Nice attempt to bait and switch, but I think the main game, regardless of what an opposition says is the government.

I have to wonder at people trying this on, when the country is in turmoil

Anyway, it is clear in Australia after Rudd and Gillard, that nothing is held to account .. otherwise all of Rudd and Gillard's lies would be held up and they would be denounced, instead, we have articles calling attantion tot he opposition

no wonder we're in such a mess

Thanks Matt Grudnoff.

It's important to compare the alternatives.

If the so called 'sceptic's' were serious, they would download "The real cost of direct action: An analysis of the Coalition's Direct Action Plan" and actually read it.

They won't, and like Tony Abbott, will lambast not only the message you bring but all the economists that have spoken and written about Tony Abbott's alternative.

"...and requiring a large number of public servants to administer effectively."

Really! How many desk jockeys and chair warmers will be needed to administer Juliar's dogs breakfast of a scheme?

Whilst I agree with the general thrust of the article, that is, that the oppositions' scheme would cost too much and take too long to reach its goal, I would suggest that a thorough examination of the governments scheme also suffers from the same deficiency.

To get the sort of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, which is 713 million tonnes, presumably in a year, would require the equivalent of not burning the rough equivalent of half a million tonnes of coal a day.

I would like someone to check my figures, but according to a rough back of an envelope calculation, that is the equivalent of building ten 500 megawatt atomic power stations.

Who is going to do that by 2020?

David

To Tony Abott:

No doubt got your ear full of 'experts' telling you how to deal with this tax for environment protection...aka carbon tax...

and no doubt a general message filtering through, that carbon tax is reaaaallly good, but implementation and delivery be different to labour's...dont think I should mention Julia's because while she's way over her head and demanding 'help me like I'm your fellow Australian/sister/mother/child' while peddling her party line, its not going to cut much these days...

well...ignore them all, and locate truly independent experts that have their own lives and no gain from this carbon tax...and ask them this...

'Current taxation system, where all taxes are dumped into a common pool from where they are taken out for various expenses, is it open to unaccountable misuse and abuse?...', no doubt we know the answer...

so next question...'is it wise to create a tax on the air we all breathe, which in effect is what carbon tax is...so allowing administrative control of what is natural...and what sort of future abuses may this possibly allow...'

and finally...and again we all know the answer...'would closed system taxation be more fair and effective'...as in say instead of carbon tax, a law that forces each manufacturing industry to take full responsibility of environmental_friendly recycling its products at life's end, and add this cost to products...so yes, cost would increase of say cars...but only to car buyers, more tax from each car sale(yay!),manufacturer gets car back to recycle, and properly remove what they cant, and knowing economics it wont be long before all manufacturing will ensure almost 100% recycling...

and most importantly the 'tax' is limited to its self by nature of how its implemented...and all then needs is every taxed cent in separate account and is only spent in supervising and enforcing and related expenses to its own area only...and tax rate changes to this alone...so initially would expect more 'tax' added to value of car, but when industry matures then tax would automatically decrease...and if doesnt then we know why and its easier to then track accountability...

regards

sam

Sparkyq, haven't you ever seen a government workforce anywhere?

Private enterprise would of course do the job with a dozen or so, & in fact the government will probably manage it with only a few hundred. However by the time the they have the full complement of managers, managers assistants, line managers, secretaries for the above, building managers, maintenance managers, cleaning supervisors, cleaners, & cleaning assistants, health & safety managers, H&S coordinators, advisers, & consultants, human relations consultants, managers secretaries & staff, training consultants, managers, train the trainers & trainers, councilors & councilor management, councilor councilors, Etc, they should be able to manage with oh, about 12,000.

That is to start with, once the empire builders get going they should be able to reduce unemployment in graduates of useless disciplines by at least a hundred thousand or so. This is a fine endeavour in it's own right, & probably what the entire global warming con is about in the first place.

From the public's point of view, this could be considered a lucky escape. If the tax plan, & its associated compensation & regulatory requirements has to be staffed, that could employ a quarter of a million in a couple of years. That will keep the employment figures up, despite all the industry closures, & loss of employment, it would precipitate.

@VK3AUU: I would like someone to check my figures, but according to a rough back of an envelope calculation, that is the equivalent of building ten 500 megawatt atomic power stations.

I tried to check your figures, but may have got lost in a blizzard of noughts. It seems that 5000 Gigga Watts, corrected for nuclear's capacity factor, would only add 2% to our production capacity. That's well under the magic 20%, 20% being what we can add using wind without doing much other work to the grid. Quite apart from anything else it's cheaper than nuclear.

rstuart. The point that I was making is that whatever means you use to produce the equivalent amount of non CO2 emitting power, there isn't a hope in hell of it being put in place by 2020, certainly not if you want to do it with windmills which require backup base load power as well. Nine years isn't a very long time when you are talking about building that sort of generating capacity or its equivalent in more efficient technology which hasn't been invented yet.

David

@VK3AUU: there isn't a hope in hell of it being put in place by 2020

Perhaps. I guess you are talking about the equivalent of five new coal fired plants in a decade. It's certainly faster than we have been building them, and is probably going to take more than the carbon tax as it current level to make it happen. But it doesn't sound impossible either.

@VK3AUU: windmills which require backup base load power as well.

That's a myth. They don't. Well not up to the 20% level anyway.

The funny thing about wind turbines is while adding one makes the system more unstable, adding additional turbines after than makes the system more stable up to a point - that point being around the 20% mark. We are nowhere near that 20% and as you say are unlikely to get there by 2020.

I've posted this link in a discussion with Shadow elsewhere, but given you are a ham radio operator I think it will be up your alley as well. It is an article from the IEEE Power & Energy Societies magazine, discussing wind power in some depth in layman's terms. It helps put the claims and counter claims one sees about wind power into perspective. http://www.ieee-pes.org/images/pdf/open-access-milligan.pdf

Unless he puts it in writing I suggest no one believe him.

It will just be one of those "non core promises" the rightards are so fond of.
And they have the hide to go on about "juliar". Talk about pot/kettle.
What I dont understand is why no one else can see the hypocracy?

I'm not knocking wind turbines as one method of producing power, I think they have their place. If you put a row of them down the coast of west Tasmania or the coastal strip of Victoria, they would produce a hell of a lot of clean power, but they do have some limitations.

Also, I am not aware of any wind farms which have taken advantage of the anabatic and katabatic winds which almost continually blow up and down the valleys in the mountains, but once again, in the time available, this is probably not possible either.

This whole deal of reducing greenhouse emissions in such a short time, seems to be very long on feel good theory, but somewhat short on practicality, notwithstanding on which side of politics one stands.

David

@VK3AUU: Also, I am not aware of any wind farms which have taken advantage of the anabatic and katabatic winds which almost continually blow up and down the valleys in the mountains

If they did indeed provide good prospects area for a large scale wind farm then I would guess someone has looked at it. As you might expect, CSIRO have been tasked with surveying wind resources of the country:

http://www.csiro.au/files/files/pis7.pdf

If you look on the map on page 13, you will see there is a reasonable area near Canberra. I don't know if you have driven past that area, but there are wind turbines there.

@VK3AUU: This whole deal of reducing greenhouse emissions in such a short time, seems to be very long on feel good theory, but somewhat short on practicality, notwithstanding on which side of politics one stands.

I'd say trying to reduce carbon emissions while continuing to grow the population at 1.6% is a fools errand. You proposed adding 2% generation capacity in the period. At 1.6% we will grow the population by 15% in the same 9 year period.

Until the politicians acknowledge the connection between population and CO2 emissions you will get no argument from me the politicians aren't serious about it.

I think we can all relax for a while folks. Greg Hunt, the Coalition environment spokesman has made it clear there'll be a new strategy, involving tax cuts, no carbon tax and a new approach to emission abatement. If you want to bet on something, CCS would be a good place to put your money as well as modernisation of the existing coal-fired power stations to make them more efficient.

When will we see the details? A bit closer to an election I think, even if the faceless ones knife Julia in the meantime.

There you go. Then what hope have Julia or Tony got of meeting their target.

David

"Greg Hunt, the Coalition environment spokesman has made it clear there'll be a new strategy, involving tax cuts, no carbon tax and a new approach to emission abatement." SV

The Coalition have already conceded that their current "direct action" plan is crap? Didn't see that headline at News Ltd.

Where will the tax cuts come from if you don't tax the polluters? School budgets? Hospital budgets? And what is the point of the tax cuts? "ME TOO! LOOK AT ME!". Good policy Tony.

The carbon tax is directed at the big polluters.

$7 billion in tax cuts to offset price rises.

"commercialisation and deployment of clean technologies through the commercially oriented $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation

research, development and commercialisation of renewable energy at an early stage through the $3.2 billion Australian Renewable Energy Agency

research and development of clean technologies through the $200 million Clean Technology Innovation Program

increased use of renewable energy through the carbon price and the Renewable Energy Target."

People should read the policy: http://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/

It's not only about taxing the big polluters, it also aims to support the development and implementation of renewables and technologies that increase energy efficiency. Like this company, which has developed low emission baseload generation to support solar, wind etc.:

http://www.cfcl.com.au/

Finally we've got some economic policy to encourage and develop industries that export intellectual capital, technology and value added goods.

Abbott & Co don't give a stuff about climate change. They're culture warriors who think cc is a socialist conspiracy. Total nutjobs looking for another chance to thwart action on the issue.