Comments on: Penny Wong is a cipher for Kevin Rudd

By: AGAP

AGAP — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Robert, why would you want a carbon tax on top of a ETS.

This government will introduce an ETS before the next election, what are you going to do in the “unlikely” event that Rudd loses power, scrap the ETS?. Business is going to love that kind of uncertainty.

By: AnnaK

AnnaK — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Amen brother, you're right on point.

Don't they realise that they could actually respond to what the people want, and totally inspire the populace with some positive climate policy? Any part that did that would have our solid backing. We'd LOVE to see climate chnage ACTUALLY rise beyond politics.

K Rudd - Quit chatting, start acting.

By: robert

robert — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

CO2 TAX NOW

By: charlotte

charlotte — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I want a carbon tax. bugger the ETS. the chances of this or any government (other than the Greens) making that a fair, democratically transparent and an effective carbon-reducing tool are next to nil. Carbon tax is more transparent, and cheaper and easier to administrate. And I thought the Libs and Labor were all in to small government these days - funnily, on this issue, they're not. Where are the Australian neoliberal economists voices when you need them? How come it is the Economist who supports a carbon tax but we don't hear lots of noise from other Australian economists on this issue or are you only selective neolibs?

Carbon tax has the added advantage that if people really want to support particular polluting industries to save some people the harm of having to transition to other jobs then consumers can choose to vote with their feet and pay for it. Why should big government be making those preferential allocation choices for us?

I'm all for properly supporting the people in non-managerial jobs (who never get a say about the strategic decisions of an industry) to transition to other work when it comes to that. After all, they are far less culpable than politicians, PR-captured media, and industry lobbyists for the current imperative for a sharp and painful u-turn in national economies around the world. The economic pain for particular people in polluting sectors could've been far less if political systems weren't corrupted by the dependence of party interests on wealth and patronage and all the thought-capture that goes with it - in this case involving denial of scientific evidence.

Kev et al., unfortunately, are demonstrating they are unable to extricate themselves from these patronage habits (so much for a new dawn of politics). They are clearly not the party nor are they the people with the sort of ethics that we need to be able to avoid our collective carbon drowning.

By: Venise Alstergren

Venise Alstergren — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Bernard Keane: Surely cipher is not the word which describes Penny Wong? The woman is a metaphor for every tired excuse the Rudd government trots out as an excuse for doing fu-k all on the environmental front.
Whaling, pardon me, but didn't our Kevin promise to do something to stop the Japanese and their laughingly described 'research on whales'? The same sort of research I do when I'm deciding to decimate a packet of smarties? Results = The boarding of one of Green peace's ships, the Steve Erwin, by Her Majesty's goons. Such is the majestically caring stance by the Rudd government. The environment= a monumental cock-up which has capitulated, in full, to the polluting companies only too well documented in the press/media not owned by Rupert Murdoch. Ethics= .The MDB= refer to pollution. Water= . The arts= The attempted purgation of the visual arts. The Republic= .Ad infinitum.

All Penny Wong has proved is being Chinese/Australian, gay, and a woman is no impediment to succeeding in Australian law/politics. But that to be a Canberra pen pusher in the Rudd government is a positive guarantee of success.

And Peter Garrett: Please quadruple my comments, you pitiful old man.

By: M.James

M.James — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Australia gets the politicians it deserves. Penny Wong is indeed like the PM, in being a managerialist to her bone marrow. Lawyers, economists and government bureaucrats (especially diplomats) take the same approach because their entire careers are not based so much on “doing” things as “managing” things (usually doing the absolute minimum so the problem is postponed until it is someone else’s problem, like Howard and Costello did for 12 years).
Do what? Well, stop building any more coal-fired power stations and instead directly spend a few billion (about 4% of the proposed $50B stimulus) on a gigawatt solar-thermal power plant that could be up and running within a few years. Not a 50 kW demonstration plant, but an actual serious GW plant that could be built with Ausra’s current technology if only someone would make the commitment. But it is absolutely outrageous to expect an Australian politician to take such a “risk” even though the technology is screaming out to be implemented and many people are saying the obvious: now, in the teeth of these problems, is the time to take advantage of the crisis and try something new and bold. For the cost of the “Pacific Solution” or a third of what we will waste on those SuperHornets that not even Defense believes in, one such power plant would already represent about 2.5% of electricity generation in Australia. Ultimately an ETS or carbon tax may be required to make these plants financially competitive but to get it going, let’s postpone their complexity and political impracticality and just do it and do it now.