Australian Government in Upheaval Over Cap and Trade
The Australian version of Cap-and-Trade legislation, known there as the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), split the minority party yesterday.
Note: the Liberal Party (whom we would call conservatives) compete with the Labor Party (whom we would call liberals); the latter are currently the majority party in Australia’s parliamentary system.
Both parties proposed some version of ETS in the last elections, but many Liberals (conservatives) have soured on global warming alarmism all together. The majority Labor Party continues to push horrendous ETS legislation that will cripple the Australian economy for zero effect on global “climate change”.
In the wake of ClimateGate at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in Great Britain, further revelations about temperature data tampering in New Zealand [here], and the increasing realization that much of the climate record has been “interpreted” with political bias, Liberal Party members now find themselves at odds with their party leadership:
Senior Liberals desert Turnbull
by Emma Rodgers, ABC, Nov 26, 2009 [here]
The Liberal Party is in turmoil with the resignations of five frontbenchers from their portfolios this afternoon in protest against the emissions trading scheme.
Tony Abbott, Sophie Mirabella, Tony Smith and Senators Nick Minchin and Eric Abetz have all quit their portfolios because they cannot vote for the legislation.
Senate whip Stephen Parry has also relinquished his position. …
Malcolm Turnbull felled by grassroots revolt
Dennis Shanahan, The Australian November 27, 2009 [here]
MALCOLM Turnbull’s leadership has been destroyed in a spectacular and unprecedented fashion.
For the first time, a grassroots revolt by local Liberal branches and members has brought down the leader of the parliamentary Liberal Party. …
His declaration last night that “nothing has changed” denied reality and his vow that the Rudd government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme must pass as a matter of honour denied the belief among his colleagues that he had fudged the majority support in the partyroom.
And his passionate defence of the Rudd government ETS and the adoption of the arguments that the Liberals cannot be climate change deniers only further angered his ETS opponents yesterday. …
Aussie commentator TQS at Watts Up With That [here] predicts:
The battle is not over yet, but it appears that the ETS will be delayed until February, after the failure at Copenhagen. This gives the Opposition time to campaign on issues like Climategate, the divergence problem, YAD061, the latest NZ data “adjustment” fraud and the expense and economic carnage of a pointless ETS tax.
The fact that a Liberal leader, as high profile as Malcolm Turnbull, has been rolled on this, forces a public re-examination the “science” of Climate Change that had previously been accepted as received wisdom, to discover why the Liberal party has gone into revolt. Copenhagen will keep it in the news over summer, and its failure will remind people to the cynical reality of the politics long after the popular hagiography of Kyoto.
This is an incredible opening to turn back almost 20 years of watermelon agitprop, fraudulent “science” and myth making alarmism with a real debate on the merits of the “science” and the economics and politics of an ETS tax. This is a summer that Australia must win.
The public revelations of ClimateGate are that an Alarmist conspiracy has been highly placed, that they have fabricated and altered data to to conjure up a false crisis, that they have used a variety of means to hide their corrupt machinations and to silence critics, and that their motives have been greed and lust for power.
All of the above has been observed and repeatedly pointed out by numerous individuals, groups, and websites for years, many of whom have been defamed and dismissed by the AGW Cabal with charges of heresy and “treason against the planet.” Now, however, smoking gun evidence of scientific frauds perpetrated by the Alarmist conspiracy has found the light of day.
The global warming myth is last gasping. It turns out the seas are not going to boil away after all. That bogeyman never existed and never will. It isn’t even getting a little bit warmer; the globe is cooling and the best science surmises it will continue to cool over the long-term for the next 100,000 years.
The best science is difficult to discern in the mountain of political propaganda, but it is rising to the top anyway, as the truth tends to do. That entire governments are teetering due to the de-hoaxing is testament to the pernicious political nature of the global warming myth.
by Foo Furb
by Angry Squirrel
It’s about time that people wake up and smell the Gore stench surrounding this massive conspiracy!
I used to think that a conspiracy of this magnitude was not possible since someone would eventually spill the beans and I guess that has finally occurred.
The only surprise is that it has gone on for as long as it has. But leave it to the Aussies to finally stand up to this fraud!
Way to go, mates!
Australia’s Opposition Switches Leader
By RACHEL PANNETT, Wall Street Journal, Nov 30, 2009 [here]
CANBERRA — Australia’s main opposition Liberal Party elected Tony Abbott as its leader in a move that will likely see a government plan to cap the country’s greenhouse-gas emissions either defeated or deferred by the Senate, potentially triggering an early election.
Australia’s opposition Liberal Party elected Tony Abbott as leader on December 1, 2009. [Note the International Dateline effect in the dates - Ed.]
Mr. Abbott won the leadership ballot by one vote over previous leader Malcolm Turnbull. Mr. Turnbull’s position had been to support the government carbon-reduction program after agreeing to significant additional compensation for industry with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last week. But members of the Liberal Party’s conservative faction had vowed to block it.
Division over the plan, which aims to reduce Australia’s emissions by at least 5% from turn-of-the-century levels by 2020, led to the battle for control of the Liberal Party’s top leadership post.
Mr. Abbott said Monday that if he become leader he would seek to refer the climate bill to a Senate committee, delaying its passage until at least February, when when Parliament resumes after a long summer recess.
That would be a serious setback for Mr. Rudd, who was in Washington on Monday to meet with President Barack Obama and earlier appeared to have the votes locked up to secure the program’s approval. … [more]
Australia’s Parliament defeats global warming bill
By ROHAN SULLIVAN, AP, Dec 1, 2009 [here]
SYDNEY – Australia’s plans for an emissions trading system to combat global warming were scuttled Wednesday in Parliament, handing a defeat to a government that had hoped to set an example at international climate change talks next week.
The Senate, where Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s government does not hold a majority, rejected his administration’s proposal for Australia to become one of the first countries to install a so-called cap-and-trade system to slash the amount of heat-trapping pollution that industries pump into the air.
The 41-33 vote followed a tumultuous debate in which the conservative main opposition party at first agreed to support a version of the government’s bill, then dramatically dumped its leader and switched sides after bitter divisions erupted within the party. … [more]
AU Senate kills off emissions trade laws
By Emma Rodgers, ABC News, Dec. 2, 2009 [here]
Opposition and crossbench senators have handed the Government a trigger for an early election on climate change by voting down its emissions trading scheme for the second time.
Liberal Senators Sue Boyce and Judith Troeth defied new Liberal leader Tony Abbott and crossed the floor to vote with the Government this morning.
But it was not enough to push the scheme through, with the Greens, Independent Senator Nick Xenophon, and Family First Senator Steve Fielding joining the Opposition in voting down the scheme.
Hopes of getting the legislation through were dashed yesterday when Mr Abbott reversed the Coalition’s position as his first act after ousting Malcolm Turnbull.
Speaking today as the debate came to a close, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the Government would not give up on the ETS and accused the Coalition of trying to spook voters. … [more]
Ed note: That’s rich! The Alarmists accuse the Realists of scare tactics!
It was difficult to stomach much of the academic, media, public, and agency acceptance of the Global Warming scam and apocalyptic science fiction fantasies of the past two decades, but the rapidity with which it is all unraveling is breathtaking.
Thank Gore for the Aussies and the British — the American mainstream media and environmental industries are revealed to be emperors without clothing, and oblivious to their own idiocy and arrogance in this matter.
The fact that President Obama is going to Copenhagen to argue for global controls of carbon-dioxide (with attendant $billions promised to the corrupt leaders of third-world countries that have agreed to go along with the scam) speaks volumes. It is every bit as much the fool’s errand as when he went to Europe to bring the Olympics home to Chicago. This might be a good time for him to come down with Swine Flu, before having to encounter an outraged and inquiring international press corps.
The fake “science” and political collusion has been exposed. The Aussies are leading the way. Gore bless us, every one, for our patience and perseverance.
For foresters, the good news is that the “science” wing of “New Forestry,” “Fire Ecology,” “Conservation Biology,” etc., long ago sold out to the Global Warming trough-eaters and are readily recognized by the public checks they have been cashing the past two decades. Public shame, demotions, repayments, and possible criminal filings cannot be far behind. One can only hope — but all of the current signs seem positive.
A Thanksgiving to remember!