CLIMATE! CLIMATE! CLIMATE!

Rudd's zeal in the Warmist religion has forced lots of Australians to look closely at what he proposes. And they are not "going gently into that good night". Three current articles below

Warmist nonsense 'a company killer'

The nation's peak business group has joined the growing chorus across Australian industry warning the Rudd Government that local companies will close and move offshore unless it fundamentally rethinks its proposed emissions trading scheme. A "real world" analysis of the impact of the Government's plans - based on 14 companies that opened their books for the Business Council of Australia - revealed that even with the Government's proposed compensation, three firms would face a carbon cost so high they would close.

The future of a further two of the 14 companies - drawn from hard-hit sectors such as aluminium refining, cement manufacturing, petroleum refining, steel making, sugar milling and zinc and nickel refining - would be extremely bleak.

The companies, with annual revenues ranging from $90 million to more than $3 billion, revealed their confidential financial data to BCA consultants Port Jackson Partners on the basis that their identity would remain secret. But the research shows that, on average, the companies' pre-tax earnings would be cut by 22 per cent. The worst affected would suffer a 136 per cent reduction in earnings.

The Labor Government plans to introduce an ETS by 2010, forcing big polluters to buy permits to cover their greenhouse gas emissions. "Our research tells us the Government's plans would have significant and unintended consequences for business ... we don't believe the Government intended to design a scheme to achieve the outcome of businesses and jobs moving offshore, but that would be the outcome of the Government's plans," BCA president Greg Gailey said. "We want to ensure that industry plays its part but that the cost is kept at a level which allows them to stay in Australia, rather than move to a less demanding jurisdiction."

The BCA analysis follows a call from the Minerals Council of Australia this week for the Government to consider auctioning only 20 per cent of emissions permits. Also this week came warnings from the liquefied natural gas, cement and petrol refining sectors about the potential impact of the ETS. Wayne Swan said he had "taken on board some of the criticisms" industry had made during consultation over the Government's ETS green paper, but the Treasurer added that "at the end of the day, we've got to understand there is not a bottomless pit of money here".

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said she was "open to discussion of different methods of allocating" compensation to industry. Under its existing proposal, a handful of big emitters exposed to international competition could receive some of their permits for free.

But the BCA wants the Government to completely ditch the formula by which it proposes to compensate some companies that cannot pass on a carbon price to customers, saying it is both inadequate and unfair. Instead, the BCA proposes a compensation formula that would be on average far more generous to its members. It says the 1000 Australian companies required to buy emission permits should be required to buy them until they had paid between 3 and 5 per cent of their gross income, after which they should receive their permits from the Government for free. They say this would still cost the companies on average about 10 per cent of their profits, but this cost would be fixed rather than rising to "unsustainable" levels with an increasing carbon price.

The Government has been adamant that it must limit the proportion of permits given away to trade-exposed industries to 30per cent to avoid putting impossible burdens on the rest of the economy, including households, and to make sure it reaps sufficient revenue to pay compensation to families and businesses.

According to Port Jackson director Rod Sims, who undertook the research, the BCA's alternative compensation model would meet its 30 per cent target at a carbon price of $20 a tonne. The proportion of free permits required would rise to 44 per cent if the carbon price rose to $40 a tonne and the Government, rather than the trade-exposed companies, bore the increasing pain. But the BCA is recommending that the Government not allow the carbon price to rise to those heights until an international agreement is reached, saying it must either set a path for emissions reductions so gentle that the price is kept at between $10 and $20 a tonne, or else fix the permit price at those levels.

The Climate Institute chief executive John Connor warned the Government against succumbing to the business push for "climate protectionism". "Serious questions need to be raised why the Government should transfer billions of dollars of taxpayers' revenue to businesses who have known an emissions trading scheme was coming over a decade ago," he said. The Australian Conservation Foundation said the BCA plan was "totally irresponsible". "Polluting industries that have spent the last decade doing little or nothing to prepare for a carbon-constrained economy should not get a free kick," said executive director Don Henry.

Source

Rudd thrown an emissions time bomb

AUSTRALIA'S business leaders have thrown a political time bomb into the Rudd Government's lap. Business rejection of the Government's emissions trading system model has lethal consequences. It signals that Australia is moving into dangerous territory for individual corporates, the economy and investor confidence. The analysis unveiled yesterday by the Business Council of Australia says the Government's ETS green paper "leaves too much scope for uncertainty for business to continue to invest in existing and new facilities".

This warning constitutes a degree of commercial threat dangerous for any government to ignore. It is contained in the commissioned report by Port Jackson Partners on the application of the green paper's ETS to 14 businesses across Australia's trading sector, the first such corporate analysis. This was led by former federal government senior economist Rod Sims. Its sharpest conclusion projects the Rudd model to 2020, assumes a $40-a-tonne carbon price and concludes that corporate boards "will be unlikely to invest while such outcomes are possible". The graphic shows a series of financial disasters.

The Rudd Government's response to climate change now becomes a diabolical challenge. It is trapped between its political pledge to price carbon to alter investment flows and this business analysis showing that under Rudd's model, a range of Australian-based companies will struggle to stay viable, facing hefty profit declines, a crippling of new investment and significant carbon leakage offshore at Australia's economic cost. The Government will rely upon the imminent Treasury modelling to quell such concerns.

The BCA document demands assessment for its three different messages. First, it argues the proposed ETS with its compensation mechanism is untenable. Second, it proposes an alternative model, different in conception. Third, it offers an overview of Australia's climate change strategy that finishes, in effect, suggesting a carbon tax is probably the best way forward. In its concluding overview, the report supports either a modest abatement target until global deals are done or the alternative of a fixed carbon price of $10 to $20 a tonne, meaning there would be no annual cap pending a global agreement. It leans towards the de facto carbon tax option.

The analysis for the electricity generating sector warns that any 10 per cent emissions reduction target by 2020 involves a "major risk" to power supply, a lift in retail prices of 25 to 40 per cent and stretches to the limit investment capacity in alternative energy. It suggests that a lower 2020 emissions target may be required.

The business community also insists that any ETS must see the removal of all retail electricity price caps and abolition of the renewable energy target scheme. While Kevin Rudd and senior ministers are attached to their green paper ETS model, such support will be severely tested by this document. The BCA analysis rejects the formula under which 30 per cent of carbon pollution permits would be issued for free.

It finds the threshold mechanism based on tonnes of emission intensity in relation to revenue is "quite simply, the wrong starting point". This is a problem not of numbers, but of design. The analysis finds the green paper compensation "is inadequate and contains significant anomalies". Businesses with average profits and modest emission intensities of 500 to 2000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per million dollars of revenue "will face significant profit declines". Anomalies are such that firms at 1490 tonnes per million dollars of revenue get no compensation while firms at 1500 tonnes per million dollars of revenue get 60per cent of their permits free.

The BCA wants an entirely new compensation model. It seeks 90per cent compensation for trade-exposed companies. It proposes full compensation above a threshold defined as 3 to 5 per cent of industry value added. And it wants permits issued outside the national cap to allow for growth in trade-exposed industry in the absence of a global carbon price. This will strain government-business ties to the limit.

Source

Business leader pushes nukes

QUEENSLAND will need nuclear energy more than any other state in Australia, former Telstra chief and nuclear physicist Ziggy Switkowski said last night. Mr Switkowski, who chairs the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, launched the Australia Nuclear Association Queensland in Brisbane last night.

He said the need for cleaner energy was more urgent in Queensland because of the state's population growth. "Queensland's economy is booming; its appetite for electricity is growing faster than any other state in Australia," he said. "It's going to have to make decisions earlier than other states in terms of what the next generation of power plants are going to be. "Given 90 per cent of electricity comes from fossil fuel and in the future we can't use fossil fuels, at least not to the same extent, the creation of this group to stimulate an objective debate about nuclear power makes a lot of sense."

The ANAQ has five corporate members including stockbroking firm ABN AMRO Morgans and 13 individuals ranging from lawyers to engineers. Association secretary Kate Holmes said the aim was to crank up the nuclear debate but she did not see the association as a lobby group. "Nuclear energy has been going for 50 years but not many people know much about it," the Brisbane lawyer said. "The idea is to be an education forum to help educate people on the pros and cons of nuclear energy."

Dr Switkowski said nuclear power was used in 31 countries and Australia would soon have to look at it as a viable alternative to fossil fuels. He said the ban on uranium mining in Queensland was contentious. "There is no logic I can see for Queensland to not develop uranium reserves," he said. The former chief executive officer of Telstra was appointed by the Federal Government to chair an inquiry into the viability of nuclear power in Australia in 2006.

Source





Teacher merit to be recognized -- maybe

Teachers in NSW schools will no longer be equal in status from today when they are invited to apply for new professional standards that will elevate them above their colleagues, putting the state and federal governments under greater pressure to provide them with extra financial rewards. Teachers who apply for the new standards will be assessed by independent inspectors who will observe them in the classroom and interview their colleagues and parents.

As part of their assessment, teachers will be required to prove they are successful in student behaviour management and effective in their communication with parents and the school community in student reports. They will be required to present examples of their teaching programs and pupils' work to demonstrate they are making a difference to student learning. Their principal, a colleague and someone they have mentored will be asked to act as referees.

It will be the first time teachers have faced outside professional scrutiny since the Education Department disbanded its school inspectors' unit 18 years ago. A survey commissioned by the Australian Education Union earlier this month suggested that more than half the public school teachers in Australia would qualify as "outstanding". [Forgive me while I laugh!!]

The NSW Institute of Teachers developed the new standards in consultation with teachers over a three-year-period and will place the applications online today. The standards are likely to influence the Federal Government's approach to rewarding quality teachers because the model is based on a broad series of measures that are not directly linked to student results, as had been proposed under the Howard government's controversial performance pay model.

The Business Council of Australia recently called on governments to spend an extra $4 billion on salaries to lift the pay of top teacher to at least $100,000.

NSW teachers will be asked to pay a preliminary application fee of $60 and a total of $550 to qualify for the status of "professional accomplishment" and $650 for "professional leadership". Until now, those seeking promotion have been forced to leave the classroom and move into administration positions to increase their salary above the current cap of $75,352. The acting Education Minister, John Hatzistergos, said the new standards represented the first step in establishing a "rigorous and credible process for identifying the state's most excellent teachers". "If teachers want to link higher level skills and professional recognition to higher pay then we would readily examine that as part of our wages negotiations," he said. "The Rudd Government has also indicated it is interested in developing proposals to reward higher level teaching and we'd welcome input by the Commonwealth in this debate."

Tom Alegounarias, who heads the NSW Institute of Teachers, the professional body which accredits teachers and teacher training courses, said the standards had been developed independent of employers and industrial matters. "It is agreed that some teachers are simply outstanding," he said. "We are simply concerned that the best teachers be recognised. "The key to this system is that we actually identify the best teachers. Our emphasis is that the process is credible to both teachers and the community."

The president of the NSW Primary Principals Association, Geoff Scott, said his association supported the new standards, particularly because they did not link teacher performance directly to student results. "We would like to be involved in investigating and discussing the idea of higher levels of accreditation as something that could be recognised by additional pay," he said. "It is critical for the Government to put new money in for this, because if there is no new money, some teachers will be paid extra at the expense of others."

Irene Gargoulo, a teacher at Wiley Park Public School with 11 years experience, said the new standards were a great opportunity for teachers who wanted to remain in the classroom and be acknowledged for their hard work and dedication. Her colleague Anne Barnett, who has been teaching since 1976, said she was not put off by the application fee for the new accreditation. "It is like being in any kind of professional organisation," she said.

However, the president of the NSW Teachers Federation, Maree O'Halloran, said the State Government was insulting teachers by requiring them to pay a fee to gain official recognition. The federation is preparing to negotiate a new salary agreement with the Government and has as its first priority guaranteed pay increases for all teachers. Ms O'Halloran said the NSW standards would cause confusion among teachers because national standards were also being developed by the Federal Government.

The president of the Australian Education Union, Angelo Gavrielatos, said the union's proposal for seeking further recognition for quality teaching was dependent on additional funding. "We have clearly stated that it is contingent on funding and the funding is not there," he said. "Where's the money?"

Source





Picture books no place for 'f' word

HAVEN'T we progressed a lot as a society in such a short period of time? Only 33 years after Graham Kennedy was forced off air for making crow noises that sounded remarkably like the "f" word, the Children's Book Council of Australia has named as its Picture Book of the Year a book riddled with "f" words and nobody has batted an eyelid. What a tragic reflection on our society that is.

Since when did we reward picture books for phrases such as - "if you do it again ya little black arsehole, you're goin' t' be in the f*&^#n' river" or "Jesus Christ he even pissed himself. You f*%$#n' dirty little animal".

News organisations could not print in full the words that are contained in Matt Ottley's Requiem of a Beast but the Children's Book Council didn't see it as an impediment to honouring it with the coveted award. This is a mind-blowingly arrogant decision which surely flies in the face of accepted community standards when it comes to appropriate reading material for children. The Children's Book Council maintains that picture books may be for more mature readers with national president Bronwen Bennett agreeing the winning book is "not a comfortable or happy reading experience". "But it has been recognised for its artistic excellence and the brilliance of the story, and we are an awards for literary merit," Bennett is quoted as saying.

There is no doubt that Matt Ottley's work has important things to say in what is a confronting tale that combines themes of mental illness, suicide, the stolen generations and mistreatment of Aboriginal Australia. But the book contains no warning about language on its cover and no indication about its content -- all that's there now is a large gold sticker naming it Picture Book of the Year. Well-meaning parents will see that as a gold-plated endorsement of the book.

Unfortunately the Children's Book Council has a long history of bestowing gold-plated endorsements on books that can at best be described as "important" and "worthy" but rarely as "popular" or "engaging to children". Time and time again its winning books are dark, depressing and confronting. On its website it argues that "we live in a less than perfect world, and authors, illustrators and publishers are perhaps reflecting our society". It goes on that "books provide a means of generating thoughtful discussions about issues and fears".

So because people swear there's nothing wrong with putting it in a picture book? There's everything wrong with it. Children may well be exposed to foul language from many quarters but to include picture books in that list is to normalise it to a level that surely most parents would not be comfortable with. If the language used by Ottley would not be tolerated in the school playground it should not be tolerated in books in the school library.

This is a book that will be debated and analysed. Its themes will be the subject of countless essays and class discussions. It is not a book that will be treasured and read and re-read until its pages are dog-eared and its words are known by heart. That is surely the measure of what makes a great picture book. Let's keep the language of the gutter in the gutter and aspire to something higher for our children.

Source