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At Large
Ovine Dupes Demand New Carbon Tax
The cherished self-image of Australians as tough, rangy, boundary-riders resistant to authority, government, and brainwashing has taken a dive.
The cherished self-image of Australians as tough, rangy, boundary-riders resistant to authority, government and brain-washing has taken a dive with rallies to support, of all things, a new tax on carbon emissions.
Not just any new tax, but a tax introduced with a lie, one which will impact directly on the country’s manufacturing industry, fuel costs and standards of living for no detectable benefit. My U.S. history is a little weak, but I don’t believe rallies have ever been held in the U.S. in support of a new tax, least of all a highly regressive one which will have a crushing effect on international competitiveness and domestic employment, and whose only reason is a more-than-questionable belief in man-made global warming.
At least, so far, the pro-tax rallies are not very big, and those attending (with predictably pretentious names like the Australian Youth Climate Coalition) are not remarkable for the high quality of their intellectual debate. (And just what is this worldwide thing lefties have against baths, anyway?)
The left-of-center Gillard Labor Government, firmly controlled by the far-left Greens who hold the balance of power, was elected with the repeated promise that no such tax would be introduced.
To illustrate just how mad it is, it is proposed that Australian coal-fired power stations will be taxed, but coal shipped from Australia to power stations in China will not be — make sense of that if you can. This is probably the first time in history, anywhere, that a tax has been imposed where stopping industrial development is not seen as a possible unfortunate side-effect, but as its express and central purpose.
There are several points to be considered:
There is no evidence of significant global warming, the reason given for the tax, and indeed some evidence of global cooling. Further, there is no evidence that human activity has any appreciable effect one way or the other.
The tax is aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions (though carbon dioxide and carbon are continually confused in the debate). Carbon dioxide is not only present in the atmosphere in small quantities anyway, but is vitally important for the survival of life on Earth. Plants breathe it as animals breathe oxygen and it is pumped onto plants to help them grow.
The amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere by all human activity is extremely small — most of it comes from volcanoes — and of that the amount emitted by Australian industry is infinitesimal. The nations with big carbon dioxide emissions, such as China and, increasingly India, as well as the long-established major industrial economies, are not contemplating any such tax.
The government first denied there would be such a tax at all. It then claimed that the tax will act as a disincentive to emit carbon dioxide. It now claims — make sense of this if you can! — that it will compensate industry for the disincentive it has created! The compensation will, of course, come from the taxpayers, who will already be hit by across-the-board increases in the standard of living and by the consequent decline in Australia’s international competitiveness, not only in manufactured goods but in agricultural products and all manner of exports.
In attempting to justify the tax, Prime Minister Julia Gillard comes out with near-gibberish about re-writing shopping lists or something:
“In the consumer end, where there will be some price impacts, people will be standing there in the supermarket with the household assistance in their hand. As a result of pricing carbon pollution, some products will be relatively more expensive. Products that have less embedded carbon pollution will be relatively cheaper. Now, people can go in and keep on buying the same old products, or they can respond to those price signals, buy the things that are relatively cheaper with less carbon pollution in them and send a signal back to business ‘you know what, consumers like to buy things with less carbon pollution in them’, and businesses will respond to that price signal, too.”
This, as commentator Tim Blair put it, sounds half patronizing and half Soviet Union. The Prime Minister was then asked:
“[A]ssuming that that all works, there’s then the issue of what will all this actually achieve? If the argument that Australia’s emissions are only about 1.5 per cent of global emissions, and the 2020 aim is to reduce our emissions by 5 per cent. Now I’m not sure what 5 per cent of 1.5 per cent is, but I’m sure it’s not a lot. What’s the point of this whole thing? That’s what a lot of people are asking.”
She replied, quite falsely:
About the Author
Hal G.P. Colebatch’s “Immram,” Counterstrike, is being published by Australian publisher Imaginites.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (21) | Leave a comment
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Dee See| 4.6.11 @ 7:58AM
----Poor Australia. The RED China 'eugenics
friendly' sellout to RED China ain't pretty.
CHECK OUT the Australian PM kissing up
recently on that Youtube video 'Fabian
Socialists Win'.
---------------------------------YIKES!
GO! ----CHECK IT OUT
Dave| 4.6.11 @ 8:06AM
Do not accept the word "denier" with regard to Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). Words are important and "denier" is an attempt to frame the debate as an argument between the indisputable truth (AGW) and those who refuse to accept that truth (deniers).
Especially when the AGW crowd continues to distort, falsify and ignore the facts at hand in order to promote their faulty agenda.
If you find an AGW nut-case that will listen - it's a difficult chore since they start screaming as soon as you start - point out that the global climate has been warmer than today on two separate occasions, lasting from 3-500 years each, since the birth of Christ. A nasty little fact supported by Archaeology, Anthropology, Sociology, Geology, ice core samples, tree ring studies, and recorded human history.
Who's denying what?
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 4.6.11 @ 8:16AM
It sounds like Australia has the same problem we do, they let a very loud and vocal minority within their population push the political agenda, despite the obvious disastrous outcomes. Lefties are just Lefties, no matter where you go I guess!! Now didn't Gillard's Labor Party just suffer a huge defeat at the polls just a few weeks ago? Do they ever learn anything? Do they ever listen to what the People are saying to them? Do they ever tire of spending other People's money? Will they ever stop lying? Rhetorical questions!!
Old Soldier| 4.6.11 @ 9:12AM
Seems like the stupidity is catching.
Australia floods sometimes - and it has been happening since people have been keeping records there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_Australia
Back when logical adults were in charge, a flood mitigation plan was established work on a series of damns started. Along come the "Greens" who swore that the climate had changed and the Australian climate would be dry from now on. No more dams and little other work on mitigation since the 90's.
Of course the floods themselves were unexpected and caused by "climate change" according to the Greens. So the way forward isn’t dams, its economic suicide. Nice to know we’ll have company in this great depression.
David W| 4.6.11 @ 9:34AM
To save money the Aussies could start eating sawdust made from trees. No embedded pollution there. No, wait, that won't work. Maybe the government can start up termite ranches - the termites can eat the wood then the Aussies can eat the termites. Good source of protein and that will make the PETA crowd happy - no meat to eat. Unfortunately the PETI crowd won't be happy (people for the ethical treatment of insects).
We can be sure that that stupidity won't make it here. We have a mighty strong bulwark in people like Al Gore and James Cameron and our scientifically literate members of the entertainment industry who know better than to get involved in that nonsense.
chriser| 4.6.11 @ 10:00AM
I'm afraid its been a long time since most Australians could be considered as "tough, rangy, boundary-riders resistant to authority, government and brain-washing". A good example of what happens to the few Aussies who still are like that is the Soviet-style harrassment of Andrew Bolt, one of the few conservative newspaper commentators left in Melbourne. See http://truebluenz.wordpress.co.....drew-bolt/
andrew| 4.6.11 @ 11:09AM
thank you for speaking out on behalf of us Aussies with common sense. Our PM is the most unpopular in many many years. Her lies and deceit are not great vote winners. Please support us in our fight. Bring Julia Gillards deception to the attention of the world.
Appleby| 4.6.11 @ 11:39AM
I suspect the real Australians were distracted by the World Cup of Cricket.
uncle curmudgeon| 4.6.11 @ 12:55PM
Mr. Colebatch: re smelly Leftists, there is some subset of Cultural Marxist theory which differentiates between "personal fragrence" (natural; self-expressive; GOOD) and "discretionary fragrence" (false; corporate; BAD). It may actually serve as a form of nonverbal comunication: the olfactory shiboleth; and no more weird than queer theory or wimin's studies, to name only two of the bricks in Progressivism's horrid edifice. And, yes, many of them in these parts stink something awful.
RWinks| 4.6.11 @ 1:51PM
DavidW...I'm afraid termite ranches won't do the trick. Termites, by weight, are the largest form of animal life on Earth and are the largest emitter of CO2. Not that that's a bad thing.
gilmore| 4.6.11 @ 6:24PM
This convuluted discussion boils down to two things. Carbon trading credits and the billions/trillions that will be made from them. These elites run around spreading lies and fears about the death of the planet due to carbon dioxide emissions when their ultimate goal is generate money so that they can enter the world of carbon trading and the potential profits that are going to be made for them.
Richard Baker| 4.6.11 @ 9:14PM
What's the bag limit for enviro-wackos? The time is a-coming.
Yosemeti Sam| 4.6.11 @ 10:45PM
Um, do air currents picking up China coal-powered plant emissions - drift over to Aussieland?
What say you Croc Dundee about this carbon crock?
John K| 4.7.11 @ 11:49AM
Carbon trading is a scam by which governments seek to tax the very air that we breathe. Anyone who falls for it is, by definition, too stupid to live, and should be put out of their misery as humanely as possible.
CT Yankee| 4.7.11 @ 3:02PM
The PM's policies will work fine until the first wave of price increases hit the retail consumer. When the greenies realize the cost of their agenda, they will march in the streets protesting the high prices. Been there, done that.
Russell | 4.7.11 @ 7:48PM
All that stays Health Minister Noxon 's hand from putting soft coal in Hal's cigarettes is the realization that he might take it for a bonus from his sponsors, and applaud its exquisite taste.
Ben | 4.8.11 @ 2:47AM
You make a good point CT Yankee.
I’ve attended two TEA Party protests here. There is a huge backlash against leftwing politics in general as the recent NSW-state election demonstrated. Also, Labor polls haven’t been this bad for 8 years, according to their pollster friends.
David Goodridge | 4.8.11 @ 8:37AM
Indeed the Australian TEA Party are being empowered to resistance by this utter silliness.
Please allow us to feature your article on our VERY popular Australian site. http://austeaparty.com.au/web/
Friendly regards from the Australian TEA party movement.
westie| 4.9.11 @ 5:54AM
Good on ya Aussie Tea Party folks! After the great Labor/Green wipeout in NSW you have an opportuinity to completely destroy your Leftist criminals. Unfortunately you have the same problem we din the US have, the prospective opposition party leadership is very weak...needing new bold leadership, focus on new leadership from the ground up.
Amfortas| 4.10.11 @ 10:05AM
Australia is 'known' for its 'larrikin' rejection of authority, but really this is a front for adolescent resentment. We still suffer from Irish bloody-mindedness that continually denies reality and elects half-witted, power-hungry, socialists who plead that they represent the poor and make sure there are plenty of poor to represent. The moment the average Australian starts to edge ahead and achieve some comforts, along comes another Labor Policy to burden him/her with debt and obligation for problems the Governments create.
One day, if we stop being lucky to survive we might actually earn some gain by throwing socialism out of our politics altogether.
Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 10:44PM
is good