Tag Archives: barnaby joyce

Remember When …

28 Jul

From the Australian, 27 July 2011:

Fitch Ratings today revised to negative the outlook for Queensland and warned a potential downgrade was likely if it didn’t limit the growth of its debt.

Remember when Senator Barnaby Joyce dared to suggest that not only was there a “distant but real” risk that the US could default on its debts, but that some Australian states were over-indebted too?

From the Sydney Morning Herald, 11 December 2009:

The Opposition finance spokesman, Barnaby Joyce, believes the United States government could default on its debt, triggering an ”economic Armageddon” which will make the recent global financial crisis pale into insignificance.

Senator Joyce told the Herald yesterday he did not mean to alarm the public but there needed to be a debate about Australia’s ”contingency plan” for a sovereign debt default by the US or even by a local state government.

Senator Joyce said the chances of a US debt default were distant but real and politicians were not doing the electorate a favour by refusing to acknowledge the risk.

He said the Federal Government’s debt would push up interest rates and predicted that some state Labor governments would not be able to repay their borrowings.

”The Federal Government has $115.7 billion in debt, Australian government securities, notes and bonds on issue, and the states have another $170 billion in debt.

”We have to ask whether the states have the capacity to repay that. I would say in some instances they do not, particularly Queensland.”

Remember when, a couple of months prior to those statements, Barnaby raised his concerns in Senate Estimates hearings with former Treasury secretary Ken Henry?

From The Age, 23 October 2009:

The Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce is openly canvassing an economic upheaval that would dwarf the current global financial crisis, triggered by the US defaulting on its sovereign debt within the next few years.

In unusually pessimistic comments for a senior political figure, Senator Joyce said the US Government was running such large deficits and building up so much debt that it was in a similar position to Iceland or Germany before World War II.

In a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday night, he asked Treasury secretary Ken Henry what would be the implications of an American debt default for the Australian economy.

Dr Henry warned that canvassing extreme scenarios could alarm the community.

”I don’t mind discussing hypotheticals in general … [but] one has to be careful not to discuss publicly hypotheticals that are that extreme,” Dr Henry said.

”I don’t, myself, consider that outcome to be a high probability outcome, certainly not one that I would want to say much about in a public forum.”

But Senator Joyce insisted yesterday that the dangers to the global economy from the run-up in US private and public sector debt were real and should be debated.

”It is the elephant in the room,” Senator Joyce said. ”This is a huge risk that Australia faces. What is the game plan, what happens if it comes unstuck?

Remember when former PM KRudd joined Ken Henry, Wayne Swan, and then Finance spokesman Chris Bowen, in ridiculing Barnaby day in day out for his concerns about debt, until he lost his job as Opposition Finance spokesman?

From The Age, 11 December 2009:

Joyce blasted for ‘extremist’ views on debt

Senior government figures have taken aim at Barnaby Joyce’s dire warning about a global financial meltdown if the United States government defaults on its debt. Mr Joyce also came under fire for comments about the financial health of Australian states.

”That’s shooting from the lip, making it up on the run,” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said of the new opposition finance spokesman’s comments.

Senator Joyce is concerned that demand for Australia’s resources would ”go through the floor” if the US was not able to pay off its burgeoning foreign debt.

Senator Joyce told Fairfax Media he did not mean to alarm the public but there needed to be a debate about Australia’s ”contingency plan” for a sovereign debt default by the US or even by a local state government.

”How would Australia go forward in a position where the dynamics of the global economy are all changed,” he said on ABC Radio today.

Mr Rudd dismissed the senator’s comments, describing them as ”not responsible economic policy”.

Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen went further saying Senator Joyce’s comments were extremist.

”His comments on the United States need to be taken with a grain of salt,” he said, adding the vast majority of economists believed US debt levels were manageable.

He accused Senator Joyce of engaging in a series of thought bubbles that were unbecoming of a senior economics spokesman from either government or opposition.

”Senator Joyce adopts very extreme positions, he is an extremist.”

States ‘rock solid’

Separately, Mr Rudd criticised comments made by Senator Joyce that some Australian state governments might not be able to repay billions of dollars in debt.

The states were carrying $170 billion in debt and rising interest rates were affecting their capacity to make repayments, Mr Joyce said.

”I would say in some instances they do not, particularly Queensland,” he told Fairfax Media.

The Prime Minister said such ”erratic and ill-considered” comments should not be made by a senior opposition spokesman.

Mr Rudd described as the ”most serious charge” the coalition’s view that state governments could default on their debt.

”It’s got to produce evidence of that,” he told Fairfax Radio Network today, adding Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and his treasury spokesman Joe Hockey needed to confirm or repudiate Senator Joyce’s claim.

Mr Rudd said any message to international financial markets about the ability of state governments to repay debt needed to take into account the national interest.

State and territory governments had some of the strongest credit ratings in the world and Australia had a ”rock-solid and robust” reputation for public finance.

”There are basic interests for Australia at stake here and responsible, calm, considered policy suggests that the sort of remark … should simply not be made,” Mr Rudd said.

”This is gross economic irresponsibility, policy on the run and shooting from the lip.”

Remember when the media pack joined the Rudd Labor government in rounding on Barnaby too?

From Economics Writer Jessica Irvine, for the Sydney Morning Herald, 11 December 2009:

Barnaby, mate, you gotta stop being a boofhead about the economy

Hark!

What’s that sound?

No, it is not the sound of abject apologies from the Labor party, the Treasury department, the RBA, and the Australian media.

Nor is it the sound of public applause for Australia’s solitary modern-day economic prophet.

No.

It is the sound of deafening silence.

Well … except for this, from the impressive John Roskam at the IPA, 25 March 2011:

We’re in debt to Barnaby

Wayne Swan and Ken Henry owe Barnaby Joyce an apology. A year ago Joyce, then the Coalition’s finance spokesman, warned of “economic Armageddon” if the United States government defaulted on its debt. He said the threat was “distant but real” and politicians should at least acknowledge the possibility of default, however remote it might be.

Treasurer Wayne Swan accused Joyce of coming from the “reactionary fringe of our economic debate”. Ken Henry, then the secretary of the Treasury Department, claimed that Joyce shouldn’t be talking about such things because it would frighten people.

So on that basis Austan Goolsbee must be from the reactionary fringe too. The trouble for Swan is that Goolsbee is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, the chairman of US President Barack Obama’s council of economic advisers and a member of the US cabinet. Presumably for Swan and Henry it’s OK when Goolsbee speculates on the US going broke, but it’s not OK when Barnaby Joyce does.

In January Goolsbee contemplated the result of the US House of Representatives, controlled by the Republican party, not allowing the US government to increase its debt. “If we hit the debt ceiling, that’s essentially defaulting on our obligations, which is totally unprecedented in American history,” he said.

The context in which Joyce and Goolsbee spoke was different. Joyce was talking generally about the sustainability of US government debt, while Goolsbee was contemplating the unlikely event of the Obama administration being unable to raise its debt ceiling. But in essence Joyce and Goolsbee were talking about the same thing – namely the US government running out of money.

In the US Goolsbee’s remark was taken as a simple statement of fact. In Australia Joyce’s remark provoked outrage from Labor politicians and economics commentators. It was one of the reasons Opposition Leader Tony Abbott subsequently removed Joyce from the fmance portfolio.

The treatment of Joyce reveals just how ignorant Australians are about the financial situation of the United States government.

It’s understandable that Swan and Henry, who presided over the biggest growth in Australian government debt since Gough Whitlam, didn’t like Joyce talking about the consequences of government debt. But it’s Australia’s policymakers – who refuse to face the facts of the long-term consequences of America’s financial situation – who are the ones being irresponsible.

Barnaby Joyce is the only politician in this nation …

… who was right.

Barnaby mockers? Be damned.

The whole damned lot of you.

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Barnaby Brings The Elephant Into The Room

27 Jul

From the Australian Financial Review via Queensland Country Life (emphasis added):

Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce asked a question at a federal Senate inquiry during the week that went to the heart of the issues surrounding coal seam gas miners’ controversial use of land.

He asked representatives of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, including former Santos vice-president Rick Wilkinson: “You are giving landholders $10 million to $15 million a year [in compensation] while you are collecting $8.5 billion a year. You would have to say that’s a pretty good deal, right?”

Although there are countless protests about gas miners’ impact on prime farming land and water tables, Senator Joyce’s question brought the elephant into what was an already packed room, reports The Australian Financial Review .

In Australia, where miners have the right to walk on to a property and take out what they like from the ground, compensation packages are relatively frugal.

Texas land owners in the US control the subsurface and, as such, control much bigger cuts of the exploited resources.

Some critics hope for a moratorium on CSG projects until environmental effects are better understood.

But that is unlikely to happen where governments estimate the gas industry based in just one region such as Gladstone could generate 18,000 jobs and up to $850 million a year in royalties.

Cotton Australia’s Michael Murray revealed in the Senate inquiry that specific requests from the federal Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Tony Burke, to protect the Condamine Alluvium were knocked back by the Queensland government.

He said that the requests by the minister were amendments of an environmental impact statement provided by a gas company seeking to start exploration in the area.

The reason why Australian farmers – and our precious agricultural land – are treated like dirt by the mining industry, is a complex and nuanced reality.

One which can be summarised easily.

And brutally.

That reality is this.

Our nation is a quarry.

A quarry to be exploited.

By the mega-wealthy international banking class.

And by the myriad of bottom-feeding parasites, who live very well indeed off the not-inconsiderable crumbs that fall from the table of the banksters’ globalised feeding frenzies.

As I always say, in a world where nothing is as it appears – Life is actually quite simple.

If you want to know what is really going on …

Follow The Money.

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Barnaby: The Bush Has Been Rorted

21 Jul

Senator Joyce writes for the Canberra Times:

Australia must invest in the regions that are the source of our wealth. It is nauseating to hear the pejorative “pork barrelling” used for what is strategic investment. We must think of the benefits of regionalism logically: where are the coal mines, the iron ore mines, wheat paddocks, cotton fields, the cattle and many of the tourism attractions?

Why is a bus network in a capital city “nation-building investment” but a road in regional Australia welfare?

Ask yourself a very simple question: how many of the consumer items that reflect your standard of living came from overseas? So who is sending something in the other direction to pay for all of this?

While only one-third of Australians live in regional areas, over half of our exports come from regional Australia. If a person with $2 goes to a table of four and kicks off a series of transactions that move the coin around the table, then broadly speaking the gross domestic product of that table would be $10. The person with the coin is often regional Australia and, if they didn’t turn up, the GDP of the four remaining people would be zero.

People often lose sight of the fundamental economics of Australia by failing to think of the source of our wealth, not just its location. My shire of Balonne in western Queensland produces $600 million of cotton, over $100 million of grain, about $30-40 million worth of cattle each year, as well as sheep, wool, grapes, onions, kangaroo meat, wild pigs and free range eggs. about $750 million of annual renewable income from about 5000 people.

Investing in the areas that produce this wealth would seem to me to be a pretty smart thing to do, especially if we want to pay off our $197 billion in gross debt, plus a similar amount in state government debt.

Canberra, if we don’t start paying off debt rather than just accumulating it you might not have a job.

Parts of Queensland and NSW are currently living with the coal seam gas boom.

In some areas the roads are getting wrecked. There are people charging over the land in white Toyota wagons with red flags on what looks like a fishing pole strapped to the bullbar.

Some of their wells are producing $1million a day in gross income. For this, farmers get anywhere between a slab of beer at the worst and up to about $10,000 a year at the best. So the farmer gets less than 1 per cent of the income stream from the wells that sit on their place, affecting the land’s value and in some instances completely compromising how the farm works.

Are there new houses in these regions? No, generally not, just trucked in demountables called ”dongas”, lined up like barracks. It looks like you’ve been invaded by an army. Their lifestyle is not very good and their contribution to the community is generally not very good either.

When the wool industry came they developed the pubs, the roads and the towns. The money stayed local and was spent locally. With wool production in regional Australia we were the richest nation on earth.

With the cattle industry we had the development of Northern Australia and genuine progress in the income of indigenous people in some areas and genuine dignity in having their own business and the prospect of greater independence for their communities.

But in some areas, if the coal seam gas industry left tomorrow, the only legacy they would leave is potholes. Sure, state coffers would be upset, but in some areas of regional Australia they couldn’t give a toss, in fact they would be better off without them.

Royalties must be reinvested in the regions that generate the income stream; not all royalties, but a substantial proportion. Taxation rates must be adjusted so that we can develop regions. People must be encouraged to fly in, stay and live, not fly in and fly out.

Australia must have a genuine vision for a much wider development of our regions, otherwise what we are will be as good as it gets and over time we will become tired, worn out and diminished.

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Barnaby: “Rob Oakeshott Needs To Explain Himself”

18 Jul

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 18 July 2011 (emphasis in original):

This morning on ABC Newsradio Rob Oakeshott claimed that he had a “mandate” to support the carbon tax in Parliament.

“… I believe that the policy of an emissions trading scheme, as I have taken to the last two elections locally and been successful on and been given a mandate on, is the right policy for Australia and now is the right time to pursue it.”

Is this the same Rob Oakeshott who had this to say about the word “mandate” during his 17-minute speech to support a Labor government?

“This is not a mandate for any government. We should have a great big swear jar for the next three years and if anyone uses that word mandate they should have to chip in some money.”

While we are talking about mandates, what mandate did Rob have to support a Labor government?

Rob Oakeshott needs to explain himself to the people of Lyne. If it’s his policy he should defend it.

The member for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker, has offered him the perfect opportunity, a debate in his local electorate.

Rob should explain his position to the people in his electorate not just the Canberra press gallery.

In the same interview Rob went on to complain about a newspaper that is run by some former Nationals staffers in his own electorate.

“There is a local newspaper here called the Port Paper which was set up by the press secretary of the Deputy Premier of New South Wales, you know the National Party and it is essentially now run by the National party. The editor is a former electorate staff member of the National party member for Cowper. So these are real issues that we need to look at not only at a community level, not only at a news limited level, but also why certain people are choosing to get involved in boards of, for example, Channel 10.”

Is Rob suggesting that some people should not be allowed to publish newspapers?

You are right Rob. It’s all just a huge clandestine plot. Every night we secretly rendezvous from all corners of Australia in Port Macquarie and talk into the wee hours of the morning about you (and where we are hiding the aliens in area 51) then we write editorials.

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Barnaby: “Innovation Labor Style”

18 Jul

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 18 July 2011:

Innovation Labor style: let members vote for themselves

Greg Combet has said today on ABC AM that the carbon tax will bring about innovation. I agree. It will be about innovation.

Innovation like:

Now that power is so much dearer, how do I stay warm? Likewise, now that power is so much dearer, and it’s summer, how do I stay cool?

Now that they are shutting down a major power supply, how do we maintain affordable base rate power?

Now that our competitors don’t have a carbon tax and we do, what are we going to discount so that we can sell the product? Or do we just shut down the product?

Now that the government has a tax that they can put up whenever they like, do I trust them to not put it up whenever they like?

Now that the government is $197.1 billion gross in debt, borrowing an extra $3 billion just last week, do I think that in due course they will just use this revenue stream as a desperate attempt to pay back people overseas?

This is all innovation and much more that we can expect from Labor’s carbon tax.

However, the sort of innovation that Australia needs to fix all this is as follows:

If one Labor lower house member, such as Sharon Bird, Stephen Jones, Kirsten Livermore, Joel Fitzgibbon or Yvette D’Ath crosses the floor the carbon tax will not come in.

Now that is truly simple innovation that could really get rid of this tax.

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Barnaby: Tax Burns Gillard’s Credibility

16 Jul

Senator Joyce writes for the Canberra Times (my emphasis added):

Are you sick of it yet? It’s only just started. The carbon tax legislation has not even been introduced.

Why does it have so much resonance? Why has it managed to do something that so many issues don’t manage to do? That is, that cherished political attribute where the vast majority have an opinion on it and are not afraid to express it. They either love it or they hate it.

Politics at times can be a peculiar art form. As I have said it’s thixotropic. You believe something is solid until it is shaken up and dissipates through your hands leaving the policy gel to drip between your fingers. It has The Bad Touch, as the Bloodhound Gang would say, yes it’s getting two thumbs up.

Here is the crux of the issue: if only one of the expected supporters in the lower house changes their vote, the carbon tax doesn’t get up, the battleship will be sunk.

The Labor Party spent years telling me how to vote on issues when they thought my vote would be crucial and to be fair I crossed the floor 28 times. I know for an absolute fact, having just returned from the Hunter Valley, that there are at least three Labor members there who are not representing the views of their constituents.

Sharon Grierson in Newcastle, Joel Fitzgibbon in Hunter, and Greg Combet in Charlton are in seats that do not want a carbon tax. It is not sort of ”don’t want it”, we are talking ”red-hot rejection”.

So if they are people of honour, who put their electorate first and foremost, who are strong enough to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and take arms against a sea of troubles, they should stop this tax. The torture of Hamlet I have been there, ably counselled by Labor Party promoters and their agents. Sometimes they were dead right. If I was in a coal seat, knowing that a policy had been co-written by a person who has said quite adamantly the coal industry should be closed down, and I was elected on a promise not to introduce a carbon tax, I think the only honourable thing would be to oppose a carbon tax.

This same policy is also just going to put up the price of power on top of the 50 per cent that electricity prices have increased in the past three years. The end result of this is that the temperature of the globe doesn’t change, our domestic emissions go up, according to the Treasury modelling, and we send more than $3billion a year overseas to buy carbon credits abroad.

It is tough to cross the floor against your party but why else are you in politics but to represent the views of your electorate? Take it from me, you get used to having dinner on your own and your mates in Canberra will get over it eventually.

See it is not just Julia Gillard that has failed to tell the truth on this one, it is everyone who was the benefactor of that promise given. Every Labor member that was elected at the last election did so on a platform against a carbon tax. It is quite obviously a major promise that they should honour and do everything in their power to honour that promise in how they act.

When you don’t honour your promises it doesn’t just make a fool of you, and the Prime Minister in this case, it makes a fool of everybody because the people in your electorate know that what you say is meaningless.

In Canberra, Andrew Leigh, Gai Brodtmann and Senator Lundy all won their seats with a policy commitment that they would not introduce a carbon tax. Not one of them said I am putting a caveat on that because I might introduce a carbon tax. Each one of them is as responsible for their actions as Gillard.

What is the purpose of listening to an election speech if it is completely and utterly without honour? How are you going to hold the other side to account when you let your own side deceive? You don’t have to believe in the philosophy of the commitment but you should believe in the principle that a person should honour the key commitments they make when they are endorsed by the electorate. That is the essence of what a democracy is about.

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It Begins – Opposition Takes Up The Fight Against The Bankster Class

15 Jul

At last, dear reader.

It begins.

The Opposition beginning to highlight the real purpose behind the global push for trading “hot air”.

The enrichment … and further empowerment … of the global bankster class –

Note that well:

But one of the things that I really want to draw people’s attention to today is the fact that we are learning more and more about just how much money is going to go overseas under this tax. It was obvious on Sunday that in 2020 more than $3 billion was going to go overseas to foreign carbon traders to meet the Government’s emissions abatement targets but if you go out just 40 years to 2050, no less than $57 billion of Australian money is going to go overseas to line the pockets of foreign carbon traders. Within a relatively short time, more than one per cent of Australia’s GDP is going to go overseas to line the pockets of foreign carbon traders. Now, all of us want to help the environment but a get-rich-quick scheme for foreign carbon traders is not the kind of environmental assistance that Australians want. So, I just think that as each day goes past and more details of the Government’s carbon tax package become apparent the less the Australian public like it.

I hope that readers will forgive me a little moment of fantasy. A small, petty indulgence.

In my imagining the teensy possibility that my discussion with Senator Joyce just 2 weeks ago may have just a weensy bit of influence on this small shift of emphasis, in the campaign against the carbon “X” scheme scam.

I met Senator Joyce for the first time on July 1, at the Martin Place No Carbon Tax rally. Despite the pressures of so many wishing to speak with him – as you can imagine – he was gracious enough to make time available to speak with me about several concerns.

The chief of those concerns relates to my view that regular readers will be familiar with.

That is, my firm view – now confirmed by the evidence of the final package – that this carbon “X” scam is and always has been a scam designed solely to benefit bankers, from Day 1.

And therefore, it has also been my view that there is great opportunity for the Opposition to take advantage of Julia’s recent to-ing and fro-ing over whether the scheme is really a “tax”, “like a tax”, or … “an emissions trading scheme”.

How?

By emphasising the simple, demonstrable fact that an ETS only benefits the banksters, and speculators.

And further, that emissions trading has been shown to have zero impact on reducing actual emissions of CO2 –

Why do I believe it is so important to emphasise the bankster connection?

The reason is this.

While calling the scheme a “tax” has been very effective to date, in appealing to those of a conservative mindset – who in my view are generally predisposed to an ideology of lower taxes – I do not believe it is the most effective strategy for appealing to those of a more so-called “progressive” mindset.

It is my experience that “progressives” are not necessarily predisposed against bigger taxes – provided they can be convinced that it is in “a good cause”.

That is exactly how The Final Solution to global warming – the Great Global Carbon Trading Scam – has been sold to those of a “progressive” bent.

That it is “a tax” … or “like a tax” … that is “the best way” to “save the planet”.

A Robin Hood scheme, that takes from the rich, and gives to the poor, saving the planet in the process.

And so-called “progressives” have lapped this lie up.

It is also my experience that, in Australia at least, pretty much everyone … hates banks.

And it is my observation that so-called “progressives” are often their most fervent opponents.

In my discussion with Senator Joyce, I put this argument forward, and whilst congratulating him on his own frequent mentions of “bankers making fees and commissions from pushing bits of paper around”, impressed on Senator Joyce my view that the Coalition should raise the emphasis on the role of banksters in the Government’s planned scheme.

I explained my view that the polls clearly show those of a “conservative” bent are now very firmly against this scheme, irrespective of what title is given.

And that I firmly believe a significant raising of emphasis on the galactic-scale profit-making opportunity that the Scheme scam represents for global banksters – who are driving the push for global “hot air” trading – may be the best way to now begin appealing to “progressives” and the “undecided”. Using a touchstone for nearly all Aussies, conservative or progressive.

Hatred of banks.

I also suggested my view to Senator Joyce, that the Opposition should begin to do so only after a suitable interlude from the day of our discussion, being the day after Julia’s first backflip on what this scheme really is, a “tax” or an “ETS” .

An interlude of a week or two.

And here we are.

Exactly 2 weeks later.

Pure coincidence, I am sure.

But I do trust readers will understand my choosing to enjoy a little moment of vanity indulgence, on seeing the above statements by Tony Abbott yesterday 😉

Please do spread the word, to all you know.

That our Green-Labor-Independent government’s scheme, is nothing more than a global bankster scam.

As I am confident that one former Goldman Sachs Australia chairman (and “confidential” beneficiary of their deep pockets), Malcolm Turnbull MP well knows.

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Barnaby: Green-Labor-Independent “Peacock Policy”

15 Jul

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 14 July 2011 (apologies for delayed posting):

Another Green-Labor-Independent unfolding disaster

The great trilogy of policy disasters of the Labor party are:

– the live cattle trade, getting a 0 out of 10 for diplomacy and a 0 out of 10 for economics

– the carbon tax, getting a 0 out of 10 for public relations, and a 0 out of 10 for democracy and 2 out of 10 for cost of living.

– and the one that is actually the closest at home for me, the Murray Darling Basin, which gets 0 out of 10 for economics, a 0 out of 10 for regional development, a 2 out of 10 for consultation and a 2 out of 10 for our future food security.

The latest revelations on the fiasco that is the Labor party’s Murray-Darling Basin policy is the release today of the Environment and Behaviour Consultants report on the socioeconomic impacts of the Basin.

The report shows that the towns that will be hit the hardest are small and heavily reliant on food production, and the resulting multiplier effects this production provides.

These are the small towns that Sarah Hanson-Young wants to shut down, when she calls for 7600 GL to be taken away from water use in the Basin. If it was up to Sarah Hanson-Young the only place that Banjo Paterson could have written about would have been Nimbin.

The Green-Labor-Independent alliance seems intent on destroying the fabric that the vast majority of Australians take as their heritage. Yes we live on the coast but our soul is our centre. We are logically and sentimentally very attached to the work of the people who feed us, clothe us and provide the vast majority of our export income to sustain our nation.

This report on the Murray-Darling Basin should clearly have numerous columns in our nation’s newspapers tomorrow. It’s just that another Green-Labor-Independent fiasco is shading it out.

Craig Knowles has said that it was all terrible in the past but now things have changed. But what actually has changed? The current Labor government approach risks making the same mistakes again.

The MDBA is not increasing its consultation, rather it’s shutting it down. The Victorian Minister last week revealed that the MDBA is planning to only hold meetings with invited ‘industry leaders’ after the draft plan is released.

The Government refuses to amend the legislation; in fact they refuse to even consider amending the legislation, which led us to this problem in the first place. This is despite the findings of a recent Senate inquiry into the Water Act.

The government is continuing with the purchase of non-strategic water buybacks. This is despite a recent House of Representatives inquiry, which included Labor members, backing the Coalition’s election policy of making water purchases more strategic.

Labor’s approach to the Murray-Darling is a peacock policy, looks marvellous, sounds ordinary but its capacity to fly is highly questionable.

More Information – Matthew Canavan 0458 709 433

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Barnaby on SHY – “The Princess Of University Lefty Students”

12 Jul

Media release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 12 July 2011 (my emphasis added):

The inconvenient truth

Labor’s coalition partner, the Australian Greens, and their leadership aspirant Senator Sarah Hanson-Young have prescribed a dire outcome for regional Australia under the Green-Labor-Independent government.

Senator Hanson-Young, and Greens South Australian MP Mark Parnell, said yesterday that “small towns that are based entirely on fossil fuels probably won’t exist.”

So the Princess of university lefty students has decided that we don’t need small regional towns. I know that comment is a little bit cutting but I also know what she said was totally insulting.

This is the crowd that is currently running the country. These are the things they are saying. Yet they tell us a carbon tax won’t hurt. We can judge them now not only by their actions but also by their words.

Every day that Julia relies on the Greens support, and she does, she endorses the Greens’ statements.

What do we say to people in a small town with a mortgage Sarah Hanson-Young? What do they do, pick up their house and move? Where exactly are these green towns? I have a vision of Nimbin but that is about as far as I get.

Sarah what you really mean by green jobs, is the transfer of people from boilermakers and fitter and turners into national park guides, carbon bureaucrats and Australian Taxation Officials.

The effect of all this, we know from Treasury modelling, is that real wages will fall. A promise the Labor party always seem to be able to deliver on.

In Sarah Hanson-Young’s mythical economy we become a nation of bio-ethical kitchen renovators. We make money apparently because people like us. We put love and good thoughts on the boats that used to export our coal.

I can say that because the Greens really do want to close down the coal industry. It is no good Labor saying that it doesn’t want to shut down the coal industry when your coalition partner says they do.

If you don’t want to do that why did you sign the registry book, witnessed by the Australian people, remember, the shot where Bob had the corsage in his lapel.

If you missed it previously, then you simply must read one of the most popular, most retweeted blogs ever in this site’s history – “Barnaby Bamboozles Chief Of Climate Change Modelling Unit … Again”

Strangely enough, Meghan Quinn – the chief of the (Treasury department’s) Climate Change Modelling Unit – has a remarkably similar, eagerly naive, fresh-faced blind faith look about her as our dear Sarah Hanson-Young (SHY). As you will see, when you click on that link above.

Hold on to your sides, and keep liquids clear of the keyboard first.

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Barnaby Calls On Hunter’s Catcaller To Cross The Floor

11 Jul

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 11 July 2011 (my emphasis added):

Joel, if you represent Hunter you’ll vote against the carbon tax

I have been travelling around the Hunter Valley and I can’t find one person who supports the carbon tax, not one, and believe you me I have been asking for their opinion.

It would seem that for local member Joel Fitzgibbon sticking by his mates in Canberra is more important than sticking by his mates in Hunter.

Joel, I know it will be tough for a while but, take it from me, you will survive crossing the floor. Labor will be dirty on it for a while but they’ll get over it.

Joel, I managed to do it only a year and half ago, and about 20 other times as well I think. I reckon Joel you can do it once. You’ll survive Joel you really will and you would have done something incredible you would have represented your constituents.

Don’t think that the people I spoke to today don’t understand that if you cross the floor you can stop the carbon tax.

Even your Labor mate Tony Windsor says that you should represent your constituents, though he seems to have forgotten about that lately.

So I tell the people of Hunter that Joel can stop the carbon tax. Your local member has immense power. Even if he just said he would cross the floor he could stop it.

Let’s see how big the heart in his chest really is. Let’s see what he really thinks of you.

So, Joel you tell your constituents that you are not going to vote for it, you are going to cross the floor, you are going to represent the people of Hunter first and foremost. When those little bells ring and those little green lights flash, just walk into the chamber, toughen up and vote for Hunter.

More Information – Matt Canavan 0458 709 433

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