Julia Gillard's Carbon Tax: The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back

by: Cranky Ramblings

The straw that broke the camels back (the camel being the Australian people and the straw being the carbon tax) is the now infamous announcement of the introduction of a carbon tax by the middle of next year by the Prime Minister Julia Gillard, flanked by the greens and independents on her left and right.  Not so much that action was being done to tackle climate change but more so as Tony Abbot’s attempt to portray this as the lie of the century, successfully nonetheless and also yet another Labour tax and the people have had enough of taxes. 

Before the election Julia Gillard said in no uncertain terms that a carbon tax will not be introduced under a government she leads and whalla a carbon tax is now being introduced effective the middle of next year.  Why is Tony Abbot jumping up and down crying for a people’s revolution when he himself has lied and changed his position numerous times in the course of his turbulent political career?  Political opportunism of course.  How much tax per tonne of carbon, what are the compensation to households and businesses most affected and any other detail have not been worked out and Tony Abbot being the political opportunist he is jumped on Labour and unleashed the mother of all scare campaigns by telling the public that EVERYONE will be hit with the big fat tax that will do nothing to lower temperatures and asked for a “People’s Revolt”, even though the government hadn’t announced what the details of the tax was.  Some pathetic trolls in his party started calling the Prime Minister names by comparing her to the Libyan dictator Muamar Gadaffi.  I know the Liberals are still hurting from the last election but childish name calling will not help their cause to get back in government.

Now climate change and the policies to tackle climate change is not only a thorny subject but it’s also a complicated one.  Everyone has a view, politicians, bloggers, journalists, mom, dad and my pool man but the fact remains that the science should prevail.  Leading prominent scientists have shown that climate deterioration has occurred throughout the decades of abuse by man induced pollution.  In my opinion, there is no doubt about this no matter what the sceptics say or what arguments they put forward.  The science is there, it’s not subjective and it cannot be disputed.  There have been arguments that both sides fudge figures/ reports and whatnot to add weight to their case.  While that may be true, if you know basic science then you would be able to know the basic concepts of climate pollution and understand a little of what the scientists and deniers are saying and for now I can make very little sense in what the deniers are saying.  Could the majority of leading climate scientist all be wrong about climate change?  Do we dare take the chance or are willing to sacrifice now for our children’s future or are we happy to listen to Tony Abbot and his merry men like Nick Minchin and Barnaby ‘one million equals one billion’ Joyce?

Why is this carbon tax so unpopular?  Well firstly because Tony Abbot is really good at what he does, that is to oppose.  I’ll have to admit he is a really good opposition leader because he is great to highlight other people faults and put his catchy slogans so it remains in the minds of the voters.  He’ll do a shit Prime Minister but he’s a really good opposition leader, I’ll give him that and every step of the way he’s given the government grief.  He did it will the alcopop tax, the NBN, the flood levy, the mining tax and now this carbon tax.  If not for his destructive manner in which he’s constantly putting the government on the back foot, he would have been removed by his party, because as a person and leader, he’s a pretty shit character.  He swears, can’t keep his cool, is not very articulate, doesn’t have any conviction or principles and is really careful to say only what he thinks people want to hear (well most politicians do that).

Now let’s look through the smoke and mirrors of Tony ‘I do not have a policy just good to criticize’ Abbot and see other reasons why the carbon tax is so unpopular.

1.                   The government hasn’t sold it well.  It announced this with no detail and didn’t explain how the tax would hurt the biggest polluters while giving some reprieve to the middle to low income earners by way of rebates.

2.                   The labour party is perceived as being a party that only knows how to tax.  TAX, TAX, TAX!  They lost the billion dollars worth of reserves built under the Howard years.  The opposition has blamed the government’s failed policies on the NBN, pink bats, school halls rort, free money given away to stave off a second quarter of negative growth and a host of other wasteful projects.  With the reserves now gone, the government has to go back to the people on anything not allowed for in the budget e.g. when the floods hit Queensland the government proposed a flood levy to build back the state even though that would have been a legitimate reason to bring the budget further into deficit but because Tony Abbot had done such a good job spooking the government, they dared not even contemplate further deficits to their already fragile finances resulting in further bad public policy, a good example of Tony Abbot's destructive force.  There is a sense in the community that the people are fed up with the waste and taxes and the backlash has probably got to do more with that than the policy to tackle climate change put forth by the labour party..

3.                   The government has let Tony ‘The Climate Change Denier’ Abbot tell the world that Australia “is going it alone”.  This in fact is actually not true and many other countries like New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, Norway, Canada and the US already have a full or partial carbon tax policy.  The likes of China and India have changed their tune from two years ago and are now looking seriously at various ways to reduce their emissions and building cleaner coal fired stations and demolishing the dirtier ones (still coal but nonetheless a good start).  China is also investing huge amounts of money into wind and solar power which is getting cheaper every year.  So Australia is not going it alone, in fact as the leading climate commissioner for the EU said “it would be good if Australia could join us”.

4.                   There are a bunch of climate change sceptics, Liberal lackeys and shock jocks that hate the Labour party so much that you just can’t make them see the good that a carbon tax could bring before an ETS takes effect.  That is also something that the Labour party have not explained well in that the carbon tax is not a direct tax on the people but on the polluters and it’s just a temporary tax until an ETS kicks-in in 2015, an ETS which the Australian people were overwhelmingly in favour of, as evidenced by the landslide victory by the Labour party in 2007 when they got the people’s mandate to tackle climate change in favour of Howard’s climate change sceptics (Abbot being one of the most vocal sceptics saying “climate change is crap”)

Let’s put it this way.  The Labour party was described as on “training wheels” when they took office four years ago and that is probably not far off the mark but what is the alternative?  Abbott and his henchmen?  Right wing sorry arse racist shadow ministers like Cory Benardy and Scott Morrisson who have a better fit in “One Nation” than any progressive political party in Australia or is it Barnaby Joyce who doesn’t know his millions from his billions or maybe Joe Hockey who after criticizing the government’s budget during the election stalemate reluctantly released his with a $11 billions black hole (which we now know why he was so reluctant to release in the first place).  But the person that takes the honours though is no other than their fearless, budgy smuggler, opposition leader himself Tony Abbot.  A vindictive, lost for ideas, good only to criticize, foul mouth, bad policy, no conviction or leadership budgy smuggler wearing politician who will soon be dumped as Liberal leader as soon as Newspoll does not show progress for his party.  As unpopular as Julia Gillard and the government are, she’s still ahead of Tony Abbot in terms of preferred PM but the Liberal party is ahead of the Labour in the two party preferred polls and that’s what counts and that’s what is keeping Abbot as Liberal leader.

The Labour party needs to sell this tax better and not just to spend tax payers dollars on advertising.  They should sell it with informative, backed by facts arguments.  The price for carbon need not hurt the general population if you bought less products that are carbon intensive to produce, or if you used less energy which is the underlying goal for the introduction of a carbon tax.  The whole purpose of a carbon tax is to reduce our reliance on dirty carbon and invest the tax coming from this into greener, cleaner energy for our future, not to tax and give back to “soften the blow” etc. which is giving the people confusing signals and lost confidence that this government has any proper policy direction.

Libya Spits on the International Community and for Good Reason

by Cranky Ramblings

So what the hell is going on in Libya?  Gadaffi  and Co are killing their own citizens mercilessly and the international community who in the past have embraced Gadaffi, mainly for his oil were so slow to react till the deaths stemming from the genocide piled on into the thousands and only until public sentiment was too much for the fearless politicians do we now have a loosely set up “No Fly Zone” which is probably too little too late, especially those who lost their lives in the cruel hands of the evil dictator, a dictator who in the past was embraced by the international community due mainly to his country’s vast reserve of oil.

You have to sometimes wonder why we even have politicians at all.  Is it for their bumbling policies that have created all this chaos in the world?  Is it for their lack of convictions and clueless leadership which only panders to the sentiments of their electorates and citizens?  The only reason America did not agree to a “No Fly Zone” initially was because they did not want to get into another war in a Muslim country as the two wars they are currently involved in (Iraq and Afghanistan) are hugely unpopular back home.  As far as I can see, the true leadership in relation to this crisis is nowhere to be found.  The international community failed in Darfur, failed in Srajevo and have now failed in Libya.

I can’t seem to work out where these international diplomats stand on the issue of Libya.  Are they for Gadaffi or against him?  Do they think he is a terrorist or a reformist?  The conflicting signals they give is enough to give you a permanent migraine.  On the one hand they say Gadaffi must stop killing his own people and a no fly zone is the best way to do this and in the same breath say that a caution and restrain will need to be observed as a protracted war in Libya is the last thing the world wants as it could affect the oil rich region.  So once again it boils down to profits before principle and profits before people.  It’s all about OIL, OIL, OIL! 

You either stop Gadaffi with determination and conviction and use everything at your disposal to get the job done even if that means bombing his arse into smithereens or you might as well keep out of it altogether.  Standing by the sidelines “condemning” Libya, imposing meaningless travel and economic sanctions has no effect to the Libyan regime and no use to the revolution especially to the people who are staring down the barrel of the gun waiting for the inevitable “POW” that is going to blow their brains into a million little pieces.  The weakness of the sanctions has been proven ineffective in the past and once again in this case it has proven to be of no use.  Thousands are dead and thousands will continue to die.  Thank you for your leadership “International Community”.  They sit in their cushy little offices making decisions for other people and telling others how best to live their lives with very little concept of the reality of it all and have proven time and again to be weak, gutless, fence sitters and ineffective.  Unfortunately, in this case and many others in the past, lives have been lost because of them. 

I don’t even know why we need the UN Security Council, G8 etc. etc. making all these life and deaths decisions.  As everyone knows every country has their own agenda.  China and Russia will most times veto military action on rogue states and you can only guess their motives for that.  Being far less than transparent and democratic in their own governance, they probably do not want to set too much of a precedent in which the standards they themselves cannot achieve.  Who knows, but what I do know is while these diplomats argue, innocent lives, lives that depend on the international community for help are lost by a cruel, ruthless dictator once named “the Mad Dog of the East” by Ronald Reagan, a term which shows how much ahead of his time the former president was.  If only goons like Sarkoszy, Blair and their cronies had a fraction of the foresight Reagan had, it may be so much different today. 

Comemorating Women's 100 years yesterday the government is at it again.

The social engineers and central planners are at it again.
“Companies to face mandatory reporting in bid to boost gender equality”, announced yesterday’s The Australian.
The article explains:
“Firms with more than 100 workers will face spot checks and mandatory reporting on the numbers of women they employ and their position under tough new measures aimed at boosting gender equality in the workplace.”
Our first response is, why 100?  Why not 99 or 101?
100 is an arbitrary number.  But it’s a round number.
It means a firm employing 99 men and no women gets off scot-free, while a firm employing 99 men and 1 woman could be in the soup, and subject to on-the-spot inspections.
The paper quotes Minister for the Status of Women, Kate Ellis:
“There will be regular spot checks to ensure that the information that organisations are providing to the government actually matches how they conduct their day-to-day business.”
What business is it of the government to know how many men and women you employ?
It makes you wonder why on earth would anyone ever start a business in Australia, when the bureaucrats think up rubbish like this.
Not satisfied with successive Liberal and Labor governments burdening the Australian manufacturing industry with so much red tape that there’s almost nothing left, the bureaucrats now want to attack any business with 100 or more staff – regardless of the industry.
Now, we’ll assume the government will decide there are some industries that are male dominated and some industries that are female dominated.  Those industries may be able to avoid imposts from the Australian Sex Police.
But that’s a big assumption… maybe a naïve one… yes, it’s naïve, I can barely believe I even thought of it!
But let’s say they exempt some industries – which industries?  At what point does the government decide one industry is fair game for male/female dominance, whereas another industry deserves equality?
And what about job roles within an industry or business?  Is it OK for certain roles to be male/female dominated, while others must be equalised?
That’s a lot of questions.
But what it shows you is yet again, bureaucrats who’ve lived a life of shuffling paper and dreaming up new regulations will now tell bakeries, shoe shops, car manufacturers and mining companies how many staff should be employed and what gender those employees should be.
Think of it this way.  I don’t know about you, but every time I’ve popped into the local Brumby’s or Baker’s Delight most of the time the bakers are male.
As for the counter staff, that’s probably fifty-fifty between men and women…
Now, I’ll be honest the closest your editor comes to baking is chucking the odd cake in the oven for the missus’ birthday, so we’ve got no idea about the ins and outs of being a baker.
But our guess is there’s probably little reason why more women can’t be bakers… if they want to.
And here’s the thing.  Is the bakery industry full of rampant misogynists?  The Secret Brethren of Bakers can’t stand the thought of allowing feeble women into the clan?
Or is it just that over time, bakery work is something that’s traditionally been done by men.  Just like many other jobs are male dominated – such as the garbo industry.  And for that fact, many jobs are female dominated – primary school teachers for example.
Unfortunately, central planners and social engineers can’t abide freedom of choice.  They can’t cope with the idea that people should have the freedom to do as they wish and work in the jobs they want.
And they also can’t abide business owners being able to choose between who they employ and who they don’t employ.  Why should a government bureaucrat have as much say in the hiring of workers as a businessman or woman who started the business from scratch with their own capital on the line?
If a business owner only wants to employ men only then so what.  If a business owner only wants to employ women only then so what.
But as I say, central planners don’t like that.  They need to set quotas.
They need to meddle and decide women and men should be forced into jobs against their will just so a government quota can be met.
It’s similar to the Review of Australian Higher Education Final Report in December 2008 from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.  The report suggested:
“The target proposed for higher education is that 40 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds will have attained at least a bachelor-level qualification by 2020.  This will be quite testing for Australia as current attainment is 29 per cent.”
But what if only 35% want to go to university?  Is the intention that the government would force an extra 5% to go to university, or manipulate the market to ensure the target is met just so a stiff-necked bureaucrat can tick a box?
The fact is, when bureaucrats get involved in things they know nothing about, it causes more problems.
Bureaucrats know nothing about running a business.  Yet every day they’re telling entrepreneurial businessmen and women what to do… “No, you can do that unless you file this form, and if you don’t we’ll fine you.”
As an example, look no further than page 53 of Monday’s Australian Financial Review (AFR).  It contains a CV of Martin Parkinson, the man who this week has taken over as Number One from “Emperor” Ken Henry as Treasury secretary in the Australian federal bureaucracy.
According to the AFR, Number One’s career highlights are:

Source: AFR
Photo: Dr. Alex Cowie’s iPhone

Now, there are a few blanks in there, such as 1980-81 and 1993-97.  So Number One could have been doing something useful in the private sector for all we know.
But even if there was a stint in the private sector, it was clearly nothing the AFR thought worthy of mention.
So we can only assume it’s a career of academic dreaming and bureaucratic meddling.
The most troubling entry is the note for 1990, “PhD at Princeton, studying under Ben Bernanke, now chairman of the US Federal Reserve.”
Personally, that’s the sort of thing I’d keep off my CV.  But for bureaucrats, statists, central planners and social engineers, studying under (only figuratively) Ben Bernanke is clearly a badge of honour.
The roll of bureaucracy is to inhibit business.  It’s to stifle innovation and stop entrepreneurs from… well, entrepreneuring.
But in the end, will the statist Workplace Gender Equality Agency actually achieve anything?
Yes.  It will annoy people.  And it’ll put another hurdle in front of businesses.  But what it won’t do is lead to gender equality – for a start (here’s some breaking news) there’s no such thing as equality.
Everyone is different.  You can’t be equal.  Humans aren’t some manufactured widget from a factory that can be made identical to millions of other widgets.
But that’s exactly what the bureaucrats would like humans to be.  That way they can pigeonhole you into certain tasks based on their urge to control the economy and control you.
Governments and bureaucrats are good for nothing.  All they know is how to tax and how to control people with violence and threats of violence.
Yet for some unknown reason bureaucrats are painted by the mainstream press as heroic figures.  People who supposedly have given up the opportunity to earn mega bucks in the private sector in order to serve the people in the public sector.
In reality, for the most part the bureaucratic top-dogs are nothing more than insecure control freaks who wouldn’t survive two seconds in the private sector.  So to make up for their inadequacies they feel the need to boss others around.
We can hardly imagine a sorrier bunch of individuals if we tried.

Regards,

Kris Sayce
for Money Morning Australia