Tag Archives: electricity

How Powerful Is That Minority That Wants A Carbon Tax?

7 Apr

Barnaby Joyce has written an article for the Australian Conservative, posing a question that regular readers all know the answer to (my emphasis added):

David Murray, outgoing Chairman of the Future Fund has blasted the carbon tax as the worst piece of economic reform he has ever seen.

So if the unions don’t like it, big business doesn’t like it, manufacturing doesn’t like it, farmers don’t like it, the electorate pathologically hates it, well the question then is who actually wants it? And how powerful is that minority? Where is the constituency that wants this tax? In Warrego on the weekend, out of 20,000 votes, the Greens received only 325. Maybe this is an example of how toxic these types of green policies have become.

The Labor party have tried to change the name to make the tax more palatable. First it was a tax to deal with global warming, then it was a tax to deal with climate change and now it is a tax for clean energy. What’s next? The happy pet tax? The peace in our time tax? It’s all the same, it’s an insane and very economically dangerous bureaucratic rip off.

Read the whole article here.

And if you are a new reader who does not know the answer, try this – Ticking Time Bomb Hidden In The Carbon Tax.

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The World Is Worth Saving From Darkness

30 Mar

This article cross-posted from Andy’s Rant, with kind permission of Andy Semple. You can follow Andy at his blog, and on Twitter.

The annual let’s sit around in the dark for one hour is on again this Saturday.

It’s actually a glimpse of what our future is like thanks to the Gillard government’s Carbon Tax.

Earth Hour is EVERY hour in North Korea.

So don’t sit in the dark this Saturday night. Turn all the lights and recognise the incredible accomplishments of the human race. The world is worth saving from darkness.

The only good thing to come from Earth Hour is all the new future taxpayers that will be born in December.

Green is the New Red.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the above article are the author’s own. They should not be interpreted as reflecting any views held by Senator Barnaby Joyce or The Nationals … though your humble blogger is fairly confident that he/they would agree!

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No Excuses, Mr O’Farrell

5 Mar

Yesterday, your humble blogger received a public undertaking from Premier Barry O’Farrell, that he would consult the NSW State Attorney General with a view to a legal challenge by the NSW State Government to the Federal Government’s carbon tax.

Today, a gentle reminder for Mr O’Farrell of his pre-election commitment to the people of NSW.

Feb 24, 2011:

I’ll fight against carbon tax: O’Farrell

NSW opposition leader Barry O’Farrell says he will go to Canberra to argue against a carbon tax, if the coalition wins the state election.

He was speaking during a live leadership debate with Premier Kristina Keneally, who is in favour of setting a price on carbon.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced on Thursday that a carbon price will start in Australia on July 1, 2012.

“I don’t support a carbon tax, the Premier does,” Mr O’Farrell said.

“The premier’s advisers say carbon taxes will cost families another $500 a year on their power bills.

“I don’t think that’s affordable.

“If you’re talking about reducing the cost of living pressures you can’t support a carbon tax.

“I won’t and I’ll go to Canberra to argue that point if I’m elected premier.”

Mr O’Farrell, the High Court of Australia is in Canberra.

And your most powerful argument against the carbon tax, is the Australian Constitution, section 114 in particular:

States may not raise forces – Taxation of property of Commonwealth or State

A State shall not, without the consent of the Parliament of the Commonwealth, raise or maintain any naval or military force, or impose any tax on property of any kind belonging to the Commonwealth, nor shall the Commonwealth impose any tax on property of any kind belonging to a State.

In October 2011, constitutional barrister Bryan Pape publicly stated that State governments have legal standing to challenge the Commonwealth’s Clean Energy Future Bills 2011, given their impact on state-owned electricity generation and distribution assets.

But it is not just state-owned electricity assets that will be impacted by the carbon tax.

As we discovered in my in-depth research of the Federal Government’s NGER Register of “biggest polluters” ( The “500 Biggest Polluters” Exposed – Everything The Government Is Not Telling You ), the carbon tax will also impact on many other state-owned enterprises and utilies, including public hospitals and health care facilities, public transport, state rail networks, water utilities, state universities, state forests, and more.

Section 114 of the Constitution is clear. The Commonwealth cannot impose any tax on property of any kind belonging to a State.

Mr O’Farrell, you campaigned on a clear anti-carbon tax platform; pledged to take up the fight against the carbon tax in Canberra; and urged NSW voters to elect you as their representative to pursue that fight:

O’Farrell calls for NSW carbon tax revolt

NSW Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell has joined the chorus calling for a people’s revolt against a carbon tax, saying the March state election is a chance for voters to send a message to Canberra.

During a visit to a shopping centre at Cranebrook, in Sydney’s west, Mr O’Farrell said the yet-to-be-determined price on carbon would raise annual energy bills by $500, and increase grocery and petrol prices.

He called on voters to voice their anger when they vote, saying a new coalition government would “send a shiver up the spine of every federal ALP backbencher sitting in a marginal seat”.

“The coming poll is the only opportunity that families and small businesses have across NSW to try and stop this carbon tax dead,” Mr O’Farrell said on Friday.

“To stop this tax needs every voice and every vote and the poll on the 26th of March gives people an opportunity to do that.”

Mr O’Farrell, your campaign promise worked:

ALP deserters ‘spooked’ by carbon tax

JULIA Gillard’s carbon tax may have saved two high-profile NSW ministers from a Greens’ assault in inner Sydney, but the move exacerbated the revolt against the 16-year-old Labor regime in its own heartland.

In western and southern Sydney, mining areas and long-established industrial towns, factory workers, two-car families and low-income households swung more heavily against Labor than the NSW average.

Echoing their federal leader Tony Abbott, incoming Coalition MPs in NSW argue that traditional Labor voters were spooked by the prospect of job losses, higher petrol prices and rising household power bills from a carbon tax.

Mr O’Farrell, you have made a promise.

You have a case to argue.

You have no excuses.

P.S. Please inform Mr O’Farrell and your local MP (or your own State Premier) that it is Your Will that the State Government should challenge the constitutionality of the carbon tax legislation in the High Court. Sample letter and contact details here.

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Premiers’ Appeal: Carbon Tax High Court Challenge

4 Mar

Today, NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell gave an undertaking to ask the NSW State Attorney General (Mr Greg Smith, MP) regarding a possible legal challenge to the Federal Government’s carbon tax:

Click to enlarge

Regular readers will recall that constitutional barrister Bryan Pape suggested last year that State Governments have legal standing to challenge the Commonwealth’s carbon tax:

18 October 2011: Yesterday on radio 2GB, constitutional barrister Bryan Pape indicated that as the carbon tax will affect State-owned property – the electricity generators – there are grounds for the State governments to challenge the Commonwealth’s legislation … under section 114 of the Constitution.

Please add your voice by informing Premier O’Farrell that it is Your Will that the NSW government challenge the Clean Energy Future legislation.

Here is a Sample letter that you are welcome to copy and send to Mr O’Farrell … and to your local NSW state government MP … expressing Your Will that they take immediate action to have the NSW State government challenge the Commonwealth’s Clean Energy Future (ie, carbon tax) bills in the High Court:

Dear [insert State MP’s Name],

I know that it is my duty to keep you informed of MY WILL on anything that comes before Parliament, or that should come before Parliament.

My communication to you concerns the [insert State name] State Government budget, and possible impacts on the budget arising from the Commonwealth’s Clean Energy Future legislation.

Constitutional barrister Bryan Pape is on public record indicating that the [insert State name] State government has grounds to challenge the Commonwealth government’s Clean Energy Future legislation, under section 114 of the Australian Constitution.

IT IS MY WILL that you take immediate action to cause the [insert State name] State government to challenge the constitutionality of the Commonwealth’s Clean Energy Future 2011 (ie, carbon tax) bills in the High Court.

Yours faithfully,

[signed]

[insert your full name, address, and date, as legal evidence that you are a constituent.]

Premier O’Farrell’s contact details can be found here.

If you are not in NSW, and your State government owns electricity generation and/or distribution assets, then your State government too should have grounds to challenge the Clean Energy Future legislation.

Details for contacting your State government Premier and local State MP’s below:

NSW

VIC

QLD

WA

SA

TAS

NT

Thank you for making Your Will known to your elected representatives.

People power. Make it happen.

TODAY.

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A Lonely Suicide

29 Feb

A 30% over-valued, speculator-driven Aussie Dollar white-anting whole swathes of the non-mining economy, with the RBA’s blessing.

A government and opposition united in not wishing to do anything about it.

A World’s Biggest (and highest price) CO2 Derivatives Scam set to hollow out what’s left.

A minority government defying the will of the people in implementing it, and an opposition powerless to stop it.

Sounds great, right?

After all, we are going to “lead the world” in the “greatest moral challenge of our time” … despite no global warming in a decade … right?

And all the other lemmings are going to follow us off the cliff, as enthusiastic human sacrifices to the Green cargo cult … right?

Uh … no:

Japan has become the latest major world polluter to rule out introducing a carbon price or carbon tax in the near future, as it struggles with power shortages and a rising yen caused by the euro crisis.

Senior Japanese diplomatic officials in Tokyo have told The Australian there is “no chance” of the country adopting a scheme similar to Australia’s carbon tax or emissions trading scheme in the foreseeable future.

Japan, the world’s fifth-largest carbon emitter, joins the US and Canada in backtracking on the introduction of a carbon price.

Our impending national economic suicide is becoming lonelier by the day.

Europe?

They went over the cliff years ago.

Now we’re just watching the entrails gush out, and the blood spatter.

At least we can feel all noble and holy though … right?

UPDATE:

The AFR reports that electricity generators are warning of price blowouts in excess of that predicted by the Green-Labor-Wind-Shott gubbermint –

The head of Australia’s largest power generator has warned that electricity prices will rise more than the federal government predicts under an option to ration output in order to stay ­profitable under the carbon tax.

The comments by Macquarie Generation chief executive Russell Skelton highlight warnings by the power industry that distressed generators will start to manipulate the price of power in the National Electricity Market in order to stay afloat.

The price threat also casts doubt on the government’s tax cuts and ­welfare payment rises for consumers.

The compensation package is based only on the Treasury estimate of a 0.7 per cent rise in prices due directly to the carbon tax in 2012-13.

Figures released by the government yesterday show some generators will need to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to buy permits in advance to cover emissions when the scheme starts on July 1.

“We expect to go from a profitable business to an unprofitable business partly as a result of the carbon price,” Mr Skelton told The Australian Financial Review.

…

“Most of the analysis and modelling done indicates we will not be able to pass through somewhere between 20 to 40 per cent of the cost [of the carbon price],” he said. “If you have a $500 million bill you have to absorb 20 per cent, so there is $100 million right there and our projected profits this year are $100 million.”

As a result, Macquarie is considering options to stay profitable which include reducing output to increase the price of power on the National Electricity Market. “We have done it in the past to respond to varying market circumstances,” Mr Skelton said. “To the extent wholesale prices increase, you would expect it would increase the price to consumers.”

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It Begins – High Court Challenge To Carbon Tax

18 Oct

Yesterday on radio 2GB, constitutional barrister Bryan Pape indicated that as the carbon tax will affect State-owned property – the electricity generators – there are grounds for the State governments to challenge the Commonwealth’s legislation (not yet passed into law) under section 114 of the Constitution.

Regular readers will know that your humble blogger recently launched Right On Our Side. It’s a movement focussing not on traditional protests and petitions, but on the law.  Our focus is on finding new and innovative ways for the voters to legally challenge and ultimately, change it.

Right here, right now is a window of opportunity for you, dear reader, to help us put an end to the Green-Labor carbon tax “law”.

There are two (2) simple actions that you can take today. Both involve properly expressing Your Will to the politicians who have a legal duty to serve you:

Once the election is over that is the end of ballot paper voting until the next election. However, under both Federal and State Constitutions and Statute laws you have certain implied legal duties and obligations.

The whole system of Parliament, and the SOLE reason for its existence, is to make laws for the people, with the clear Implication that those laws will reflect the WILL of the people on the subject matter of those laws.

It is only when you fulfil that lawful duty and obligation that your Member and Senators can properly fulfil their judicially defined function and duty in their houses of Parliament. If you do not fulfil your lawful duty and obligation, if you do not keep your Members and Senators fully informed of your will on any issue, then you cannot blame them for what they do. You have only your own laziness or indifference to blame.

Arthur A. Chresby, Research Analyst in Constitutional Law, and formerly Federal Member for Griffith (QLD) [1958-61] in the House of Representatives.

ACTION #1

Properly express Your Will to your state’s Senators in the Federal Parliament.

The Senate has not yet voted on the Clean Energy Future legislation. So there is still time to properly inform them of Your Will.

Here is a Sample letter that you can copy and send to each of your state’s Senators, expressing Your Will that they vote against the government’s Clean Energy Future (ie, carbon tax) bills in the Senate:

Dear [insert Senator’s Name],

I know that it is my duty to keep you informed of MY WILL on anything that comes before Parliament, or that should come before Parliament.

IT IS MY WILL that you vote against the passage of each one of the Clean Energy Future 2011 (ie, carbon tax) bills.

Yours faithfully,

[signed]

[insert your full name, address, and date, as legal evidence that you are a constituent.]

Should the Senator try to side step, or tell you what their party is or is not doing, simply write back immediately and say:

Dear [insert Senator’s Name],

I repeat that, in accordance with my lawful obligation to keep you informed of MY WILL, I again inform you that it is MY WILL that you vote against the passage of each one of the Clean Energy Future 2011 (ie, carbon tax) bills.

Yours faithfully,

[signed]

[insert your full name, address, and date, as legal evidence that you are a constituent.]

You can find the contact details for your state’s Senators in the Federal Parliament here.

ACTION #2

Properly express Your Will to your state MP.

Here is a Sample letter that you can copy and send to your state MP, expressing Your Will that they take immediate action to have your State government challenge the Commonwealth’s Clean Energy Future (ie, carbon tax) bills in the High Court:

Dear [insert state MP’s Name],

I know that it is my duty to keep you informed of MY WILL on anything that comes before Parliament, or that should come before Parliament.

IT IS MY WILL that you take immediate action to cause the [insert state Name] State government to challenge the constitutionality of the Commonwealth’s Clean Energy Future 2011 (ie, carbon tax) bills in the High Court.

Yours faithfully,

[signed]

[insert your full name, address, and date, as legal evidence that you are a constituent.]

Should the MP try to side step, or tell you what their party is or is not doing, simply write back immediately and say:

Dear [insert MP’s Name],

I repeat that, in accordance with my lawful obligation to keep you informed of MY WILL, I again inform you that it is MY WILL that you take immediate action to cause the [insert state Name] State government to challenge the constitutionality of the Commonwealth’s Clean Energy Future 2011 (ie, carbon tax) bills in the High Court.

Yours faithfully,

[signed]

[insert your full name, address, and date, as legal evidence that you are a constituent.]

You can find the contact details for your state’s MPs below –

NSW

VIC

QLD

WA

SA

TAS

NT

When you are done with that, why don’t you come over to Right On Our Side?

It’s a movement.

You should join it.

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Windsor’s Carbon Tax Support Costs His Local Council Extra $300,000

13 Jul

Media release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 13 July 2011 (emphasis added):

Windsor’s actions responsible for increasing the costs of his local council

Senator Barnaby Joyce, Shadow Minister for Local Government, said today that Tony Windsor’s support of the Green-Labor-Independent government and his support of the carbon tax has led to a $300,000 increase in the electricity costs of his local council, which no doubt will have to be retrieved via increased rates.

The Tamworth’s Regional Council annual electricity bill is $3 million a year. With the carbon tax set to increase electricity prices by another 10%, the carbon tax will increase Tamworth’s electricity costs alone by $300,000.

Last night the Tamworth Regional Council unanimously supported a decision to investigate the full impact on the Council’s costs caused by the carbon tax. No doubt road construction costs will go up, bridge construction costs will go up and the transport fuel costs, from 2014, are going to go up.

The Council has also called on the Federal government to compensate the people of Tamworth for the costs of a carbon tax that they didn’t ask for and haven’t voted for.

Of course if Mr Windsor didn’t support a carbon tax then we wouldn’t have a carbon tax and the rates wouldn’t be going up because of the carbon tax.

So no doubt the people of Tamworth will be thrilled to bits about the actions of their local federal member when they get their next rates notice. Similarly so will the people of Inverell, Gunnedah, Glen Innes, and Walcha.

All this cost for absolutely zero outcome in its affect on the climate. All these costs so we can assist banks to make more commissions on the future trading of permits. No doubt the people of Tamworth will be thrilled to know that some of their rates will be sent overseas to buy carbon permits.

I read today that Mr Windsor is heading off to Spain to study renewable projects there.

(http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/oakeshott-out-to-convince-voters-20110711-1haru.html?skin=text-only)

I hope he gets the time to investigate the Spanish ‘night time’ solar power fraud, where in 2009-10 diesel generators were producing ‘solar’ power at night and claiming the associated subsidised tariff price.

(http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/465409/spanish_nighttime_solar_energy_fraud_unlikely_in_uk.html)

Solar panel at night now that really is global warming.

This is the kind of show that we are getting ourselves into when we start sending $3.5 billion of taxpayers’ money offshore to buy carbon credits.

More information – Matthew Canavan 0458 709 433

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Former ALP Minister Debunks Dodgy Carbon Data

29 Apr

Former ALP minister and Bachelor of Economics, Gary Johns, attacks the ALP’s dodgy use of data in propagandising for a carbon (dioxide) tax.  And agrees with my own conclusion that We Used To Care, But Things Have Changed.

From The Australian:

Having cost the political lives of one prime minister (Kevin Rudd) and two opposition leaders (Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull), Australia is now in the end game for pricing carbon. Pricing seemed like a good idea 10 years ago: it is now looking very sick.

Ask an economist the most cost-effective way to abate carbon and they will tell you market pricing. Right answer, wrong question. Ask an economist the most cost-effective way to prepare for the risk of climate change and you will get answers about priorities and adaptation. You hear about research and development, and spending money on things to make people (especially in developing countries) more able to cope with change: health infrastructure, skills, cheap energy.

Instead, the Gillard government walks headlong to its political death with its Climate Change Minister Greg Combet spruiking nonsense. For example, Combet is softening up the electorate for Labor’s carbon tax by arguing China puts a higher price on carbon than Australia.

Combet, on ABC’s Lateline this year, cited the Chinese and Australian implicit price for carbon from the 2010 Vivid Economics report for The Climate Institute: $8 per tonne for China and $2 per tonne for Australia. The idea is to tell Australians they are not pulling their weight. The Chinese must think Gillard a fool. Vivid Economics has been colourful with its analysis. They wildly overstate China’s and wildly understate Australia’s implicit carbon price. For a start, Chinese energy policies have not been developed with the aim of promoting greenhouse gas emission reductions.

The primary effort is to harness energy to create jobs and deliver improved living standards. The majority of renewable energy being built in China is large-scale hydro. Chinese power companies are interested in harnessing energy. Greenhouse gas abatement rarely rates a mention. Moreover, the Chinese subsidise coal fuel. As most new generation in China is coal, this implies that at the margin, China has a negative carbon price. Combet, the Climate Institute, and the Climate Change Department are knowingly feeding the electorate complete bunkum.

And Johns’ conclusion?

The electorate is becoming less enamoured with the climate change cause. Once they sniff brumby figures, Gillard will be the fourth political life lost to carbon abatement.

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Korean’s Use Our Coal, Get Power 30% Cheaper Than We Do

28 Apr

Barnaby on ABC PM yesterday:

One of the most basic necessities of life, the greatest reflection of our standard of living, is the price of power.

I remember that a very salient time for me was having a discussion with my mother-in-law, and talking about the carbon price, and her quietly sitting back and in sort of a disdainful way, which I think reflects the disgust held by so many in the community.

She said look, you know, in winter, in the New England, when she’s working on Meals and Wheels, it’s at times it’s very easy to find out where the pensioner is, because you will find them in bed because that is the only place they can afford to stay warm.

So they’re not there because they’re sick, they’re there because they’re cold, and I find that disgusting that would be happening in my nation now. We’re the nation that supplies coal to the world, yet we can’t afford to look after our own.

Another reflection on that is the people of South Korea manage to deliver power to their people, at 30 per cent cheaper than what we can deliver it to ours, yet they’re doing it with our coal after a journey of, I suppose, around about 10,000 kilometres.

So.  We merrily sell our coal to the world, for them to use in their coal-fired power stations.  But we introduce a big new tax on our own coal-fired power stations.  So that our already-overpriced electricity, will become even more overpriced … by (minority) government decree.

(Oh yes, and we refuse to consider nuclear.  The only viable, base-load power alternative to coal.  But, we merrily keep selling our uranium to the world, for their nuclear power stations).

#@^&%$!?!

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Labor Racks Up Half-Century On Electricity Price Increases

27 Apr

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 27 April 2011:

Today’s consumer price index figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that utility price increases are accelerating not slowing down under Labor, Senator Barnaby Joyce said today.

“Last week public buildings were burning down in the centre of Sydney while homeless people merely miles away slept on the street. This week we find that good honest hard working people are struggling with the fundamentals of life because the Labor party’s management is incompetent.

“The elixir of the quality of life is the price of power.

“Labor can raise its bat today. Under this Labor government electricity prices have gone up by over 50% in not much more than 3 years. That is a bigger total increase than under the 11 years of the previous Coalition government.

“It doesn’t stop there. Ill-considered investments in desalination have caused water prices to go up by 46% and gas prices have gone up by 30%.

“Last winter my mother-in-law told me that on her meals-on-wheels runs she often finds pensioners in bed, not because they are sick, but because it is the warmest part of the house when they can’t afford the heating.

“Under Labor things aren’t getting any easier and they are not going to with a carbon tax that will push up electricity bills by another $200 per year at least.

“Australians don’t need more excuses to save on power; they have plenty of reasons already.

“But it’s not just household bills that will get hit. Combined with a high Australian dollar, these price increases are hurting Australian manufacturing. Do we want to make life even tougher for them and risk having no manufacturing industry in this country at all?

“All for a plan to cool the planet from a room in Canberra.”

(click to enlarge)

Even after adjusting for inflation:

· Electricity prices have been going up 10% per year under Labor, compared to 1% under previous Coalition government

· Water prices have gone up by 9% per year under Labor, compared to 1% under previous Coalition government

· Gas prices have gone up by 5% per year under Labor, compared to 1% under previous Coalition government

More Information – Matthew Canavan 0458 709433

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