Police threaten charity ride

Queensland; beautiful one day, fascist the next!

The Newman/Bleijie anti biker laws are a gross case of legislative over-reach in their own right, with their draconian penalties for being a member of particular groups that the government deem to be undesirable.

When overzealous and petty minded police action is added to the mix though, the authoritarian actions of an unrestrained out of control government are rendered intolerable by its accompanying police state.

Police on the Sunshine Coast have put their insensitivity on full display with their threats towards a charity ride to raise funds for medical treatment of a victim of Lyme disease: 

A CHARITY motorbike ride will go ahead today despite police warnings that any outlaw bikies who participate would risk being arrested and put the event in jeopardy. 

Sunshine Coast resident Marc Revere has organised the event to raise funds for 20-year-old Lucy McGrail, a family friend who is suffering Lyme disease. 

Unfortunately, the innocent event has been caught up in potential pitfalls due to Queensland's strict anti-bikie laws. 

"I just want to see a good day for Lucy. I just want to see people come out and ride their bikes and have a good day with no harassment," Mr Revere said. 

While the event does not need a permit, police have been informed of the ride as required.  "We do know police will be there, undercover, and out on the roads as well, not there to harass, just to keep an eye on things," he said. 

Mr Revere has been warned that, if the event involves three or more outlaw bikie gang members or associates, those riders could risk arrest.  "We will be watched, they will be watching for club members who attend," Mr Revere said. 

"If there's more than three members together - it doesn't matter if it's from one club or different clubs, or an associate - they'll be locked up for six months, no bail, and lose their bikes.”

It has to be questionable at best, just what the problem would be in having members of so called ‘outlaw’ clubs attend a charity event.  Logic suggests that it would be better that they are out there doing good for someone rather than engaging in the sort of activity Bleijie implies, assuming that those present are such people.

It would be nice to think that this sort of situation is an untended consequence of an ill thought out law, but this is not the case.  The way these laws are framed, once the club a person is a member of is declared illegal, that person is a criminal with no scope nor hope of redemption, even by leaving it.  The government has made it clear that even those who have been members in the dim distant past (15 years or more) can still be prosecuted under them.

In civilized countries it is a principle of law that prosecutions are launched on the basis of wrongdoing, not on the basis of associations.  

The Consensus Fractures, and it’s now all about Money and Power.

By, Viv Forbes, Chairman,

The Carbon Sense Coalition 

The Global Warming Scare started when some rich western elites in their deep green bunkers saw it as a way of curbing what they saw as the wasteful and unsustainable life-style of western consumer society (that is, those other people). If they managed this “crisis” properly, they could make great strides in their long-held goals of controlling national and local governments, destroying private property and introducing an unelected elite with access to a world system of taxation and redistribution.



But, voters, consumers and scientists are destroying this green dream:


•                The 97% science consensus is busted. A survey of American Meteorological Society members found that “48% either questioned whether global warming is happening or would not ascribe human activity as the primary cause”.

•                A recent Australian election was won decisively by Tony Abbott on the clear promise to repeal the carbon tax.

•                Japan decided their emission targets were unsustainable and unilaterally increased them. Japan has also decided they would not sign any new Kyoto targets.

•                Canada upset the Warsaw climate claimants by refusing to support a massive climate compensation fund. Canada also withdrew from further Kyoto liabilities.

•                The US admitted there was no chance that their Senate would agree to fund “compensation” for past emissions.

•                UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, who once boasted that he led the greenest ever government, made a huge U-turn by ordering aides to “get rid of all the green crap” which is pushing up energy costs for consumers.

•                Carbon trading, once seen as a burgeoning industry, is evaporating in Europe with at least 10 banks in London alone scaling back or closing their trading desks.

•                Germany, the heart of green Europe, has signalled it will slash the green energy subsidies and is proceeding to open 10 new coal fired power stations.

•                Russia, having milked the gullible west for carbon credits for closing the obsolete Soviet era industrial infrastructure, is no longer interested in emissions targets.

•                Poland sacked its minister in charge of the Warsaw climate gabfest, and intends to push ahead as quickly as possible on developing shale gas resources.

•                China led a block of 132 nations in a walkout from the Warsaw conference over "loss and damage” an ambit claim that developed nations should be legally liable for compensation when natural disasters strike developing poor nations. No one cared much.

•                Even the BBC was moved to comment that the sun’s behaviour may presage another cooling era.

•                Finally, Al Gore has sold most of his green investments because they were all losing money.


The climate scare is no longer about the realities of the climate, but about money – continuing subsidies for green energy, more funds for climate research and conferences, international compensation for natural disasters, the soaring costs of electricity, and the collapse of carbon trading. 

The community savings being spent or demanded by governments on the climate industry is staggering –

1.              EU plans to spend €180 billion domestically plus €15 billion in overseas climate aid in the next 6 years.

2.              USA has spent $6 billion overseas on “climate finance” over the last 2 years and more is committed.

3.              USA has spent $107 billion domestically on climate change since 2003 and spending is now running at about $9 billion per year.

4.              Africa is claiming $15 billion by 2020 to adapt infrastructure to cope with global warming.

5.              “Poor” countries like China, India, Brazil and South Africa are heading a claimant coalition of 190 nations demanding climate-aid guilt money of $100 billion per year.

6.              The Australian federal government has no idea how much is being spent in dozens of un-coordinated federal, state and local government climate programs, overseas climate aid and spending on overseas carbon credits but a figure of $20 billion has been mentioned.

7.              And all over the western world, consumers are being impoverished by soaring electricity charges, as green energy costs get passed on.


All we have to show for this spending are massive computers producing worthless forecasts, thousands of wind and solar plants producing trickle-power intermittently, millions of green jobs producing propaganda, many overseas trips for the climate bureaucracy and not much else.



Imagine if this deluge of money had been spent on flood-proof railways, roads and bridges, cyclone-proof power supplies, drought-proof water supplies, fire-fighting equipment, community shelters for fires, floods and cyclones, emergency helicopters and helipads and so on.

Instead, this money has been frittered away so that all western governments are in now financial distress, and soon will be unable to help even their own people.



At the same time, the same people behind the climate scare are manning Shut-the-gate movements all over the western world. Their prime target has been exploration for oil, coal, shale gas, coal seam gas and uranium, but they have also denied access to vast tracts on land and sea for exploration, mining, farming, forestry, fishing, water supply, railways, ports and pipelines.



Not since the days of the Aztecs has a priesthood inflicted such lethal sacrifice on its own people. They have vastly increased the costs to be borne by taxpayers and consumers, while at the same time crippling those industries that are the primary generators of real wealth.

Maybe some future historian will write a massive tome titled “The Decline and Fall of Western Civilisation – how a green-robed priesthood sapped a vibrant society of its desire and ability to feed and defend itself”.

Libertarians, who would have thought we were so powerful

 Image: SMH take on Abbott

Climate frantic, Ross Gittins is fretting about the election of the Abbott government and the subsequent move to abolish the climate tax.  Ross seems a bit down over this as he hopes to have grandchildren who will want to pay the tax: 

… Australians elected a government that wasn't genuine in its commitment to combating the effects of climate change, and that even abolished the main instrument economists invented for that purpose, I never accepted this complacency. 

Partly because that government's predecessors had done such a poor job of introducing effective measures - and even a party known as the Greens played its cards all wrong - the nation lost its resolve and allowed its original bipartisan commitment to decisive action to be lost. 

The minority of people who doubted the scientists' advice that the globe was warming combined with libertarians - who, as a matter of principle, oppose almost all arguments for intervention by government - to persuade the Liberals to break with bipartisanship.

So, apparently that minority which is usually described as a small group of intellectually impaired ‘deniers’ or worse, has with the aid of libertarians managed to get the Abbott government to stop being bipartisan. 

While this may be a great comfort to Tony who has not been described as bipartisan in more than four years, it seems to hint that libertarians are much more powerful than we had previously guessed.  Liberals, like Gittins, tend to be creatures of the state who tend to believe that the reason that Labor went wrong was in failing to intervene in the economy and personal liberties in the same way as the LNP does.

This means that the small ‘climate denier’ base had to be massively enhanced by the entry of a huge influx of libertarians in order to form the critical mass to force Abbott to drop the climate tax.  Who would ever have guessed that we had those numbers?

Gittins assumes that the libertarian argument against big government and the nanny state is simply a matter of principle.  In other words, we are just a mob of rather bloody minded pricks determined to deny the state its fundamental role as he sees it, of running every aspect of our existence.

The reality is, that libertarians understand the basic principle as described by Ringo Starr, “Everything the government touches turns to shit.”

We do not accept the ‘consensus’ position that a government, which couldn’t insulate houses without burning them down and killing people, has the infinite wisdom to fix the climate.  Out in the real world, home insulation occurs every day without such dramas.

Nor would a libertarian be conned into the government idea of picking winners out of infancy technologies such as ethanol, wind power and solar.  These have a long way to go before they become economical, but owing to subsidies, and mandated usage, are only viable at massive cost to consumers and taxpayers.

Where a government would subsidize business to turn food crops into fuel and order that a certain percentage of all fuel has to be from this source, thus increasing taxes and consumer costs, the free enterprise system would drill more wells.

The libertarian position just makes more sense.

Queensland biker laws policed to the point of stupidity

Ever since the Queensland government launched it’s fascist anti biker laws there have been reports of police going over the top in enforcing them by harassment of law abiding motorcycle riders.  Some reports indicate that there have been provocations in order to cause an offence to be committed.

At a recent funeral of a seventy-year-old woman in Townsville, a group of motorcyclists were pulled over and searched despite notifying authorities that they were to ride in a guard of honor for the deceased.  Law abiding riders are cutting back on group rides to the point where some businesses catering to this market in some of the popular destinations are concerned about having to close down.

Now a charity motorcycle ride in aid of the Cancer Council has been subjected to arbitrary checks as they set out on a ride: 

Participants of a charity motorcycle ride feel they have been classed as criminal motorcycle gang members following the degree of police presence at the event. 

Former president of the Bundaberg and District Motorcycle Enthusiasts Club, John Burrage, was one of hundreds of riders who took part in the last Bumz on Bikes cancer fundraiser ride on October 27. 

"The police turned up - two guys were walking around in uniform and there were two plain-clothed guys," he said. 

"Later on, we observed them approaching the Cancer Council ladies and demanded all the entry forms and took them away to the police station to photocopy.  "To me, that's a bit off." 

Mr Burrage said the treatment made him, and others, feel like criminals.  "It's putting us in the same category with all the outlaw gangs," he said.  "That doesn't seem fair to me."Now they have everyone who was there on record - don't' we have rights anymore?". … 

… But Bundaberg Criminal Investigation Branch Detective Sergeant David Tucker stressed that officers were not out to "tarnish" the event. 

"We wouldn't even think for one minute that the event was tarnished by any members of a criminal motorcycle gang, or that it was related to a criminal organisation," he said. 

"We had an obligation to ensure that there were no members of criminal motorcycle gangs attending there and committing an offence under the new legislation." 

Det Sgt Tucker said the new legislation, brought in last month, now meant it was an offence if three more members of a criminal bikie gang were together at any one time.  "The reason that police attended was to ensure that among the persons attending, there wasn't three or more criminal motorcycle gang members," he said. …

One member of the Rebels Motorcycle Club was identified at the event.  Had there been two other members or former members of the Rebels or other outlawed clubs present, they would have been guilty of an offence under the act, even if they were unaware of the presence of the others. 

The position of the other riders is not certain under these circumstances, as technically, they would have been associating with outlaw motorcyclists.  In any case, just what the hell is the problem with Rebels, Comancheros, Hells Angels, or any other group the government doesn’t like participating in a charity ride?

This obsession by the government, and the willingness of the police to go around making pricks of themselves among law abiding people in the hope of bagging a couple of ‘bikies’ is only going to lessen respect for the law and especially, the police among the community.

Repealing the carbon tax

This is the text of a submission by the Carbon Sense Coalition to the Australian Government on the Proposed Repeal of the Carbon Tax.


The Case for Repeal

We support the immediate repeal of the carbon tax. This tax was introduced by stealth, and the justification for its introduction is spurious. It should be repealed or made ineffective immediately.

We are told its purpose is to “reduce carbon pollution” – just three words, each of which is based on a lie.

•                “Reduce”: The effect of Australia’s carbon tax on the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is so tiny as to be undetectable and any miniscule reduction would be totally swamped in the far bigger natural seasonal variations of carbon dioxide levels. The effect on global climate, if any, would also be too small to be measured and of no benefit to the climate or life on Earth.

•                “Carbon”: It is NOT a tax on carbon. Carbon is a solid – either soft and black like graphite and soot, or crystalline, hard and beautiful like diamond. It is definitely not the colourless gas created when carbon is burned. The “carbon” tax falls mainly on carbon dioxide, a colourless, harmless natural gas which has always been present in Earth’s atmosphere, usually in far greater amounts than at present. The use of “carbon” when referring to “carbon dioxide” is a deliberate deception. It would be like calling liquid water by the name “hydrogen”, a major element in the water molecule which is a dangerous explosive flammable gas. Based on the carbon example, a tax on water vapour (another “greenhouse gas) would probably be called “The Hydrogen Tax” by government propagandists.

•                “Pollution”: Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and should never have been called one. It is the essential gas-of-life for all plants and they support all animals on Earth. It is no more a pollutant than oxygen, which is the gas-of-life for animals, or water vapour which is essential for all life. All three gases have effects on earth’s surface temperature, and on surface life, and such effects are usually highly beneficial. Additional carbon dioxide has been improving and will continue to improve the growth rate and drought tolerance of all plants on earth. Far from polluting the Earth, extra carbon dioxide has been greening the globe for decades.

There has been no attempt at an independent cost benefit analysis to justify the tax. 

The costs of the carbon tax are substantial and will increase every year it remains. It will increase the costs of locally produced coal, gas, electricity, cement, steel, timber and everything made using these essential products. If these businesses are exempted or compensated, the tax will be totally ineffective and taxpayers in general will bear the cost of the extra red tape, bureaucracy and churning of funds. If they are not exempted, value-adding businesses such as further processing, fabricating and manufacturing will be forced to close and relocate to more sensible business environments. 

There are no proven benefits. In fact, even if the tax was effective in reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, this result would not be beneficial to life on Earth.



To introduce such a costly tax without even the pretence of an independent public enquiry into the likely costs and benefits will (hopefully) stand for decades as Australia’s worst example of bad public administration.



There has also been no independent enquiry into the science supporting this massive gamble with the job prospects and economic future of Australians. The government has relied totally on local and overseas activists with a radical agenda, or on its own employees and grant recipients, most of whom have bent to the political will and supported the views of their pay-masters. The continual appeal to “consensus” and “authority” is clear evidence that the scientific case is weak.



The conclusion is obvious – this tax must be repealed as soon as possible. Australian voters have twice supported a political platform that promised that there will be no carbon tax under their administration. It is time the people’s opinion was heeded.




The Mechanism of Repeal

The main legislative support for the introduction of the war on carbon in Australia is contained in about 25 separate bills passed quickly and gleefully one day in 2011.

In an instant, a new class of carbon tax victims was created as well as another class of carbon tax beneficiaries. 

The passage of time has entrenched and emboldened the beneficiaries and triggered the evasive ingenuity of the victims.  Neither should be rewarded or punished any longer. 

No new injustice will be created by instantaneous restoration of the situation to that which prevailed on the eve of the introduction of the carbon tax legislation. 

To organise repeal by introducing almost as many new bills as are being emasculated is just creating legislative pollution which is sure to provide employment for smart lawyers for years to come. There should be no transitional arrangements – those receiving benefits should see them stopped immediately, and those paying the costs should get immediate and total relief.


The most appropriate repeal bill should say: “The sole purpose of this Carbon Tax Repeal Bill is to totally repeal the following Bills and regulations (and then list them all). The Speaker should then say “Those in Favour. . . Those against. . . I think the ayes have it. Session closed”.



If there is any opposition or delay to the repeal program in Parliament, the government should use its regulatory power and ingenuity to reduce the carbon tax rate to zero. It should also set to zero any penalties for failure to comply with the as-yet un-repealed Bills.



Related Matters Needing Attention

As part of this carbon tax repeal session, several more things need to be done:

1.              Remove carbon dioxide from the list of pollutants requiring reporting under the National Pollution Inventory Scheme.

2.              Australia should withdraw from the Kyoto Agreement, thus falling into line with China, India, Japan, Canada and USA.

3.              Cease funding or supporting in any way in the operations of the IPCC. This body has become a destructive and costly international bureaucracy. Australia should push to limit its activities, cut off its income and close its operations.

4.              There should be no new price control or surveillance legislation. Many semi-public bodies such as electricity generators are already subject to price justification/competition tribunals. All this has done is allow or even encourage generating and distribution companies to invest heavily in building or upgrading facilities knowing they will get a guaranteed return on those investments. More useless price surveillance will just add to the costs and overheads of the industry.

5.              The Climate Change Authority is still spreading nonsense reports. The responsible minister should immediately change the board, re-deploy staff to more productive jobs and lock the corporate doors. It should then be abolished as soon as possible.

6.              The government should delay the introduction of legislation to support their direct action climate program until there has been an independent enquiry into global warming science and a rigorous cost-benefit analysis of “Direct Action”.

7.              Finally, John Howard’s Renewable Energy Targets legislation should be repealed. These targets act like a hidden carbon tax, whose cost will continually escalate as significant renewable energy sites become harder to find and connect to the power grid. No one should be forced to use or pay for any special type of energy.

Summary Recommendations

1.              The “Bill to repeal the Carbon Tax” should be no longer than one page and should say just that – no transitional arrangements.

2.              If the repeal bill is delayed in Parliament, the government should use its regulatory ingenuity to reduce the carbon tax rate and the benefits to zero and set to zero any penalties for failure to comply with the as-yet un-repealed Bills.

3.              Carbon dioxide should be removed from the list of pollutants covered by the National Pollution Inventory Scheme.

4.              Australia should withdraw from the Kyoto Agreement.

5.              Australia should cease all financial or other support for the IPCC.

6.              There should be no new price surveillance introduced when the carbon tax is repealed.

7.              The Climate Change Authority should be abolished as soon as possible. Pending abolition, it should be de-staffed, de-funded or re-deployed.

8.              The “Direct Action” legislation should be put on hold until a thorough independent enquiry has been held into global warming science and a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis has been completed.

9.              The Renewable Energy Targets should be repealed together with all other market, price or subsidy mechanisms which favour renewable energy.



Submitted on behalf of the Carbon Sense Coalition by: 


Viv Forbes
Chairman


Disclosures: The above report was produced by Viv Forbes with assistance from several other members of the Carbon Sense Coalition. No one prompted or paid us to produce it. 

Everyone in Australia has a vested interest in this legislation, some winners, and some losers.

Viv Forbes and his wife own and operate a livestock grazing property which will benefit from repeal of the carbon tax. He also uses electricity, diesel, petrol and gas all of which will benefit from repeal of the carbon tax. He is also a non-executive director and small shareholder in an Australian coal exploration company. The operating costs of this company will benefit if the carbon tax is repealed and any future underground mining operations will also benefit with lower costs. However this company’s expected market for coal is overseas in Asia, and Australian coal exporters will benefit if Australian processing, smelting, refining and manufacturing plants are forced overseas by the carbon tax. Finally, he is a father and grandfather who supports repeal of the carbon tax because that will create stronger, richer Australia with better opportunities for those who want to work and prosper.



Petition.
If you are concerned that federal and state governments are spending billions of taxpayer funds on green climate follies, without due diligence, here is a petition demanding a cost-benefit study be done. Please sign and help it along:
http://www.ipe.net.au/ipeframeset.htm



John Howard Joins the Deniers (well almost).



John Howard did many silly things which still haunt us. One of the worst was when his government passed the Mandatory Renewable Energy Targets legislation in 2000, after an off-the-cuff election promise in 1998. This acorn has developed into Australia’s most costly carbon tax. It has permanently saddled our electricity system with a slab of costly intermittent energy, and created a mendicant class of electricity producers and equipment suppliers with a huge vested interest in staying on that gravy train.



Then in a silly promise before the 2007 election, Mr Howard promised, if elected, to introduce an Emissions Trading Tax. But Mr Rudd outdid him, describing the ETS as the answer to the “great moral and economic challenge of our time”. Unfortunately Rudd won the election and unfortunately kept his promise.


Despite these black marks, Mr Howard has seen the light (despite the fact that he says he has only read one sceptical book on global warming policy).

In a speech in UK to the Global Warming Policy Foundation entitled “One Religion is Enough” he said “The high tide of public support for over-zealous action on global warming has passed”. 
For his full speech see here

The Many Benefits of CO2



How humanity and the rest of the biosphere will prosper from this amazing trace gas that so many have wrongfully characterized as a dangerous air pollutant.

Keeping a Sense of Perspective on Global Warming. 



There is nothing unusual or worrying about the modern warm era (as long as it does not end):


Funds Flow in, in Enormous Dollops.

In the previous issue of Carbon Sense, we advised that our finances were $124 in the red for the month (while Flannery raised $1 million). This is the response from one supporter: 



Funds, in enormous dollops, flow in to Viv:– slightly tongue-in-cheek, I just deposited (exactly….) $124 into your account.   Didn’t send a dime to Flannery though.



All that aside, the last several weeks have been a very cheerful period, as we have watched a lot of the nonsense being dismantled by people with a bit of sense