Australia calls climate taxes and fees: "socialism masquerading as environmentalism"

Climate change has always been primarily about money, not climate...

Via The Australian:

FEDERAL cabinet has ruled that Australia will not sign up to any new contributions, taxes or charges at this week's global summit on climate change, in a significant toughening of its stance as it plans to move within days to repeal the carbon tax. Cabinet ministers have decided to reject any measures of "socialism masquerading as environmentalism" after meeting last week to consider a submission on the position the government would take to the Warsaw conference. - See more here... 

Conservatives take the reigns in Australia...

Six years of liberal Labor Party rule has ended. The main issue was the hated "carbon tax." Obama and democrats want to do that here, but can't get it past Congress. Obama is trying to implement as close as he can get to it by executive order.

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s “unelectable” and gaffe-prone political leader, Tony Abbott, confounded critics Saturday by becoming the country’s latest prime minister, leading the opposition to a sweeping election victory and ending six years of Labor Party rule.
Abbott, the leader of the conservative Liberal Party-led coalition, rode a wave of public bitterness over a hated carbon emissions tax, worries about a flagging economy and frustration over government infighting to win the election.
The result was a stunning turnaround for Abbott, a 55-year-old former Roman Catholic seminarian and Rhodes scholar who has never been particularly popular and was once dubbed unelectable by opponents and some of his own supporters.

President Obama’s Energy secretary nominee is cool with tripling the cost of energy...

Ernest Moniz 

Is he insane or just completely out of touch with the struggles of ordinary Americans? 


Via Beltway Confidential:

President Obama’s Energy secretary nominee regards a carbon tax as one of the simplest ways to move the energy industry towards clean technologies, though he notes that government would have to come up with a plan to mitigate the burden this tax places on poor people, who would pay the most.

“Ultimately, it has to be cheaper to capture and store it than to release it and pay a price,” MIT professor and Energy nominee Ernest Moniztold the Switch Energy Project in an interview last year. “If we start really squeezing down on carbon dioxide over the next few decades, well, that could double; it could eventually triple. I think inevitably if we squeeze down on carbon, we squeeze up on the cost, it brings along with it a push toward efficiency; it brings along with it a push towards clean technologies in a conventional pollution sense; it brings along with it a push towards security. Because after all, the security issues revolve around carbon bearing fuels.”

Keep on reading…

Surprise" Al Gore thinks it's time for a carbon tax...

There you have it. The Goracle has spoken...

“Time has come” for a carbon tax — Al Gore

Last weekend, the Financial Times published a must-read editorial on the need for a national carbon tax:

“Taxes are always a regrettable necessity, but some are less regrettable than others. A tax that strengthens energy security and cuts pollution, while minimising the damage done to employment and investment, is one of the least regrettable of all.”

“Yet a carbon tax, which has all those characteristics, is struggling to find support from the US administration or in Congress. It deserves much wider enthusiasm.”

“One of the few uncontroversial conclusions of economics is that it is better to tax “bads” than “goods”. Wages and profits are desirable objectives, and governments have no good excuse for obstructing them. They are taxed largely for reasons of convenience, at the cost of disincentives to wage-earning and profitmaking that are a drag on the economy.”

“Energy consumption, on the other hand, is not an objective for anyone. Indeed, the negative externalities of energy use, including local pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, mean that, other things being equal, an economy that burns less fuel is better off.”

Even the dead can't escape Australia's carbon tax

A Melbourne family was charged an extra $55 to bury their relative.

(Herald Sun) — A Melbourne family who claim they were slugged an extra $55 “carbon tax charge” when burying a relative were told “even the dead don’t escape the carbon tax”.

Erica Maliki and her family were burying her father-in-law at Springvale Cemetery when she was told the price per burial plot had increased because of the carbon tax.

Her father-in-law died on June 30, the day before the carbon tax was introduced, and was buried early last week.

“I thought to myself, ‘What carbon could possibly be used by putting a man in a grave?’” Ms Maliki said.

“All they did was put the dirt back in. How can they charge us a carbon tax for burying someone?”

Ms Maliki’s son Zaid said the cemetery’s receptionist told his sister-in-law “even the dead don’t escape the carbon tax”.

Carbon Tax Blow-back: Labor Takes a Drubbing in Queensland

Australia prime minister Julia Gillard’s Labor party stood with a “no carbon tax policy” during last years election. After the election Gillard and Labor proved themselves liars and changed their position. Labor passed a unpopular $23 a ton carbon tax in November of last year. Now, the voters are speaking.

Via The Australian: 

JULIA Gillard has been warned she faces electoral annihilation in Queensland after voters mauled Labor in Saturday's state election, ousting 43 MPs and slashing the party's representation to single figures in its worst result on record. 
 
With the Campbell Newman-led Liberal National Party smashing nearly 14 years of Labor rule with a devastating 16 per cent swing, former Labor premier Peter Beattie yesterday declared his party was in crisis after the worst electoral drubbing since Federation.[...]

While Ms Gillard avoided commenting on the Queensland rout, Tony Abbott said Labor was "toxic" nationwide and Queenslander and Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce said federal Labor was following the Greens "into the abyss" and faced "absolute annihilation".[...]

Mr Abbott said Labor could restore its standing at the federal level if it was prepared to be truthful and economically prudent.

But he said he believed the government had already established itself as incompetent and untrustworthy.

"And there's the carbon tax lie which will haunt this Prime Minister right through until the next election," he said. Keep on reading...

Australian voters abandon carbon tax

Australian PM Julia Gillard campaigned on a promise there would be no carbon tax under the government she would lead. Now the election is over and she is making a carbon tax deal with the Australian Greens Party. 60% of Australia's voters oppose the plan.  Never trust a liberal.

VOTERS are overwhelmingly against Julia Gillard's carbon tax after a sharp fall in support in the past two months among the young, families, women and even Labor supporters. 


As Tony Abbott continues to campaign against the tax, the latest Newspoll survey reveals 60 per cent of voters are opposed to the government's plan to put a price on carbon next year and only 30 per cent remain in favour.
Since the election last year, opposition to a carbon price has been rising and jumped after the Prime Minister announced in late February that she planned to introduce a carbon tax from July 1 next year ahead of a full emissions trading scheme in three to five years.