Who Wants a Carbon Tax?

By Viv Forbes, Chairman,

The Carbon Sense Coalition

The Carbon Sense Coalition said today that to introduce a carbon tax would be to wage war on consumers for the benefit of vested interests.

The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, also accused Australian PM Gillard of deceptive advertising in her support of a carbon tax.

“When our PM says “we need a price on carbon”, she is just sprouting another misleading Wongism like “we must reduce carbon pollution”.

“Most forms of carbon already have a price – coal, oil, gas, petrol, diesel, beef, bread, butter, diamonds and whiskey – all have a price (which usually includes a few taxes).

“What Ms Gillard wants, but dares not say, is another tax on our usage of many carbon products.

“Who wants a tax on carbon?

“The Greens do. They hate humans and their farm animals, crops, coal, oil, cars, power generators and heavy industry. They would like to see the end of most mining, farming, fishing and forestry. A carbon tax will hit all of these people so the Greens support it.

“Ms Gillard and her Fiscal Czar want a carbon tax. They lead a party of taxaholics who need a new tax to support their extravagant spending. Unions, even those in industries that will be directly harmed by a carbon tax, ignore the interests of their members to maintain party solidarity.

“Taxes are the life blood of the tax consuming industries – there will never be enough taxes to satiate the nationalised education, health, media, research and welfare industries. So they all want a carbon tax.

“And of course the wind and solar subsidiesuckers want heavy carbon taxes to hide their chronic inability to provide economic and reliable power.

“The nuclear power industries love carbon taxes – it gives them a cost advantage against coal, oil and gas in the production of base load power.

“Many big businesses are trying to buy green respectability by plugging a carbon tax – they will pass it on to Australian consumers, but exporters will get exemptions.

“For lawyers and accountants, new taxes bring new business. They love new taxes with complex rules and many exemptions.

“And of course all of Asia hopes that Australia imposes a carbon tax. It will shift our industries to countries with no carbon taxes.

“So there is a powerful and diverse carbon tax lobby.

“Where are the environmental benefits?

“There are none. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant – more of it will help plant growth thus creating a greener earth. And it is fanciful to believe that a carbon tax in Australia could possibly produce any beneficial effect on our climate. Climate will continue to change as it always has.

“Who will be hurt by a carbon tax?

“Whenever you tax something, a marginal producer somewhere closes up, and less of it is produced. Its price rises because of the cost of the tax and the reduced supply.

“Carbon taxes must increase the cost of electricity, fuel, food, fibres, building materials and transport. They will harm every Australian consumer, especially the poor who have no savings cushion and who spend a greater percentage of their income on these essentials.

“So who is our government protecting – taxaholics and vested interests, or consumers?”

Climate Fools Day

Our hastily organised Climate Fools Day protests went well. The event received media comment in Australia, US, UK, Europe and Russia. The best function was in UK where climate realists held a meeting in Room 10 House of Commons, in Westminster. John O'Sullivan was interviewed live on Russia TV's Evening News. Here are reports on the UK function:

The Brisbane meeting attracted a good friendly crowd, and media gave some coverage to the event but they did not attend - I guess our problem was we had no one throwing buckets of blood or harassing coal trains. A report on Brisbane:

Coal - Australia’s Industrial Heart.

By; Ronald Kitching


On 16th June 1924 General Sir John Monash, Chairman of SEC and designer of Victoria's first brown coal powered power house delivered Australia's cheapest and cleanest power to Melbourne.

The brown coal contains about 62% water, an ash content of about 2% and a sulphur content that is measured as a trace element only. The emissions contain no pollutants - they are steam and carbon dioxide.

Later, Premier Henry Bolte, a farmer, successfully canvassed industrial companies to establish their businesses in Victoria, as did another farmer Tom Playford, to establish industry in Adelaide in South Australia.

And so did another farmer and inventor Joh Bjelke Petersen actively promote industry in Queensland, all established on low cost coal driven power.

NSW industry too depends upon black coal driven power.

The anti-industrial Greens leader, Bob Brown says that the Yallourn Valley power houses are an environmental abomination and all coal driven power houses should be closed by 2020 or sooner.

Deputy Green Leader, Christine Milne on ABC T/V, assured the Nation that "....We want to see a carbon price as quickly as possible, because we want transformation of the whole economy and society."

The Labor/Green coalition is by their own admissions the anti-industrial and anti-productive occupiers of the Canberra Kremlin.

The great industrial benefactors from the past would be aghast at this job destroying turn of political events.

Climate science debunked.

A fascinating and satirical article from of all places, the (your own, ABC) It makes you wonder if their PC department was on strike for it to go through, I can’t inagine what they were thinking of:

If IPCC Climate scientists were Physicists: The IPCC has found that the total net anthropogenic forcing is 1.6 W.m-2 with an error range of 0.6 to 2.4 W.m-2. If the IPCC’s same errors for Radiative Forcing Components were applied to the universal gravitational constant, IPCC climate scientists would tell us that the UGC is 6.67 × 10-11 N·m2/kg2 with a range of 2.5-10 N·m2/kg2. They would then assure us there is 90% certainty that acceleration due to gravity on Earth at sea level is in the range 3.7 to 14.7 m.s-2. IPCC climate scientists would tell us apples may be as light as a feather or as heavy as a brick. They would tell us apples fall down, but they’d be unable to tell us how fast, and occasionally they may actually fall upwards. As a result of their endeavours, Newtonian physics and Relativity would be tossed on its head. Quantum physics, built on the uncertainty principal, would have no place in a world where the science is settled. Speaking about gravity IPCC climate scientists would say things like: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of gravity at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." They would earnestly explain that there was no statistically significant gravity from 1995, and suggest that anyone disagreeing with their assessment must be a gravity denier.


The article in full is here. Warning on comments section; The lefties are out in force.

Bikers strike a blow for Freedom.

There is considerable doubt tonight as to whether the draconian Anti Association laws passed by a number of states and being mooted by WA can work.

A test case in South Australia involving two members of the Finks bikie gang went to the High Court after the Attorney General placed a control order on them, restricting their communication between one another. Six of the seven High Court Justices determined the laws were unconstitutional because it undermined the independence of magistrates.

The laws were implemented as a knee jerk reaction to a brawl at Sydney Airport where one member was killed by a rival gang. The result is a threat to the right of every Australian to associate freely with any other individual or group.

The law should be imposed on any acts of violence, however it is an anathema to use the breaking of the law to impose draconian legislation on the whole of the population in order to carry out this responsibility. Certainly there are elements within the biker community who act illegally. There are also those within many other areas of society, including politics, who commit crimes. The fact that political crime is mostly ‘white collar’ does not mean that it is any less criminal.

Should it be illegal to contact your local member, because a number of MPs over the years have been convicted of everything from misappropriation, fraud, corruption, through to sexual misconduct with minors? Sounds like a criminal class to me.

Spokesman for The United Motorcycle Councils of Australia, Russell Wattie, had this to say:

Spokesman for United Motorcycle Council’s Australia, Russell “Camel” Wattie, said the ruling would have major implications not just for South Australia but for all states which had gone down the path of restricting their citizens’ legal rights.

“This is a victory for all Australians, with the High Court sending a clear signal that it’s not acceptable for governments to crush the rights that should be guaranteed in any open and democratic society,” Camel said.

“These laws were never about motorcycle clubs and their members, despite the governments’ PR spin. They were a disgraceful attempt by the government and police to trample long-standing legal and civil rights of all citizens.

“The High Court has seen straight through the South Australian government’s false claims about combating organised crime. It’s ruled that no government has the right to take away the legal protections that have underpinned western society for hundreds of years.”

The defeated laws gave police unfettered power to use secret, false and illegally obtained evidence against individuals, took away the right to an open and fair trial, and shut down all avenues of appeal.

They also allowed the police to pronounce individuals guilty by association, and reversed the time-honoured presumption of innocence.

“The Rann Government has now spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars trying to defend its disgraceful abuse of power. Other states will no doubt do the same.

“It’s time these governments had some respect for proper legal process and democratic freedoms. They should apologise for their disgraceful behavior and should not attempt to reintroduce their discredited legislation.”

While this has been a blow to these laws there is a united bloody-minded determination by MPs to go ahead with keeping them in place. Every state government has today indicated they will. This action strikes at the heart of the freedoms of every Australian in all walks of life and have no place in a free society.

11/11, Remembrance day.

A little late in posting, didn't notice the date.

This is for the guys who, out of all of our forces who served overseas, copped the shittiest deal.

Bicycle helmets and sheer bloody stupidity.

In December 2003 13-year-old Daniel Morcombe was abducted from a bus stop on the Sunshine Coast and has never been seen again. A coronial inquest is currently under way. There is little doubt from the evidence that he was snatched by pedophiles in what from the evidence appears to have been as little as a minute that elapsed between two busses. That’s just how fast it can happen.

About 15km (10 miles) from where this happened last Saturday, a police patrol encountered a 15 year old kid riding his bike along a road without a bicycle helmet. The usual procedure in these cases is to give a warning, caution and then fine, if the offence is persistent.

For some reason the officers decided to use their discretion in this case and made him deflate his tires so that the bike was immobilized and tell him to walk the three kilometers home. They claim they wanted an option other than to fine him, but do not go into the details of why they did not use the option of a warning or caution. They do however point out that they went to his home to notify his mother, who was not there at the time but told an older sibling.

This begs the question of why the hell they didn’t chuck the bike in the boot, and take him home at the same time then let the whole family know the problem. Had the kid’s mother been present at the time and left immediately to pick him up, he would have still been in danger for some time in the intervening period.

Some research suggests that there are benefits involved in wearing helmets but the rate of head injuries was falling anyway prior to the introduction of laws requiring them. There is also evidence that they are a discouragement to riding. Lets face it, you just can’t leave them around when you get to your destination as they will be stolen, so they are a pain in the arse.
Certainly there should be some encouragement for the wearing of helmets, but the law itself is a draconian, nanny state, one size fits all solution to a minor problem.

Tea Party around 50% libertarian; Cato.

Cartoon: Lisa Benson.

For some time there has been some conjecture here as to whether the tea party movement is in any way libertarian or whether it is in fact a fairly hard line conservative group that just wants lower taxes. Cato has done a survey at a Tea Party Convention in Virginia, with interesting results. Over six hundred delegates were surveyed, and found that libertarians were 48 percent of Tea Partiers, versus 51 percent who held traditional conservative views.

The method of determining the classification of conservative involved three positions, the first two of which pretty well were agreed to by all. These were that, “the less government the better,” and that “the free market can handle these problems without government being involved.” The one that defined the difference was, “the government should promote traditional values.”

A previous survey by others revealed a similar split, but was criticized on the basis that Ron Paul was one of those who spoke there and it was argued that his presence had skewed the poll in favor of libertarians. The fact that the results are much the same seems to indicate that Paul’s support base is wider than the libertarian fringe some observers seem to indicate. If this view were accurate then we would see a libertarian spike associated with his presence.

Ron Paul is more associated with small government, fiscal accountability, and constitutional governance, more than as a strict libertarian, although these tend to run together.

This has some pretty strong ramifications for 2012 for the GOP presidential choice. Current polling indicates that there are three front-runners each of whom has around 20% support. These are Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin. Whoever gets the nod will have to have Tea Party and independent support to get across the line on the day.

Palin has good relations with some libertarians, indeed the Alaska LP seems to accept her although she is really a conservative, and Romney seems acceptable although Romneycare, which has many similarities with Obamacare is a real negative. Huckabee tends to be a religious zealot and would find it difficult to rally libertarians or independents.

America has a larger religious right than Australia, and as result Huckabee is seen as a credible candidate there while over here he would be ridiculed. Huckabee for President has a ring to it over there, but the Aussie equivalent, “Fred Nile for PM,” would probably get you certified. The memorable thing about his campaign in 2008 was his reply to an ad by Fred Thompson. The Huckabee ad did not address any of Fred’s points, but strongly criticized him for putting out a release on a Sunday, when he “should have been in church.”

Out of the three, Palin would have the best chance of winning, although it is difficult to see her as Presidential, although better than the incumbent. We really need more time to make an assessment and hopefully during that time some others will come to the fore.