Dear Ludwig,

It's time we all realised that having any sort
of a debate with Shadow Minister is simply a
total waste of time. All he's interested in
is repeating the scare tactics of the Opposition
and their political mantra. By responding to him -
we give him a platform to continue doing the same
thing over and over again. He should change his
moniker to "Minister of Propaganda." He may even
get paid to do what he's doing - despite his denials -
who knows?

Lexi, well, it seems as though you might be right.

I mean, I put up fair and reasonable points of debate, but SM just ignores them. He’s not interested in calm logical discussion so it seems. I don’t know. I’ve considered him to be a pretty good OLO contributor for a long time. Don’t want to get offside with him, or anyone. But this thread has been a bit disappointing in terms of my attempts to debate with him. And it’s not the first time.

.

<< Seriously though, don't you worry that maybe MM isn't the man for the job? >>

Luci, Babbling Abbott is definitely not the man for the job!. Neither is anyone else in his party.

The man for the job is… Bob Carr…. or Kelvin Thomson.

If either of these two were to become Labor leader, I’d be voting for Labor, for the first time in many elections (never have voted Lib)!

Ludwig,

"The carbon tax did it, the carbon tax did it, THE CARBON TAX DID IT OH YEAAH!"

Comes under your definition of serious debate? Puleez! I did the maths, and the numbers came to 10 x what LF was trying to sell.

Sorry, but the carbon tax is a huge impost on the Aluminium industry, and irrespective of what future Hydro had before the carbon tax, its goose was cooked completely with it.

I've been following this thread, and I'm a bit puzzled. If the carbon tax doesn't close down the aluminium industry, what use is it? Aluminium is sometimes said to be almost pure electricity. All of our reliable electricity is produced by burning fossil fuels, and there is no prospect of that changing within the next 20 years, or more.

So if the carbon tax is to be of any use in decreasing the burning of CO2 it must have an impact on this industry more than any other. If you say it has no effect, then why would you support the tax because in that case it would obviously be an administrative "reform" without purpose.

In which case it should be reasonably uncontroversial that it would close aluminium smelters on both sides of the argument.

I return from 24 hours in the sin-bin.

SM writes, "I did the maths, and the numbers came to 10 x what LF was trying to sell."

Why won't he acknowledge Hydro will not have to pay the carbon price on 94.5 percent of their emissions for the first three years, due to free carbon credits. Also there is review of free permits beyond this that still will probably not pull the rug from under Hydro or any other energy intensive industry player on one fell swoop.

I don't disagree with his arithmetic, only with his consistently ignorance of carbon credits in his figuring so he can continue chanting his master's "big new tax" mantra.

His $41 million per annum figure reduces to 2.25 million, then add in the costs passed on by the electricity supplier raising this to 4 million, which may not have had to be paid under the contract had Hydro contested it before deciding to go belly up. Compare this to the 6 to 7 million PER MONTH being lost already by Kurri-Kurri to decide whether or not it is an industry "game-changer" as SM claims.

cont'd

It's hard to be civil with SM at times, who is either unknowingly ignorant or just mischievous. Either way folks need to know he's wrong. I guess I finally saw red when his musical taste and imagery clashed with mine and Ludwig's and I used a bad word that must have upset him, for which I apologize to him anyone else confronted by it.

Industry and the opposition fought tooth and nail to water down the carbon tax to the point where Graham questions whether it will be effectual in its aim. Now the toe is in the door, and it is just a toe, the tax will gradually bite as it widens and the effect of permits dissipates to constrict carbon output, but not in a time frame that will see us meet targets we have set ourselves, IMO.

For this we can thank Abbott, who claims to accept AGW and could have taken a bipartisan approach over emissions a la Turnbull, together with industry which we naturally expect to put profit first.
That both then criticize the tax with claims it will cost more to gather than it collects, well that's to have cake and eat it too, but only for awhile.

I beseech SM to desist from half-truth in all he writes if he wants to respect from many posters here. Lexi's last post pretty much says it all.