Barnaby Joyce, satirist.

Cartoon; By Nicholson.

I often disagree with some of Joyce’s assertions, however he seems to get it right more often than not, and is not afraid to buck the system. One real quality he has is the ability to simply in one line sum up the stupidity of opposing arguments.

On the claims that a carbon tax would create innovation in ‘carbon free’ technologies by making them more viable he said, ”What I do know is that they did not develop the wheel because they taxed walking nor did they develop the car because they taxed the horse …”

Here is an example:

I saw a model and I assumed it wasn’t - Swan

Well Mr. Swan has told us that under his modeling with a carbon tax, employment will grow, gross national income will grow and if he had been pressed, no doubt he would have told us the dahlias would grow and Pinocchio would have been truly excited.

In his ivory tower, assumptionless modeling is self-serving wonder and light.

The other day I was reading modeling by government economists lauding the fact that a Doha trade agreement would lead to a “substantial” rise in world output of 0.1 per cent.(1) Now we learn from the Treasurer that actually a change in output of 0.1 per cent due to a carbon tax is only modest. It would seem that economists choose the wrapping depending on what they think of the package inside.

In amongst Mr. Swan’s lunch time thrashing around, we are told that China is driven by a moral imperative to reduce emissions and we should catch up and be like China. So what is all that black stuff that we sell them that is propping up Mr. Swan’s budget figures?

Effusive would be a very kind word to describe Mr. Swan’s speech. It was trust me this will not hurt a bit, taxes are good for you especially ones that can cool the planet, oh do not look at me like that I have a model that can prove it.

1 ABARE found in a paper titled "Increasing benefits to Australia from WTO agricultural trade liberalization":

"The global gains in GNP amount to US$47 billion, about 0.1 per cent of base levels in 2010."
The abstract of the paper reports these findings as:
"In this paper it is shown that global benefits from agricultural trade liberalisation are substantial."