Senator Barnaby Joyce writes for the Canberra Times (my emphasis added):
Well, you have just shivered through one of the coldest autumns on record. Where is that cursed button to warm things up a little? But, warming or cooling, there is no doubt that the ”Just say yes” carbon tax campaign has been a welcome circuit breaker to remind people that they just don’t want a carbon tax.
Last night I sauntered down to Kingston and had my usual spaghetti puttanesca and a glass of merlot. The restaurant owner repeated the regular chant on the carbon tax that I hear all the time. ”What is all this garbage about and how much is it going to cost me?” It is not that Labor cannot sell the message it is that there is no message to sell.
It appears the closer you get to the inundation zone of imminent sea rises and harbour views, the higher the fervour for a carbon tax. It is slightly paradoxical that the real estate market in the bay-side suburbs does not seem to reflect the coming diluvium apocalypse.
Now, Ross Garnaut has given a very pure but diligent study on a very peculiar desire. The Green-Labor-Independents Government says ”no we want our own version of the magic climate penicillin” a quarter dose with twice the kick for the feigned ailment. They want to invent their very own version of the theory of Garnaut relativity at odds with what Garnaut states. They must not believe he is competent and relative to the outcome he wants, which is stopping global warming.
Climate change is one issue; the carbon tax is something entirely different. The Labor Party is skewered by its own report. It talks of changing the climate while only partially and opportunistically adhering to its own prophet. The adherents have a very selective interpretation which ultimately turns his whole message to nonsense.
Garnaut has basically said that this is going to hurt and a tax must go on fuel and go on agriculture and be paid for by you. He has argued that the tax should go on petrol after only one year. Watch weaselly politicians who use the word ”initially”, we know now that initially means one year.
It’s the chapter titled ”Better Climate, Better Tax” which is the one which really gets my attention. How does Australia bring around a better climate when not one competent scientist has stated that Australia’s actions will do anything to change the climate? What is better about a proposed tax that you do not currently have? What is better about you being poorer for no purpose? What is better about taking more spare cash out of an economy which fell at a rate not seen since 1991?
If we keep taking away from people the spare cash that keeps them buying coffees, the spare cash that keeps them going out for dinner and the spare cash that keeps them going to the movies, what are all these businesses going to do when patronage dries up?
We can’t change the global climate from the building on top of Capital Hill but we can do irreparable harm to the economy. We can definitely do that. How much oxygen has this issue absorbed while other far more pressing issues are ignored.
We have seen the disgusting and abhorrent images of animal cruelty in Indonesia and this cannot be excused by culture, creed or ignorance. If you are human there must be some sense of empathy that tormenting and torturing a defenceless animal is wrong but instead we have to continue with a debate about cooling the planet from Capital Hill.
There are troops being killed in Afghanistan but we watch Cate Blanchett in an ad being paid for by Get Up, the ACTU, Greenpeace and others telling us that the carbon tax will create jobs, possibly in the taxation department I suppose.
We have a debt that according to Ken Rogoff of Harvard University has grown by the third fastest in the world since 2007 yet we are more intent on eclectic doorstops of past political figures saying how they would be playing now if only they were in the relevant team.
This country cannot keep going on frolics on issues that it can’t do anything about while ignoring those that it can. While we are tilting at windmills, the debt needs to be repaid, we need to earn an income from our exports and people are struggling to afford just the everyday essentials of life.
As usual, Barnaby is right.
Barnaby Is Right 
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