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The Forum > Article Comments > Australia shows international leadership in global changes > Comments

Australia shows international leadership in global changes : Comments

By Paul Budde, published 25/11/2011

Within the current context Australia is well positioned to participate positively in helping the world to become a better place.

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Sorry Paul, I disagree strongly.

< On a visionary and high strategic level, however, there is widespread national and international support for the direction Australia is taking – a direction that is also supported by the people of Australia. >

Really?

The majority of Australians support very high immigration and hence population growth with no end in sight, do they?

The majority of us can’t see the absolutely glaring contradiction between rapid population growth and attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, arrest environmental destruction and fix problems such as congested roads and all manner of other overloaded infrastructure and services, can’t we?

We can’t see that an ever-bigger population is driving ever more rapid exploitation of our primary natural resources in order to achieve an ever-bigger economic turnover… in order to just stay still in terms of quality of life, can’t we?

Ordinary Australians can see this, and so can anyone around the world with a modicum of common sense.

The day we start planning for a sustainable society with a stable population will be the day that your tenet that Australia shows international leadership in global changes might actually start to have an inkling of credibility.
Posted by Ludwig, Friday, 25 November 2011 8:10:27 AM
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22 million for the size of AU is hardly enormous, most crowd around city's that is a problem. The NBN will ease a percentage of that. We need city's, in the more remote areas.
Posted by 579, Friday, 25 November 2011 8:22:02 AM
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Australia shows international leadership in global changes!
I think the author has been reading government propagands. Most of the time it looks like either Grandstanding or 'The blind leading the blind'.
The previous comment about 22 million in an island the size of Australia is simplistic in the extreme. What sort of population distribution is envisaged in the desert and other regions?

I agree however with the disagreement about large population intake. Look what happened after a 10 year El Nino and some areas had virtually NO FRESH WATER and the Queensland Labour Government had to set up the iniquitous Water Grid for SE Queensland, the Desalination Plant (currently mothballed) for the Gold Coast, the debacle about Water Buy-Back for the Murry Darling Irrigation area at the Federal Level.

We should be encouraging Skilled Immigrants to replace the aging population and skills shortage, not opening our doors to people who are only going to further increase the dependency on Govenment Handouts.

I could go on!
Posted by Stewartinoz, Friday, 25 November 2011 10:39:40 PM
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Whatever beverage the author imbibed before writing this account, it appears to have clouded his thinking and distorted his logic.

With regard to the Kyoto Protocol and the carbon tax, history will show that Australia has acted irrationally, as there is no scientific or economic justification for those actions. There is no scientific evidence that anthropogenic CO2 emissions will cause dangerous global warming. Like many supposed learned people, he has been conned by the IPCC's pseudo-science. Unless there is scientific justification, it makes absolutely no economic sense to replace efficient coal-fired power with renewable energy that is at least three times more expensive.

Given his supposed telecommunications expertise, it is surprising that he has accepted the Government's intervention by way of enforcing its very expensive national broadband network on the Australian people, without carrying out a cost-benefit analysis. A cost-benefit analysis would have exposed the NBN as uneconomic. The indications are that we will finish up with the most expensive internet services in the developed world. Some benefit!!
Posted by Raycom, Saturday, 26 November 2011 12:04:34 AM
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This is utter rubbish.We are going backwards in terms of democracy and peronal freedoms.Gillard," There will be no carbon tax under the Govt I lead."
Posted by Arjay, Sunday, 27 November 2011 1:55:36 AM
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"Some of the bold initiatives that Australia has taken over the last few years are in general supported by its people. Look at the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, our leadership at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in 2009,... and the carbon tax. We might squabble over the details, but citizens intuitively see all of these issues as important, visionary and of strategic importance to the country."

"Being utterly opposed to" and "squabbling over the details" -- it's the first time I've ever heard those used as synonyms. But I guess 'catastrophically stupid' counts as 'important' and 'of strategic importance' (TWICE as important?). 'Visionary', not so much: if our fearless leaders could have foreseen the defeat at Copenhagen, the rout at Cancun and the forthcoming bear-pit at Durban, not to mention their own electoral collapse, methinks they would have tiptoed quietly away from the whole schemozzle.
Posted by Jon J, Sunday, 27 November 2011 10:03:22 AM
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A disgracefully inaccurate article. All the government is showing is contempt for the Australian public. And by initiatives like the carbon tax, which has been legislated in a way which will make it it very difficult to reverse by any subsequently elected government, they show contempt for the democratic process. My view is that such an approach should only be legal with the backing of a referendum.
Posted by Fester, Sunday, 27 November 2011 10:41:00 AM
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A referendum for this and everything else, Why would we need a govt; for We elected a govt too lead and that is what is happening. They can-not please every-body. Especially the ones that supported mr No. With pledges written in blood. That is one way of getting into a corner.
Posted by 579, Sunday, 27 November 2011 11:57:31 AM
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Rubbish.

It is closet socialists like Paul who think Governments are mean't to rule and not to merely govern at our behest.

It is closet socialists like Paul who believe our policies should be formed by' the world's top leaders in business, ICT, government and international organisations.' instead of by Australia electors.

It is closet socialist who refuse to see Australians intuitiovely and overwhelmingly rejecting the stupid socialist initiatives as evidenced in current politicial polling a la Liberal dominance, economic decisions a la non uptake of NBN, and general expression in letters to the editors, and much politoical commentary even by committed socialist media stooges and commentators, as well as the results of recent state elections.

One wonders where you Paul got your intuition from? Out of a socialist propaganda booklet I reckon.
Posted by imajulianutter, Sunday, 27 November 2011 1:04:04 PM
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As with the pink batts and school halls, Labor is well placed to show the world how to completely stuff up a good idea.

The NBN is headed for a financial melt down with cost estimates about 40% higher than in the business case, and indication of consumer resistance.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/national-broadband-network-could-cost-50bn-with-returns-at-risk/story-fn59niix-1226207543617

With the impending demise of the Durban conference, Australia is set to become the most highly carbon taxed country in the world by about 10x the nearest other country, with 90% of the world's emissions having no tax at all. Combine this with an audit of Europe's ETS which shows that the nearly $300bn has made no difference to emissions, showing that direct action is far more economically efficient, and we have a Labor policy that is a stuff up delux.

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/UBS-slams-EU-carbon-scheme-report-pd20111122-NURHJ?OpenDocument&src=hp29

Labor shows the way in climate change and ICT the way the Greek socialist showed the way financially. The only awards the Labor party is likely to attract for its policies is a Darwin award.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 28 November 2011 10:41:14 AM
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SM is bak. with some very juicy misinformation written by toni. The NBN is 20 year job yet all the facts are on the table now. Great stuff.
Posted by 579, Monday, 28 November 2011 11:33:24 AM
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579,

Not written by Tony Abbott, but from a report by Greenhill Caliburn, a financial company commissioned and paid by Labor.

The business case put forward by NBN Co at the very beginning was criticized for providing a razor thin 7% return on investment over 20 years based on optimistically low construction costs and optimistically high take up figures.

Given the blow out in construction costs, the NBN is desperately trying to increase the price to consumers at 5% above inflation for a decade. The report, not surprisingly, says that is probably not going to be well received by the public.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 28 November 2011 1:17:08 PM
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