And -- to answer the alarmists' frequently-asked question -- THIS is exactly why governments support and promote AGW hysteria; because a fearful public allows them to extract far more taxes and arrogate far more power than a complacent one. Before AGW it was terrorism, and before that the Y2K bug, and before that the Cold War, each one used as an excuse to impose more taxes and more laws. As each fear fades, a new one needs to be adopted -- or manufactured.

Big government is ultimately a product of fear: feed the fear, and government will grow. Luckily there are hopeful signs that more and more of us are refusing to be intimidated.

From the article:"a government deep in the pocket of Big Bureaucracy, with a blithe disregard for public money."

And you've just worked this out? The Greens/ALP coalition Government knows that public servants are firat and foremost concerned with their own jobs and with anything else much later. A massive increase in bureaucracy is a massive investment in future votes for a Greens/ALP coalition.

Furthermore,l since the vast majority of graduates in environmentally-based topics are female, it fits in well with the desire to create more jobs for women that don't actually need doing in the first place. After all, they've got to do something now they're not looking after children or maintaining a good home environment. What better than helping to build a new bureaucratic empire, complete with comfy featherbeds for all?

No Adam, there aren't actually many good economists around, i.e. those who understand that the neoclassical/neoliberal abstractions have nothing to do with real modern economies. In the real world, markets need to be managed or they might drive us into a divided, declining society and a wrecked planet. Oh ...

Have a look at http://betternature.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/nature-of-the-beast/ and leave your CIS fantasies behind.

So we should be less like Sweden, and more like India and China? We must be playing limbo.

And our beloved treasurer still insists that the budget will be in surplice shortly. Fortunately, the Labor/Greens coalition will have gone after the next election and some semblance of sanity will return to our government.

David

VK3AUU

I have lived to see tens of governments but not lucky to have seen any of them with a semblance of sanity.