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Julia’s explanation

Whats wrong with this statement by Julia Gillard?
….Well, the effect is that in the shops when you come to buy things, products that are made with relatively less carbon pollution will be cheaper than products that are made with more carbon pollution. So you’re standing there with your household assistance in your hand. You could still keep buying the high-carbon pollution products if you want to, or what you’re far more likely to do is to buy the cheaper, lower-carbon pollution products. That means that the people who make those things will get the consumer signal: gee, we will sell more, we will make more money if we make lower-pollution products. That drives the innovation. So I want you to have that household assistance in your hand but I also want you to see price effects which make cleaner, greener things cheaper than high-pollution commodities. That’s why it works.”
Honey, this is why it doesn’t work It only considers Australia in isolation and ignores the world economy. In Julia’s shop you could be confronted with goods made by a high-polluter and goods made by a low polluter and just when you remember Julia’s words and reach for the cheaper low-pollution made product you notice the same product along side made in China for half the price again! Oops! Julia forgot to tell the Chinese to apply a carbon tax to goods they export to Australia. Secondly; What source of power does the politically correct Low-Polluter manufacturer use? Solar Power? I hope not because if he does he will have supply line problem only being able to manufacture on hot sunny days. This leaves the shopper faced with the high-polution product, now dearer because of Julia’s Carbon tax, the empty bin of the low-polluter or the one made in China – still cheaper. Oh, and exactly what household assistance would I have left in my hand. With domestic power rates soaring from this and other Green ventures, water dearer because ALP governments traded dams for Greenie votes and built billion dollar desalination plants instead, and a host of other price increases that this tax will produce I will be so out of pocket I will need to be reincarnated as a 30 year old to start earning more money again. Failing that, has anybody got a job for an old digger? My fixed income superannuation won’t cut it.

Social engineering at its best

The Greens have secured a Productivity Commission review into fuel excises, which could ultimately make all drivers pay more for petrol. The Greens said they would continue to push for fuel to be priced in a way that reflected its impact on the environment.
“We want Australians to drive less and … drive more efficiently,” deputy leader Christine Milne said last night.
Well I want you to but out of my life and stick to cuddling Koalas.
“In particular, we should change the fuel excise regime from a simple revenue-raiser into a real driver for change, taxing more polluting fuels more and cleaner fuels less,” Senator Milne said.
Fuel should be a means of powering vehicles, not a “real driver for change”. Stupid woman!

Bob under the spotlight

There is only one positive I can see with the Greens holding balance of power in the Senate and that is – more scrutiny. For years Bob Brown has been making outlandish statements on his ABC and in the media and no one has called him to order or demanded he explain why he is so intent on wrecking the economy or turning us into a socialist state . Now questions are being asked and the spotlight is on him and his wacko followers. Bob negotiates a donation of $1.6m from Graeme Wood, founder of the wot.if site even though he is on record as saying “…ending all large political donations would make a tremendous contribution to stamping out corporate influence in politics”. It stands as the largest single donation ever made to a political party in Australian election history and was instrumental in Bob getting the balance of power. Say one thing, do something else…say anything…do anything. Not any more, Bob – we are onto you. Now it appears Graeme Wood and Katmandu founder, Jan Cameron have indicated an interest in the Triabunna mill in Tasmania owned by Gunns who are negotiating the sale of the mill to family-owned logging and haulage company Aprin. Wood and Cameron would like to buy the Triabunna mill site for an eco-tourism development if the Aprin deal fell through. Bob Brown now asks the government to guarantee that no public monies would be involved in any such sale by Gunns to Aprin. I’m sure this is only a coincidence but if no public monies were involved then the sale would fall through, thus clearing the path for Wood and Cameron to set up their tree hugging Utopia. As Glenn Milne says – it’s not a good look, Bob. Milne also turns the spotlight on Lee Rhiannon – go read, it’s interesting stuff.

Gilding the Lilly

Wayne Swan gilding the Lilly Mr Swan said he knew self-funded retirees have had a tough time in the past few years. ”The retirees I chat to in my local community are really concerned about protecting our unique environment for their grandkids, and that means cutting carbon pollution,” he said. ”So the Gillard government’s financial help will mean retirees can do their bit to tackle climate change, while still looking after their budgets.” Bullshit Wayne! About half of your electorate, myself including, don’t even want you as their member – you only got in on Green preferences and since then there has been a 3% swing against you. The self funded retirees in Lilley that I talk to want you and your silly tax churn out of their lives. You are a dead man walking. So the tax that will not fix the problem but will cost us more just to live will raise fuel by 6 cents a litre and all us self-funded retirees are going to be compensated by up to $760 a year for couples to help. But I bet that figure is to compensate us for all the increased costs that the non-problem saving tax will give us – not just fuel. As soon as power companies are slugged for their products every thing will rise, not just fuel. What isn’t manufactured using electricity? You are waffling Wayne and even your local rusted-on Lilly voters have an uneasy feeling in their gut about what you and the ALP are doing. The rest of us in Lilley, the majority, just want you gone. You need to get out more and talk to a broader sample around town while you have the chance.

Rediculous to sublime

The Government destroys an entire industry worth about $300 million a year and then offers the loosers $30 million to go away and be quiet. Won’t work. Gillard says there is no quick fix for the ALP’s huge stuff-up and it’s certainly true that offers from the government aren’t going to help any time soon. Some properties have tens of thousands of dollar fuel bills just to water their stock and others are paying more in monthly interest bills than the $5,000 immediate support offered. A suggestion of maybe up to $20,000 later is not even going to pay the monthly fuel bills on some properties. Meanwhile the cost of meat drops across the nation as everyone tries to sell off their surplus beef previously allocated to Indonesia. This may be good news for families suffering from other ALP stuff-ups but not the beef producers. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said: ”I think that the cattle industry doesn’t want welfare, they want their trade back.” while the Greens advocate eliminating the entire industry. Greens leader Bob Brown condemned the bailout, arguing the live export trade should be banned.
”It’s got the aim of resuming the slaughter in Indonesia of Australian livestock, and the Greens are the only party which doesn’t want to see that happen,” he said.
Now that’s a cavalier way of treating the livelihood of hundreds of workers and businesses involved in the $300 million trade. The Greens are the only party that doesn’t want live trade resumed because they don’t care about such things as livelihoods while it conflicts with their perfect unlivable world. We are being badly governed for the minority and it’s not going to get better any time soon.

A Cattleman’s answer

From the Australian Conservative; Beef Central has an interesting letter from a live export industry stakeholder in response to the ABC Four Corners program last week:
I would like to have the same time … to show you the other side of our industry. To show you what is really going on. In Australia there used to be thing about “A Fair Go”. You have gone with images provided by one person followed up by your investigative journalist who spent a week in Indonesia.
If you are going to have a position on the live cattle export trade then you should read the full response. UPDATE From Menzies House; Cyndi Bakalian, a small business feed owner, wrote this letter to Julia Gillard, begging her to reconsider the rash decision to ban live exports – a decision that will destroy her family business, and force her employees into unemployment: Read her letter here

Hypocrites!

For the Labor Party, tobacco money is dirty money, but the Federal Health Minister has been caught out seeking financial support from one of the nation’s top cigarette makers.
The ABC has obtained letters that show Nicola Roxon wrote to Philip Morris executives in 2005, inviting them to a $1,500-a-table fundraiser. The event, featuring new MP Peter Garrett as the star attraction, was held a year after Mark Latham banned tobacco donations to the Labor Party. Ms Roxon, who was then shadow attorney-general, signed off on the letters, saying she looked forward to the company’s “continuing support”.
No big deal but maybe the ALP will now shut up about the Coalition doing the same thing. Hypocrites!

Beef prices dropping

FEARS are escalating that the Gillard government’s ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia will damage the country’s entire beef industry, with southern Australian farmers already reporting a drop in prices.
Domestic cattle producers are worried the 11,000 livestock stranded by the ban will flood the local market in coming months and cause a glut for all beef products. The Victorian Farmers Federation says prices for beef have already dropped by 10c a kilogram – or 5 per cent – in anticipation of this occurring, and stock agents have reported slow sales and a softening in consumer demand.
Another ALP “unintended consequences” coup.

Ludwig has a nerve

Ludwig cancels contracts for six months and then demands the Meat & Livestock Asscn pay the farmers compo. You caused the problem – you compensate them. A six month cancellation takes them into the wet season so it is effectively a twelve month cancellation. Get your Green and PETA tossers vote some other way and stop stuffing honest workers around.

Leave him there!

AN environmental activist has locked himself inside a box at a New South Wales mine in a bid to disrupt coal production and attack efforts by resource giants to “dodge” a carbon tax. I’ve just had a thought. Can we paint out the message, move the box out of sight and mind, put on extra external locks and just leave him there? One less noise maker.
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