Australian Politics
Barnaby Joyce tells colleagues he doesn’t support net-zero 2050 climate plan as deal with PM revealed
Barnaby Joyce has told colleagues he doesn’t support net zero by 2050 despite reaching a new agreement with Prime Minister Scott Morrison overnight to deliver the plan – if the Nationals get an extra seat in cabinet.
Multiple MPs have told news.com.au that the Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce told the Nationals party room that while he didn’t support net zero, he was happy to accept the will of the majority of his colleagues.
Overnight, Mr Joyce and Deputy Nationals leader David Littleproud went to dinner at the Lodge to discuss the deal, which is believed to include an extra seat in cabinet for the Nationals that’s likely to go to Keith Pitt, another net zero sceptic.
Mr Littleproud refused to say if Mr Joyce personally supported net zero by 2050 when quizzed on ABC television. “I’m not going to get into individuals,’’ Mr Littleproud said.
Host Michael Rowland shot back, “You’re his deputy. You should know.”
“I do, but I won’t tell you because what happens in our party room stays in the sanctity of that party room,’’ he said.
That prompted former prime minister Kevin Rudd to accuse the Nationals of accepting “30 pieces of silver” – the price Judas Iscariot accepted to betray Jesus.
“They are a bunch of political opportunists ready to be bought at any price. The real debate is 2030 targets. Otherwise 2050 carbon neutral is bullsh*t.”
But a split has already emerged in the ranks, with Nationals Senator Matt Canavan and NT Senator Sam McMahon raising concerns about the net-zero plan.
Asked if Mr Joyce supported net zero, Senator McMahon told news.com.au that she didn’t think he did. “I think he said enough on the public record that I don’t think he’s a massive fan of it,’’ she said.
“I don’t believe it’s going to have any effect on overall global temperatures. But, but, you know if it’s what the majority of the public want, then we have an obligation to deliver that for them.
“My view is that I don’t support it from the point of view that whatever we do in Australia is going to have absolutely no impact on global emissions, and global temperature changes.
“I’ve been on the public record numerous times saying that I, I support the adaptation of nuclear energy.”
Speaking after the meeting, Senator Canavan confirmed that he still believed it was a “bad deal”. On social media, he has been posting images suggesting Australians will only be able to eat “14 grams of meat” under net zero. “To reach the Liberals’ net zero plan, the UN says we can only eat 14g of meat a day. Don’t eat it all at once!,’’ he said.
Senator Canavan said he wouldn’t be supporting the plan. “Net zero will be a bad deal for Australia because it will send jobs and industry to China just as we face greater risks of conflict.
“I don’t agree with the decision. I let the room know yesterday that I will – as I say, I’ll continue to fight for the blue-collar workers of this country.
Mr Morrison said he welcomed what he described as the Nationals’ in-principle support for the commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
“We recognise this has been a challenging issue for the Nationals. I thank the DPM for his leadership and his colleagues for their considered support. I greatly respect the process they have undertaken in reaching this decision,’’ he said.
“Only the Coalition can be trusted to deliver a plan to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 that will protect and promote rural and regional Australia.
“Ensuring regional Australia continues to grow and prosper is a core objective of any Coalition Government, and this will be central to our plan.
“Australia will continue to reduce emissions while keeping our economy growing, maintaining affordable, reliable energy and ensuring our regions remain strong.”
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Covid modelling proves why climate science should also be questioned
Peta Credlin
Why is it that Melbourne’s liberation last Friday came on a day with almost 2200 Covid cases; yet its initial incarceration eleven weeks earlier had been prompted by just eight cases?
Ok, vaccination rates had risen from 20 to 70 per cent in the interim.
It’s still worth posing the question: how could eight cases be a catastrophe, yet 2200 cases be a cause for celebration; other than in a topsy-turvy world where “following the science” just means following the leader? Never has adhering to expert advice meant so many contradictory anomalies, and so much hardship for so many people.
Even on “Freedom Day” (thank you government for giving back what was never yours to take away) people from NSW could enter Victoria and go anywhere while Melbournians were still banned from regional areas; and people were once again allowed inside each other’s homes but not inside a “non-essential” retail shop?
It’s been clear for many months now, that while Covid posed a grave risk to people who were very old or very sick, once the vulnerable had been vaccinated, we could start to treat Covid like most other diseases because vaccinations cut the risk of hospitalisation and death by about 90 per cent.
But this settled science on Covid hasn’t stopped different approaches in different states as well as clearly absurd applications of the “science”: such as the Queensland rule that briefly required mask wearing while driving a car alone; the Victorian rules that allowed coffee drinking in parks but not beer or wine, with kids’ playgrounds deemed dangerous and shut down but not the heroin injecting room; and those absurd curfew rules, with no scientific basis at all!
In other words, not only did the same science produce very different policy responses, but supposedly “following the science” included numerous measures that were, frankly, grandstanding by premiers who’ve used and abused “health science” to score political points. But if the settled science of Covid can be exploited like this, what about the science of climate change?
Let’s accept that the climate is changing, and that mankind’s carbon dioxide emissions are the cause. Why does it automatically follow that the fossil fuel industry must be closed down in the next couple of decades, regardless of the cost; and more importantly, regardless of the fact that most of the world’s biggest emitters won’t follow suit, so that countries like ours end up massively disadvantaged with the planet hardly better off?
If it’s finally become acceptable to count the costs of endless lockdowns to prevent Covid; why can’t we also question the costs of measures to prevent climate change and ask ourselves: can it be done differently and better?
If there’s one thing the pandemic should have taught us, it’s that modelling is only as good as the modellers’ assumptions.
Initially, the expert modellers said that 150,000 plus Australians would die of Covid. To date, only Victoria has breached the 1000 deaths threshold. Even during the current outbreak, predictions of thousands of hospital admissions with intensive care units overwhelmed have been massively overblown. Either modelling exists to make astrology look good or the modellers have a catastrophe bias.
As our government prepares to commit us to net zero emissions by 2050 on the basis of modelling that the planet otherwise faces environmental disaster; yet that net zero can be achieved without any significant economic pain, it’s worth asking why the climate modelling can be trusted when the epidemiological modelling clearly couldn’t; and why the climate “experts” are both unanimous and infallible while the health experts clearly weren’t.
Before the last election, the Prime Minister used Liberal Party modelling showing that a 45 per cent cut to emissions by 2030 would cumulatively cost 336,000 jobs, cut wages by $9000 and slash nearly half a trillion dollars from GDP in order to label Labor’s policy as “reckless”.
Now, he says that an even bigger cut will actually make us richer, but hasn’t released the modelling nor adequately dealt with the fact, as confirmed by the International Energy Agency, that much of the so-called technology to get to net zero is either unproven or hasn’t even been invented yet.
Right now, fossil fuels provide 83 per cent of the world’s total primary energy. That’s just four percentage points down over the past 30 years, despite all the billions in subsidies for renewables. Yet if the PM is to be believed, Australia can keep increasing our coal and gas exports at the same time as the world reduces its fossil fuel dependence to just 20 per cent; and it will all be done by “technology not taxes” even though the British Treasury has estimated that achieving net zero will require a carbon price of $295 a tonne by 2050 (compared to Julia Gillard’s carbon tax of just $23 a tonne). And that’s even with Britain using zero-emissions nuclear power which we still ban here (even though it’s our exported uranium that drives it).
On current technology, net zero means no cement, no steel, no aluminium, no air travel, no petrol or diesel vehicles and no eating beef or dairy. Yet this is supposed to be a painless transition that will make us richer, not poorer.
Perhaps the experts could next model the likelihood that pigs might fly.
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Submission calls for Crime and Corruption Commission boss Alan MacSporran’s sacking
Predator MacSporran must go
State Parliament could consider sacking Crime and Corruption Commission boss Alan MacSporran for presiding over a deteriorating “pack culture” and breaches of impartiality within the powerful corruption watchdog, a committee inquiry has heard.
Bombshell closing submissions at an inquiry into the CCC’s conduct alleged Mr MacSporran failed to ensure the organisation acted impartially and fairly when investigating and subsequently charging seven Logan councillors and the mayor with fraud in 2019.
The charges were later dropped.
In a submission to the inquiry Jonathan Horton, Counsel Assisting, alleged the CCC had “overstepped the mark” by laying charges against councillors in an attempt to assist the reinstatement of Logan City Council CEO Sharon Kelsey, and allowed a deterioration of the culture within the organisation.
“You’ve seen a problem of culture in the CCC exposed and problems of culture are necessary problems of management,” Dr Horton told the parliamentary committee.
“That failing is serious and reflects poorly on his standing as the chair of the CCC.
“The resistance to scrutiny and to accept error is a problem of leadership and you may not, as a committee, have the confidence that the chair can ensure the organisation’s continued impartiality.”
Dr Horton said the committee could consider recommending to the Queensland parliament Mr MacSporran’s tenure be terminated.
The bombshell recommendation came after Dr Horton claimed the treatment of Logan City Council administrator Tamara O’Shae by the CCC was “disgraceful”, and cited an internal email that raised “serious allegations” against her including that she had acted dishonestly.
“A pack or runaway culture is evident in the police officers with respect to their allegations against Ms O’Shae – they were entirely unfounded,” Dr Horton said.
“Fortunately, more senior managers stepped in and prevented them from becoming anything more than internal communications.”
Dr Horton also pointed to a phone conversation between Mr MacSporran and Ms O’Shae about the reappointment of Ms Kelsey as CEO as part of wider evidence “of the CCC’s desire to assist in the reinstatement of Ms Kelsey”.
Mr MacSporran, who has previously denied he was on a “crusade” to reinstate her as CEO, declined to speak to media after Thursday’s committee hearing.
Peter Dunning, for the CCC, said there was “a lot of consideration” given to charging the Logan councillors and denied the watchdog chief had acted improperly.
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Cartoonist Michael Leunig axed from prime spot at The Age over ‘offensive’ vaccine toon
Newspaper cartoonist Michael Leunig has been axed from his prized position in The Age over an image comparing resistance to mandatory vaccination to the fight for democracy in Tiananmen Square.
The image was posted at the end of September and never made it to print in The Age, and speculation about Leunig’s job at the newspaper began after a cryptic 39-word statement on its letters page last Monday. The statement said the Melbourne newspaper was “trialling new cartoonists” on the page.
Now, Leunig has confirmed to The Australian columnist Nick Tabakoff he has been taken off the newspaper’s prized Monday editorial page position — not long after his Tiananmen Square cartoon emerged and stoked outrage from Daniel Andrews fans.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
1 comment:
"Covid like most other diseases because vaccinations cut the risk of hospitalisation and death by about 90 per cent."
There is no proof of this whatsoever. Its a hedge-claim that was made before the first shot hit the first arm, when it became evident that the shots would likely not stop infection or transmission. When they talk of the unvaccinated taking up the ICU beds, what they really mean but find all sorts of ways to not say, is that those who have had severe reactions after the first (or second) shot but haven't completed the full post second-shot time are the ones taking up the beds. SBS notably changed their language recently from "UNVACCINATED" to "NOT (fully, in hushed tones) VACCINATED".
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