Category: Carbon Tax

Bad week for Greenies

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AUSTRALIA will be represented by a diplomat rather than a senior minister at international climate talks in Poland next week aimed at securing an agreement to cut global carbon emissions.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt won’t attend annual United Nations climate change talks in Warsaw, saying he’ll be busy repealing the carbon tax in the first fortnight of parliament. Good, it’s one of the reasons that the Coalition won the election. Stand by for the screaming tomorrow – I can just see all the Greenies and rent seekers swarming like angry wasps tonight as they pray at the altar of the Church of the Latter Day Alarmists.  Their money tree is being chopped down and reality has set in.  Well almost, because they will all ignore the fact that Abbott has been elected on a platform that has as it’s base, a repeal of the Climate Change tax and spend industry. They still believe that all those outside of their church are stupid and don’t believe in climate change when it is the huge amount of money being spread around the industry, with not even a hope of any impact on climate, that we don’t like. And that is how Australia voted – get over it…go away and be quiet.
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Carbon Tax, Green Insanity

Ford closing down

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Ford Australia says it will close its Australian manufacturing plants in October 2016, with the loss of hundreds of jobs. Ford president Bob Graziano said approximately 1,200 workers would lose their jobs when the Broadmeadows and Geelong plants were shut down. The killer line;

“Our costs are double that of Europe and nearly four times Ford in Asia,” Mr Graziano said.

“The business case simply did not stack up, leading us to the conclusion [that] manufacturing is not viable for Ford in Australia in the long-term.”

Unions and Carbon Tax – a costly duo.   UPDATE:  Ch 10 Meet the Press.  Labour costs per Ford vehicle rated at 65%
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Carbon Tax, Politics

Hypocricy of the ALP

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After hitting business with the Fair Work Act, the Carbon Tax and RET they have the temerity to tell them to lift their game Speaking to The Australian, Mr Combet said business plans that were adapted with an Australian dollar averaging between US60c and US80c would have to face the reality that the dollar at or above parity with the US dollar was now the norm Does he really think that businesses haven’t adjusted their thinking to account for the high dollar – its been that way for quite a while now? As I understand it, aluminium smelting is heavily dependant on electricity as evidenced by this submission to the Senate Select Committee on Electrticity Prices;
Electricity use represents approximately 30-40 per cent of the production costs of aluminium and, in highly competitive global markets, the cost of electricity is a critical factor in determining international competitiveness. The long-term viability of smelters in Australia is under question. Continued operation of the industry will only be assured if significant production cost reductions can be achieved. The operators of Australia’s five continuing aluminium smelters will be forced to continue actions including reducing employment and foregoing investment in order to manage the loss of competitiveness that results from increasing electricity costs.
With a stated policy of increasing electricity prices to hurt the country and force us to use less, the ALP can hardly lecture business on how to adjust to problems, most of which are caused by the ALP.
Mr Combet would not be drawn on the new body to vet Australian content in major projects, through Australian Industry Participation Plans, but The Australian has confirmed resource and infrastructure giants will be told to spend more heavily with local manufacturing companies, such as steel suppliers, as the government seeks to head off further lay-offs in the manufacturing sector.
ALP managed increases in electricity prices also effects Australian steel suppliers so how are they going to be able to compete with steel from countries not saddled with an ALP government? They can’t, thus to help business Combet suggests they pay more for their steel. Figures.
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Carbon Tax, Politics

Water to Ice – 370 times more expensive

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THE future of skating rinks is on thin ice, with the carbon tax causing a number of family-run Sydney rinks to creak under the financial strain.
The policy has also left its mark on commercial ice cube suppliers, making tap water 370 times more expensive by the time it makes its way to the ice cooler in cube form. Another popular skating rink in the Macquarie Shopping Centre is being forced to fork out $10,000 more per month on electricity bills. One family-run rink in Penrith was forced to spend $100,000 replacing the system they had installed in 2000, with the federal government’s carbon tax leaving running costs “astronomically” high.
But these complaints are from small business and when have the ALP cared about them? Carbon tax, the ALP gift that keeps on taking, but, as Wayne Swan points out, Wheetbix still costs the same.
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Carbon Tax, Gillard's Diversions

Floor price lowered

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LABOR has moved to assuage business fears about the impact of the carbon tax by dumping the scheme’s controversial floor price, a change that could slash hundreds of millions of dollars from annual company costs. Stage two of the ALP’s attempts to claw back in the polls and to neuter Abbott – their nemesis; not surprisingly, they still don’t get it. Stage 1, off-shore processing, only comes with some of the expert panel’s recommendations and thus has been set up to fail. That will become apparent soon, if it isn’t already. This latest attempt isn’t going to help either. They have cut the floor price to calm down business who are not taken in by the government’s promises of limited disadvantage. Now some are happy, Combet is spinning like a top and I presume Wayne Swan is sitting in the dark somewhere wondering what has happened to his much touted ‘surplus’. He will be working on the spin he needs to make a deficit sound like a surplus – just like he did with the last budget. We know, by precedence, that he won’t be working on fixing the problem. It’s gone Wayne, on on the Political Expediency bus via Unintended Circumstances – a trade mark clearly owned by the ALP Tony Abbott’s comment;
“If you can’t take the price for granted, you can’t take the revenue for granted,” the Opposition Leader said. “If you can’t take the revenue for granted you can’t rely on the compensation. No one can count on the compensation this government has promised them.”
No one can can count on any promises this government make
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Carbon Tax, Politics

Swan takes us for fools

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TREASURER Wayne Swan has responded to criticism of one of Australia’s most controversial and complex taxes by proving the price of Weet-Bix has not risen overnight.
Speaking at Woolworths Nundah – opposite his north Brisbane electorate office – yesterday, Mr Swan said fears the tax would send the cost of groceries soaring had been exposed as “lies”. And he had the shopping bags to prove it.
That’s weird. No one is claiming grocery prices will soar on day one. The idiot has picked an item that wasn’t going to cost more and claim because it doesn’t cost more on day one of the Carbon Tax that proves that all claims that the tax is going to ramp up costs are therefore lies. What twisted logic is that? The pic in the Courier Mail of Swanee holding two receipts with little difference other than the post Carbon Tax one is cents cheaper may appeal to those rusted on non thinking, shoe size IQ followers but really…come on…
On Friday evening, Mr Swan visited the supermarket and bought 11 items at a cost of $35.30. Yesterday morning, he bought the same items for $35.10.
So? Maybe Steve at the Pub (previous post) could do something similar but much more relevant. A picture of him holding last years refrigerant bill of $20k and next years anticipated bill of $170k would place Swanee’s picture of two weetbix receipts where they belong. In the unmitigated bullshit list.
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Carbon Tax

It begins

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From The Public House
The product supplied by this man, a non-saleable item for which there is no alternative, currently costs the Wayside Tavern $20,000 per year. Tomorrow that price rises to One Hundred and Seventy Thousand Dollars per year.
The product? Refrigerant gas. Bet that doesn’t get reported in the media.
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Carbon Tax

Newman drops Feed-in-Tariff

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The Greens are going to hate this. Newman has changed the generous incentives for installing solar panels and returning power to the electricity grid. New installations will receive a feed-back tariff of 8c down from 44c a kW/h. I’ve been warning all and sundry that this had to happen as it was simply unsustainable both economically and socially. Somebody has to pay the .44c and it falls on those who can’t afford to fill their roofs with solar panels – the poor and the battling Mum and Dad pensioners. Power companies have to balance their books and buying for .44c and selling for .22 ain’t going to cut it. However, all is not lost;
Mr McArdle said households that lodged an Inverter Energy System connection application by midnight on July 9 would still be eligible for the 44 cents per kW/h tariff.
Feed in Tariffs involve a subsidy, incurring costs that need to be recovered from higher electricity prices or the state budget. The NSW government, in their plan to rid the taxpayer of ALP/Earthian Green economic nightmare, tasked IPART with sorting out the problem and making recommendations to the government, They were :
…. asked IPART to recommend a ‘fair and reasonable’ value for a feed-in tariff for customers who export electricity to the grid but are not eligible for the Solar Bonus Scheme, and a mechanism to implement this value in NSW. However, it stipulated that our recommendations:  should not result in an increase in electricity prices in NSW, and  should not require funding from the NSW Government budget. In other words, any future feed-in tariff for these customers must be subsidy-free.
That is obviously where Newman is coming from as his new installation tariff of .8c a kW/h is similar to the IPART recommendation of 5.2 to 10.3 c/kWh. You can download the IPART report here For all the non-thinkers and Green Earthians railing at Newman for “the broken promise” they need to realize a couple of hard truths. 1. You should be yelling at Bligh, not Newman. She has left the state in such a parlous situation that hard decisions have to be made. By the 2015/16 financial year, almost 10 per cent, or $5.3 billion, of state revenue will be spent paying interest on Queensland’s $92 billion debt. The selfish pricks should realize that there are no free dinners. Someone always has to pay and it should be the individual, not the poor folk or the subsidized taxpayer. 2. The Earthian Greens Renewable Energy Program and Carbon Tax are already going to cost us dearly and are a part of the increasing utility bill. As ever is the case, any plan from these guys doesn’t have a “Law of unintended consequences” factored in – It is uncontrolled, millions doled out to Earthian Green church members without any guarantee of results other that ‘I feel good” Newman is obliged to try and balance the books and with the state debt sitting at $80b and rising something has to be done. All the ALP/Green plans never take costs into calculations – it is all just money to Giai – she deserves it more than us humans. But hey, Hippy, the rent always falls due. He is not actually cancelling Feed in Tariffs. If you have a current system, or have lodged your application by July 9 then you get .44c. It’s just new installations that will receive tariffs that don’t cost the poor folk or the state budget money. I have contracted to have solar put on my roof, not because I feel a need to save the planet, but simply because all the ALP/Green Earthian wacky plans are raising the cost of services for no benefit. I don’t want some poor bastard to subsidise my power bills and I don’t want it lumbered on an already financially troubled state.
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Carbon Tax, Climate Change, Politics

Radicals win the day

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Only the ALP/Greens coalition could come up with a plan that will adversely effect our economy and not help the environment and then brag about it. Climate Change Minister Greg Combet told the ABC’s 7.30 program the climate change package was a Labor reform, not a Greens’ victory. “When you are successful in something, there are a lot of people who claim authorship,” he said. Yeah – right. Senator Bob Brown thinks “even the heavens are clapping” and that “it’s a great day for the human race and planet earth”. It’s a pity that it’s not a great day for Australia! Sure as night follows day, if the Greens think it’s good then it’s catastrophic for the economy. Piers Akerman likens it to Year Zero of the Australian economy and tend to agree. Treasurer Wayne Swan labelled the vote as historic, claiming the reform would be a “victory for the optimists and it will be a defeat for the deniers.” He still doesn’t get it. He is suggesting that people only fall into two categories; those who believe in the ALP’s carbon Tax or climate deniers. He is forgetting the majority of people who recognize climate does change but don’t think the ALP have the answer. He will be reminded of that fact at the next election.
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Carbon Tax, Politics
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