Maldives being interviewed on CNN, and the complaint was rising sea levels were going to destroy them. The Maldives are about 700 miles SW of the southern tip of India, and a quick view on Google Earth ™ shows them to be coral atolls along a volcanic chain. Not a single house or business anywhere affected/abandoned/destroyed by rising sea level. The politician suggested that sending them money would help with rising sea level, how does that work?
The “sinking islands” theme was a plot element in State of Fear by Michael Crichton.
They need the money for their new additional airport for ‘carbon’ spewing planes full of tourists loaded with tourist dollars, of course.
For an island chain in danger of sinking, they have been spending a lot on new airports in sight of the sea as well as luxury resorts to lure vacationers to their new airports, still well above sea level.
Well at least some free money could be used to build more hotels and expand the international airport !
They have already done that without any free money! The Maldives is a booming tourist economy.
So the real danger is that they will capsize! Linked video shows politician concerned that Guam may capsize!
Maybe I’m naive, but I don’t understand the logic of promising net zero because the “international community” says so, or to avoid giving money to Fiji. What can the “international community” do if you skip Glasgow and tell them to pound sand? What can Fiji do if you refuse to give them cash?
The problem clearly isn’t the “international community” or Fiji, the problem is climate hysteric Australian voters. Maybe the so called conservative politicians should try explaining the high cost of climate hysteria to the voters instead of feeding them pipe dreams & subsidies.
Australia has low savings rates, so the pro argument is international displeasure could cut our supply of capital.
Frankly I think this argument is bogus. The world desperately needs Aussie agriculture and mineral exports, and yields on mining especially are very good. In a zero interest rate world someone will show up to an offering of solid investments which pay actual dividends.
Don’t expect that zero interest rate to last long. United States, Europe, likely Canada, Mexico and South America are experiencing severe Cost of Living increases and rampant inflation.
Bank’s can’t afford to loan money that loses value during the loan period.
You’re forgetting modern monetary theory – the economic doctrine Biden’s advisors allegedly follow, which gives the government free rein to print as much money as they need. All they need to do to stabilise inflation while printing money is prevent wages from rising. I wonder what their plan to cap wage rises is?
MMT is a flawed economic model, but it kind of works if you hold the dominant global currency because people will still keep buying that currency from overseas, keeping the value up, and especially when other competing currencies are on shaky ground. However, everything has its limits and if you keep handing out free cash the inflation genie will eventually be released and the USA is at that point now.
Inflation is seriously damaging the United States and there’s no end in sight with Democrat policies. The Democrats want to spend Trillions more dollars on top of what has already been spent, and the earlier spending is the reason for current inflation, and spending more is just going to increase prices even more.
And now we have a supply chain unloading problem that is going to add more price increases to the mix.
And every Biden policy makes this worse.
Biden had a news conference yesterday trying to explain why 194,000 new jobs being taken by people last week, instead of the 500,000 predicted, was a good thing.
Any good economic news today is a direct result of what Trump did in office and Biden stands up there are tries to take credit for it all. Biden stands on Trump’s shoulders and then wants people to look at how tall he is.
Wage and price controls were tried in the 1970s – with disastrous lon-term results. They were soon abandoned.
Yes, we got lots of inflation right after the price controls were lifted in the 1970’s.
Governments should keep their hands off the economy. They screw it up every time they meddle.
The world desperately needs an Aussie leader who won’t cave to the BS.
It seems that the Climate Mafia made Australia’s politicians one of the Mafia’s famous “offers that can’t be refused”. It is certainly starting to look that way. Most conservative politicians are aware that the pursuit of “net zero” is a fool’s errand. The LNP has been walking the thin line between “doing enough” to keep the dingbats off their case and not “doing enough” to wreck our economy.
Following the horrendous government debt racked up in response to the Borg’s Covid scam it is not beyond imagination that the UN could arrange for China to move in and “settle” that debt along with the faux one to the Pacific Islanders.
Yes indeed. We live in the era of the full on false narrative.
All politicians are catching a case of the “Bidens” now –
“they told me to sign up for this”
(accompanied by a vacant look)
Don’t forget that even the CSIRO tell us that the entire SH is a NET SINK and already NET ZERO and the NH is the co2 NET SOURCE.
Of course they could WASTE ENDLESS trillions $ more by 2050 and there’d be no measurable change to TEMP or CLIMATE at all.
Their so called MITIGATION is the greatest fra-d and con trick in world history.
https://www.csiro.au/en/research/natural-environment/atmosphere/Latest-greenhouse-gas-data
Of course Willis recently checked out their so called EMERGENCY and found ZIP.
He lists all the DATA and couldn’t find a sniff of evidence or donkey Biden’s so called EXISTENTIAL THREAT.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/wheres-the-emergency/
I called my town council about their declared climate emergency, asked them how I could save myself from the imminent demise they were postulating.
Kept me on hold for 5 minutes, then the line went dead.
The person probably drowned due to rising sea levels.
Or passed out from the heat.
Or got blown away in an extreme storm.
Be a bit wary of media sources. They are forever inventing political obstacles this or that politician needs to negotiate with an ambition to themselves be political players.
My view is that the Australian government would be foolish to even participate in the forthcoming boondoggle in Glasgow. The organisers, boosters and scam artists are desperate to pretend it is in some way meaningful to people other than organisers, boosters and scam artists.
The Australian Financial Review senior correspondent Jacob Greber ‘writes on politics, economics and business from Canberra. He has been a Washington correspondent and economics correspondent’.
However he seems to be obsessed with climate and is probably Green:
Today: Climate policy Scott Morrison tries to defuse the climate change land mine.
Today: Australia’s business leaders tell PM how to hit net zero by 2050.
Oct 7: Swiss Re won’t cover climate ‘bad actors’, says Australia boss.
Sep 22: Australian companies warned over ‘dubious’ farm-based carbon credits.
Sep 16: Coal exports to plunge 80pc if world stays below 1.5 degrees, RBA says.
Sep 15: Greenwash warning to ASX companies relying on offshore credits.
Sep 15: OECD slams Australia for its net zero headway.
Sep 6: Adam Bandt’s [Greens Party] planned ‘tycoon tax’ hit on the big end of town.
Sep 5: UN’s top climate adviser demands Morrison ditches coal by 2030.
Sep 2: Former defence chiefs warn of climate-induced conflict.
And so on.
There are also a few so-called economics writers at The Australian who can be relied on to promote Green talking points and policy obsessions.
Indeed. It reminds me of the time I called out Annabel Crabb for writing 19 articles in a row denigrating then PM Tony Abbott. Her public response was to the effect that she was even handed over the political cycle. Her relentless attack then continued. Still, at least she responded publicly.
The Pacific Island leaders have been told to single out Australia and NZ by their Chinese debt masters. It’s absurd to blame tiny emitters on your imaginary climate plight and not mention China, but they do and the MSM doesn’t question the narrative.
Yes, if anyone should be giving the islands money, it should be the Chicoms.
It’s so ridiculous to make Australia the whipping boy. It’s even more ridiculous that some Australians accept being the whipping boy. The acceptable response of a sane person is to tell those doing the whipping to go to Hell.
I recall from years ago stories that world maps printed by the CCP had Australia labeled as “New China”. Always wondered if this was true.
I don’t know about that. I do remember when National Geographic started showing Tibet as Chinese territory. Needless to say, I was more than disappointed with the National Geographic for injecting politics into their magazine and caving to dictators.
My man in the street correlation.
Many voters who are anti-vax/mandate/lockdown are also buyers of v8s, boats ect.
(suburbs with lowest vaccination rates have highest Ram sales.)
The above voters include many young tradesman who have suffered financially due to COVID.
THe group also includes many migrant and ethnic groups – so politicians beware if they think they can judge which way they will vote.
Quote:”THe group also includes many migrant and ethnic groups – so politicians beware if they think they can judge which way they will vote.”
That applies/applied to the UK
The migrants voted with their feet and went home, to Poland and Eastern Europe
Hence why there are no:
and why prices and costs of everything are skyrocketing and the only solutions Boris has is to raise tax, create new taxes and to print money
best/worst of it all, those people were always happy, cheerful and upbeat. They were a genuine pleasure to meet and to socialise & do business with and their disappearance is a very real loss to this country in many ways.
Do recall, Polish airmen in Spitfires saved our skin in WW2
Even my little 8yr old autistic friend worked that out all on her own from meeting them in the local playground
what a dump the UK now is
edit to PS
What ‘Sarah’ noticed especially in the playground was the Polish people ‘made time’ for their children. They played with them.
99 times out of 100 the only time you saw an English parent coming to the park was when it was in a foul grumpy mood and come to drag their otherwise unattended child home. Whether said wanted to go or not – not even allowed to finish whatever game they were playing.
simply brutish and ugly
wtf do they imagine they are teaching kids with that kind of attitude?
<recalls Climate Change and shudders>
All the eastern Europeans I have met here in the UK have been hard working and open minded. But none of them are fools – they grew up under communism and have seen first hand how awful socialism is when taken to its logical conclusion.
I have become good friends with some who have taught alongside me in schools. For the UK to lose these people will be a crying shame
(Hey, I thought all us deniers were supposed to be racist xenophobes?)
Well what are we supposed to deny?
Here’s a few facts……
The Holocene optimum, Minoan WP,Roman WP,Med WP were warmer than our so called Modern WP. Just check the SLs like Eastern OZ etc 4 K years ago. See ABC CATALYST.
Human life exp from 200 K years ago to the year 1800 was under 40. Since then our health and wealth have exploded and yet we now have another 6.8 billion people to look after.
Today human life exp is 73 and we are much wealthier than at any time in human history.
OH and the climate today is incredible, see African Population increased by 1 billion people since 1970. Then life exp was just 46 and today is 63 and is now higher than the WORLD life Exp of 56.5 in 1970. THINK ABOUT IT and Africa ( 53 countries) is the poorest continent on the planet.
The UAH V 6 temp observations show about 1.4 c a century and this could quickly change when the AMO changes to the cool phase.
And Antarctica has shown no UAH V 6 temp increase for the last 42 years and according to the latest NATURE study there has been no Antarctic warming since 1950.
And Antarctica has just recorded the lowest temp since the 1950s.
SLR is now about 1 to 2 mm a year at the tide gauges or about 4 to 8 inches per century or about the same as the last century or well before their so called CAGW. See Humlum, Eschenbach, Morner etc.
In the ice core records co2 is a follower AFTER temp increase and never leads temp.
In fact sometimes temp drops and co2 remains high for thousands of years before it slowly follows temp. See Petit et al etc.
The world is greening because of the increase in co2 levels and this can be found all over the world for the past 35 years.
And the SH is ALREADY a NET co2 SINK and the NH is the NET co2 SOURCE.
Aussie cyclone TREND is LOWER since 1970, see BOM. Just a few verifiable facts to THINK about.
“Here’s a few facts……The Holocene optimum, Minoan WP,Roman WP,Med WP were warmer than our so called Modern WP.”
Alternative facts you just made up?
I presume you’ll have proof that those WPs were cooler than today’s temps?
Hey Loydo what caused the drop in atmospheric CO2 to cause the sea level to fall?
Lost World: Mysterious Ancient Mangrove Ecosystem Flourishes 124 Miles Away From the Nearest Ocean | Science Times
You know now that the SL is rising catastrophically due to anthropogenic CO2-
Sea Level Trends – Sydney, Fort Denison 1 & 2, Australia – NOAA Tides & Currents
When are those Sydneysiders ever going to get the dooming and start fire-saling their homes and heading for the Blue Mountains?
“The northern beaches recorded the strongest price growth as a region, jumping 10.1 per cent to $1.73 million over 2020.”
Where Sydney house prices are rising and falling the most (domain.com.au)
You blocks you stones you worse than senseless things but isn’t that consensus citizen science for you Loydo?
Politicians who aren’t believers in the climate crisis are still often believers in collecting more taxes by whatever means they think the public will swallow, so become virtue signalling greenmunists by default.
Yes, there are lots of ways to use the Human-caused Climate Change scam to benefit one’s self. That’s why the scam is so difficult to eradicate.
Scott Morrison and the Liberal Party will never ever get any votes from Australia’s faux green inner-city elites and they will never see any lessening in the International ‘Climate Change’ Lobby’s demands for cash contributions or a softening of the criticism. The Cargo Cult is strong in the Pacific Islands and demands will be endless there. Scott Morrison, the Liberals, and the Nationals might just as well make decisions based on real science and real economics.
I can see what is going to happen come the next federal election. The average voter is going to be fed up with both the major parties going down the climate change mantra. They will vote for the independents then we will end up with a hung parliament. Which will not not be good for the stability of our nation..
Time for Morrison to grow a pair and jump off the fence. People will not stand for higher electricity bills and a lower standard of living.
I think it will be a long time coming before any significant proportion of the Australian voting population will vote for anyone other than Labor or the Coalition. To do otherwise is considered “wasting your vote”. Unfortunately things will have to get far, far worse than they are now before the typical Australian voter will wake up.
History tells me it’s happened before in 2010 when two independents, Oakeshott and Windsor, held the balance of power with The Gillard government. What a disaster that was.
Now there’s an unwelcome blast from the past.
However the ‘independents’ may not be what voters think they are:
“… a group led by climate activist, Simon Holmes a Court, has so far raised $1.4 million to back campaigns by Independents against Government MPs …” (Andrew Hirst Liberal Party Federal Director).
”However the ‘independents’ may not be what voters think they are:”
That is nearly always the case, but give them a sniff of power….
And in other news Albo (Anthony Albanese) is channeling Elvis.
“Anthony Albanese on renewable energy: Ask Elvis, the truth always triumphs”
“Elvis Presley once noted that the truth is like the sun.
“You can shut it out for a time,’’ Elvis said. “But it ain’t goin’ away.’’
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/environment/2021/10/08/anthony-albanese-renewables/
Nothing about clouds, night time etc.
I kind of struggle to remember Anthony Albanese’s name. Something tells me its not worth committing to memory.
i wonder what Anthony Albanese learned by Elvis stating the obvious? Maybe Anthony thought the Sun *would* go away, before he saw the statement from Elvis about the Sun not going away.
This Elvis quote doesn’t stand you in good stead, Anthony. Anthony probably thinks it does, otherwise, he wouldn’t have used it. Very shallow, would be my conclusion. I would put no faith in this man.
I thought it was Hillary who promised third world countries billions of dollars, including billions just for signing the agreement.
Australia and NZ already give them lots of cash, in my opinion to try to compete with Chinese influence buying. The funny thing is the cash Australia and NZ give is mostly borrowed from China.
With the fine print being that these island nations needed to “join” the Clinton foundation. Small unmarked bank notes in brown paper bags were the lingua franca.
It was Obama who signed up to the $100 billion climate change fund.
Presumably, it all reverts back to CO2, that is causing global warming. So if you are throwing billions around, it cannot be for just making people feel all warm and fuzzy. You must quantitively declare a benefit, so that it can be measured after the expenditure. At this stage this is the missing bottom line that politicians have not even thought about.
Peter the politicians most definitely do not want any accountability. The money go round must be maintained without any scrutiny at all. But each politician must have their snouts in the trough to prevent any attacks of conscience.
Australian politicians who have fallen foul of the climate-change political threshing machine are those who have been for expensive or uncosted policies such as Gillard, Turnbull and Shorten. Shorten was soundly beaten in coal mining communities in Queensland.
It sounds like the $100B/yr promise is the new cargo cult in the Pacific Islands.
I wonder how long they’ll hold onto the dream.
From the article: “The next 10 days or so will determine whether the Prime Minister can put Australia on a globally acceptable carbon reduction trajectory.”
Yeah, being globally acceptable should always be Australia’s first priority. It doesn’t matter if doing so bankrupts the nation and impoverishes the people, as long as they are globally acceptable, they are on the right track. The “Globe” always knows what’s right for Australia. Follow the Globe.
they wont if theyre smart and want to stay in power
ditto handouts for fictitious claims by the islanders
So, let me get this straight. The rural based politicians see what the leftarded morons are doing in total collapse so they are now going to switch and join them? Is that the grist of this article? If so clearly the rural based politicians are leftarded morons, too.
I think the trade off will be to overturn the ban on nuclear so that it can be part of the energy mix, and a rather big part.
They’ve already gone full Covid totalitarians. So, why not?
That’s how the Marxist ideology works. Control the media. Make victims out of as many people as possible. Unite all the victims.
Remember, government is deserving of always raising taxes to provide for your well being because you cannot possibly spend your own money as wisely as they do for you.
Just ask them. They always need it and more.
One reason Australia may be caving is due to the AUKUS deal. Agree to net zero, we will help you with the China problem. A pretty shabby way to treat a long-time ally like Australia.
https://www.markavis.org/2021/10/05/aukus-did-australia-pay-with-net-zero/