- David Daniel BallIt was an expected success for the Liberal Party and the Nationals. The success came to pass, with an enormous swing against the ALP. It looks as if Smithfield is a Liberal gain. It is disappointing to report Fairfield and Cabramatta will return to the ALP.
As successful as the conservative campaign has been, it is time to examine what may have been mistakes or weaknesses and assess the challenge ahead.
Personally, I have an interest in the issue of Justice for Hamidur Rahman. The issue touches on corruption, pedophilia and abuse of power by the ALP and mainstream media. The ALP have obstructed numerous inquiries, aided by the media, but the Liberal party have been largely silent on the issue to date too. That silence cannot continue if the conservatives wish to claim they represent the whole state and respect transparency of process.
The conservatives have to spend a lot of money to get the state back on track. They must resist the temptation to pork barrel the funds as the ALP did to the detriment of state infrastructure. Roads, rail, water, electricity, policing, health, education, sanitation, local government, planning, corruption watchdogs and the courts all need an overhaul. They need to move quickly. They need to exercise patience.
If they are brave and confident without being brazen they can hold their gains and extend them.9 hours ago · · 1 person - Jane McDPersonally I don't wish to see gains extended, but that's just my prejudice against a one party state.9 minutes ago · · 1 person
David Daniel Ball I respect that view, but there has to be growth, an aim, something that encourages those that are here now to strive to be more. One problem with the ALP is that even when they knew they were losing they didn't promise to address their problem which is corruption. Even now the ALP don't admit they had problems, they feel that the other side won .. and so do their supporters. So that one laborite on my site, a former student, cheers Nick Lalich's win, but it was achieved so badly ..
Charbel Saliba and Dai Le did great jobs making their ALP homeland electorates marginal. Kudos to Andrew Rohan for taking Smithfield from Ninos Koshaba.
Who’s the extremist now?
Miranda Devine – Sunday, March 27, 11 (03:32 am)
WHOEVER put up a placard reading, “Juliar, Bob Browns bitch” behind Tony Abbott as he addressed the no-carbon tax rally in Canberra last week did the Opposition Leader no favours.
The opportunity was gleefully seized by his detractors and the government to divert attention from the Prime Minister’s broken promise not to implement a carbon tax. The fact that thousands of people showed up to anti-carbon tax rallies in Canberra and Melbourne was overlooked.
WORLD HISTORY
Tim Blair – Sunday, March 27, 11 (07:01 am)
Bob Ellis gets it right again. The man’s an election-predicting machine!
UPDATE: “He’s about to call it for Lang.”
LET THERE BE LIGHTS
Tim Blair – Saturday, March 26, 11 (08:28 pm)
Earth Hour is underway. You know what to do. Light count here: 57 Gaia-smashing globes o’ death. Plus: dishwasher, washing machine, two laptops and two plasmas all running at maximum extremism.
UPDATE. Peter Garrett currently shown on Sky walking through Labor’s brightly-illuminated headquarters in Randwick. Hater.
UPDATE II. Chris Poole’s office window during Earth Hour:
NSW ELECTION
Tim Blair – Saturday, March 26, 11 (06:25 pm)
Labor finds itself in a spot of bother:
A Sky News exit poll is pointing to a massive 21 per cent swing against the Labor government in the NSW election.
This could be even more hilarious than I predicted. Even worse for Labor:
The poll, conducted by AusPoll, surveyed 19 Labor heartland seats, rather than marginals where exit polls are normally conducted.
It found the Coalition had a primary vote of 52 per cent, Labor 27 per cent, the Greens nine per cent and others 11 per cent.
Readers are invited to call the precise time of Keneally’s concession.
UPDATE. We might have a result before 7pm.
UPDATE II. The ABC’s Antony Green predicts an overall 16 per cent swing based on early patterns.
UPDATE III. Click for Sky coverage.
UPDATE IV. The ABC reports that there is no television at Labor HQ.
UPDATE V. Joe Hildebrand: “Exits polls showing swing of 21 per cent. That’s higher than Labor’s primary.”
UPDATE VI. Greens are funny:
The lights aren’t only going off for Labor tonight. It’s Earth Hour in Sydney tonight, and the NSW Greens will be watching the results by candlelight from 8.30pm in a bar at the University of Sydney.
“There’ll be a lovely ambience for an hour,” said NSW upper house candidate David Shoebridge.
Meanwhile, Hamas candidate Fiona Byrne is leading by three per cent in Marrickville after preferences - just 10 per cent counted.
UPDATE VII. Just saw someone smashing head-first into a wall. Not Bruce Hawker; Nine is now showing Funniest Home Videos.
UPDATE VIII. ABC calling Marrickville for Tebbutt! Excellent. And Matt Brown, the minister for underpants, is gone in Kiama. The early swing against Keneally: 18 per cent.
UPDATE IX. Joe Hildebrand: “Congrats to Labor’s Barbara Perry on becoming Opposition leader, shadow treasurer, shadow cabinet, caucus ...”
UPDATE X. Sky has Fiona Byrne favourite to win in Marrickville; ABC still handing it to her relatively-sane opponent.
UPDATE XI. In January, Bob Ellis predicted a Labor victory. Yesterday he blamed the possibility of defeat on a mighty earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear meltdown and in Libya a big war:
Some would say that these big things are not state issues but I’m not that certain pudgy old Westies … really know the difference.
Bob Ellis needs help.
UPDATE XII. Bob Brown making his standard “greatest ever result” speech. Now he’s introducing Jamie Parker and that Hamas chick.
UPDATE XIII. Cheerful-looking former Labor premier Natham Rees: “The people got it right.”
UPDATE XIV. “The Coalition could win as many as 14 of the 21 upper house seats on offer. That would give Barry O’Farrell control of both houses and render all of Labor’s talk about his mandate, or lack of one, strictly academic.”
UPDATE XV. The Liberals now lead in BALMAIN.
UPDATE XVI. As predicted, Kristina Keneally is conceding defeat right in the middle of Earth Hour.
UPDATE XVII. Keneally quits the leadership.
UPDATE XVIII. Bob Carr: “It has taken a lot of effort to produce a result this bad.”
UPDATE XIX. The possibility of a Liberal win in Balmain is causing all kinds of fury:
• “Eeeek Libs in Balmain? Get me outta here.”
• “Will have to move away from Balmain electorate in disgust. And I was so proud of us too, it was a sure thing.”
• “Please tell me balmain hasn’t fallen to the libs!”
• “HAHAHAHAHAH LIBS TAKING BALMAIN AHAHAHAHAHAHAH GREAT JOB GREENS.”
• “Balmain property prices set to plummet due to exodus of playwrites, professors, criminal layers, doctors and their wives.”
• “Balmain going Lib is a failure of the electoral system.”
• “Inner city millionaires voting liberal for once.”
• “All those Balmain/Leichhardt/Glebe yuppies must have thrown away their communist ideals as the price of lattes has continued to rise.”
• “Cannot f**king believe Balmain might go Tory. This election is breaking my heart.”
SPA NIGHT DECLARED
Tim Blair – Saturday, March 26, 11 (05:51 pm)
In the Philippines, a gentle reminder:
A city-wide noise barrage will be held this afternoon to remind the public and all business establishments to observe Earth Hour.
Serenity now! In Jakarta, lighthaters are urged to roam the streets:
Go around the neighborhood and remind those who still have their lights on to switch them off.
Someone should remind the UN. India’s been told, and ChicagoGreenGirl plans an evening of earth-lovin’ calm:
Declare it spa night and use it as an opportunity to make your home into the zen place you wish it always was by lighting lots of candles. Take it up a notch by playing some Enya CDs …
On what? And in a power-chomping spa? Elsewhere, Earth Hour enthusiasm is declining:
Three years ago in Toronto, ten thousand people turned up to hear Nelly Furtado sing “Turn out the light” at an Earth Hour concert in Toronto; last year a couple of hundred showed up; this year the concert is cancelled.
What’s causing this Earth Hour Ennui?
Even on the official Australian site, they are confused, quoting the editor of GQ saying “It’s time to just come out with it ... I really don’t give a toss about climate change. Actually, to be truthful, a couple of extra degrees wouldn’t go unappreciated – cold weather is overrated.”
Sensible Canadians prefer hockey, while this kid just seems confused:
Srihari Shankar, a Class XII student, will reach out to 250 people through Facebook. He will do it for the villages of India. “‘Switch off!’ will be my status message. I will ask people to turn off lights because half our country doesn’t get proper power supply. We should switch off the power for them,” says Srihari …
Makes sense. The winner thus far in Earth Hour 2011 is Toronto journalist David Menzies:
“I have rented four rotating Hollywood movie lights which will light up the sky for miles,” he said.
“I don’t need to give you my address because all you need to do is look to the sky.”
Final word for now to John Carlson:
The Chairman of Western Australia’s largest sustainability program says Earth Hour is tokenistic and a waste of time.
464 DAYS UNTIL LABOR’S TERROR TAX
Tim Blair – Saturday, March 26, 11 (03:29 pm)
Julia Gillard sends out the scaremongers:
The Prime Minister has given her troops scripted lines they should use with journalists or constituents, which justify the use of public money on government advertising in an apparent bid to soften up the electorate for a coming campaign in favour of the tax …
Proposed warnings to be offered include: “If we don’t act then we will see more extreme weather events like bushfires and droughts. We will have more days of extreme heat and we will see ourcoastline flooded as sea levels rise.
“People in northern NSW will feel like they live in Cairns. That will affect the crops we grow, it will affect our native animals, and it will affect our lifestyles.”
MPs are also urged to warn that extreme weather leads to associated additional deaths.
So we’ll be burned, starved, soaked and killed unless a new tax is introduced. Makes you wonder why Gillard said before the election that there wouldn’t be such a tax; this panic over a destroyed Australia must be a new thing.
Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan has called for an end to ‘’extreme rhetoric’’ after a week of intense mud-slinging from both sides of Parliament …
Mr Swan took aim at Opposition Leader Tony Abbott as fanning a political climate of ‘’fear and intolerance’’.
CORRUPTION, VIOLENCE AND SCUMBAGGERY
Tim Blair – Saturday, March 26, 11 (03:12 pm)
The best journalism job ad ever.
FINAL HOURS
Tim Blair – Saturday, March 26, 11 (02:57 pm)
Only 180 minutes until 5836 days of Labor rule in NSW is brought to an end:
Barry O’Farrell’s attempt to vote was delayed by a massive concrete block, while Kristina Keneally put up a barrier of her own:
Ms Keneally said it was not unusual for a premier to prevent the media from watching them cast their vote.
She probably voted Liberal.
CAN’T HAVE BOTH
Tim Blair – Saturday, March 26, 11 (01:51 pm)
Achewood’s Chris Onstad on the difficulty of balancing online creativity with online longevity. The key, I’ve found, is to avoid creativity.
Labor’s next big hiding: Queensland, after all
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, March 27, 11 (07:42 am)
Labor faces another savaging at all, despite all the claims that the Brisbane floods made a new woman of Premier Anna Bligh:
CAMPBELL Newman’s audacious bid to become premier has received a stunning endorsement from Queenslanders and put the Liberal National Party on track for a landslide victory in the next state election.
An exclusive Galaxy Poll for The Sunday Mail reveals voters across the state have overwhelmingly rallied behind the Brisbane Lord Mayor, pushing support for Anna Bligh’s Labor team back towards the dire levels she experienced before the summer natural disasters…
The poll shows ... the LNP extending its two-party preferred lead to a 58-42 per cent split with him as leader....
It validates the extraordinary LNP leadership switch from John-Paul Langbroek last week and could also temper rampant speculation of an early election, ignited last Tuesday when Cr Newman revealed he would ditch City Hall and run for premier from outside State Parliament…
The leadership switch has also turned the preferred premier stakes upside down, with Cr Newman recording 51 per cent support compared with Ms Bligh’s 38 per cent.
Brave and decisive call by Newman. And paying off big time.
The Greens fail again
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, March 27, 11 (12:19 am)
The Greens have failed again. And that failure seems now irreversible.
Consider: this is a party with everything going its way. It has incredible support from people in the media and entertainment industry. Schools for years have indoctrinated students - the young generation of voters - in its green values. Many institutions and members of the teacher-preacher class now promote its green values on global warming, Aboriginal “reconciliation” and boat people. In NSW, yesterday’s state election even coincided with Earth Hour, the holiest day of the Greens’ calender.
Yet:
The Greens bid to make history by claiming its first seat in the NSW lower house has faltered, withMarrickville likely to remain with Labor and Balmain too close to call.
The swing to the Greens, even when Labor voters deserted their party in their hundreds of thousands, was just 1 per cent. This is a humiliation for the Greens and Bob Brown.
And it caps a series of disastrous results at what should be the Greens’ finest hour.
In the Victorian election last year, the Greens failed to win a single seat in the Lower House, despite boasting they could pick up four. In the federal election, with Labor again on the nose, the Greens picked up just one of the 150 seats in the House of the Representatives - and that through a preference decision by the Liberals in Melbourne that the party is unlikely to repeat.
Let us compare. Even Pauline Hanson, with all the media’s vilification, managed to win not only a lower house seat in federal parliament, but 11 seats in Queensland’s Parliament in 1998. The Greens have never come close anywhere to matching that success in any lower house in any Australian parliament.
The Greens have flopped again. Let’s see if the media coverage reflects this.
Twenty years or 1000? One of these “experts” is hopelessly wrong
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, March 27, 11 (12:05 am)
Climate scientist and warmist Andy Pitman on Thursday:
If we could stop emissions tomorrow we would still have 20 to 30 years of warming ahead of usbecause of inertia of the system.
Climate Commissioner and warmist Tim Flannery on Friday:
If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years
(Thanks to reader John Coochey.)
NSW votes: to throw out the rubbish
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, March 26, 11 (05:47 pm)
5:47pm: No mercy. An exit poll says it will be worse than even the recent polls have suggested:
A Sky News exit poll is pointing to a massive 21 per cent swing against the Labor government in the NSW election.... On a two-party preferred basis, the Coalition was ahead of Labor at 64 per cent to 26 per cent, translating to a 21 per cent swing against the government.
8:32pm: It’s all over already. Colossal swing. No Labor seat is now safe. All that’s needed is for Premier Kristina Keneally to concede. ABC host Kerry O’Brien announces a delay in the concession - she will not speak until after 9.30pm “in partial deference to Earth Hour”. Symbolises so much about Labor’s intellectual decline and pandering to extremists and mere symbolism.
And so we may say that the real message of Earth Hour this year is: it’s lights out for Labor.
8.35pm: Greens leader Bob Brown claims a victory for his party ... but, hang on. It’s Earth Hour! Why isn’t he in the dark with Keneally?
Brown is very excited. The Greens could win two seats in the Lower House! Overheating detected.
8.38pm: Federal Independent MP Rob Oakeshott has had a warning shot fired over his bows, his stern and his head. His close mate and colleague Peter Besseling, another independent whose seat of Port Macquarie falls within Oakeshott’s seat of Lyne, is getting a hiding so far by locals who have had a gutfull of the brand so sullied by their federal member.
8:58pm: Anti-semites must weep and Bob Brown gnash his teeth. It seems that Carmel Tebbutt may have beaten off the challenge of the Greens’ Fiona Byrne, who was so hot for organising boycotts of just one nation on the planet- the worst of the worst. Yes, of Israel.
9:02pm: To hell with the planet. Kristina Keneally defies Earth Hour to emerge into the light and concede defeat. “The truth is the the people of NSW ... did not leave us, we left them.”
“Friends 100 years ago we marches under banners...” Wow. She’s aged well. Her point, though, is Labor apparently just lacked unity. She claims she, at least. kept the party “intact” going into the election. What does “intact” mean, when more than 20 of her colleagues quit before the election?
9:09pm: Keneally says she is stepping down as leader and will go the back bench. Says she will represent the people who voted for her “in the next term of parliament”. Labor is likely to have so few members left, that I do not know how it can afford Keneally to stay a backbencher. I suspect she’s waiting for the call from Canberra, but I wonder whether she isn’t actually irreparably damaged goods - a permanent terrible reminder - whatever her personal qualities, which I suspect have been overrated.
9.12pm: Keneally seems to be describing an alternative reality. She describes herself as a girl “form Ohio” and said people wondered if NSW voters would accept her, but “the people of this state took me on my merits”. If that is true, and is best measured by votes, then Keneally has been utterly repudiated. She is trying to claim some personal success here, but I cannot see a sliver of evidence for it. The defeat is even worse than the most pessimistic predictions.
9:15pm: Had ABC 24 continued to cover itself in shame? Sky News panellists say it was late to the Keneally speech.
9:16pm: It seems former Trades Council boss John Robertson will be the new leader. Here is part of a stinging letter sent to him by former Labor leader Mark Latham in 2002:
Dear John
Thank you for your recent letter introducing me to the Labor for Refugees campaign… Your correspondence repeatedly refers to social justice but at no stage does it seek to ground this concept in any kind of factual analysis. Anyone can claim to be principled and compassionate. But if these are nothing more than abstract concepts, removed from real-life circumstances, they are unlikely to have a tangible impact on people’s lives. They will lapse into the politics of symbolism. ...
This is typical of the way in which the asylum seeker debate is conducted. Groups like Labor for Refugees are asking the Federal Caucus to turn a blind eye to illegal migration, in particular, the corrupt practices of people smugglers. You are asking us to replace the rule of law with an open door asylum seeker policy.
This is a betrayal of the traditional values of the Labor movement. The moment we start to condone illegal behaviour is the moment we will become just another Green or Democrat party - a symbolic movement sitting on the fringe of national politics, out-of-touch with the needs and concerns of working Australians…
The pervasiveness of the rights agenda has smothered the importance of social responsibility. Too many ALP activists are now willing to excuse or rationalise away bad behaviour, such as juvenile crime, welfare fraud and illegal migration. ...
In my experience, the strongest supporters of the rights agenda are those who do not have to face the daily consequences of irresponsible behaviour. They have the resources to buy themselves away from social problems, to purchase private security, private education, private health insurance and private transport. This gives them the luxury of being able to talk about human rights without the need for social responsibility… Many of our traditional supporters are worried that Labor is now on the side of the no-hopers, rather than the responsible working class.
I strongly support an agenda of rights and responsibilities.
9:33: The NSW Electoral Commission desribes the devastation of the Labor Party. It counts 64 seats to the Coalition, just 16 to Labor, three to others and eight undecided. Absolutely astonishing.
9:34: The Australian:
BARRY O’Farrell has swept 16 years of Labor government into history with a landslide victory which will reduce the ALP to a parliamentary rump of around 20 seats…With a 17 per cent swing and a surge in its primary vote even beyond its expectations, the Liberals look like holding 51 seats, and the Nationals, who appear likely to pick up one or two seats, 17 or 18.
9:45pm: No word as yet from Julia Gillard. She already has two immediate problems, even discounting any blame throwing. First, she no longer has a national health agreement, and, second, the Paramatta rail link she promised at the last minute of her own election campaign now seems unlikely to go ahead.
9:46pm: Labor’s likely new leader already has his critics in the party speaking out:
``John Robertson is very much part of the Labor Party’s problematic past...”
10pm:
Barry O’Farrell:
This is a victory for everyone who wanted to make NSW number one again.
10:35: I was working on tomorrow’s post and missed O’Farrell’s snub of the ABC’s Kerry O’Brien. What happened? It sure got the twitterers upset, which is usually a good sign.
12:02am: Reader Helen explains:
Andrew, Kerry O’Brien was waiting to cross to an interview with Barry O’Farrell. Just an ABC interview it seemed. And he was waiting for awhile for it to get organised and for Barry to put on the earphones etc. Then when it was all ready to start, Kerry O’Brien said hello to him, and he said straight out that he only came on to speak to (transport spokeswoman) Gladys Berejiklian, who was part of the panel on the ABC. So Kerry, looking a bit embarrassed, passed the interview to her and Barry congratulated and thanked her for her support and hard work. And complimented her as a future Minister. And that was about it. Barry then took off the earphones and said that he wanted to hear Stoner’s speech.
What they are turning off are their brains
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, March 26, 11 (05:43 pm)
Julie Novak is astonished by the Neo-Primitive movement, whose followers are tonight turning off their lights for Earth Hour:
The practical curiosity and problem-solving inclination of previous generations to seek to transform night into day, for mass convenience, started to produce real outcomes from 1800. The English chemist Humphry Davy connected two pieces of wire to a battery with a piece of charcoal between the ends of the wires. The carbon fragment glowed, producing light.
Successive generations of scientists, such as Joseph Wilson Swan, Henricg Globel, and Charles Francis Bush, made significant steps towards improving the durability of electric lighting. In the case of Bush, he manufactured carbon arcs that successfully lit up a public square in Cleveland, Ohio.
It wasn’t until the exhaustive efforts of Thomas Alva Edison that carbon filaments were developed that could deliver quality output of light for lenthy hours. In 1879, Edison discovered that a carbon filament in an oxygen?free bulb could glow for 40 hours. Eventually, he produced a light bulb that could glow for over 1,500 hours.
One can only imagine the expressions of bemusement, and perhaps shock, on the faces of these great men if they were alive today to witness the deliberate shunning by a considerable minority across Australia today of the wondrous things they created.
You might have guessed Libya was Rudd’s fault
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, March 26, 11 (02:30 pm)
“Credited” or “blamed” Rudd?
While stopping short of saying Mr Rudd had any direct impact on the UN no-fly resolution, the European Union’s senior foreign policy adviser, Robert Cooper, said Mr Rudd’s activism on the issue had been noticed by the key international players.
Let’s check on who is being helped most by Rudd’s no-fly zone:
In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited “around 25” men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are “today are on the front lines in Adjabiya”.
Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters “are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists,” but added that the “members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader”.
His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad’s president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, “including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries”.
Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against “the foreign invasion” in Afghanistan, before being “captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan”. He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008.
Meanwhile, the operation itself has all the oganisational neatness of a government pink batts scheme:
A NATO decision to take charge of a no-fly zone over Libya does not include conducting air strikes against Muammar Gaddafi’s ground forces, a mission that will remain in U.S. hands until a new command deal is reached, Vice Admiral Bill Gortney said on Friday.
A sign of the hypocrisy of Brown and Combet
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, March 26, 11 (09:49 am)
IT took just one sign in a crowd of 3000 demonstrators this week to inspire two blowhard politicians into ecstasies of moralising hypocrisy.
The sign was clearly rude to the Prime Minister: “Juliar: Bob Brown’s bitch”.
But it was a sign from heaven for the Government and Brown, the Greens leader, because it was briefly held up behind Opposition Leader Tony Abbott as he addressed this protest against Labor’s carbon dioxide tax.
It was all they needed to slime the peaceful crowd as “extremists” and “fruit loops”, and attack sceptics generally as mad and bad.
I mentioned blowhards ... one is Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, who pretended to be so horrified by this protest that he demanded Abbott say sorry: “He needs to apologise for being associated with it.”
Yet this is the same former ACTU secretary who in 1996 went to Canberra for an ACTU protest against the Howard government.
Some of the demonstrators and hangers-on there were drunk, and dozens of unionists suddenly smashed through the doors of Parliament, attacked police, looted the shop and left the place looking like a war zone.
But did the ACTU apologise for a rally far more extreme and dangerous than anything we saw this week? Hell, no.
Here’s Combet then: “No, we won’t accept responsibility for the actions of a small renegade group...”
Brown’s hypocrisy is even worse.
Flannery admits no gain from this carbon tax pain
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, March 26, 11 (09:33 am)
CLIMATE Commissioner Tim Flannery yesterday choked when I confronted him with the global warming industry’s dirty secret.
But he wouldn’t - couldn’t - deny it.
The secret? Nothing we in Australia do about global warming will make a difference to the world’s temperature.
Indeed, even if the whole world stops all its emissions today, Flannery admits, ``the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as 1000 years’’.
On our own we’d achieve even less, since we emit less than 1.5 per cent of the gases allegedly cooking the world.
So Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s carbon dioxide tax will have you pay more for petrol, electricity and everything made with electricity, but will make zero difference to the climate. Wouldn’t budge it a flicker.
You see, I have asked warming activists like Flannery - now paid by the Government to talk us into accepting its carbon dioxide tax or emissions trading scheme - two critical questions you’d ask any time someone tries to sell you anything from a ShamWow to a new car.
How much will this cost?
What will it do?
But now watch Flannery try to avoid confessing to that secret: that Gillard’s plans would effectively make no difference to the world’s temperature.
Bolt: How much will it cost to cut our emissions by the Government’s target of 5 per cent by 2020 and how much will world temperatures fall by as a consequence?
Flannery : In terms of how much it will cut temperatures, that really very much depends upon how Australia’s position is seen overseas.
Bolt: No, no, we’ll get onto that, Tim .... On our own, cutting our emissions by 5 per cent by 2020, what will that lower the world’s temperatures by?
Flannery: See, that’s a bogus question because nothing is in isolation.
Bolt: Everyone understands that that is the argument. But we’re just trying to get basic facts, without worrying about the consequences - about what those facts may lead people to think. On our own, by cutting our emissions ... what will the world’s temperatures fall by as a consequence?
Flannery: Look, it will be a very, very small increment.
Bolt: Can you give us a rough figure?
Flannery: Sorry, I can’t because it’s a very complex system and we’re dealing with probabilities here.
Bolt: Are you talking about a thousandth of a degree? A hundredth of a degree? What sort of rough figure?
Flannery: Just let me finish and say this. If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as 1000 years because the system is overburdened with CO2 that has to be absorbed ...
Bolt: That doesn’t seem a good deal ... So you don’t know about Australia, (but) you wouldn’t dispute that it’s within about a thousandth of a degree, around that magnitude, right?
Flannery: It’s going to be slight.
Notice? Flannery either does not know what we’ll gain from the pain, or does not dare say. But he does not question the truth - that even if Gillard’s plans work as she hopes, the difference they’ll make to the world’s temperature is measured in mere thousandths of a degree. If that.
Don’t think Flannery is alone in being evasive on this critical point.
I put the very same questions to Professor John Daley of Melbourne’s Grattan Institute, a taxpayer-funded warmist think-tank which this week reported we’d already wasted $6 billion on global warming schemes that had done next to nothing to cut emissions.
This will not be pleasant
Andrew Bolt – Saturday, March 26, 11 (09:19 am)
Some of the Left are trying to stack my courtroom on Monday.
(Thanks to reader orologia.)
UPDATE
I apologise. I have come home to see a number of supportive comments to this post have been put up by the moderators, and while they are very welcome to me personally, they may not be helpful to my case, so I have removed them all and closed comments. Thank you to those who have wished me well. I also apologize to the court for my oversight in not having closed comments in the first place.
I don't really like Andrew Bolt. He still supports the collective idea of an ALP while their policies and conduct have made them impossible for me to support. One thing I detest is bigotry and and racism and I feel that the ALP have stood for both.
I understand I have Aboriginal ancestry but I do not qualify as a member of the Aboriginal community because I have none of the 'culture' which might allow me to identify as one. I was born in the US to Australian parents and so I am proudly American and proudly Australian, but not Aboriginal. But not being Aboriginal does not make me less of a man, and to say that it does is racist and bigoted. On this issue I stand shoulder to shoulder with Andrew Bolt.
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