Carbon Tax

[Deleted member]

This is the bottom line and it is totally independent of global warming/climate change or whatever. Instead of wasting words over "she lied", people could focus on reducing pollution.


Sent from the Throne

Sorry , she did lie, the issues are separate.
Put it to the people and then let them decide. To the best of my knowledge we are not yet living in a dictatorship.

 

[Moody]

Sorry , she did lie, the issues are separate.

So why bring it up?????

Put it to the people and then let them decide. To the best of my knowledge we are not yet living in a dictatorship.

Nope - we live in a country that thinks The Shire is entertainment. I would call that a *****ship if I was allowed to.

BTW - why the reference to a dictatorship? I don't understand why that is relevant in this debate either....

 

[SeatBackForward]

So why bring it up?????



Nope - we live in a country that thinks The Shire is entertainment. I would call that a *****ship if I was allowed to.

BTW - why the reference to a dictatorship? I don't understand why that is relevant in this debate either....

Its a curveball, we don't vote for our PM anyhow.

 

[Deleted member]

So why bring it up?????



Nope - we live in a country that thinks The Shire is entertainment. I would call that a *****ship if I was allowed to.

BTW - why the reference to a dictatorship? I don't understand why that is relevant in this debate either....

I didn't. Med head did

However the two (separate ) issues are 1 SHE LIED. 2 the carbon tax is a tax,

As for pollution I think my previous post states my position quite clearly.

On a final note, who believes we would have a labour government today if JG said , " I will introduce a carbon tax" ?

 

[medhead]

Sorry , she did lie, the issues are separate.
Put it to the people and then let them decide. To the best of my knowledge we are not yet living in a dictatorship.

See, you've just proven my point. Reducing pollution is vastly more important, and what we should be focussing our efforts on. Shame some people are more concerned about getting their stomach all tied up in knots about "she lied".

BTW if you read my post I didn't bring that up at all. But you did nicely with your reply.


Sent from the Throne

 

[Deleted member]

See, you've just proven my point. Reducing pollution is vastly more important, and what we should be focussing our efforts on. Shame some people are more concerned about getting their stomach all tied up in knots about "she lied".

BTW if you read my post I didn't bring that up at all. But you did nicely with your reply.


Sent from the Throne

p
Actually I think we have more points we agree on than differ

 

[amaroo]

I didn't. Med head did

However the two (separate ) issues are 1 SHE LIED. 2 the carbon tax is a tax,

As for pollution I think my previous post states my position quite clearly.

On a final note, who believes we would have a labour government today if JG said , " I will introduce a carbon tax" ?

IMO if the ALP came out & said we will introduce a CT or ETS the outcome would have been at least the same....most probably, better - they might have retained the seat that Lindsay Tanner held for a start!

All we have now is a dogs breakfast! The whole saga will be studied for years on how not to Govern.

 

[Deleted member]

IMO if the ALP came out & said we will introduce a CT or ETS the outcome would have been at least the same....most probably, better - they might have retained the seat that Lindsay Tanner held for a start!

All we have now is a dogs breakfast! The whole saga will be studied for years on how not to Govern.

To quote the famous NZ brewer tui Yeah right !

 

[medhead]

p
Actually I think we have more points we agree on than differ

High likely. Probably a point of difference is care factor. I can see that she did something that he said she wouldn't do. So what!? I don't care, others do. I also feel that 80% of the she lied brigade didn't vote for the ALP and never would have voted for the ALP. I also doubt anyone voted solely on the one sentence at one press conference. I know I considered both party's published policies not the spoken word.

Maybe because I remember the Howard lie, another one who lied. And I cared the hell out of that at the time. Because most of my money was spent on sex, drugs and rock and roll - GST meant 10% less. It should also be noted that I hated Keating at the end. Now I don't care, other than to remember the spoken word is not worth the paper it's printed on.


Sent from the Throne

 

[Moody]

However the two (separate ) issues are 1 SHE LIED. 2 the carbon tax is a tax.

She didn't lie, per se. What she said was "There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead" and she was right. What we have at the moment is a coalition.

Anyway - if not keeping an election promise due to the demands of the Greens and independents disqualifies you from being PM, then for God's sake don't Google "Tony Abbott lies".

And a tax is a tax is a tax. What was the point again?

 

[amaroo]

High likely. Probably a point of difference is care factor. I can see that she did something that he said she wouldn't do. So what!? I don't care, others do. I also feel that 80% of the she lied brigade didn't vote for the ALP and never would have voted for the ALP. I also doubt anyone voted solely on the one sentence at one press conference. I know I considered both party's published policies not the spoken word.

Maybe because I remember the Howard lie, another one who lied. And I cared the hell out of that at the time. Because most of my money was spent on sex, drugs and rock and roll - GST meant 10% less. It should also be noted that I hated Keating at the end. Now I don't care, other than to remember the spoken word is not worth the paper it's printed on.


Sent from the Throne

I wonder if the stories about Julia & Wayne, talking Kev out of proceeding with the ETS are true:!: Just adds fuel to the fire.....

Doesn't matter I suppose....according to the polls the public seem to have already decided

 

[medhead]

I wonder if the stories about Julia & Wayne, talking Kev out of proceeding with the ETS are true:!: Just adds fuel to the fire.....

Doesn't matter I suppose....according to the polls the public seem to have already decided

Who cares? As you say the polls have spoken....

Edit:
Of course Campbell Newman is doing all the right things to change the minds of queensland. The natives are revolting up there. I was particularly revolted to hear that the Fanfare competition is going to be axed. Our school band (including me) competed in it for years, heart warming to hear it was still going but sad to know it'll die.

http://education.qld.gov.au/community/fanfare/

 

[RAM]

And with that i pretty much rest my case. Science is a self correcting mechanism. A scientist or scientists will put forward a hypothesis based on available evidence and then it will be tested by other scientists. Should the hypothesis stand up to a weight of evidence it will continue as a working theory and if it doesn't it will be replaced by more up-to-date knowledge. So, what happened to the Ice Age theory?

{Well, as the real world evidence went the opposite way to the models the funding very quickly started to dry up and the focus of the European set turned towards protesting against the impending nuclear winter (note variation on the theme!) and that peaked with the movement against the action by the US in bringing nuclear weapons to Greenham Common. Also a little later in the piece the research spending shifted to the ozone layer as the new honey pot}.

It was challenged and did not stand up to weight of evidence and was therefore displaced.

{Somewhat positive revisionist historical explanation of biased funding bids by otherwise out of work researchers due to financial problems hitting the West at that stage}

The only problem with this is that the case for global warming keeps getting stronger not weaker.

{Well that hypothesis - your statement that is - has been disproven which is why the name morphed from global warming to climate change as the data "cleansing" revealed through the 'climategate' emails as well as some independent analysis of the infamous 'hockey stick' graph revealed the data had been manipulated. The "keeper of the data" threatened to organise a boycott by the major Universities of any scientific journals that published any anti-global warming papers.

Climategate - the Select Committee reports
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/25/climategate_select_committee/


Following the scandal, University of East Anglia set up two "independent" enquiries, one into the issues of conduct raised (the Independent Climate Change Email Review, or ICCER) headed by Sir Muir Russell, and one into the science (the Scientific Assessment Panel, or SAP) headed by Lord Ron Oxburgh.

(Oxburgh's appointment raised eyebrows at the time, you may recall – an investor in renewable energy, he failed to disclose all his interests in his Parliamentary register.) - and he is 'independent'?

“There are proposals to increase worldwide taxation by up to a trillion dollars on the basis of climate science predictions. This is an area where strong and opposing views are held. The release of the emails from CRU at the University of East Anglia and the accusations that followed demanded independent and objective scrutiny by independent panels. This has not happened. The composition of the two panels has been criticised for having members who were over-identified with the views of CRU. Lord Oxburgh as President of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and Chairman of Falck Renewable appeared to have a conflict of interest. Lord Oxburgh himself was aware that this might lead to criticism. Similarly Professor Boulton as an ex-colleague of CRU seemed wholly inappropriate to be a member of the Russell panel. No reputable scientist who was critical of CRU’s work was on the panel, and prominent and distinguished critics were not interviewed. The Oxburgh panel did not do as our predecessor committee had been promised, investigate the science, but only looked at the integrity of the researchers. With the exception of Professor Kelly’s notes, other notes taken by members of the panel have not been published. This leaves a question mark against whether CRU science is reliable. The Oxburgh panel also did not look at CRU’s controversial work on the IPPC, which is what has attracted most serious allegations. Russell did not investigate the deletion of emails. We are now left after three investigations without a clear understanding of whether or not the CRU science is compromised.
}

Despite the fact that they earth is a complex system so variability in local weather patterns can be inconsistent over the short run, over the long run the pattern is very, very, very clear.

{Yes and there have been a number of major and minor ice ages predating mankind, let alone industry. Climate is variable, greed and dishonesty are constant. For example the NASA study explains that approx 100,000 sq km a decade of ice has been GROWING/increasing around Antarctica for the last 4 decades which does not seem to have made the mass media yet the 2 sq km chunk that broke off recently has - go figure? Bad news/disaster stories do apparently sell more papers, just look at all those Newspoll results.

What's Holding Antarctic Sea Ice Back From Melting? NASA - What's Holding Antarctic Sea Ice Back From Melting?
The earth has always had cycles, just not mankind.}

Those of you who argue that climate changes isn't real I'd simply argue that you do this: put forward a single, testable hypothesis that explains observed changes in the earths climate.

{Prior to the "Global Warming" bandwagon the linkage between warming/cooling on a global scale had been linked to the degree of sunspot activity - see Maunder Minimum or this for a quasi-scientific explanation What's Wrong with the Sun? - NASA Science or this New Insights On How Solar Minimums Affect Earth -http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/solar-minima.html }

As far as i can tell no one is. Climate "skeptics" are a loose coalition of highly motivated people running what is essentially a collection of internally incoherent and inconsistent arguments ("the world has not warmed", "The world was warming but it stopped", "the world is cooling", "the world is warming but we are not responsible", "the world is warming but it is not a problem", etc) which allows them to occupy so many positions simultaneously that the response is fundamentally incoherent.

I'm happy to take the time to discuss in good faith with anyone who argues for any one of those positions but i find as soon as you do in most cases they simply switch to a different argument half way through. Science simply does not have this luxury - it must be consistent or it must be revised.

There was a interesting documentary put to air in the UK some years back that is available in Australia on DVD for a couple of dollars "The Great Global Warming Swindle" - it has many hours of sleep inducing additional material on the DVD that will provide you with copious deep scientific material to wade through (the citations are accurate I checked a dozen or so). That was where I found the NY Times article from BTW. Track that DVD down and then start a new strand. The sediment data records are especially interesting. Almost as good as Al Gore's disease claims debunked. Other interesting snippet for consideration - Al Gore's mansion has a carbon footprint bigger than three sub-Saharan villages (file under 'Do what I say not as I do' folder)}

 

[whatmeworry]

The Coalition under Abbott has a long way to go before it can offer fiscal credibility. Consider its promise to scrap a carbon price scheme. Add to that the promises to introduce a generous paid parental leave scheme and to restore defence spending.

These aren't modest pledges. The Coalition would have to find more than $70 billion over four years to fund them. Yet Abbott has been quick to rule out raising the rate of the GST (though shadow treasurer Joe Hockey has hinted at the possibility).

Clearly, if an Abbott government were committed to budget surpluses, it would have to undertake some drastic cuts to public services. Those who would vote for such a government should know they might be voting for this. Either that, or for an Abbott government with a Whitlam-esque appetite for public spending.

Australia under Abbott

 

[Mal]

Australia under Abbott

There is likely to be a lot of waste under the current Government that can be cut. Is it $70 billion? Perhaps, perhaps not.

 

[Jeffrey O'Neill]

Does anyone know what the Government revenue is??

It maxed out at around 24% of GDP under John Howard. When the GFC hit Government revenue fell massively in the first year - down to around 20% of GDP.

Now all those people who like to blame labor for the budget deficits need to ask themselves what would they have cut with a near 20% decline in revenue AKA around $40 billion. I vote for family tax benefits, child care rebate and tax payer funded maternity leave. There's still be some cost savings required elsewhere as well. We could disband the armed services to save around $22 billion. Starts to give you an idea of just how much money would need to be saved. There's also the fact that Government revenue is going to remain low for an extended time. I'd argue that Howard was able to pay off the debt by conning the Australian public to go on it's own debt binge - private debt doubled under Howard - which inflated asset prices and massively increase CGT revenue, it also meant we were at times not saving, so GST revenues were increasing at double the rate they are now.

I read a lot of complaining about how Labor has wasted billions, I rarely see a concrete proposal as to what expenditure will be cut. Most Australians have no idea about the different costs of various Government programs. Australia has a relatively small Government sector. Basket case countries like Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, and Germany have far larger Government sectors, and generally much higher education and health standards than we do. The level of Government is not the issue, it's the efficacy of the spending. I say cut out the churn of taxing and handing back. Just don't tax in the first place and there's no need to hand it back!

I suppose by this time next year we'll start to know the truth about how horrible the carbon tax is. Personally I think after the shock of the first power bill this financial year, people will realise it's not the end of the world. If we were as frugal with energy use as the Germans we'd use around half of what we do. We're talking about tens of billions a year in savings. So how about we aspire to be in at least the bottom half of energy users in the world instead of getting the Gold medal.

 

[777]

Was reading this story in The Age yesterday Power pollution plunges and thought it might be timely to come back and see if any of those who were making dire predictions in this thread still assert them.

As far as i can tell the Carbon tax is 1. Actually reducing carbon pollution and 2. Not actually destroying the Australian way of life.

From where i'm standing the steam (no longer coal generated i assume) seems to have gone out of the fear campaign and people seem to think it's not as big a deal as feared.

I guess I would say that but i thought that all along but i'm curious if those who made dire negative predictions want to still stand by them? Do you still want it repealed? Are you happy to give back the tax cuts, etc in exchange for having it repealed?

 

[dfcatch]

Was reading this story in The Age yesterday Power pollution plunges and thought it might be timely to come back and see if any of those who were making dire predictions in this thread still assert them.

As far as i can tell the Carbon tax is 1. Actually reducing carbon pollution and 2. Not actually destroying the Australian way of life.

From where i'm standing the steam (no longer coal generated i assume) seems to have gone out of the fear campaign and people seem to think it's not as big a deal as feared.

I guess I would say that but i thought that all along but i'm curious if those who made dire negative predictions want to still stand by them? Do you still want it repealed? Are you happy to give back the tax cuts, etc in exchange for having it repealed?

Absolutely I still oppose it, want it repealed, and what tax cuts?

Sorry - what was the term....?? Sandwich and milkshake that's right.

Like all bad economic policies the effects are subtle or even more nuanced as opportunity costs.

I would support it more if it was a true ETS with no green energy subsidies.

And no I don't support Abbott's direct action targets (perhaps some individual actions) either.

I would drop the RET too.

I don't believe we are / can make a drop of difference to the climate outcome, we are minuscule contributors (and don't give me the per-capita codswallop - get out there and fornicate some more - that will fix our per-capita problem), and I'm still waiting on the rains to disappear and the dams to empty and all the other false alarmist predictions made by Flannery and fellow travelers.


There is no such thing as "settled science" - only theories and models that are valid until disproven.

There is alarmism - which like the boy who cried wolf - only serves to destroy credibility.

We should pursue advances in technology, we should open the nuclear debate, we should not be propping up expensive and inefficient token gestures that make zero difference to the global climate but at great economic cost to us.

But - if you feel better for it - you're more than welcome to pay my power bills for me.

 

[drron]

Depends on your interpretation of the facts.In june when the use of electricity fell,ie before the carbon tax,Yallourn power station was put out of action by a flood hence a drop in the most polluting brown coal power generation.So probably not the carbon tax that caused the drop in CO2 emissions.
Cookies must be enabled | Herald Sun
Of course in this article Mr.Combet blames the electricity price rises on previous under investment in infrastructure.So why didn't those rises decrease electricity consumption but what he descibes as very little rise due to the Carbon Tax did?really cant have it both ways.

And why have the government back flipped on Carbon prices by linking the price to that of Europe,which is significantly lower,by 2015?As well the Government is now handing out free Carbon permits to companies so the full extent of price rises in many products are postponed a few years.And I bet they will blame the Coalition for those rises if the tax,as the government says,cant be repealed.
Carbon tax money-go-round | News.com.au


And tax cuts?I dont get a thing.

Besides the real aim of the Carbon tax i believe is the redistribution of income and that is a whole new can of worms where views are entrenched on both sides.

 

[Alanslegal]

For crying out loud, Whyalla SA is still on the fre...n map!