A cut above Rudd but then who isn’t?
Conviction used be a prerequisite in Labor leadership although most of ‘em loathe him.

Also, where is the investment money for creating a smart grid to make the inevitable transition away from fossil fuels?

We need a grid that can shift and accommodate loads when millions of batteries (vehicles) are plugged in. One that also allows people to sell the power they generate for a competitive price, as they do in Spain.

Such a great opportunity for reform appears spoiled by naked corporatism.

Of they are wrong the tempratures will likely change very little and nothing bad will happen.

If the government is right, they will create a massive new tax on consumers, then tax us further by handing out tax dollars to major comapanies to pay for this massive new tax that will likely have little to no effect on the climate.

If they are wrong we are stuck with the tax, stuck with our tax dollars going to large companies for something that dosnt exist.

Why the fuck did we choose cap and trade. Tax Carbon at the source, at least we can erase this system if everybody is wrong. Cap and Tax was the only way.

remember our prime minister hated neo-liberals and free market economics, then he imposes a massive new financial centre for free markets to plunder.

Im begging that parliament gets hit by a meteor and we can elect some new scum bags, cause these ones are suck badley.

A Matrix-Morphean welcome to the Desert of the Real:

“The insanity has took root in most democracies of the the Western Cultural Tradition in the early part of the 21st century.

We don’t know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that moved to vote the insanity in.

At the time, we had cheap coal fired power.

Left became right and up became down.

In the world down under ‘smug sycophant’ Denmores ran counter-intelligent diversionary confusion to Rudd’s blind ‘big bully’.
Whilst topside Rudd in turn ran ‘smug sycophant’ to the UN’s ‘big bully’.

The economy ran self-righteously, determinedly and lemming like toward the precipice.

Were it not for Tony Abbott, Andrew Robb and Nick Minchin the UN would have had its evil way; civilization would have been uninvented and free peoples everywhere would finally have been ruled in their best interests and become the sheeple that all leftists truly always have been at heart.”

I like happy endings….

Most of all it means why the Australian people have generation after generation, after generation of politicians who would be hard-pressed to run a chook raffle. In case you hadn’t noticed, the politicians of Oz are almost exclusively drawn from the ranks of the legal fraternity. People who are trained to say NO!The sun may be shining on an early Summer day. Say to a lawyer ‘Isn’t it a lovely day?’ He or she will say no.

What we are seeing at present in parliament is a gigantic eight-ring circus, where the clowns are suddenly being re-engineered at a rate to make the Sorceror’s apprentice look like an amateur. Chaos is what is happening right now, with the awesome sight of the Liberal Party feeding on its own tail at a speed which is barely ahead of its own head. As a side issue we have the Greens who are always way ahead of the populace about seeing the true path to be taken, but have a devastating habit of remaining stationary because they invariably field the least able candidates. The National Party, who, fundamentally, are the most honest Party in politics. All they want is ‘The Lot’, and they’ve never pretended otherwise.

Then we have the Lion-tamers, who’ve been practising on kittens. For the fist time in Oz parliamentary history the Labor Party finds itself in almost complete mastery of the political process, and they are determined to remain there, no matter how much of the tax-payers money they have to shell out to big business, churches, anyone whose vote means more en bloc than any individual.

Bernard Keane’s only crime is that, when faced with all of the above, he resorts to despair.

You judge him far too harshly.

The coal lobby is still speaking louder than the climate movement. We need people to show Rudd and co that it isn’t good enough.

Walk Against Warming is being held on 12 December this year, mid way through the Copenhagen talks. I hope there is a big turnout to show both major parties that these pathetic climate policies are an electoral loser in the long run.
http://www.walkagainstwarming.org

What happens in a couple of years when the CPRS has done NOTHING to cut emissions and climate change is becoming more manifest? Oh, yeah it is all locked in and if we try to change it we’ll be sucked dry again by the rent seeking polluters demanding more compo. Nice policy work ALP. Following the great work of your NSW branch with the Cross City Tunnel and alike.

As to debt, who says that is bad?? We have just been through the biggest global economic crisis since the 1930s. Most governments are running debt-to-gdp ratios of 70, 80, 90 per cent or more. Ours is less than 5 per cent. Both the RBA and Treasury have endorsed the approach taken by the Rudd government.

Costello had China to thank for the relative soundness of our fiscal position pre-2008. But if he had the guts to take on Howard from the left, directed some of that windfall into investing in infrastructure and convinced the doubters in the coalition to do something practical about climate change, we might not be having this ridiculous debate now.

Instead, the Liberal Party is being run by a bunch of redneck hillbillies, heads-in-the-sand medievalists and still-fighting-the-last war paranoid culture warriors who see those mobilising for real action on climate changes as part of some communist conspiracy.

Costello did nothing, achieved nothing and failed to live up to his principles.

Point is that the scheme is no less environmentally credible today than it was yesterday. The problem, from the environment’s perspective, is that the target remains at 5%. There is the argument, that said, that if Rudd’s right that an Australian scheme will give the international negotiations impetus, and that the target under the scheme will only go up to 15% or 25% if there’s a strong international agreement, then it follows that the amendments today may actually yield an environmentally stronger scheme.

As I say, though, its still ok to get angry about the windfall gains for the foreign-owned polluters.

But then Mr. Denmore knows that’s a bad thing. Right?

Costello increased the birth rate to closer to replacement levels.

Costello set aside $60 billion to meet the future cost of public sector superannuation.

Costello left Rudd $20 - 30 billion for Rudd to splurge.

Even so Rudd has now a Commonwealth debt of twice the debt that the Howard-Costello government inherited.

All in less than 2 years.

[Edit]

Rudd had no money to pledge if it wasn’t for the previous governments prudence.”

Firstly, the listed coal producers are owned by a diverse group of shareholders, including large institutions. How you can claim otherwise is mystifying.

Secondly, to describe the previous government’s counter-cyclical splurging of resource boom-driven tax take as prudent betrays your own economic ignorance.

The Howard-Costello government surfed an unprecedented boom and sprayed money around indiscriminately buying off rich superannuatants and other fatcat rent-seekers.

Now your redneck, medieval mates are pandering to the biggest polluters and an economically insignifcant rural rump.

Considering Labor super funds are majority shareholders in these “carbon-producing mates” this is little more than a stupid, ill-informed, typically Marxist rant.

Rudd had no money to pledge if it wasn’t for the previous governments prudence.

Is that just households who will now not lose the 24/7 reliable source of electricity from the power grid if the Liberal Party room back Rudd’s offer?

Or will off grid solar and wind powered households have to pay as well?

Because that wouldn’t be fair would it?

So we end up with a CPRS that fails to do anything significant about global warming, while buggering up the budget.