Turnbull govt proposes carbon tax on new cars to keep old cars on the road and increase pollution

Carbon Tax on Cars, Australia, Artwork, Cartoon.

Showing an uncanny knack to do exactly the wrong thing in an expensive way and with prosaic timing, the Turnbull government is apparently considering using Australian cars to control the climate. As a nation of die-hard car heads with the lowest population density in the world and award winning high prices for electricity, we qualify as the last advanced nation on Earth who should go “electric”.

Currently, EV’s are so rare here, we have one for every 1,750 square kilometers. Don’t be fooled by the Australian continent’s map of charging points. Each charging point is scaled up to approx 14,000 times its real size.

The day after Trump was elected on a vow to quash Paris, we signed up, now as the US winds back emissions rules, Turnbull wants to ramp them up:

Carbon laws ‘to drive top cars off the road’

The Australian, Ben Packham and Remy Varga

The car industry has warned that some of Australia’s most popular cars will be taken off the market, or face significant price hikes, under tough carbon-emissions standards being actively considered by the Turnbull government.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries said the Toyota Hilux and Ford Ranger, the ­nation’s top-selling cars last year, would be among those at risk under proposed emissions rules, similar to those abandoned by US President Donald Trump.

How many storms will we stop with this?

There are 1.2 billion cars in the world, and Australian drive 1.5% of them. We have a 19 million strong car fleet, and Minister Frydenberg predicts an electric vehicle “revolution” with “more than one million EVs on Australian roads by 2030”. Sure. We have all of 4,000 EVs now. That’s the entire national tally.

Only 996,000 new EV’s to go.

Australians love their big cars. And only 2 of the top 20 sellers would pass the proposed 105 g CO2/km limit. But that’s ok, because the rules will only apply to new cars, which means more people will keep driving the old ones. Too bad if you own a new car sales yard. Too bad if you wanted to reduce CO2.

More than 500,000 SUVs, four-wheel-drives and large utes were sold in Australia last year. None would meet the proposed new standard.

Compliance cost estimates: $2 billion pa

According to a regulatory ­impact statement prepared by the Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities, the average annual cost for those required to comply with the policy would be more than $2bn a year. If the government opted for a softer target of 119gCO2/km, the compliance burden would fall to about $1.4bn.

And the rest…!

UPDATE: From commenter TdeF: … the CO2 limit of 106g/km translates into a petrol limit of 4.6litres/100km.

This eliminates even the smallest lightest 4 cylinder Toyotas. Clearly the only way to meet this limit is for hybrid or electric cars, of any weight. According to this standard all electric cars pass, no matter how heavy. That is not true however. If we assume deceleration costs nothing, energy costs vary directly with vehicle weight and all energy costs translate directly into CO2. So this is once again an anti Fossil fuel limit. Consider that in Australia today is that 90% of all power is coal. The wind and solar are name plate, sometimes of zero value.

So how much CO2 in g/km does a Tesla S generate with a 65kwhr battery in Australia today? 60KwHr and a rage of 350km. Firstly coal produces 1kg of CO2 per kwhr, and add 5% for distribution losses and the Tesla S generates 70kg of CO2 at the power stations in 350km. This is 200g/km. Ban Electric cars!

Lets pay more to increase emissions?

But EV’s were never much good at reducing CO2 unless you live in France, where they have nuclear power. A Norweigan study found EV’s were worse than useless in countries where electricity was made from, you guessed it, coal. In China, which is powered by 65% coal, one study estimated EV’s produce 50% more CO2 than gas guzzlers. (Not that there is anything wrong with that, by why pay more for it?). Australia, of course is even more dependent on coal than China is with our grid being 73% coal fired. These are coal fired cars.

Let’s pay more to raise the price of electricity and gas, and ruin the grid?

Let’s pay more to pay more.  The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) estimates that each new EV could add $2,000 a year to the cost of infrastructure and generation. At the moment that will be paid for by people who mostly don’t own electric cars. Often-times the same people who are paying for other people’s solar panels and other people’s wind farms.

And if people get the new fat-batteries that supercharge nice and fast with 50kW chargers, each new car will be like adding 20 new houses on the grid. Just what we need.

Sell this as a “Win” for consumers?

This will save Australians money, but not the way the Minister thinks.

Cities Minister Paul Fletcher, who is leading the government’s Ministerial Forum on Vehicle Emissions with Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, said the government was yet to finalise the policy, but “any decision will place ­savings for Australians front and centre”.

“Under a fuel efficiency standard, the average motorist in Australia could save up to $500 a year in fuel costs,” he said.

The average motorist will save thousands by holding onto their old cars, or by buying second hand cars, and mostly from ex-government agencies which are still “rich” enough to afford aquiring the new ones.

Even without a fuel efficiency standard the average motorist is free, as far as I know, to buy cars with better fuel economy, and mostly they don’t.

After 2.5 years of development, this is all they have?

Apparently the development team has been working for 30 months on this plan.

Carmakers would be forced to meet the target as the average emission level of all vehicles they sell in Australia, or face fines for breaching the limit.

To sell cars such as the Hilux and Ranger, which typically emit more than 260gCO2/km, manufacturers would have to sell more electric vehicles and hybrids. The Toyota Corolla, which is leading vehicle sales this year, emits 96gCO2/km in its hybrid electric form, while the 1.8-litre petrol version emits 159gCO2/km, the Green Vehicle Guide says.

Bureaucrats looking for a tooth fairy:

It’s understood energy bureaucrats are continuing to model the 105gCO2/km target under different EV uptake scenarios to come up with a policy that will have no theoretical impact on prices and won’t force drivers to switch cars.

The only good news, the damage might not start til 2025. Then Australians will have to buy 200,000 EV’s a year to meet the target.

 

Yet another climate-change czar,
Wants a carbon-tax, on each new car,
To stop droughts, hurricanes,
Heatwaves, extreme rains,
And flash flooding in Kandahar.

__ Ruairi

Image: Toyota Klugar, Fremantle, EurovisionNim

9.6 out of 10 based on 82 ratings

325 comments to Turnbull govt proposes carbon tax on new cars to keep old cars on the road and increase pollution

  • #
    David Maddison

    Just when you thought Turnbull could do no further economic damage with “carbon” taxes and charges, he manages to outdo himself.

    592

    • #
      TedM

      David I am in an absolute state of despair to hear that we have elected such an intellectually incompetent and politically driven leadership.

      350

      • #
        Graeme No.3

        My despair is that the other lot are even more incompetent.

        410

        • #
          Sceptical Sam

          Where the devil is Tony Abbott and his Monash Group?

          Where is Cory Bernardi?

          Wake up gentlemen and women. Malcolm is about to mulct you.

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        • #
          Ian

          Good for the Turnbull government in joining countries such as the UK and Germany in aiming to get fossil fuel burning vehicles replaced by electric vehicles. These vehicles emit so many atmospheric pollutants that steps to remove them from the atmosphere should be applauded not condemned

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          • #
            Sceptical Sam

            These vehicles emit so many atmospheric pollutants

            List them.

            And, then list the pollutants emitted from the generation of electricity by type of generation. Then we can have a discussion.

            otherwise you’re just trolling for the rent-seekers.

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            • #
              Ian

              Pollutants from the burning of fossil fuels are are Particulate Matter (PM) such as PM10s. Oxides of nitrogen NOx), oxides of sulphur (Sox) carbon monoxide CO) and unburnt hydrocarbons (HC) .

              The major constituents of motor vehicle pollutants are CO 74% , HC 16% , NOx 8.5%, PM 0.8% and Sox 0.6%

              CO is a product of incomplete combustion. It reduces the human blood’s ability to carry oxygen and is dangerous to people with heart diseases.

              HC are from unburned or partially burned fuel and are a major contributor to urban toxic smog. They may cause lung, liver damage and cancer

              Source is https://saferenvironment.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/pollution-from-motor-vehicles-urgency-of-development-of-environment-friendly-cleaner-system-for-road-transport/

              NOx are generated when nitrogen in the air reacts with oxygen under the high temperature and pressure conditions inside the engine. They contribute to both smog and acid rain.

              SOx: from combustion of petrol or diesel.

              Evaporative emissions: These are produced from the evaporation of fuel, and are largely contributor to urban smog, as these heavier molecules stay closer to ground level.

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              • #
                tom0mason

                Ian,
                Living is a risk. And living is all about balancing risk and reward.
                The cost efficient benefits and improvements to everyone’s lives is, in the most part, due to affordable modern transport. Your ideas are to put a spoke in the wheel of that real progress, and offer inefficient methods that do not account for the cost/benefit of the current system.
                At each iteration of the internal combustion engine (ICE) the figures on pollution reduce and efficiency goes up. Nothing of what you give is a growing problem but a declining one as better technology in ICE design progresses. Indeed pollution from the very latest ICE vehicles is at trivial levels.
                You say “HC are from unburned or partially burned fuel and are a major contributor to urban toxic smog. They may cause lung, liver damage and cancer” I note your use of the word ‘may’ and offer no data. Where are your figures?
                SOx has been virtually eliminated from ICE due to improvement in the fuels. NOx are rapidly reducing with improvements in ICE. As for particulates where are your figures?
                see —
                https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/04/19/1482231/0/en/Progress-and-Potential-for-Achieving-Cleaner-Air-on-a-Global-Basis.html
                and
                https://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2010-04/most-advanced-engines
                and
                https://www.trucks.com/2016/05/03/cng-engines-solution-trucking-emissions/
                and
                https://www.dieselforum.org/news/new-study-on-clean-diesel-technology-affirms-near-zero-emissions-no-significant-health-impact
                And educate yourself with the vast number of other arcticles available online!

                Your offering is an elitists pipe-dream. Pie in the sky, utopian tomorrow where non-polluting vehicles knitted from ‘sustainable’ sources whisk people to their destination. It will never happen. Government edict can not make it happen.

                Electric vehicle have only a niche part to play in transportation, with their limited range and very limited battery life. Weight for weight and mile for mile EVs are the less efficient, less cost efficient method of transportation compared to ICE power.
                Electric vehicle batteries are made from minerals that are found in places like DRC where child slave labor is used. I believe every Tesla and EV should carry a label saying —
                'Child slave labor was employed to manufacture this inefficient electric vehicle'.

                You offer no figures or credibility just on overemotional cry!
                Greg Cavanagh is correct in his assessment, to which I would add you are a snowflake as evidenced by you reply to him.

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              • #
                Ian

                Asnowflake eh. This site really issuing down hill when small minded people such as yourself can hurl epithets about with abandon. Your references are biased tripe from the motor industry. Get some that at least have some pretence to impartiality. As for my comment being an elitist pipe dream then the governments of many countries have the same mindset. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_banning_fossil_fuel_vehicles. (I’m not a fan of Wikipedia nut I chose it as it makes things simpler for you.

                Germany and the UK and other countries must be subject to the same dreams as those countries will ban the ICE after 2040 allowing only electric vehicles but see this https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/a10362988/uk-gas-diesel-cars-2040/ and here

                If you are unable to be civil at least get some scientific credibility and read round the topic before b blundering into print. How does the saying go “people may think you’re an idiot but if you open your mouth, or in this case post your comment, people will know you are”you’re an

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              • #
                Joe

                Ian, I think you make a good point when you say

                … then the governments of many countries have the same mindset.

                I think that is the UN kool-aid doing its thing. Well spotted.

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              • #
                Joe

                .. but why go out and buy a new car when all it needs is a little tweek of the software in your ECU like the Europeans do? 🙂

                70

              • #
                tom0mason

                Indeed you proved me correct in my assessment of you.

                Note just because governments do or say something does not mean they are correct, or even that they will take any action. Politicians enjoy virtue signaling, it placates many ‘differently intelligent’ of the electorate

                I note that you still have not addressed the question of data about pollution levels from vehicles, therefore it should be plain to all that you are just blowing smoke on the issue and polluting this blog with your snowflake issues.

                Also you appear to endorse the idea of child slavery in DRC as the cost for you to ‘save the world’.

                82

              • #
                tom0mason

                Ian,

                You say “HC are from unburned or partially burned fuel and are a major contributor to urban toxic smog. They may cause lung, liver damage and cancer” I note your use of the word ‘may’ and offer no data. Where are your figures?

                Or are you just blowing smoke?

                Here’s just a taster …
                US vehicle pollution for all states since 1980 comes to —
                Carbon Monoxide (Down by at lease 85%), Lead (Down by at lease 99%), Nitrogen Dioxide (annual, Down by at lease 62%), Nitrogen Dioxide (1-hour, Down by at lease 62%), Ozone (8-hour, Down by at lease 31%),Sulfur Dioxide (1-hour, Down by at lease 87%)
                And since 2000 when offical monitoring started —
                PM10 (24-hour,Down by at lease 50%), PM2.5* (annual, Down by at lease 50%) PM2.5* (24-hour,Down by at lease 50% ).
                *I would note that although PM2.5 is measured no data has been found as to verify actual harm done by this particulate size.
                Overall all vehicle emission are falling and continue to fall dispite vehicle use rising in the USA.

                More to come later…

                102

              • #
                tom0mason

                Ian,

                Trying to find real figure on vehicle pollution in Europe is shrouded in the CO2 blanket but I’ll persist. As for your scientific credibility it is very suspect, I smell an EV paid shill at work!
                Across Europe NOx is falling and non-NO2 is falling fastest.

                From https://phys.org/news/2017-11-european-historical-proportion-no2-nox.html

                (Phys.org)—A team of researchers at the University of York in the U.K. has found that the proportion of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in nitrogen oxides in European traffic emissions is smaller than has been thought. In their paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the group describes analyzing data from roadside monitors over the course of many years and what they found by doing so. Drew Gentner and Fulizi Xiong with Yale University offer a News and Views perspective on the work done by the team in the same journal issue and suggest that the team’s findings could have implications for air pollution standards organizations in many more places than just Europe.

                One of the types of pollutants emitted by cars and trucks is nitrogen oxides (NOx), in particular NO2 and nitric oxide (NO). These pollutants have been in the news in Europe over the past couple of decades because many truck and car owners have chosen to switch to vehicles powered by diesel fuel, which costs less than gasoline—but such vehicles also emit more NOx. To combat air pollution, officials in Europe and the U.K have enacted emissions standards that have resulted in less NOx emitted into the atmosphere. But most such emissions have applied only to NO2, which has muddied the standards. Making things ever murkier—such standards have been based on the percentage of NO2 in total NOx emissions. This is because not only do vehicles emit NO2 directly, but NO turns into NO2 over time once released into the air. Now, it appears that the percentages that officials have been using to set their standards has been wrong.

                To get an accurate measurement of the true percentage of NO2 in the NOx being emitted by vehicles, the researchers analyzed data from roadside monitors across Europe. In looking at the data, they found that NO2 percentages had risen, as expected, during the period 1995 to 2010 (as people converted to diesel) but then as emissions regulations came into effect, the percentage of NO2 leveled off and has remained at those levels ever since. These levels, the researchers note, are roughly half of what is described by air quality policy, which suggests Europe may reach mandated levels sooner than thought. Gentner and Fulizi Xiong suggest the group’s finding could have also implications for developing nations as well because consumers there tend to buy used diesel vehicles from Europe.

                102

              • #
                tom0mason

                Also see that real air quality in improving in the USA — here <—

                31

              • #
                Ian

                “As for your scientific credibility it is very suspect, I smell an EV paid shill at work!”

                I don’t know what an EV shill is but I do know that you are a modern day Luddite with an inflexible mind.

                With respect to my scientific credibility I have a PhD from the University of Western Australia on the role of proteins in the effect of steroids on breast and prostate cancer. My studies involved the development and use of immunological, biochemical and molecular biological techniques. I was a university professor running my own research programs and supervising honours and PhD students. and publishing in ther peers reviewed literature.

                How about your scientific credibility?

                But all this aside you clearly cannot see the whole picture.

                The bottom line is no matter how many references you produce to say how efficient fossil fuel burning internal combustion engines have become they will always, repeat always, emit more pollutants than electric cars.

                End of discussion

                312

              • #
                Latus Dextro

                Ian, the focus on vehicular “pollution” has become an increasing focus because the CO2 polemic has essentially failed. The risk mongering, precautionary principled, post-modern epidemiologists have been set free to do what they do best with infinite funding; the manufacture of policy-based evidence.
                The goal?
                To dispense with private cars altogether in metropolitan areas.

                Former Vice President Al Gore and former Mexican President Felipe Calderon have proposed that global warming should be dealt with by banning all automobiles in urban areas. The scheme would mean spending $90 trillion to redesign all cities to make mass transit and walking viable.

                Bone up on UN Habitat III, The UN Urban Agenda. Their “vision” for your future.

                The vehicle polemic is predicated on the same zero sum ideological principle as the UNFCCC definition of “climate change.” One car on the planet, or one person for that matter, exerts an anthropogenic influence on land usage and atmospheric composition. In order to negate the cataclysm of “climate change” neither should exist. That means you Ian.

                Such is the pathological goal at the heart of Green ideology. Wake up Ian.

                112

              • #
                AndyG55

                “a PhD from the University of Western Australia on the role of proteins in the effect of steroids on breast and prostate cancer”

                Which means you have basically ZERO credibility to discussions on pollutants from cars.

                Stick to your steroids, Ian. Its all you have to make you feel good.

                72

              • #
                tom0mason

                @Ian June 2, 2018 at 7:20 am

                Obviously your specialism has ensured you’re well paid, and think that EVs are the way to go. You appear to have no appreciation for what is best for either those less well off than you, or what can be done practically. Ian protest all you will but you are a pie in the sky dreamer.

                I’m just a old retired electronics/avionics and electrical engineer, who has seen and been involved in building/repairing a few ‘ideal’ but later proven unpractical systems. All of these were tested on using computer models, some failed in the field with problems that were intractable. others failed with long term reliability issues.
                I believe I may have a better ‘feel’ for what is practical that you.
                Over the years apart from electronics/electronic, my job encompassed thermal design, pneumatics, antennas, engine management (both static and aircraft), reliability verification, people management, health and safety, contract verification, testing and verifying to national/international specifications, and having to numerous governments regulations/codes pertaining to devices made for different countries. And making a good cup of coffee.

                I’m no Luddite, I’m just very suspicious of government plans that attempt to impose restriction on its citizens and the market. It always fails!
                If EVs have enough merit compared to ICE powered vehicles, and are affordable for the majority of people, they will be a success. Forcing people to buy them is no-brain plan to failure.

                I note that you still appear to endorse the idea of child slavery in DRC as the cost for you to ‘save the world’.

                131

              • #
                tom0mason

                P.S.
                Being well educated does not prevent people from being a total idiot, it just means your another idiot with a PhD. I’ve argued with many of them. The are still stupid and time so often proved me correct, but correlation does not equal causation, eh?

                PS If I have problems with cancer I’ll rely on you for PRACTICAL advice but never on politics or vehicle choice.

                122

          • #
            Greg Cavanagh

            I’m sorry to break it to you Ian, but you are an idiot. There is no pollution from vehicles these days, you’re 30 years behind.

            162

            • #
              Ian

              I didn’t realise this site permitted personal insults such as “you are an idiot” Things certainly have changed. However to fit in with the new regime it s you that is the idiot making the statement “There is no pollution from vehicles these days”

              No pollution? Zero pollution?? You are deluding yourself. “30 years behind’ ? More delusion.

              On road emission teting in Australia carried out in March 2017 showed Australia needs to upgrade to meet Euro 6 standards in order to provide effective detection of new vehicles.

              These include measures such as remote sensing as part of a vehicles road-worthiness assessment. This would help to ensure the maintenance status of vehicles and deliver compliance with Euro 6 RDE legislation.

              What the Australian Automobile Association report highlights most of all is that the in-use vehicles (whether or not they are hybrid vehicles), many of which fall under the Euro 5 standard (or older), have almost all failed emission tests.

              Source https://theconversation.com/australia-still-lags-behind-in-vehicle-emissions-testing-86217

              Before calling others idiots why not make sure of your facts?

              311

              • #
                tom0mason

                Your use of Euro standards for assessing vehicles is inappropriate in a continent that has vastly different requirements and conditions.

                If you feel European regulations are the way to go, move to Euroland and live in the overtaxed, over-regulated hell-hole it has become, especially for the many surviving on low incomes.

                122

              • #
                AndyG55

                Using the conversation as a citation !!!

                ROFLMAO

                Are you sure you aren’t a Greens voter. !!

                Would explain why you support Turnbull.

                82

              • #
                AndyG55

                Tell us Ian, what cars do you and your family members drive?

                72

              • #
                Ian

                Well better an idiot with a PhD than just a straightforward idiot such as yourself. With regard to child slave labour in the Democratic Republic of Congo like most I deplore it but I am not hypocritical about it as you clearly are. As you comment here you use a computer.. You probably are not but certainly should be aware that in 2016 Amnesty International slammed both Apple and Microsoft for the use of child slave labour to dig for cobalt destined for their products. Why are you not asking all commenters here if they endorse child labour in the DRC? More significantly why are you using one?

                43

              • #
                Kinky Keith

                You are an idiot to let Turnbull push you into coming on to this site and display your poor education.

                How much is he paying you?

                43

              • #
                Kinky Keith

                Andy,

                He has a PhD so Please Handle Delicately.

                I wonder who’s paying him?

                42

              • #
                Ian

                AndyG55

                “a PhD from the University of Western Australia on the role of proteins in the effect of steroids on breast and prostate cancer”

                Which means you have basically ZERO credibility to discussions on pollutants from cars.

                Stick to your steroids, Ian. Its all you have to make you feel good.”

                So you believe that only certain categories of commenters have the necessary qualifications and expertise to discuss pollutants from cars. What are your qualifications to comment? Do you actually have any?

                Will you define what you regard as sufficient credibility to comment on pollutants from cars? Furthermore having done so will you then ask all commenters here to provide you with their details so that you can assess their credibility to comment on pollutants from cars? If not why not?

                I drive a Prius What do you drive?

                Resorting to ad hominem attacks on those with a view different from yours is typical of those who lack the ability to deal with that situation. I am able to see the merit in electric cars and do not regard them as inventions of the devil. That doesn’t mean I can’t see their disadvantages or that I believe current cars should be banned immediately Not sure why commenters such as yourself stick their heads in the sand and say “don’t discuss electric cars nothing can replace the internal combustion engine you’re a greenie idiot” etc etc. This used to be a site where civilised discussion presenting substantiated facts both for and against a particular issue was prevalent. Now it seems it is a political site for elderly Conservatives to rail and rant against anything and everything with which they do not agree and most particularly anything to do wth the atmosphere

                33

              • #
                Kinky Keith

                Andy

                His comments indicate that he doesn’t know the difference between a standard modern car and a diesel.

                He/she uses the modern phrase of disparagement; “old white males” to demonstrate his own lack of confidence in understanding the topic: the effect of human origin CO2 on World Atmospheric temperatures.

                So much for modern education.

                KK

                52

            • #
              tom0mason

              And he’s a snowflake!

              112

              • #
                Kinky Keith

                He’s a Little Snowflake
                He’s O.K.
                He tried to get to Heaven, but
                He went the other way.

                . ______ .

                11

          • #
            AndyG55

            The more Turnbull takes the far-left ideology, the worse he will loose the next election.

            End of story for the Turnbull anti-conservative, anti-people, non-government.

            Then its short-of-brains for 3 years..

            .. and may someone please save Australia !!!

            82

            • #
              Kinky Keith

              Turnbull won’t lose the next election, we all will.

              51

            • #
              Ian

              No response about your being the arbiter of who has and who does not have credibility to comment cap pollutants . Nor about you own credibility. Lack of response shows not only do you have no credibility but also you don’t have the courage of your convictions. Does the term “piker” mean anything to you?

              21

          • #
            Kinky Keith

            End of discussion.

            22

          • #
            shannon

            Well Ian…if cars are forced off the roads…ALL travel by Planes are also Halted.!
            After all jet fuel produces more “terrible” CO2 than 4 wheels eh !!!?
            Agenda 21 is on track …
            Horses are going to be worth a fortune in coming years !! (sarc)

            20

        • #
          Mark Allinson

          The LNP/ALP is known as a UniParty – pretending to offer a difference but in reality both taking us down the very same road: the anti-West EU/UN/Globalist road. Anyone who still considers giving voting preferences to either wing of the UniParty is a self-hating fool.

          51

      • #
        GD

        I am in an absolute state of despair to hear that we have elected such an intellectually incompetent and politically driven leadership.

        We didn’t elect the Turnbull Lites, we elected the government led by Tony Abbott. That was the government which kept Julie Bishop on a tight leash, gave Scott Morrison free rein to fix the boat people problem and got rid of the Gillard carbon tax.

        Unfortunately, that same government squibbed it with 18c and the deal with Clive Palmer which opened the way for Turnbull’s ETS.

        A pox on all their houses.

        80

        • #
          GD

          Oops. I was wrong. We did elect the Turnbull Labor Lites, by one seat. Wasn’t that a glowing assessment of our faith in Turnbull..
          It turns out we gave him too much credit.

          70

    • #
      Hanrahan

      If Turnbull hates being PM so much why doesn’t he simply step down? He is the laziest, most inept PM I’ve ever known, and he has a tin ear. Hawke may have been lazy but never inept.

      But I reckon this is primarily a revenue measure camouflaged as a baby seal.

      80

      • #
        Ian

        You’ll be surprised to know then that this abject excuse for a PM has managed to preside over the creation of the most jobs ever in one year and that a surprise budget surplus is expected for next year and possibly for this year too. Pity all PMs weren’t as useless as Turnbull

        313

        • #
          Anto

          In raw numbers, perhaps. As a percentage of population? Not even close. Our reckless, world-beating population growth means that the new jobs barely kept the unemployment rate in check.

          As for a Budget surplus – yes, it’s always just around the corner, isn’t it? I’ll believe it if I ever see it. And, let’s face it – a couple of $bn won’t even pay the interest expense on half a trillon of reckless debt. Just wait until interest rates double over the next few years. See what happens to the fantastical surpluses then.

          110

        • #
          Ted O'Brien.

          Ian, this is a coalition government.

          It is very significant that this proposaal turned up immediately Barnaby Joyce went on leave. Testing the water might they be?

          Surely the Nationals don’t need Barnaby on deck to knock this on the head.

          We should worry that such foolishness can get an airing at all in 2018.

          50

        • #
          JoKAH

          How many of those jobs were in the public service?

          51

        • #
          tom0mason

          His job is to grow the employment pie so more are employed, so that more have a share.
          Government task should not be to ‘create’ jobs but to ensure that the best social/economic condition for employers to retain, and improve current employees, while ensuring the best market conditions are available for new and old businesses to expand.
          On that task he should be judged.
          So has he succeeded or failed?

          50

          • #
            Ian

            Difficult for you to work out? As the workforce has increased by 400,000 in 2017 might give you a clue. Even though has been a slowdown in jobs growth this year In annual terms, new job ads are 11.5% higher than the same time last year. Jobs growth has been higher in health, education, construction, retail and professional and technical appointments. Has it been a success. You and most of the Turnbull haters would say no. I think it has b

            ut then I would

            21

            • #
              tom0mason

              Obviously it is beyond you to see that a nations wealth only grows when they manufacture what they need, export what they can and keep the government’s take down to the minimum to ensure that the population is kept safe and secure.

              All your blather is for nought unless it’s about ‘creating’ government jobs. They produce nothing meaningful just bureaucratic bungling, and ensure that taxation rises — it is the socialist pipe-dream of stupidity.

              You’ve now proved Greg Cavanagh correct and I endorse his assessment of you.

              I also note you still endorse the idea of child slavery is a fair price for your ‘saving the world’ with EVs.

              91

            • #
              Ted O'Brien.

              It’s called the Trump effect!

              20

          • #
            Ian

            Difficult for you to work out? As the workforce has increased by 400,000 in 2017 might give you a clue. Even though has been a slowdown in jobs growth this year In annual terms, new job ads are 11.5% higher than the same time last year. Jobs growth has been higher in health, education, construction, retail and professional and technical appointments. Has it been a success. You and most of the Turnbull haters would say no. I think it has b

            but then I would

            31

        • #
          Kinky Keith

          How much?

          Is he paying you.

          22

        • #
          Kinky Keith

          Making an incorrect statement doesn’t make it true.

          End of discussion.

          22

        • #
          shannon

          Come on Ian…Ive yet to get an answer from any Government/media source the “exact” area of increased employment…
          Observation and commonsense tells me, it has to be … The Public Service…
          Recycling tax payers money is NOT economic growth for our nation….
          Australians in general are sick and tired, of the BS oozing out of Canberra..!

          20

    • #
      ivan

      David, you must realise that he is following the dictat of his company of sharks, Goldman Sachs, who are all for the money they make off carbon taxes.

      Nothing will change in the country until you change the voting system to something that doesn’t reduce to voting for party 1, party 2, etc.

      61

      • #
        shannon

        ivan….non compulsive voting, I feel would surely help the political situation…
        As the education levels drop even lower…so too, the intelligent expectations of the average voter!

        20

    • #
      Ian

      Did you protest when cars were forced to use lead free petrol? If not why not? Do you know that the UK intends to ban all petrol and diesel car by 2040 and Scotland aims to ban them by 2032? It isn’t only CO2 that is emitted by cars burning fossil fuels but pollutants such as PMs (particulate matter), oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide plus a range of other pollutants. BTW I do not include CO2 as I don’t nv]believe it is a pollutant althoug high concentrations are harmful to oxygen utilising species such as humans.

      There is so much political noise, from both sides of the climate debate. that sensible discussion on moves to decrease atmospheric pollution are decried by one side and applauded by the other apparently without any rational thought from either. That this government is amongst those governments around the world aiming to reduce atmospheric pollution from the burning of fossil fuels by motor vehicles is not acknowledged. The focus is on Co2 and CO2 only. This is such a restricted view of the totality of those products that have harmful effects. I am surprised that the debate on this site, which is run by a scientist, has such a narrow focus.

      49

      • #
        Ted O'Brien.

        The AGW scam iis the focus here, in particular the claim that CO2 is causing catastrophic climate change. Other issues are welcome from time to time, so long as you stick to the facts.

        113

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        We have, many times, canvassed real pollution.

        As I mentioned recently, current governments use the pea and thimble trick to confuse the public.

        They draw attention to, CO2 a gas that could be realistically described as the gas of life, and dismiss and cover up real pollution events involving, for example, massive cyanide liberation and production of oxides of nitrogen.

        That said, this blog is primarily focussed on the ridiculous CO2 scam and its attendant problems and associated financial “dealings”.

        This CO2 thing has always been about redirecting public funds into areas of doubtful use and personal benefit of close “friends”.

        That’s what scams are for.

        Our President is not stupid, he’s doing very well, thank you.

        KK

        62

        • #
          Ian

          “That said, this blog is primarily focussed on the ridiculous CO2 scam and its attendant problems and associated financial “dealings”.

          It seems to be far more directed to denigrating Malcolm Turnbull than focussing on “the CO2 scam”

          That Australia’s actions regarding the “CO2 scam” were entirely due to Tony Abbott and not Malcolm Turnbull seems not to be known here. Abbott committed Australia into the Paris Accord in July 2015 with his RET and emissions reduction of between 26-28% by 2030. That commitment locks in Australia until 2020.

          46

          • #
            yarpos

            Doesnt actually lock you into much of anything as China, India and the USA have amply demonstrated. All about circus and virtue signalling.

            71

            • #
              Ian

              It locks them in until 2020

              “It’s not as easy to formally withdraw from the Paris Agreement as some of the coverage makes it sound. Article 28 of the Paris Agreement allows any party to notice its withdrawal three years from the date on which the Agreement entered into force for that party [November 4, 2016]. That means the earliest date on which the U.S. can formally notice its withdrawal would be November 4, 2019. Withdrawal becomes effective no sooner than one year later. So the US can’t withdraw from Paris alone until November 2020”.

              https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/06/01/authority-paris-agreement/

              33

              • #
                Spetzer86

                The US was never in the Paris agreement. B.O. signed it, so he’s in. Otherwise, it’s just paper from a US perspective.

                101

              • #
                AndyG55

                And now citing “Snopes”

                OMG, that’s HILARIOUS.

                You really are painting yourself into a very dark corner, with a DUNCE cap on. !!

                43

              • #
                Kinky Keith

                Auxit.

                We need to get out of the UN and the EEU.

                52

              • #
                Bobl

                Err since neither the USA or Russia or India ever ratified Paris, it has never met the criteria for us enactment. Paris agreement is not in force. Therefore compliance is totally optional. No need to withdraw since legally it doesn’t exist.

                30

          • #
            tom0mason

            Ian,

            Must be too difficult for you but ‘the ridiculous CO2 scam and its attendant problems and associated financial “dealings”.’ are political, and views aired here are about the current government’s lack of ability to unhitch the nation from it.

            72

          • #
            Kinky Keith

            Can’t Really Accept that Proposition.

            22

          • #
            Kinky Keith

            Again, you haven’t answered.

            How much is he paying you?

            Why the chronic focus on future dates?

            2020
            2032
            2036
            2050

            All completely meaningless political claptrap.

            He can buy anything.

            32

          • #
            Ted O'Brien.

            Ian it is not trre to blame Tony Abbott for the RET. He reduced it by the most the senate would allow.

            And in the senate it was Clive Palmer, acting as proxy for Al Gore, who “protected” the RET from Tony Abbott’s landslide mandate.

            This is Al Gore’s RET, not Tony Abbott’s.

            40

      • #
        Ian Hill

        Oops. Accidental green thumb. As Agent 86 would say, sorry about that!

        20

      • #
        tom0mason

        Ian,
        The conservative in name only (CINO) is rife in the UK. And the socialist element has the upper hand, and like all socialists they wish to ban things.
        Much like the EU nonsense on banning plastic drinking straws and the like to ‘combat ocean pollution’. Bloody worthless virtue signaling. This desire for ‘aims to ban them by 2032’ is virtue signaling to the ‘differently intelligent’ voters only. It is a worthless aspiration of little practical value except to capture some votes.
        I’m sure your vote would go with them and their ‘aspirations’.

        70

    • #
      Ve2

      The man is a complete and utter clown.

      21

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Our President is doing very well for himself and family.

        He may be ugly but not dumb.

        11

  • #
    Mark M

    How many electric cars must Australians own before Australians prevent their first drought?
    *
    For decades it has been clear that a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is critical to protecting Australia from worsening extreme weather.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/28/from-angry-summer-to-weird-winter-2017-was-riddled-with-extreme-weather

    Renewable Energy Is Critical To Stopping Global Warming
    https://cleantechnica.com/2018/01/25/renewable-energy-critical-stopping-global-warming/

    614

    • #
      PeterS

      How many fossil fuel cars must we have before we have the next mini-ice age?

      130

    • #
      ColA

      God Mark, I started to read those links, I had to wash my mouth out from gagging!!

      140

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Col, after experiencing the propaganda that keeps the CO2 based climate change thing going it isn’t hard to see how the second world war could be started.

        If you tell a big enough lie over and over, the population will accept it using the premise that it must be true because nobody would ever risk being caught out making such a crazy statement.

        Would they.

        KK

        40

    • #
      Hivemind

      Mark, I think you forgot the /Sarc tag?

      60

    • #
      Ve2

      For decades it has been clear that a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is critical to protecting Australia from worsening extreme weather.

      What worsening weather?

      If you are going to charge your car using only renewable energy good luck charging it in winter when solar drops off to 15% efficiency and the wind isn’t blowing.

      70

  • #
    David Maddison

    At what point do you stop saying that these “carbon” taxes arise merely from scientific ignorance and start saying they are a deliberate strategy by the elites to destroy the econmies of Western countries? At least America has Donald Trump to save them, who does Australia have?

    432

    • #
      PeterS

      The best we have is Cory Bernardi since he is far closer to Trump’s view on climate change than anyone else here, including Abbott. Bernardia even promises to withdraw from the Paris accord, something no other politician has declared. Yet Bernardi’s party is less popular than the Greens. That says a lot about how Australia feels about climate change, unfortunately. They don’t know, don’t care, or believe in the CAGW nonsense. It doesn’t bode well for the future of this nation. Besides, why do both Turnbull and Shorten keep on pushing the climate change nonsense? It’s very likely because they have done the research and know the public by and large believe in it. It sort of proves Australians are not very good critical thinkers even when compared to our US counterparts. I hope I’m wrong on that and wake up after the next federal election to see Bernadi hold the balance of power to demonstrate that Australians actually are good critical thinkers, which I used to believe they were until Rudd was first elected.

      402

      • #
        PeterPetrum

        PeterS – you are correct about Cory Bernardi and his attitude to this issue, in its broadest sense. However, he is not getting the message out there for all to hear. I wrote to him today on just this issue and begged him to start publicising the AC’s attitude to this matter and not just rely on people accessing the AC website. He MUST start pushing the ‘Climate change” issue if he is to convince Conservatives to vote for his party in the Senate, which is our only hope in the looming election.

        100

        • #
          PeterS

          I understand. However, if a voter is to make an intelligent choice at the ballot box the responsible thing to do is first research all the candidates for themselves and then decide who to support. People spend far more time researching what mobile phone or car they like to buy than deciding who to vote for. That’s the point when I keep saying we get the government we deserve. If we as a nation can’t be bothered to use our thinking caps and a bit of time researching them before we vote we might as well pick them randomly by rolling a die and have each candidate represented by one number.

          He’s also a very small party. That’s why we should place both ACP and ON above all the rest. The more people who do it the more likley they will control the Senate instead of the Greens and the independents most of whom are just fruit loops. If either major party ends up holding the balance of power in their own right, don’t expect things to be any different. Anyone who believes otherwise must be sleeping under a rock.

          60

  • #

    The map of charging points shows one point for Townsville, on James Cook Drive. That figures. As it happens, there is another on the roof-top carpark at Willows Shoppingtown. The only vehicle I have ever seen there was the Ergon EV. That was before it went “a bridge too far” and conked out to the north of the city. Haven’t seen it since. Come to think of it, I have seen the city council’s “powered by the sun” contraption for a while.

    161

    • #
      • #

        “Mr Little said on average an electric vehicle would be 80 per cent charged in just 30 minutes.”

        Enough time and more to watch a full episode of I Love Lucy on your tablet. Or maybe one fifth of El Cid. Let’s hope they really do have an awful lot of coffee in Brazil. Bathurst is going to need every bean it can get.

        At least there won’t be queues.

        130

        • #

          So, it adds three and a half hours to the Bathurst 1000. More really, because the cars will be operating beyond their normal limits.

          Think of the advertising dollars that will bring in for the TV Channel with the rights.

          Still, the event is held on the long weekend. Perhaps they could spread the race out across all three days. (and nights)

          Tony.

          180

          • #
            clivehoskin

            I’ve given up on”Supercars”They are nothing more than a benefit for 888 and Holden.If you watch any of the telecasts,you’ll know what I mean.Totaly bias towards them.And they want to bring in turbo cars,which WE the fans rejected after the Nissan debarcle.

            40

            • #
              Greg Cavanagh

              My dad and I stopped watching when the ford cosworth sierra’s were band. While those cars did dominate and hurt the race, the rules brought in to keep them off the racetrack destroyed the race entirely.

              10

          • #
            JoKAH

            Watching tin tops race is like watching a bunch of taxis. Real race cars don’t have covers over their wheels!

            20

        • #
          el gordo

          “range anxiety”

          There is a lot of it about.

          80

          • #

            What’s going to be funny is that moment when a punter pulls up to the electro-bowser and finds a line of those orange-red OUT OF ORDER hoods on the pumps. A Tesla with a dodgy auto-pilot could easily total a re-charging station – that’s if the Mt Panorama Ford hoons don’t get to it first.

            I can’t imagine a Bathurst council rushing to fix a costly contraption erected in a moment of green piety but long shrouded in the mists of boredom and oblivion. Especially when the residents are whining about potholes and verge slashing.

            Big Green is like Justin Trudeau doing a bhangra dance dressed as a Bombay bridegroom. Kind of hilarious once you get past the horror.

            140

            • #
              OriginalSteve

              I wonder if the Constabulary and the crims will have a gentlemans agreement whereby any car chases are suspended while the crims recharge their EVs…..

              The whole mess is very Keystone Cops/ Benny Hill…

              80

            • #
              el gordo

              Its a stunt, nobody takes it seriously, like the Bathurst Bullet Train.

              60

              • #

                The crazy thing is that I like electric vehicles for a variety of reasons, just as I love mass transit systems that really work. An electric vehicle network for cities along with a great metro system which doesn’t conflict with traffic are the ideal way to improve our clogged, hard-way cities (it’s official, I now hate ’em) and make good use of our…….

                COAL!

                Yes. Electric cars can be simple, reliable, quiet, better in traffic and responsive. Coal is cheap, domestic and potent. It’s a great match. It makes sense. Cars that run on fuel which has never seen a sea lane, a pipeline or a war zone.

                As for people who don’t want electric or who live where it’s impractical…there’s still petrol! My vintage 4Runner doesn’t need trading in or phasing out. Innovate, don’t legislate.

                Our blobby green globalist leaders won’t be letting it happen. These people are not conservationists. They are globalists. And globalists come in two types: those who know they are working for Big Oil and those who should know they are working for Big Oil.

                End the War on Coal. Then go buy an all-electric BMW i3 if it floats your boat. (Just don’t expect to park it around here.)

                51

              • #
                el gordo

                Australia would boast we are more than just a quarry and food bowl, we also have first class financial services. Now that the Royal Commission has blasted that illusion out of the water, we may have to concentrate on tourism.

                The new satellite cities, connected by state of the art Maglev to capital cities, will require coal fired power to operate. The electric car is only a toy of the rich and fatuous.

                50

              • #

                EG, electric cars are like wind turbines and solar panels. They have uses, but they have been propelled way beyond their usefulness by green fetishism and carpetbagging.

                I know Sydney and I know it’s not practical for a majority of motorists to run EVs. But a substantial minority who make short and predictable trips and who have easy access either at work or home to charging points could well prefer EVs. They’re fun to drive and responsive, without too much to go wrong if well engineered.

                It’s not far off being yet another side-issue raised to critical status by Blob, but I really don’t mind having another coal-dependent technology. Turnbull and Frydenberg are leading us to heavier oil/gas dependence even as they pretend to be reducing that dependence. They are, however, serious about crippling coal and stifling nukes in coal and uranium-rich Oz. It’s what you do, when you’re a globalist.

                EVs aren’t the problem. The problem is that we needed to start yesterday on the modernisation and extension of coal power in Australia and instead we’re frittering billions on green turkeys and white elephants while funding the turkeys and elephants with the coal we sell to someone else.

                110

              • #
                el gordo

                Our only hope rests with the ginger group.

                10

          • #
            Another Ian

            Mostly in the Queensland rangelands after the latest iteration of the veg management act –

            For an area of documented woody vegetation thickening

            “The VMA does not permit clearing for the purpose of grazing. “

            20

        • #
          Hanrahan

          How much do you reckon that 30 mins would cost you in the Caltex Shop lounge if you had the family on board? A paper, a magazine, a couple of coffees and drinks for the kids minimum.

          30

    • #
      Hivemind

      Canberra has a pair of charging points at the Belconnen Fresh Food Markets. I actually saw a car plugged into it once. I was astounded. I didn’t know Canberra even had one of the virtue signalers.

      60

      • #
        Annie

        There were some charging points at a service station we stopped at in Scotland very recently. Not one of them was being used (despite all the bird mincers cluttering up the landscape).

        71

  • #

    Since when has the Turnbull government done anything that works? His policies are like Greens policies, none of of them ever work. The new GST on foreign purchases is another example of never considering the full extent of what they propose and what they implement.

    Turnbull is truly making Gough Whitlam (and Rudd and Gillard) look good.

    100

  • #
    PeterS

    Does anyone really listen to what Turnbull has to say any more? He is a complete dill on any subject he opens his mouth about, except on how big his ego is. I truly believe he is as bad as Rudd. At least Rudd was a smooth talker even though he also spewed out pure BS virtually all of the time. Yet Turnbull is rated more popular than Shorten. I suppose that’s because Shorten is even worse, which really highlights the desperate situation Australia is facing at the moment and in the future. This country is going downhill fast and unless something dramatically changes very soon we’ve had it.

    381

    • #
      David Maddison

      Whether people listen to him or not, he still acts on his madness.

      231

      • #
        PeterS

        True. So the nation has to choose which madman is to lead the nation at the next election. Fantastic!

        251

        • #
          Klem

          Well at least Turnbull doesn’t prance around in girly clothes like the Canadian PM Trudeau.

          The Candian CBC produces a climate alarmism story on tv and radio almost every day, and Canadians are big believers in ACC. I see a correlation here.

          Does the ABC produce a climate alarmist story every day as well?

          201

        • #
          Greg Cavanagh

          We voted for Abbott, it was Turnbull who back stabbed him to inflate his own ego. This is the hurt he is doing to us. Liberal will lose the next election because of Turnbull’s treachery. We voted for Abbott for a reason, you fat sleazy little mongrel.

          40

          • #
            Ian

            No we didn’t vote for Abbott unless we were in his electorate. He was chosen by this parliamentary colleagues and xdeosdsed by them. We do not vote for the PM in Australia. If you don’t know the system best not comment.. Unlike you in your earlier comment to I will refrain from calling you idiot.

            13

            • #
              Greg Cavanagh

              I’m well aware that we vote for the party not the man. Tony Abbott is who was the leader at that time, and it is he that we endorsed. That the party back stabbed him to took his lead from him demonstrates Turnbull’s greed and self interest, not the people’s interest that’s for sure.

              Turnbull was chosen by his colleges after Abbot won the election for him. And Turnbull will lose the next election for the same reason. We the people didn’t support Turnbull, we wanted Abbott.

              After Gillard back stabbed Rudd for the same reason, then that same party back stabbed Gillard to put Rudd back in the hopes of winning the next election, you’d think these guys would pay attention, but no, their own selfish interest was in the lead.

              The party appoints a leader, the people vote for that leader. Back stabbing that leader to replace him makes we the people hate the rest of that party. It’s not hard to understand.

              50

      • #
        Dennis

        Kevin Turnbull.

        30

    • #
      toorightmate

      PeterS,
      Totally concur – Turnbull is a complete and utter dill.

      130

  • #
    sunsettommy

    What a stupid idea!

    Now those “old” cars will be on the road a lot longer than planned…… make a lot of new sidewalk mechanics too.

    171

    • #
      Binny

      Turnbull can’t imagine driving a car that’s more than 2 years old.

      161

      • #
        Annie

        It’s alright for some eh?! Our cars are 11 and 1/2 years and 21 years old respectively and we live on a pension. New cars were already out of the picture for us! We concentrate on regular good maintenance for our vehicles.

        191

    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      I kept my old 59 Pontiac running until it was 57 years old. I’m saving up for a Lamborghini now, just a little bit more… Don’t change anything just yet.

      30

  • #
    David Maddison

    This comes at the same time Australians will further suffer from yet another Turnbull bad idea. Due to the Government requiring foreign companies that sell into Australia to register to collect the GST (sales tax) they are closing all their non-Australian web sites to Australians.

    151

    • #
      el gordo

      Its a good idea from Morrison because Australian retail is the country’s biggest employer and Amazon was killing it.

      So, in the manner of Donald, we need to bring the jobs back home.

      82

    • #
      William

      I don’t understand this.
      Last week I sold several items on E-bay (Australia) and e-Bay charged me 10% GST. They even charged me GST on the postage!
      So what is this story all about? They are already doing it.

      30

  • #
    David Maddison

    I love my 6 litre V8!

    111

    • #
      PeterS

      I loved mine too until I crashed it 🙁 but wasn’t my fault.

      51

    • #
      Hivemind

      I used to have a 4L Chrysler station wagon. It was lovely to drive, but just got too expensive as the fuel taxes increased.

      50

    • #
      clivehoskin

      I have a 63 Ford Galaxie convertable,390 cubic inch,300 HP that still gets 11 litres per 100 km.on the highway.A couple of friends with Toorak Tractors,can’t get anywhere near that millage.And it seats 6 people to boot.

      70

      • #
        Yonniestone

        That’s a bloody big boot!

        50

      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        Those were big cars. I havn’t seen one in so long now. My 455 Pontiac used to get 19.2mpg on the highway, better than most four-wheel-drives.

        20

        • #
          Yonniestone

          Big block V8’s with 2 barrel carbys will get down to 6 litres per 100kms cruising on the flat, its the stop start traffic that kills mileage, fun way do it though.

          30

  • #
    David Maddison

    Tunbull never fails to disappoint but the alternative, Shorten is far worse, as difficult as that is to believe.

    231

    • #

      I’m truly beginning to wonder whether that is the case. This government has gone from bad to worse and I dread to think what will happen if they get a second term with Turnbull at the helm. He will feel vindicated and his ego will become completely uncontrollable.

      150

      • #
        PeterS

        Yes I have been asking myself the same question. Which one is really worse, Turnbull or Shorten. We might find out soon enough. As I said before Shorten has one up on Turnbull in my nooks. Shorten is at least honest and open about what he stands for. Turnbull on the other hand has always been a fake and it became obvious when he aligned himself with Rudd on climate issues while Abbott was critical of Rudd. Of course the white-anting Abbott started about then and the rest is history. Make no mistake about it, Shorten could be worse for us but at least we know where he stands. Turnbull though is so devious anything can happen and instead could be worse that Shorten. Let’s hope we never find out either way and we end up with a better leader somehow sometime, sooner rather than later.

        60

      • #
        PeterPetrum

        Bemused, I am really beginning to think (unbelievable, I know) that we have to put Shorten in, just to get rid of Turnbull and decimate the “Liberal” party. Only then can they start to rebuild a Conservative party. If we ensure that Cory holds the balance of power in the Senate, we might just survive a Labor govt for four years.

        40

        • #

          I really hate the thought of Shorten, but I’m truly thinking that Australia will, in the long term, be much better off. It will be potentially painful, but getting rid of this cancerous growth I think is necessary.

          30

        • #
          Hanrahan

          When was the last time you saw a party have a full and frank post mortem? The libs didn’t even pretend to have one after their recent near death experience, nor did labor in ’13.

          30

        • #
          Greebo

          I’ve been saying that for ages. It’s a great pity that that lunatic Andrews chose to pick a fight with the CFA here in Vic when he did. We could have been rid of Turnbull, and be very nearly through a one term Shorten Government by now. Abbott would likely be OL and there’s no way Shorten would be getting the free ride Turnbull has been giving him.

          Meanwhile, Cory has announced his lead Senate candidate for Vic:

          Kevin Bailey AM will be our lead senate candidate in Victoria.

          Kevin will be well known to many of you and has had a distinguished career in business, philanthropy and public service. A former SAS soldier and ABC radio presenter, Kevin has a track record of success.

          He’s getting my vote I think.

          20

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      I guess by now everyone here should realize this is by design….you cant keep consistently “accidentally” shooting Australia in the head, unless you aim first….

      110

  • #
    Melbourne Resident

    Cuba here we come for the people’s Republic of Australia.

    141

  • #
    Graham Richards

    We all know the answer to this moron & his government. Get rid of them. If everybody simply spoilt/defaced there votes the message would seep thru into their adled undersized brain. That goes for both parties. If there was no government at all we’d be better off.

    81

    • #

      The message will hit them faster if we vote for minor and independent parties and give them the balance of power.

      260

      • #
        clivehoskin

        Sanity at last.A donkey vote is just ignored by the”Elites”.

        60

      • #
        PeterS

        Exactly Jo. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell everyone but I still get a few kickbacks for some strange reason.

        50

      • #
        neil

        I live in an inner Melbourne Labor/Green seat and the alternatives are to the left of the Greens, my kids would be kicked out of the local school if the other parents found out I don’t mind Trump and liked Abbott, one mother is convinced the election system is rigged because she believes less than 5% of the country would vote LNP.

        So I don’t vote.

        62

        • #

          You know about the senate?

          31

          • #
            neil

            Personally I believe the Senate should be abolished, it was only created to ensure the states aren’t disadvantaged, not to make or even pass their personal judgement on government policy. If their state isn’t disadvantaged they are meant to pass all government policy.

            The senate is broken it’s time to get rid of it.

            20

            • #
              PeterS

              I tend to agree but for now it’s our only hope of blocking an LNP or ALP+Greens government from continuing their madness provided the balance of power in the Senate is held by ACP+ON. Otherwise, it’s effectively redundant. Of course it would be more wonderful if ACP+ON held the balance of power in the lower house but I think that’s impossible at this stage.

              20

            • #
              Greebo

              The senate is broken it’s time to get rid of it.

              Disagree. The Senate needs reform, not abolition. Abbott floated an idea recently about resolving deadlocks with a joint sitting, and I believe it’s an idea of some merit. ( I think it was originally Howard who came up with it. ) Then the Senate could keep it’s House of review status, but could no longer be a House of veto. The quota system is also long overdue for a rethink.

              20

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        Annie

        I agree with you Jo but locally we don’t have many alternatives to the main parties. Looking into the last time there was only one candidate I actually liked and he is a Nat.

        21

        • #
          PeterS

          Yes I can understand in some seats there’s not much choice but the vast majority do in fact have a wide variety of choices. Look if we really want to make a stand and be noticed we have to block either major party from forming a majority government. Otherwise, we will just go on like we are now until it all ends in tears. Perhaps that has to be if it turns out most voters are still clueless and/or asleep by the time we have the next federal election.

          30

          • #
            Yonniestone

            Pauline Hanson projected our frustration talking about the current political stagnation getting very emotional on the Bolt Report.

            Pauline Hanson breaks down on The Bolt Report with Ben Fordham, the interview is interesting and she cuts loose at 13:00 minutes.

            It was personally upsetting to see a good person having their spirit damaged by much lesser people.

            30

            • #
              PeterS

              I can understand her frustration. She is very concerned about where this nation is heading and she desperately wants to help and correct things. If more politicians felt that way perhaps things would be much better. The trouble is she is not a very good communicator but she has improved over the years somewhat. I don’t agree with all her views but she is definitely correct with more issues than LNP and ALP+Greens put together. I hope she continues and improves. Hanson and Bernardi combined would be getting about half way to a Trump card although they do have their differences. Then again a person like Trump also has differences with him – most people like him tend to have schizophrenic tendencies although in his case I suspect it’s mild.

              30

    • #
      el gordo

      ‘If everybody simply spoilt/defaced there votes the message would seep thru into their adled undersized brain.’

      Yes the Informalists might yet have their day …. ‘A pox on both yer houses’ … ‘CO2 doesn’t cause global warming’ … a people’s uprising.

      I will continue to vote Informal because in my electorate at the last Federal election all the minor parties went backwards, from nowhere to oblivion.

      If the Coalition ginger group unseats Malcolm then obviously I’ll become politically correct and vote for the local Nat.

      21

    • #
      Greebo

      Why vote informal? It’s just a waste of your vote, and should really disqualify you from commenting on politics. As Jo says, it makes far more sense to vote for a minor like AC or PHON, or indies.

      10

  • #

    Now, I’m not saying we don’t have a fine crop of icky globalists, guaranteed Australia-negative and Bilderberg-ready. Lookin’ right at you, Joshie.

    But I’m wondering if we don’t have another problem as well, apart from all the Mr Burns-as-treehugger stuff.

    Remember how Malcolm came to power as a super-articulate communicator and all-up capable money guy? But then we realised he often couldn’t finish a sentence? (He’s still working on that one he started last Tuesday.) And he could only open his mouth to endorse mad schemes concerning things like mini-cities and New Federalism…only to forget about them within forty-eight hours? (The reason he no longer want to be Father of the Republic is that it’s an old toy he chucked out of the cot long ago. Our kiddie PM needs novelty.)

    Of course, when he does persist with a scheme – oiler subs where they can’t build canoes, Uphill Snowy etc – you quickly yearn for the Malcolm of agile mini-cities and New Federalism. Cheaper to let him fantasise than to sign contracts.

    What I’m saying is, in view of how stupendously dumb this latest vehicle scheme is for a country like Oz…

    Is it possible that our leader is basically just…y’know…basically just plain thick?

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    Robber

    And this from a Liberal Party that lists the following beliefs on its website :
    We Believe:
    In the inalienable rights and freedoms of all peoples; and we work towards a lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives; and maximises individual and private sector initiative
    In government that nurtures and encourages its citizens through incentive, rather than putting limits on people through the punishing disincentives of burdensome taxes and the stifling structures of Labor’s corporate state and bureaucratic red tape.
    In equal opportunity for all Australians; and the encouragement and facilitation of wealth so that all may enjoy the highest possible standards of living, health, education and social justice.
    That, wherever possible, government should not compete with an efficient private sector; and that businesses and individuals – not government – are the true creators of wealth and employment.

    How far has the Liberal Party fallen?
    Energy Policy – Fail.
    ABC – Fail.
    Lean government – Fail.
    Regulations – Fail.

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    • #
      PeterS

      The Liberal Party has morphed in to the American meaning of liberal in politics – a liberal is someone on the left wing of politics — the opposite of a conservative.

      240

      • #
        el gordo

        I’ll pay that.

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      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        Yes, the Australian liberal was the opposite of the American liberal. Now not so much.

        30

        • #
          PeterS

          To avoid confusion we should adopt the American definition of the word liberal and adopt another word to represent what the Liberals used to be, namely conservatives. That’s why Cory Bernardi left the Liberals and formed the ACP. Personally I don’t really belong to any of the traditional political labels, such as Communism, Conservatism, Environmentalism, Fascism, Liberalism, Nationalism, Socialism, Capitalism, Marxism, etc. If anything I’m a mixture of certain parts of but not all of Conservatism, Liberalism, Nationalism and Capitalism with the contradictory parts left out of course. I don’t think there’s a word for that.

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          • #

            I explored that issue a bit here:
            https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/i-am-a-liberal/

            The conclusion I reached was that the Classical Liberal (what Australian Liberals had been) was someone who was closer to the modern American Libertarian: a free market liberty type.

            Then the American Socialist Liberal was essentially now a “3rd Way” or “Progressive Socialist”. Then I suggested abbreviating those terms. Luckily, an Australian Liberal also starts with “A” so could be stretched to the same abbreviation.

            The original meaning would be a “Classi-Liberal” and the new meaning the “ASo-Liberal”

            😉

            40

            • #
              PeterS

              Interesting, thank you. I feel such words are too ambiguous in politics mostly because emotions and feelings cloud things. I prefer to stick to more down to earth terms like freedoms, goodness, honesty, decency, righteousness, trustworthiness, etc. These are all qualities a person should have in politics. Of course the reality is it’s the exact opposite most of the time.

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    • #

      ‘Inalienable rights and freedom of all peoples,’- We should
      all email the above to our ‘liberal”representatives’. A flood
      of emails,in black and white, an email J’accuse!

      100

    • #
      William

      You didn’t notice the two words that should have put a chill in your heart:
      “social justice”

      60

  • #
    Mark M

    Conflating weather with climate …

    AT A GLANCE
    Project Victorian TV Weather Presenters as Climate Communicators
    Organisation Monash University’s Climate Change Communication Research Hub
    Grant Type Exploration Grant
    Amount $49,524

    As part of the pilot project, accurate and fact-based local climate change information will be provided to weather presenters, to be included in weather segments and editorials to increase the public’s general knowledge about climate change.

    NASA: “Climate change” and “global warming” are often used interchangeably but have distinct meanings.

    Similarly, the terms “weather” and “climate” are sometimes confused, though they refer to events with broadly different spatial- and timescales.

    Weather refers to atmospheric conditions that occur locally over short periods of time—from minutes to hours or days. Familiar examples include rain, snow, clouds, winds, floods or thunderstorms. Remember, weather is local and short-term.

    Climate, on the other hand, refers to the long-term regional or even global average of temperature, humidity and rainfall patterns over seasons, years or decades.
    Remember, climate is global and long-term.

    https://climate.nasa.gov/resources/global-warming/

    There are opportunities for Melbourne’s communities if we can transition well to a low carbon city.”

    40

  • #
    TedM

    Ecclesiastes ch1: “Vanity, vanity vanity, all is vanity,”

    My “uninspired interpretation”: Stupidity, stupidity, stupidity, all is stupidity.

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    NB

    Frightened by the prospect of a Liberal win at the next election, Mr Turnbull pulls out all stops.

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    • #
      Bushkid

      Very close t the mark, I think.

      It’s long past the point of thinking Turnbull is just plain stupid and thick. I has to be deliberate and malicious to wreak this sort of havoc as a supposed “Liberal” (in the Australian political sense) “leader”.

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    • #

      Onwards ‘n upwards to the UN.

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  • #
    John F. Hultquist

    Many new cars will be ordered in early-2024 and delivered in the 4th quarter of 2024.
    After that, new car sales will drop. Re-sale of the last new imports will be brisk.
    New autos can last 15 years or 300,000 miles.
    After about 2030-35 the situation will begin to impact the look on the streets — think Cuba.
    By 2035 we should know if the world is doomed — or not.
    Whichever occurs, the regulations can be reviewed give the circumstances.

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      manalive

      By 2035 we should know if the world is doomed …

      I think we already know the answer to that, Lord I hope it doesn’t take to 2035 before the penny drops.

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      yarpos

      In parallel with all this we have a club permit system that supports cars over 25 years old. registration $70-$140 vs $600+ same for insurance. We have 3 club cars from 1960, 84 and 86. Looks like we will have them for a while longer

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  • #
    King Geo

    I have said before that Oz is destined to become economically “EU Mark II”.

    Yes escalating electricity prices thanks to the RET & now a CT on new cars.

    This country is without doubt going to be the poor cousin in the Asian region because they have not been conned by “AGW Alarmism” – they are too smart for that. Our Asian neighbours want nothing to do with RE – they see gas & coal fired power stations as the way to go – cheaper & more reliable.

    Our fine country will lose most manufacturing industries, loss of real jobs and with our obsession with over educating our young, rampant youth unemployment where uni graduates will have to leave Oz to get a job in their chosen career. Expect youth unemployment numbers to sky rocket – just like in the EU.

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    • #
      King Geo

      And of course in true blue Aussie lingo “The [snip] will hit the fan in the near future!!!!”. By that I mean when youth unemployment exceeds 30% (as in many EU member nations), many unit students (like right now) cannot get a job in their chosen profession there will be an inevitable back lash – “Why is this happening”? And then folk like us will spell out the reason.

      1. Electricity prices have tripled because our Govt introduced an RET – reason being concern about AGW (a myth).

      2. Carbon tax on new cars introduced thus making them far too expensive for most consumers – reason being concern about AGW (a myth).

      3. Most energy intensive industries leave Oz and set up in S.E. & N.E. Asia where electricity is much cheaper & more reliable (gas & coal fired power stations). These nations discarded “AGW Ideology” a long time ago.

      4. Because of items 1-3 there will be a lot less “real jobs”. Our neighbouring nations will be booming while here in Oz most folk will be on struggle street.

      This self induced disaster brought on by the MSM & Politicans promoting “EU type leftie AGW Ideology” – most of the electorate unfortunately believing that AGW is real (unlike most Jo Nova blog skeptics). We put out the warnings but no one is listening. It is like an uncontrolled train with the brakes failing – “A TRAIN WRECK IS IMMINENT!!!! “

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      • #
        King Geo

        A train wreck is imminent!!! By that I mean when youth unemployment exceeds 30% (as in many EU member nations) and many unit students (like right now) cannot get a job in their chosen profession there will be an inevitable back lash – “Why is this happening”? And then folk like us will spell out the reason.

        1. Electricity prices have tripled because our Govt introduced an RET – reason being concern about AGW (a myth).

        2. Carbon tax on new cars introduced thus making them far too expensive for most consumers – reason being concern about AGW (a myth).

        3. Most energy intensive industries leave Oz and set up in S.E. & N.E. Asia where electricity is much cheaper & more reliable (gas & coal fired power stations). These nations discarded “AGW Ideology” a long time ago.

        4. Because of items 1-3 there will be a lot less “real jobs”. Our neighbouring nations will be booming while here in Oz most folk will be on struggle street. You see we are sowing the seeds for our own demise – exporting vasts amounts of LNG & Coal to these Asian nations while committing “energy hari kari” on the home front by fast tracking to RE – total & utter madness!!!

        This self inflicted disaster brought on by the MSM & Politicans promoting “EU type leftie AGW Ideology” – most of the electorate unfortunately believing that AGW is real. There are not enough of us skeptics to change this “Belief in AGW”. We put out the warnings but no one is listening. It is like an uncontrolled train with the brakes failing – “A TRAIN WRECK IS IMMINENT!!!! “

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        • #
          Dennis

          The government has created over one million jobs, casual jobs, the casual jobs job seekers have accepted in lieu of full time employment come with a pass to Centrelink for welfare support.

          Your representatives, your elected representatives are your best friends.

          The Banana Republic is coming soon.

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            King Geo

            Correct Dennis but remember the only “banana republic” in our “Asian Region” will be Oz. Possibly the Philippines also but only because they export lots of bananas. You see none of these Asian nations are into RE – simply because they are not masochists. Belief in AGW & RE will bring this nation down. And to think of Oz’s vast LNG, coal & uranium resources – it really is a tragedy.

            But why has it happened? Well I believe it because we are a country comprising mainly folk of European descent. Europeans are too easily corrupted by “Leftie Ideology” – sad but true. And I am of European descent – but I see cons clear as a bell – and the biggest con in human history is the “The Theory of AGW”. It is this theory that is likely to bring Oz to its knees. Most Asian folk know that this theory is nonsense – well at least the ones I chat with. This ludicrous theory was created in western nations and has effectively sown the seeds for its self destruction – USA excepted thanks to the Trump Govt.

            The likes of M. Mann & A. Gore should be remembered as the “wreckers of western society” in the early 2000’s.

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            PeterS

            Wait till the aging population begins to make a real difference. That’s about 15 years from now if we last that long. It will hit the economy like a slow release H bomb.

            10

  • #
    lance

    Defective minds never consider “consequences” or “Relevance” in their delusional tirades.

    It isn’t clear if Turnbull is “delusional”, “opportunistic”, “ignorant of fact”, or “evil”. Take your pick.

    In final analysis, it doesn’t matter. His decisions are “defective” and “not in the interests of Australia”.

    Everything he is proposing is factually and mathematically irrelevant as a “solution” to a “non problem”.

    My great sympathies to AU. The choices are few going forward.

    1. Ignore everything, sleep well, and hope the nightmare ends.
    2. Fight tooth and nail against the tide of self righteous morons and hope to win a few rounds.
    3. Vote out one idiot for another and deal with a slightly different change of cards.
    4. Gird oneself for the consequences logically expected to arise from current governance.

    There might be a few more choices, but none come to mind at present.

    How extremely odd that those who govern bear no responsibility for the outcome of their decisions. Not even a loss of pension. Ordinary people bear those consequences daily and eternally. Quite a contradiction.

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  • #
    TdeF

    star comment
    As I wrote yesterday, translated into terms we understand, the CO2 limit of 106g/km translates into a petrol limit of 4.6litres/100km. This eliminates even the smallest lightest 4 cylinder Toyotas.

    Clearly the only way to meet this limit is for hybrid or electric cars, of any weight. According to this standard all electric cars pass, no matter how heavy. That is not true however.

    If we assume deceleration costs nothing, energy costs vary directly with vehicle weight and all energy costs translate directly into CO2. So this is once again an anti Fossil fuel limit.

    Consider that in Australia today is that 90% of all power is coal. The wind and solar are name plate, sometimes of zero value.

    So how much CO2 in g/km does a Tesla S generate with a 65kwhr battery in Australia today?

    60KwHr and a rage of 350km.

    Firstly coal produces 1kg of CO2 per kwhr, and add 5% for distribution losses and the Tesla S generates 70kg of CO2 at the power stations in 350km. This is 200g/km. Ban Electric cars!

    The question I have is whether the total CO2 generated by cars is considered or is this once again simply an anti fossil fuel game.

    Finally, does anyone know what happens when a car is over 106 g/1km. Do the kind people of Canberra just ask for more money for themselves?

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    • #

      Added your comment as an update to the middle of the post. Thanks!

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    • #
      John MacFarlane Murray

      Is your 5% for transmission loss just a type-o? 50%? Admittedly its 35 years since I did any Electrical Power Engineering, but min transmission loss was around 30%, if you are looking at longer run – which you must do for a distributed re-charge system ( even without Snowy2.0) you are looking at 50% to 60% or more in losses.

      60

      • #
        TdeF

        Totally agree. When Portland was built, the transmission losses were 50%. However the publicity is that it is only 5% and this is due to much higher transmission voltages, up to 350Kv. I guess they could improve the cabling conductivity too. Still, even at only 5% the argument is made. At 50%, electric cars are far worse than Trucks.

        50

        • #
          Bobl

          On this point, there are many more loses. Burning coal in our current tech is only about 35% efficient while burning diesel is around 40% efficient, higher if the heater is on. Losses are around transmission 5% distribution 8%, conversion to DC 5% charging losses at least 10%. varies depending on the age of the battery pack. Storage losses (self discharge) 1-2%. Conversion losses on discharge around 5%. So we have end to end, fuel to drive train .35 x .95x .92 x. 95 x .9 x .98 x .95 = 0.25. Now if the energy is run through snowy 2.0 then there are additional losses up to 30% bring the total efficiency down to 16%. But let’s use an end to end efficiency of 25% against 40% noting that coal burning generates 30% more CO2 per kWh than hydrocarbons. EVs generate 1.3 x 40/25 twice the CO2 of diesels and up to 3 times if the energy is stored.

          10

    • #
      PeterS

      All excellent points TdeF. However you forgot one thing. The politicians who make those decisions do not have a clue about real science and technology, and couldn’t give a dam about conducting an unbiased exercise to research the truth. All they care about is their careers. Once the career politicians retire they just end up as blood suckers at our expense, and are replaced by equally clueless new politicians in both major party. The cycle continues and the nation as a whole keeps declining. Eventually of course it will hit rock bottom and end in tears. Now if someone like Trump came along things might change but the chances of a Trump like leader of a party being elected at the moment is a big fat zero. Australians do not as yet have a healthy appetite for someone like that. Things might change after the crash and burn as people become desperate and do almost anything to set things right again. It also could go the other way and we end up with a dictator from hell so to speak.

      Martin Armstrong makes the following comments a few years ago that are still very appropriate even in our circumstances:

      “Someone really needs to do a study on people who seem to want to rule the world yet have absolutely no clue what they are doing, which is really 98% of all politicians. What drives these people? Is it just greed to sell influence and get outrageous speaking fees? Until we end career politicians, we will never achieve peace economically or militarily. I have stated before, ALL Republics degenerate into oligarchies. They do not call Goldman Sachs “Government Sachs” for no reason. Goldman buys government to further their special interests and to ensure no banker will ever go to jail. What they paid Hillary for three speeches is more than Bernie Sanders’ entire net worth.

      I have criticized those in government for being totally incompetent to the point that they could not manage a bubble gum machine. Some comments said I have been too hard on them. Well, I reported that Germany could not account for 600,000 of the 1.1 million refugees that they let into Europe. Now, they cannot account for 5,000 children who entered the country unaccompanied, 400 of whom are under the age of 13. We are in such trouble with government incompetence it is not even a joke.

      Obama wants to impose a $10 per barrel tax on oil. He is so dishonest that it is beyond comprehension. He claims the energy companies will pay it as if the consumer will not. If he really believes this nonsense, it proves he seriously needs a mental examination for he has lost all sanity, if he ever had it to start with.”

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    Kinky Keith

    Perhaps a “friend” has already cornered the import market for eco friendly electric vehicles.

    No.

    That would be insider trading and we don’t tolerate that sort of thing here in Australia.

    We just have price transfer fixing within our electricity accounts.

    KK

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    • #
      Dennis

      Macquarie Bank Leasing has already been gifted $100 million of taxpayer’s monies to promote EV to fleet operators.

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    • #
      Environment Skeptic

      What “eco friendly electric vehicles”??

      As an example, my second hand Prius caused lead, cadmium and other heavy metal/chemical pollution during the manufacturing process physically poisoning its quota of our precious environment and what little diversity remains… and i see mining rare earths for hybrid so called ‘environmentally friendly cars’ using ultra toxic mining practices as a reason to conclude that electric cars are vastly more polluting than conventional cars are. Would never buy a new hybrid/electric car for this reason…They are simply too toxic to proceed with.

      https://e360.yale.edu/features/boom_in_mining_rare_earths_poses_mounting_toxic_risks

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  • #
    TdeF

    “the average annual cost for those required to comply with the policy would be more than $2bn a year

    How does this proposal work? Clearly it is an ongoing tax and I can only guess, but why guess? Does anyone know?

    Will they tax cars today on the total CO2 output as a consequence of driving? In which case the worst offenders are electric cars.

    Or do they exempt electric cars as not producing CO2 because in a fantasy future, in fifty years, we will only have wind and sun power?

    How

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    • #
      TdeF

      And who gets the cash? My best guess? It is used

      a) to subsidize CO2 generating electric cars from Mr Musk.
      b) to pay for more windmills.
      c) to fund more government bodies to administer the regulations.
      d) to go overseas to buy carbon credits from crooks. (or bankers)

      just like the RET

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    • #
      TdeF

      Is there any recognition of the ‘job done’. For example four children each with three bags going to school or a trailer on a farm or a vehicle big enough to drive off road? Bigger cars means heavier cars mean more energy which means higher g/km.

      Is our Green Canberra really suggesting we all get around in tiny Toyota hybrids or pay punitive taxes? What about the huge range of SUVs and utilities and pickups and trucks? All paying tax?

      The worst offenders would be expensive Tesla S cars which carry a permanent 350Kg of batteries up and down hills, accelerating. Most petrol cars carry less than 80kg of petrol, often only 40kg. Most weigh less.

      I will bet the Tesla S passes this ABSURD test with flying colours. I can just see them working on the farm or towing something or making deliveries.

      This is the core problem with the sheltered workshop we call Canberra. Hundreds of thousands of public servants working out how to get more of your money on the pretext that CO2 is poisonous.

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      • #
        TdeF

        The modern engines weight less than 100kg. and don’t need electric motors. Even big V10s can weigh only 250kg. Hybrids make sense. Fully electric cars do not. I’ll bet the electric cars are not taxed on their CO2 output.

        150

        • #
          TdeF

          Update. “The 85 kWh battery pack weighs 1,200 lb (540 kg)”. Dead weight, half a tonne of phone batteries.

          50

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Once again it removes our choices.

        This is eco-slavery by a 1000 cuts…

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        • #
          Yonniestone

          Whoa nice quip but how’d you get that past the….oh cuts…..

          But your’e spot on, any reduction in market choices impacts on market growth except where its allowed to grow, and guess where the policy makers vested interests are?

          40

      • #
        Dennis

        “Carbon pollution” is bad.

        20

        • #
          TdeF

          No problem with NO2 or SO2 then. The only villain requiring regulation is utterly harmless CO2. Carbonic acid (soda water) is not the disastrous acid rain of Nitric or Sullphuric.

          50

    • #
      Jeff

      New cars are more expensive to make to comply with regulations.
      Extra cost passed onto buyers.
      Also a lot of cheaper Asian cars would be non compliant and barred from our market.

      70

      • #
        TdeF

        You are right. Like the RET, this tax will be hidden as much as possible, so you just pay more and more, like all the petrol/diesel/gas taxes and now massive wholesale electricity robbery, not taxes. All made law by greedy people on the ridiculous pretext that CO2 is pollution. They could try not breathing for a minute. Public servants have found a way to tax the air you breathe! In fact Bill Nye wants to tax cattle farts. Brilliant. They could try not eating too.

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  • #
    Ruairi

    Yet another climate-change czar,
    Wants a carbon-tax, on each new car,
    To stop droughts, hurricanes,
    Heatwaves, extreme rains,
    And flash flooding in Kandahar.

    190

  • #
    Hasbeen

    Well this should save a fair bit of CO2, if we are fool enough to want to.

    All the old cars we will have to keep have paid their debt to the CO2 god, most generated in their manufacture, & are now in the CO2 saving stage of simply running.

    Change the old thing for a new electric, & you have just generated in the few days of it’s manufacture, more CO2 than your old banger will generate in the rest of it’s life time.

    140

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Hasbeen,

      I have sneaky suspicion that more CO2 is used per kilometer in the Electric Vehicle than in petrol driven transport.

      It’s just that the CO2 produced by EVs is hidden away behind the power point and in the manufacturing process.

      We are in the final stages of complete collapse.

      KK

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      • #
        ROM

        For you KK an unfortunately long post and for all the other denizens who are asking similar questions.

        And this is only one example of quite a number of similar studies froma number of advanced nations I have come across recently, being done or already done on the savings or otherwise, most otherwise, in the deadly carbon emmissions ‘[ sarc/ ] by the mandated and forced introduction of Electric vehicles [ EV’s ; ICEV’s = Internal Combustion Engined Vehicles ] onto power generation systems either fossil fueled or renewable and onto totally unprepared grids and onto a populace that has had NO preplanning, no planning at all in most cases, no provision for the changes that the demands for extra power at times and locations and in demand patterns will bring to generation systems that are set up in to cater for an almost tottally different power useage patterns.

        It is truly an astonishing degree of hubris allied with outright blatant arrogance backed by total ignorance of our politicals masters that they think that they can quite deliberatelyand blatantly force a brand new, totally untried and highly disruptive technology, disruptive to both the absolutely essential national power generation systems and to the social structures in urban and rural regions onto the populace without any consequences for themselves or for the nation and its people , all tosartisfy their own ideological beliefs and to showw to the world their highly virtuous planet saving selves, all done at no cost to themselves but at great cost to those millions who are not a part of the wealthy elite, some / most of whom who can afford to indulge themselves with these political Virtue Signaling policies.

        A technology that is completely unproven and untried on a mass scale, the introduction of which will lead to consequences of which are not even understood or even guessed at., a technology and its introduction that has not been researched, not planned for and never planned for nor likely to be properly planned for and prepared for by then time it is supposed to be implemented and then do all of this on a mass scale WITHOUT the populace having ANY say or input into the decision.

        But of course it does make the politicals feel all so good and righteous and does send out vast tsunamis of virtue signaling to all the other wealthy elitists green water melon virtue signallers of this world.
        ————————–
        From ; Issues in Science and Technology [ edition; Winter 2017 ie; our recent summer in the SH ]

        Electric Vehicles: Climate Saviors, or Not?

        Where electric vehicles are located and when they are recharged matters more than you might think.

        Time matters

        The data and findings presented thus far have been based on average CO2 intensity numbers. We know, however, that releases of CO2 to the atmosphere from EVs are dependent on the season of the year and the time of day EV batteries are recharged. Several studies have attempted to account for these factors.

        EVs do not perform as efficiently in cold weather as they do in moderate temperatures. This effect is, in part, the direct impact of cold temperatures on battery performance and, in part, the need to provide heating for the vehicle occupants. In conventional automobiles, engine heat is used to warm the inside of the car. In EVs the battery must be used to produce heat, which it usually does through inefficient resistive heating. We would expect, therefore, that EVs in the northern US states would require more electricity than average to operate (though conventional automobiles also suffer efficiency losses in colder climes). As noted previously, since nearly half of all EVs today operate in the primarily moderate climate of California, the overall losses due to seasonal variations are not major.

        The more serious temporal issue has to do with the times of day when EV owners recharge the car’s batteries. Utilities use different sources of energy during the day and night to produce the electricity that reaches consumers, and these patterns of generation are not random. To achieve maximum carbon reductions, it is important, therefore, that EV owners charge their cars at times when low-carbon electricity sources are being used. Using average emission factors does not capture this important temporal dimension.
        &
        We know, for example, that roughly 85% of all recharging takes place at home and this is usually done overnight. EV owners use as much as four times more electricity during the night than do typical Americans.

        Utilities tend to encourage EV owners to charge overnight since it has capital infrastructure that is not being used then. Approximately 30 US utilities now have special nighttime rates for EV owners. For example, EV owners and other customers of Georgia Power can obtain rates as low as 1.4 cents/kWh if they charge during the nighttime; they are billed 20.3 cents/kWh for charging during peak electricity periods. Consequently, it is a win-win proposition for the consumer and the utility. The consumer takes advantage of very inexpensive electricity and the utility gains revenue from otherwise downtime operations while reducing stress on the grid system during times of peak demand.

        Unfortunately, these patterns adversely affect emissions. A number of studies examining overnight recharging and marginal emission factors have concluded that this practice produces higher than average CO2 emissions and, when combined with colder temperatures, may make EV operation in the upper Midwest a net contributor to CO2 emissions. Even in relatively clean states, such as California, the difference in CO2 emissions from nighttime to daytime can be significant. The nighttime start-up of coal plants in response to the additional electricity load from EVs increases marginal emissions. And, of course, clean solar energy is not available at night.
        As one study has explicitly stated, there is a “fundamental tension between electricity load management and environmental goals.”

        ——————————–
        The conundrum arising out of the reports is simple.

        If the power source is renewable energy then the reliable mass charging of a fleet of EV’s becomes a very doubtful proposition, in fact an impossibility on a regular, predictable scale due to Renewable energies inherent unpredictability and very wide variability in it generated output.
        But it seems there is a predicted but unproven modest saving in the virtue signaling elimination of those deadly Carbon emmissions that this whole EV business is based on using renewabale energy as the source of power to charge up the batteries of the massed fleet of EV’s and which relies on to give the forced introduction of EV’s a veneer of possible functionality.

        Some inhalors of the gases of the Delphi Prophetesses would have us believe that batteries installed to hold all the excess power generated by renewable energy during daylight hours and then used to charge the massed fleet of EV’s at night is the saviour of a total mandated and forced onto the populace, EV transport system powered by a renewaqble energy in its entirety.

        But go to the coal generation of power and EV’s become a much larger emitter of that deadly carboniferous created gas called Carbon dioxide.
        EV’s are apparently a dead loss with regard to their total emmissions being far ahead of the old, tried and proven ICEV’s we all drive today and the emmissions inherent from the [ oil ] Well to [ ICEV] fuel tank if coal is used as the power generating fuel from which then EV’s get their battery re-charges .

        Using gas powered generators such as the closed cycle gas turbines with their recovered heat from the hot generator gases being used to run steam boilers by which small [ relatively ] steam turbines then also generate power, the CCCG generator system, total of emmissions between the “well to tank” ICEV’s is around the same as the total emmissions of the Gas generators to road for EV’s .

        Avoided, forgotten??? is the cost in emmissions of both building the battery systems for the EV’s and then, very importantly, the disposal and / or recycling of the EV’s batteries that will have to be done probably around half the distance that the average ICE Vehicle travels in its lifetimeor twice in a similar life time mileage that most EV’s travel in their lifetime.

        I suspect we are looking at something like disposable EV’s due to short battery life if this bit of political stupidity is allowed to fester its way to a reality.

        Going through a bit of water on a back country road and you won’t need to worry about EV lifetimes. You just get a new EV if you survived the fires and explosions and the high voltages of very powerful water shorted battery system of your previous EV.

        A word to old caar collectors , particularly the young ones, and maybe Dad as a long term investment for the Kids.
        Start grabbing all those abandoned EV’s in all their multidues of makes and designs because in 50 years as I have seen with the first Holdens and Fords here in Australia, a good one is now worth a mint as a long term investment.
        And the rarer the better is the story with old cars and the EV’s won’t be any different and maybe even more valuable if the whole EV thing falls over in a few years s and a lot of EV manufacturers go broke.

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        • #
          Kinky Keith

          The cost saving of night charging is substantial but unfortunately leads to nocturnal emissions of CO2.

          As I mentioned the other day, I would like to see CSIRO put to work guiding a core of essential industry projects and maintaining world’s best practice in them.

          Electric vehicles would be a good project, perhaps only for the CSIRO fleet.

          Trouble we have now is that the only things politicians are interested in is distorting things to line their own pockets.

          KK

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          • #
            Hanrahan

            The cost saving of night charging is substantial but unfortunately leads to nocturnal emissions of CO2.

            Maybe not so much. With a 10% EV penetration and charging at night, there will not be any off peak power, and there will be no solar boost.

            If Qld still had Campbell Newman as premier he would be building another coal fired power station to take up that load.

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            • #
              Kinky Keith

              ROM’s article pointed to the fact that charging at night would produce more CO2 than daylight charging where Solar could be put to work.

              The whole ev thing is a sick joke by our President.

              KK

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        • #
          Hanrahan

          I spent most of my working life running my own small businesses so developed the habit of looking at other small businesses and trying to work out if they are gold mines or money pits. One of my business was a servo in the days of full driveway service and while they weren’t money pits, you worked for every penny you made. Today it’s different, 80% of servos have closed, the rest are busy and there is no service, the cashier sits in the cage hardly counting money but they would have the same margin we had.

          The cashier is kept pretty busy, let’s say 30 sales an hour when busy. An EV’s range is half that of an ICE so to keep everyone motoring the EV servo will need to be able to handle 60 charges per hour. I’d suggest that because of range anxiety they would be pulling in three times as often but then their charge times would be shorter. To do this an EV servo would need 20 charge points running at once. The pump utilisation will be much higher because there is only one octane watt and people will be more willing to manoeuvre to get to a vacant charge point, let’s say 80%. So the same servo catering to the same motorists doing the same milage would need 24 charge points ie three times as many with three times the area under concrete.

          An electrical engineer might like to calculate what sort of mains power a servo would need to have to be able to deliver those retail watts. My guess is that existing servos will be limited by power supply and space constraints to a couple of charge points so there will need to be many new EV only servos erected. For the franchisee to earn an income plus return of capital there would need to be a 10c/KWH retail margin. This is never included in the charge costs of EVs.

          All my assumptions and even my methodology can be challenged but my bottom line that a town/suburb will need will need three times the number of charge points is likely on the low side, I expected maybe twice that. but however you work it out there is a big capital spend needed and the EV driver, or taxpayers generally will pay for it.

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      • #
        Environment Skeptic

        ………and like nuclear power, the emission/mobilisation of ultra toxic chemicals/elements like lead/heavy metals to obtain exotic materials is completely ignored.

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    • #
      clivehoskin

      Yes.And I bet that know one will mention that one of Teslas batteries produces 8 years worth of CO2 during its manufacture.

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    • #
      TdeF

      Taxes are never meant to save anything.

      This was pointed out in an example a decade ago for a tax on Alcopops. The official idea was to reduce consumption.

      Then Andrew Bolt pointed out that the government estimates of revenue were calculated on the basis that consumption did not go down, exposing the fact that the framers of the tax had no real belief or intention that it would have an effect on consumption.

      About four years ago the Melbourne City Council brought in a land tax on driveways, on the assumption that you could rent out your driveway and they wanted to stop bringing more cars into the city. All to prevent Climate Change. Of course. Caring people.

      All incredibly and intentionally misleading. Climate Change, the gift which keeps on giving. For nothing at all.

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      • #
        Dennis

        A bottle shop proprietor explained to me that the tax on Alcopops reduced his sales considerably and he has observed that former customers have swapped to illegal drugs instead.

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  • #
    MudCrab

    … average motorist in Australia could save up to $500 a year in fuel costs.

    Well if we put it that way it ALL makes sense.

    Let us look at other methods to save money following this logic. For example in my day job I have ‘work shirts’ which I naturally enough need to wash each weekend. So, following government logic, if I were to quit my job I would no longer need to spend as much on my laundry bills each week, and hence quitting my job would actually save me money.

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    • #

      Guvuhmint acts on the principle of
      the broken glass fallacy – only worse,
      to tax and to smash innovative
      enterprises in order to get funds
      to create jobs and maintain itself
      in order to tax ‘n smash more of
      those innovative enterprises so that
      …(Sounds of breaking glass.)

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    • #
      Dennis

      Of course the politicians have accounted for battery pack replacement cost?

      And of course the politicians have no plan to replace fossil fuel excise/tax with a charge for electricity used to recharge EV?

      No doubt that have employed actuaries to calculate the real cost to the nation if fossil fuel service stations were decommissioned and infrastructure installed to recharge EV in sufficient numbers to cope with holiday traffic demand?

      And they have a plan, don’t they, to boost electricity supply exclusively for EV recharging?

      What about compensation for motor trade businesses? And for ICEV owners who cannot sell their vehicles, trade-in value zero?

      And that’s for a start.

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    Delory

    Government regulation is the primary cause of my increased CO2 emissions.

    I have family of six as well as a farm – so my transport needs are numerous and varied..

    Sometimes I need to go into town for ‘small’ items. A fuel efficient little commuter car would be perfect.
    When I drop off/pick up the kids from school, I need a vehicle with at least three seats.
    Other times I need to take the whole family places. For that task, a vehicle with six seats is needed – (or eight seats if the mother-in-law and/or kids friends come too).
    Sometimes I need to travel unsealed tracks, ford creeks, cross rugged terrain and/or paddocks in bad weather conditions. For that task, a vehicle with 4WD is essential to ensure I can get through.
    Sometimes I need to tow heavy trailer with a ton or two of agricultural gear. For that task, I need a vehicle with lots of pulling power.

    Ideally I would have a fleet of vehicles – from a small efficient commuter, a family mover, a farm ute, a heavy 4WD and maybe a truck – and I would choose the appropriate vehicle for each job. This would allow me to minimize my fuel consumption and hence CO2 emissions. However, I cannot afford to pay the government imposed registration fees on that many vehicles. Consequently, I have a vehicle that can meet the ‘worst case’ requirements – even if it is overkill for other jobs.

    I pop into town in a big, gutsy 4WD. (I wish I had a commuter car for this)
    I pick up the kids in a big, gutsy 4WD. (I wish I had a medium sized car for this)
    I take the family on holidays in a big, gutsy 4WD. (I wish I had a people mover for this)
    I drive around the farm in a big, gutsy 4WD. (I wish I had a ute for this)

    No doubt environmentalists would scream at the thought of me having so many vehicles, but it seems to escape their attention that I can only drive one vehicle at any time. Having numerous vehicles does not increase my CO2 emissions. Only having a single vehicle does.

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    • #
      Hanrahan

      Twenty years ago the Suburu ate was popular. If it started to rain while you were in town shopping you had 4WD to handle the mud coming home.

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  • #
    Lionell Griffith

    On its surface, this new program is stupidity to the power of ten. However, this needs to be judged in the context of their stated goal: to save the planet by stopping the human production of CO2. This goal is planned to be met as follows:

    Failure is built into any new progressive program. That way, when not if it fails, they can claim that the program failed because it was not extreme enough. They then come up with another program that will fail even more so they can do it over and over again each time with an increasing impact.

    With each turn of the crank, the cost to administrate the succession of failed programs increases exponentially. Only when the economy collapses and the nation is flat on its back with no possibility of economic activity will they say the programs were successful. Mission accomplished! The CO2 foot print of a dead economy is zero.

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      Greg Cavanagh

      There built-in failure do look as though it was intended, after all it was so obvious; but I rather suspect they are completely surprised that there ideas don’t work when implemented.

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      • #
        Lionell Griffith

        Their plans do work from their perspective and not yours or mine. Their purpose may be held securely in the dark reaches of their mind where it really counts but it is there. You cannot so consistently fail without knowing what you are doing and intending to do it. They succeed at the only thing they can successfully accomplish: failure.

        But…but…but that would mean they are truly evil.

        Yes it would.

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        • #
          Greg Cavanagh

          Beware the id.

          Wiser words have not been spoken on a movie screen since. I much watch that movie again, it is a classic.

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  • #
    Interested

    Many people here are doing what the majority of Australians do, which is to completely misread what is actually an obvious situation.

    I’ve been trying to tell people for some years now that, all jokes aside, it’s not possible for politicians to make as many decisions that are detrimental to Australia’s future prosperity as they have done, unless the process is DELIBERATE.

    If you trained a chimpanzee to rubber-stamp every proposal presented to parliament with either a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, then, over time, we would expect an average performance in terms of positive/negative outcomes. You’d get a roughly-equal spread of winners and losers.
    But if you look at how Australia has been changing over the last 30+ years – economically, judicially, and socially – it’s clear that the majority of decisions made by our political representatives have moved us in the wrong direction.
    We’re $500 billion in debt – and the figure is climbing rapidly.
    Our judiciary releases offenders back into the community without regard to the serious consequences which regularly ensue.
    Education standards have declined precipitously, along with public good manners, and our young are being taught ‘gender-diversity’ nonsense plainly designed to confuse young minds.

    Our energy grid is now under threat, as intermittent power sources such as wind and solar are expected to supply base load electricity – something they simply cannot do.
    This fact has persuaded other countries to turn more and more to high-efficiency, clean-burning, coal-fired power generation, while we are purposefully moving in the opposite direction.
    We have some of the world’s largest reserves of coal, uranium, and thorium. Any or all of these are perfectly capable of supplying us with centuries of reliable power, and the latter two would enable power generation with no appreciable emissions of carbon dioxide (assuming you actually worry about this essential life-sustaining trace gas in the first place).

    So, my point is that we rarely, if ever, make a rational beneficial decision in parliament.
    And my conclusion from this is that something is pushing us, gently but inexorably, in a particular direction.
    None of this is a mistake.
    None of this is because Malcolm Turnbull “is a dill”.
    Even if Malcolm Turnbull were a rubber-stamp-brandishing chimpanzee, he COULDN’T be making this many obviously detrimental decisions!

    No.
    Malcolm Turnbull, in my opinion, is doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing.
    He ousted Abbott, who was attempting to reverse the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) agenda in Australia. (And how viciously was Abbott attacked by the ‘elites’, through the complicit media, as a result of his clear opposition to that agenda!)
    Since then, Turnbull has covertly re-introduced the CAGW agenda – via a carbon tax under a different name – with all its economy crippling ramifications.
    He has ignored, and even exacerbated, Australia’s educational decline.
    And he has failed to step in and dismantle the so-called ‘Safe Schools’ debacle unfolding right before our incredulous eyes.

    Turnbull was only ever a stand-in Prime Minister; a stop-gap seat warmer between Abbott and Shorten.
    That’s why Turnbull is unperturbed by opinion polls showing the ALP is on track for a major win at next year’s general election. It doesn’t worry him because that’s what was supposed to happen. That’s why he’s there. That was the plan all along.
    There is, in reality, no core difference between the ALP and the Coalition.
    Whichever way you vote next year, you will get essentially the same eventual outcome.

    I believe Shorten (or one of his ALP colleagues) will be our next Prime Minister because it was predetermined behind closed doors some years ago.
    You may say I’m a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist. Please yourself! It’s still a free country (sort of).
    But I would counter that argument by asking you to formulate your own hypothesis which explains Australia’s recent self-destructive trajectory. In fact, I defy you to come up with a hypothesis which fits the facts better than mine.

    For what it’s worth, I have a Bachelor’s Degree in applied science. So I understand the principle of fitting a hypothesis to the observed data. And to me, the logic of my hypothesis seems inescapable.
    Think about it.

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      lance

      It would be interesting to ask each candidate, publicly and “for the record”, Exactly What Happens:

      If their proposed energy “solutions” are detrimental to AU energy stability, availability, or cost.

      If their proposed energy solutions, in reality and measurable fact, do NOT achieve claimed benefits, what do they do?

      What will they do if their proposed solutions result in higher, not lower, energy costs?

      It is high time to ask each person who pretends to benefit the public, precisely and exactly what will they do if their proposals fail or do not benefit the populace? Up front. Before an Election. What exactly is their remedy?

      All well and good to listen to pablum. But what happens if they are demonstrably wrong? They ought answer that.

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      • #
        RicDre

        “But what happens if they are demonstrably wrong? They ought answer that.”

        I don’t know what an Australian politician’s answer to that question would be, but I am sure that a USA politician’s answer would be that they were not allowed to spend enough money on the problem and if you would just let them spend double or triple the amount of money that they have already spent, the problem would easily be solved.

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      • #
        clivehoskin

        Unfortunately,these”Cowardly,Lying,Do Nothing,Career Politicians”will just ignore you,just like Michaelia Cash has done.( she has said and I paraphraze:”Julia Gillard is a former prime minister and because of that she won’t be charged”)I and many others have asked if she in fact said that and 3 weeks later,CRICKETS.

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      • #
        PeterS

        Career politicians avoid answering those sort of question because they retire soon enough and pass the buck to someone else. The can is kicked along the road as each leader/minister takes their turn, until it goes over the cliff and it all ends.

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    • #
      Hasbeen

      I have to agree Interested.

      I believe the elites are horrified at how good the peasantry of today have it. We were allowed off the manor to work in factories. We were never supposed to do so well that we can live in McMansions, or actually own a horse, let alone a car.

      They want us back in our bark humpies, & riding the bus to our factory/cleaning job. Driving around in nice cars, & even earning as much as our academics was never the plan, & stopping this is their major objective.

      If most of the population don’t wake up to this fact soon, they will succeed, cars & electricity will be too expensive for us, & we will be back to cooking on dung fires.

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    • #

      Spot on Interested. I have posted the following many times on this and other blog sites before:

      The 2030 Agenda: Australian Government invites the UN to control our rights, laws, freedoms, private property, energy use, & life style
      Graham Williamson
      July 2016
      The UN, having spent more than half a $trillion in 70 years, is an undemocratic, unaccountable international policeman that is in the business of inventing ‘global problems’ which can only be ‘solved’ by a transfer of power and money from nation states to the UN. It has been elevated to this status by cooperative national governments. As noted by Peter Faris QC, thanks to the eager cooperation of successive Australian governments “laws are imported (as some sort of universal truths) from the UN.”
      On 27th September 2015 the UN continued their campaign of global control and undemocratic interference in the affairs of nations around the world with their ‘Transforming Our World‘ 2030 SDG agenda which was signed by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on behalf of all Australians. With a predicted annual price tag of $2-3 trillion, the agenda is to be sold to the people as ‘voluntary’, although the people will be given no choice, and essential provisions will be undemocratically enforced by national governments. Although both major Parties refused to mention this during the recent election campaign, implementation of this undemocratic bipartisan supported agenda commenced in Australia on 1st January 2016.
      The 2030 agenda is a UN driven “master plan” or “roadmap to global socialism” aimed at controlling the planet, including so called ‘climate change’, and the life styles and energy consumption of all people and all countries. Their 15 year goals include:
      • Redistributing the wealth of Australia and other Western nations, under the control of the UN, to poorer countries, especially impoverished dictatorships, around the world. According to the 2030 Agenda, ‘poverty’ can only be addressed by undemocratically giving money and power to the UN.
      • The COP21 Paris climate change agreement, comprising SDG 13, is just one part of the 2030 Agenda. The UN version of climate change though, is about global power and money. As UNFCCC chief Christiana Figueres pointed out, the aim of the UN is to bring about a “centralized transformation“… “one that is going to make the life of everyone on the planet very different.” Figueres continues: “global society, is moving to the point where we are going to need more and more global governance muscle… Climate change is only the first of the major, major planetary challenges that we are being given, almost as a playground… to go into that playground and exercise our global governance capacity”
      • Controlling lifestyles, energy use, and consumption by defining which activities are accepted by the UN as being ‘sustainable’. Only the UN can control ‘sustainability’.
      • Controlling education around the globe to ensure all children become activists promoting the UN sustainability agenda.
      • Moving towards global enforcement by developing global monitoring, accountability mechanisms, and surveillance systems so “no one is left behind”.
      • The UN 2030 agenda is completely open ended, stating no total costs, and stating no limits as far as loss of sovereignty and enforcement mechanisms are concerned.
      The people have been betrayed. The 2030 Agenda is all about betrayal, UN control, and global socialism, and expanding global law. The United Nations has “conned governments, citizens and business into adopting the 2030 Agenda“, but “business does not understand” that it will destroy “Capitalism and Free Enterprise.” And all this has been made possible by the Australian government, and governments of other ‘democratic’ countries, who invite the UN to interfere in the domestic affairs of their respective countries WITHOUT the democratic approval of the people.
      The choice is clear: do you want UN control and interference, or do you want democracy, freedom and prosperity? Should our destiny be decided by us, or by the dictators that comprise the UN? Do you want democratic Australian laws, or foreign laws dictated by the UN?
      PDF version of this report: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/a-summary-of-betrayal.pdf

      The proto-global supra-national State operating the UN Transformational Agenda has captured Australia. Done deal. It’s over down-under. The only way the Marxist charade will collapse is either with the disintegration of Europe or the UN. Neither could survive without the other.

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      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Crazy stuff Staal.

        No noise, No war, no deaths..

        Just permanent slavery to the Elites.

        KK

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        • #

          Sad part is KK, Julie Bishop signed Agenda 2030 under tony Abbott’s “watch”. Global elite playing “good cop, bad cop”?.

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          • #
            Dennis

            Not so, PM Abbott was replaced in September 2015 and the Paris Conference was held early December 2015 when PM Turnbull was the leader.

            The Paris Agreement was signed and ratified in New York during the first half of 2016.

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    • #
      William

      The horror of it all is that your hypothesis makes a lot of sense.

      My only question is: what is the planned outcome?

      20

      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        The same as always; keep the plebs ignorant and ineffectual, and live it up like kings with the biggest pension you can award yourself without attracting newspaper attention. All the while ripping as much as you can via back room deals from anybody and everybody, AND lining yourself up for work in the UN…(cough.*Rudd*.cough).

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        • #
          ROM

          Lots of conspiracy theories begining to circulate here.

          So I would rremnd the denizns of “Hanlon’s Razor” which I am a firm believer in ands which is one of the most noted and outstanding attributes of the Canberra political scene.

          Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

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          • #
            Greg Cavanagh

            Never? I think you’re being way to generous.

            When I was younger and naiver I believed what Labor said, I would vote for Labor because they supported the things that I believed were best. I would argue with my mother who hated Labour. I even went to their homepage and read their mission statements.

            What I found over the years though, is that they would say good things on TV, but they would do the opposite in practice.

            Once this realisation set in, it was all over. My awareness was wakened. They do indeed “sell it” to the people, but they never intended to it. They don’t just lie every now and then, it’s in their blood.

            So; for me at least, it is NOT stupidity. It is intent.

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          • #
            Kinky Keith

            What about Greed?
            Surely that’s 97% of it.
            Turnbull, despite what some say here, is not stupid.
            He’s ignored his responsibility to us and concentrated on setting it up so that when He gets voted out he still wins.

            What happens to us doesn’t matter.

            KK

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        • #
          Ian

          You don’t need to be kept ignorant

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      • #
        PeterS

        World peace by the removal of all our freedoms and choices and becoming slaves to a very small number of elites.

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  • #
    pat

    most in the comments ok with this:

    31 May: Adelaide Advertiser: Tim Storer: South Australia must seize chance to become a world leader in electric vehicle production
    (TIM STORER IS INDEPENDENT SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA)
    SANJEEV Gupta may not play for Port or the Crows, but in recent months his name has gained a prominence in Adelaide akin to Travis Boak or Tex Walker and he hasn’t even had a hamstring problem…
    He has also declared his desire to make Adelaide a centre for motor vehicle manufacture once more, this time with the production of electric vehicles…

    Make no mistake the EV revolution is the biggest disruption to personal transport since the advent of the internal combustion engine. We by no means fully understand the extent to which this revolution will transform the way we live our lives.
    Adelaide is the perfect test bed for EV technologies.
    Not only is it a well-planned grid city with a world class data network, but it also has a highly skilled workforce, a world class university sector and a history of advanced manufacturing. Bloomberg predicts that EVs will be cheaper to buy than conventional cars in less than ten years and make up more than 50 per cent of all car sales globally by 2040, barely two decades from now…

    However, developing the preconditions for investment will not occur without much more support from government, national, state and local, to underpin an industry that has the scale to give Mr Gupta or other entrepreneurs the confidence to risk their money…
    Within SA there should be immediate tax and other incentives to encourage state and local government to give preference to EVs in their vehicle fleets.

    At the federal level, EVs should be exempt from FBT, tax concessions should be offered for EV or EV component manufacturers, fuel efficiency standards for light vehicles should be enhanced and the Automotive Transformation Scheme should be refocused to support EV start-ups…
    http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/tim-storer-south-australia-must-seize-chance-to-become-a-world-leader-in-electric-vehicle-production/news-story/d56326d61bcb188e804f6b833658896b

    Wikipedia: Tim Storer: Storer has been active in state branches of the Australia China Business Council and the Australian Republic Movement. A fluent speaker of Mandarin Chinese, Storer ran a sole proprietorship helping South Australian businesses with Asian trade and investment, having spent twenty years working in China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam from the early 1990s…

    From 1996 Storer was a member of the ALP in New South Wales for more than five years before his membership lapsed in 2002. He rejoined the party’s Adelaide branch in South Australia in 2013, but quit his party membership in 2015…
    He was the Nick Xenophon Team’s fourth and final Senate candidate in South Australia at the 2016 election…
    When party leader Nick Xenophon resigned in October 2017, intending to appoint staffer Rex Patrick as his successor, Storer wrote to the Parliament of South Australia claiming he held the right to fill the casual vacancy. One week later, Storer withdrew the challenge and resigned from the party…

    In February 2018, following a challenge by Kakoschke-Moore to reclaim her seat having renounced her foreign citizenship, the High Court appointed Storer as a senator…

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    • #
      MudCrab

      Well, good thing Tim is a senator, as he is a very clumsy writer.

      SANJEEV Gupta… his name has gained a prominence

      and

      He has also declared his desire to…electrical vehicles.

      So, ‘also declared’. Implying Sanjeev is know for something OTHER than electrical vehicles and this push for manufacturing is a new and unexpected development in his already exciting public profile.

      Sure, I am kicking a man who clear cannot articulate an idea real good like, rather than pointing out the shameless fact Tim has pointed out, namely an EV market CANNOT exist without government assistance, but Tim, in the short time he has had a job in Canberra has already proved himself to be a blow hard attention seeker desperate to get his name in the media.

      (Tim was the man who had a huge whine over the claim that the head of our future submarine project was underqualified because he had never been the head of a future submarine project of this scale before. A big claim from a senator who had never been a senator before.)

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    pat

    31 May: BusinessGreen: IEA: Electric vehicles to triple by 2020
    by Michael Holder
    Latest projection from International Energy Agency sees huge growth in EV numbers globally, but the surge could deliver a major shortfall in fuel tax revenues.
    The number of electric vehicles on the world’s roads is set to triple by the end of the decade and under current national policies may soar to as many as 125 million by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency’s latest e-mobility forecasts…

    In 2017 the number of EVs and plug-in hybrids on the road globally exceeded three million, representing a 54 per cent increase on the previous year, the IEA data shows (LINK). As the largest global market, China is driving the boomwith China, but the US and Nordic countries are also rapidly expanding their EV fleets…
    By 2020, the IEA believes global EV numbers could hit 13 million, driven by supportive policies and declining battery costs, lower price tags and improved performance.
    By 2030, there could be as many as 125 million EVs on the road, rising to 220 million if climate policies are strengthened.
    Experts predict the total global car fleet – electric or otherwise – could hit two billion by 2040.

    The mass rollout of electric vehicles is likely to be crucial to cutting global greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decades. According to the IEA, hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO2 could be saved by 2030 if a mass switch to EVs takes place…
    The number of electric buses globally increased from 345,000 to 370,000 between 2016 and 2017, while electric two-wheeler vehicles also hit 250 million for the first time last year – driven almost entirely by China…

    In 2017 the number of private chargers at homes and workplaces was estimated at around three million worldwide, in addition to almost 430,000 public chargers. That puts the ratio at more than one charger per car worldwide…
    The estimates are significant, as the IEA has consistently projected oil demand rising up to at least 2040 and has frequently incurred criticism for its conservative forecasts on the uptake of cleaner fuels.

    However, in yesterday’s outlook the IEA suggested the global EV push could displace almost 4.8m barrels a day of petrol and diesel, the Financial Times noted, resulting in a fuel tax shortfall of as much as $92bn in total that could present a major budgetary headache for governments.
    Think tanks have previously warned of the same risk, including UK-based Policy Exchange, which last year noted the shift to electric and hybrid motors could leave the UK exchequer short by £170bn by 2030…

    Positive predictions for the global EV market also arrived last week from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The analyst house’s own annual EV outlook (LINK) forecasted 559 million EVs on the road by 2040, representing 33 per cent of the global car fleet. On sales of new EVs alone, BNEF sees sales reaching 11 million by 2025 and 30 million by 2030…
    https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news-analysis/3033315/iea-electric-vehicles-to-triple-by-2020-and-soar-to-125-million-by-2030

    22 Apr 2016: World Economic Forum: The number of cars worldwide is set to double by 2040
    (This article is published in collaboration with Business Insider)
    by Matthew Nitch Smith
    The global number of cars on the road and kilometers flown in planes will nearly double by 2040, according to a report released on Monday by research house Bernstein…
    Bernstein said it expects most of this transport growth to happen in emerging markets like China and India…

    Here’s a visual of projected global transport growth over the next 25 years (CHART)…

    “Although China (gasoline demand) in particular will remain the most important market over the next decade, India (diesel demand) is set to become the most important market over the next 25 years.”…
    https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/04/the-number-of-cars-worldwide-is-set-to-double-by-2040

    10

  • #
    Kinky Keith

    When I heard this on the radio I started to feel happy.

    This has to be the last straw, doesn’t it?

    Surely, all those who have just absorbed the rise in their electricity bills in the past must be pushed to think about things.

    Politicians have taken us for stupid dupes and we must now fight back.

    The system is broken, if it isn’t fixed soon there will be some form of revolt.

    KK

    100

    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      Who can I vote for who will have my best interests at heart?
      Serious question, Who???

      50

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        I have always voted independent except for two elections.

        Trouble is too many “independents” have secret connections to the mainstream groups.

        Just pick the best individual.

        20

  • #
    pat

    ***”emphasis” on charging stations in “disadvantaged communities”?

    31 May: CNBC: California to spend $768M on electric vehicle infrastructure
    by Christopher Weber, AP
    California utilities will invest nearly $768 million to expand a network of charging stations and build other infrastructure for electric vehicles as the state moves toward a goal of 5 million zero-emission cars on the roads by 2030.
    The California Public Utilities Commission voted 5-0 Thursday to pay for programs statewide over the next five years, ***with an emphasis on establishing facilities in disadvantaged communities where traffic and air pollution are often heaviest.

    The funding includes $136 million by San Diego Gas & Electric Co. to provide rebates for as many as 60,000 customers to install home charging stations…
    The utilities initially asked for $1 billion to implement the projects. After a series of workshops and hearings, the CPUC decided on a budget of approximately $738 million, with an additional $29.5 million for program evaluation…

    Edison’s Katie Sloan estimated its projects would lead to a monthly bill increase for customers of about 50 cents over a few years. After that, she said, ratepayers will see their bills steadily drop as the infrastructure is completed.
    PG&E and SDGE did not immediately have estimates for whether their plans would increase monthly bills for customers…

    Gov. Jerry Brown in January outlined a $2.5 billion proposal to help Californians buy electric vehicles as part of a long-term plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Currently there are about 350,000 zero-emission vehicles on California roads; Brown wants that number to grow 15-fold over the next dozen years.
    https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/31/the-associated-press-california-to-spend-768m-on-electric-vehicle-infrastructure.html

    1 Jun: Bloomberg: California Approves Record Utility Spending for Electric Cars
    By Mark Chediak
    Investments are part of broader plan to fight global warming…
    Members of the California Public Utilities Commission voted 5-0 Thursday to approve the largest U.S. utility investment to date in an effort to accelerate the Golden State’s push to combat global warming…

    22 Oct 2017: Quartz: Ladies and gentlemen, the winners and losers of the electric car race (so far)
    By Michael J. Coren
    But for all the hoopla around companies like Tesla, the electric car market has barely put a dent in the sales of gas-powered cars and trucks. Of the 17.5 million cars sold in the US each year, less than 1% are fully electric…
    Charging infrastructure, battery prices, and public acceptance remain major barriers for EVs…

    As a whole, the world is barely off the starting line. Globally, the share of electric vehicles (EV), not including hybrids, is under half a percent even as it edged ahead in a handful of countries…

    Globally, China accounted for 45% of all EV sales last year (although Chinese authorities still need to deal with subsidy cheating, faulty reporting, and a coal-dominated electricity grid)…
    https://qz.com/1102552/ladies-and-gentlemen-the-winners-and-losers-of-the-electric-car-race-so-far/

    30

    • #
      pat

      31 May: Daily Caller: California Will Use Its Winnings From VW Lawsuit To Buy Electric Car Charging Stations
      by Tim Pearce
      The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved the single-largest investment in vehicle-charging infrastructure Thursday, voting unanimously to put $738 million in state funds toward the effort, Bloomberg reported.

      The state investment is in addition to $300 million from VW’s settlement fund created after the car manufacturer was caught cheating U.S. emissions standards. The California Air Resources Board approved using money from the National VW Environmental Trust on May 25 to cover the cost of zero emission transit, freight and port projects.
      VW settled with the federal government after being charged for violating the Clean Air Act…
      http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/31/california-will-use-vw-winnings-for-electric-car-charging/

      20

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      If someone in California, a “friend” perhaps, can’t cream off one million out of that US$768 million, I’ll eat my hat.

      I would suspect that the eco dividend may even run to one hundred million.

      On top of the ripoff you have to acknowledge that all of this CO2 scrimping does absolutely nothing for the Vironment.

      CO2 has no effect on world temperature.

      KK

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      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        If you look carefully through the books (which nobody will do), I’m confident you’ll find at least 30% of that initial figure gone missing. If not more.

        30

      • #
        jim2

        And a good portion of fuel for those electric cars is coal. Own goal!

        30

  • #
    Mark M

    Break out the Blue Suede Shoes …

    Frydenberg, 12 July 2017:

    “The government has no plans to introduce a carbon tax on the family car – it’s about as likely as Elvis coming back.”

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/environment-minister-josh-frydenberg-says-there-will-be-no-new-carbon-tax-on-cars-but-prices-may-still-rise-20170712-gx9efj.html

    Number 47 said to Number 3, you’re the cutest jailbird I ever did see …

    80

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Beaudy mate, Got Him.

      Aren’t they all creeps?

      They will do and say whatever is needed to get them through the next week.

      Unvote the Libs, Labs and that green U.N. worshipping mob, the GreeUNs.

      Anybody in Parliament but those three.

      KK

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    • #
      wal1957

      “The government has no plans to introduce a carbon tax on the family car – it’s about as likely as Elvis coming back.”

      Elvis is back again then eh? What a great singer. I’ll have to check what his tour dates are.

      30

  • #
    Bushkid

    If I was to type what I’m thinking about this latest insanity, I’d be banned forever from this blog, and rightly so.
    Nobody needs to be so intemperate and rude as I would like to be on this subject on a blog provided by someone as decent and valuable and Joanne Nova.

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  • #
    manalive

    Minister Frydenberg predicts an electric vehicle “revolution” with “more than one million EVs on Australian roads by 2030 …

    The minister has a dream of the entire nation powered by sunbeams and zephyrs.

    40

    • #
      manalive

      Oh dear, I didn’t mean these a these.

      20

    • #
      PeterS

      Here we are having our government telling us how good electric cars will be yet they prefer to build diesel powered submarines that will be useless by the time they are delivered instead of building modern nuclear powered ones that will allow our defence forces to enter the 21st Century. I smell a rat.

      80

  • #
    Gerard

    Massive impact on employment as car retail and repair service sector is a major employer

    50

  • #
    Hanrahan

    There is every reason to be wary of the stock market, [I checked the prices of the banks and Telstra, long the staple of retail investors, and they are well down] and there are a lot warning of a coming storm.

    So what do you do with your lazy 100 grand? Buy a muscle car, keep it garaged and only take it out on Sunday to go to church. I know a guy who bought a Jabaru light aircraft before the ’08 market crash. I remarked to him at the time that he still had a complete aircraft, had he been in the market he would have lost half. I see actual capital gain on select cars as they are forced out of the market.

    40

    • #
      Dave

      Big Company Fleet Controllers are getting QUOTES already
      Purchases in 2020 and 2025 for bulk buys!
      Ford
      Toyota
      Hyundai
      Kia
      Honda
      Mitsubishi
      Plus heaps more!
      One Storage shed in Brisbane is being booked for storage for a decade!
      Includes an on site workshop and mechanics!
      Companies are doing a 20 year plan for vehicles!

      The hoarding is starting!

      40

      • #
        Hanrahan

        By 2020 we will have compression ignition petrol cars [Nissan and Mazda, I think, are about to launch them] and fully variable electronic valve timing. There are still more fuel savings coming.

        20

        • #
          Bobl

          Plus you can do some of the tricks electric cars do. Regenerative breaking, variable displacement, waste energy recovery to run the air conditioning and electrics.

          00

  • #
    Rob Leviston

    Ok, let’s see if I can gather my thoughts enough to make sense.
    We have a tax system in Australia that is artificially forcing up our electricity prices. (The RET/LRET)
    There are now moves afoot, both globally and locally, to remove the option of fossil fuelled cars, and go ‘lectric.
    Unfortunately, our power grids are being gutted and transformed into an God Almighty conglomeration of expensive, intermittent power sources, where the intermittent sources are favoured and rewarded above the conventional, reliable sources.
    Ok, so this is where it gets interesting. We have an increasingly stressed electricity grid. Now, we are going to add an additional strain. Charging electric cars!
    On a side note, has anyone else noticed that there seems to be a trend, that basically everything we buy now, and intended for future consumption, is electric powered? I mean, try and buy a gas stove, or something other than a reverse cycle air con for heating!
    So now, instead of filling up your car, say once a week, and knowing the cost in real time, you can budget for that.
    Now for electric cars that you charge at home, this charging will be accrued on to your tri monthly power bill!
    Now probably most will adapt and change their budget habits to allow for this, but do you see what is
    happening? Everything is transitioning to a single power source!
    The poor will pay!
    Dunno about you, but this makes me feel mighty uncomfortable! An unholy monopoly!
    And if the grid goes down? Can’t drive, can’t heat, can’t cook.
    So maybe I’m looking at this from a completely different angle, but am I wrong? Is there something in this? Or am I seeing a conspiracy where none exists?
    Ok, maybe just a collection of random thoughts, but I hope that there may be some cohesion there.
    Comments appreciated!

    40

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Like how workers have been starved of pay rises in real terms, with wage growth stuck at the rising cost of living for the past year. Inflation hit 1.9 per cent in March and private sector wages have barely kept up at the same rate but public sector workers have done better, lifting the rate to 2.1 per cent Australia-wide.

      If “Incompetence is a better explanation than conspiracy in most human activity” then “Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government.”

      30

    • #
      el gordo

      Rob it appears democracy is failing, the pseudo Marxist clique has seized the Treasury Benches and no matter who you vote for, the dictatorship remains in power. A bit like Russian democracy.

      To stop sliding ever deeper into the abyss we need Tony Abbott to mount a coup before Xmas, otherwise we are sunk.

      70

    • #
      Interested

      Yes Rob, you’re very likely ‘on the money’, since centralised control of everything is the desired outcome.
      What Staal posted (above) is, from what I’ve read these past few years, precisely what is happening. The UN and it’s subsidiary, the EU, are unrepresentative in that the decisions they make, and the policies imposed on member countries as a result of those decisions, aren’t presented to the electorates of the member countries for a democratic mandate.
      Julie Bishop and Malcolm Turnbull are OK with this.
      As are Merkel, Macron, Trudeau, etc.

      The UN is portrayed as a benign organisation doing its best to mediate between squabbling sovereign states, while simultaneously caring for the oppressed and saving the environment.
      In actual fact it’s largely an association of anti-democratic despots and other self-serving politicians, whose ultimate goal is a global totalitarian superstate that even Stalin never dared hope to achieve.

      The UN’s Agenda 21 and Agenda 2030 (described by Staal) actually lay out what’s in store for us all in the near future. It’s no secret. They’re TELLING us up front! And still we are sleepwalking obliviously toward our own enslavement.
      Interestingly, many years before Hitler invaded the USSR, he described in his book, ‘Mein Kampf’ (My Struggle) how he fully intended to do just that. He even explained that the future expansion in the east was necessary to provide ‘Lebensraum’ (Living Space) for the Germain people.
      He was ignored, just as we are ignoring the UN.

      The Global Warming deceit is the UN’s most effective device for bringing about the control it seeks. Convince the average person there’s a global threat requiring a global solution and s/he will see it as a necessity to try and help. The UN has turned our own better nature against us.
      And controlling energy is controlling essentially everything in today’s energy-dependent world.

      The ultimate goal is one government with complete control over every aspect of each and every human being on the planet.
      But first comes the abolition of physical cash. (More centralised control.)
      And then the creation of a single world currency. (The ‘End Game’.)
      But that’s another story!

      Meanwhile, the Global Warming Scam continues and the ‘useful idiots’ believe what they’re told.
      The innocent naivety of my fellow Australians is especially hard to watch.

      30

    • #
      Bobl

      Yes and the idiot in the top job thinks you can put an ev charging station with 20 units each consuming 120kW (2.4MW) on a distribution system designed for scattered loads of 4kW.

      Many of the microgrids in WA don’t have much more than 2MW for the whole town

      00

  • #
    John Watt

    It’s tempting to vote Turnbull out but the alternative is worse. How do we get our politicians to defog (FOG=FlanneryObamaGore).
    The evidence is there Evans ,Nicol,Curry et al but our elected populists are reluctant to front up to anything that might be difficult to sell to the voters. What we are seeing is government by opinion poll. What we need are politicians who make the effort to think through what is best for Oz and have the courage to make it happen.

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  • #
    TdeF

    Do we really need Canberra?

    We need public hospitals, teachers, police, the army, the navy, the airforce, trade and customs, but do we need Canberra? Believe it or not, the first three under the constitution are State issues, not Federal. The last five are the sole domain of the Federation, but how many people in Canberra are now working on things like this? All under the cover of looking after the country, the environment, the Great Barrier Reef, a National Broadband Network, a National power grid, a National curriculum under Gonski. All part of the power play of our own Brussels/Washington who have been quietly expanding their jobs and control, with the clear help of their friends in Federal parliament.

    The worst is the RET, crippling our power. For a good cause. To save the world.

    Then Gillard’s attempt to control the police, federalise the hospitals and to collect all the State taxes under the GST, so they could play games with states, robbing hard workers to fund their Green anti mining, anti coal, anti manufacturing, anti cars, anti everything friends in public service paradise Adelaide and Hobart. Supported by their Green Senators.

    So they sit at their desks in Canberra trying to think up a tax to do even more than their famous success, the RET. The key elements. Billions of dollars for nothing. Money goes overseas, never to be seen again. Australians are forced to wear hair shirts and walk to work or ride Chinese bicycles. All for the greater good of the people in Canberra, who never have to deal with the boat people, aboriginals, driving any distance or anything else. They can holiday in Europe or Bali.

    The biggest problem in Australia is the swamp in Canberra which has the highest wages in Australia and in total, does nothing. As in Washington, Whitehall and Brussells. Of course they can dream up new taxes. It is a full time job. Someone who has a real job has to pay their wages.

    30

    • #
      TdeF

      In moderation. Possibly justified. Angry at these impossible taxation schemes designed to cripple us. For no good whatsoever. Modern pirates.

      30

      • #
        TdeF

        I had to try..
        Do we really need Canberra?

        We need public hospitals, teachers, police, the army, the navy, the airforce, trade and customs, but do we need Canberra? Believe it or not, the first three under the constitution are State issues, not Federal. The last five are the sole domain of the Federation, but how many people in Canberra are now working on things like this? All under the cover of looking after the country, the environment, the Great Barrier Reef, a National Broadband Network, a National power grid, a National curriculum under Gonski. All part of the power play of our own Brussels/Washington who have been quietly expanding their jobs and control, with the clear help of their friends in Federal parliament.

        The worst is the RET, crippling our power. For a good cause. To save the world.

        Then Gillard’s attempt to control the police, federalise the hospitals and to collect all the State taxes under the GST, so they could play games with states, robbing hard workers to fund their Green anti mining, anti coal, anti manufacturing, anti cars, anti everything friends in public service paradise Adelaide and Hobart. Supported by their Green Senators.

        So they sit at their desks in Canberra trying to think up a tax to do even more than their famous success, the RET. The key elements. Billions of dollars for nothing. Money goes overseas, never to be seen again. Australians are forced to wear hair shirts and walk to work or ride Chinese bicycles. All for the greater good of the people in Canberra, who never have to deal with the boat people, ab*riginal destitution, driving any distance or anything else. They can holiday in Europe or Bali.

        The biggest problem in Australia is the swamp in Canberra which has the highest wages in Australia and in total, does nothing. As in Washington, Whitehall and Brussells. Of course they can dream up new taxes. It is a full time job. Someone who has a real job has to pay their wages.

        50

        • #
          Kinky Keith

          Canberra is overpaid and has a mindset that is at odds with the best interests of the nation.

          I believe that the workers in Canberra should be relocated in country towns where their skills would be on display for all to evaluate and appreciate.

          30

          • #
            PeterS

            I prefer they be deported to Mars One.

            30

          • #
            ROM

            Thanks for your thoughts KK but we really have enough of both local, regional, state and federal government Drones here in our city already.

            Interestingly in a survey in the USA that I read about a couple of days ago, around ONE HALF of all employees including mid level executives, in corporation and government administration positions admitted they didn’t really know what their job was supposed to be and didn’t really know what they were supposed to be doing.

            A lot of that employment was put down to incompetent mid level executives hiring lots of people to fill their offices to give the impression that they were extremely busy and very important in the overall structure of the Corporation or the government division.

            40

  • #
    ROM

    ROM May 27, 2018 at 9:08 pm
    What happens when our government finallyngets around to as Sanfransico and LA have already done, to say no gasoline cars or trucks in our cites?

    No groceries, no maintenance trucks such as no power maintence trucks, no water supply maintence trucks, no sewerage maintenance trucks, no cranes for construction, no supermarket supply trucks, no road construction and maintence trucks or machinery.

    Fire trucks that run for few minutes on batteries when operating their pumps at full power, Ambulances and emergency vehicles in a mass tragedy situation that run out of battery power whilst doing their care of the injured but take half a dozen hours to recharge.

    No heavy diesel powered vehicles so the city stops as does everything that moves in that city including all electric vehicles that use ALL of those facilities maintained and powered by using diesel engined heavy vehicles as the main maintenance transport vehicles .
    ——————————-
    In the early part of the 20th century entrepreneurs refined oil products into a useable vehicle fuel [ basically kerosene ].
    Then they built the continent wide service station network out of the profits they made from selling fuel to their customer vehicle owners.
    They built the vehicle maintenance network from the profits made from servicing those vehicle.

    The governments of the day, the british in particular did nothing to assist the new industry but almost completely the opposite in fact with the example of having a man with a red flagwalk in front of those banging, popping ,noisy, smelly vehicles so any horse riders would be warned in case their horses bolted.

    Governments finally come to the party and began to build roads after private toll roads were first built by private companies so as to faclitate the movement of those new fangled vehicles.
    The era of mass transport by fossil fueled vehicles which has done so much for the whole world over the past century was created DESPITE the forces of governmment trying to hold the new industry back.
    ……………………
    Today, electric vehicle owners get huge tax payer funded subsidies when they buy their EV’s.
    EV owners get special reductions in their vehicle license fees.
    EV owners get the right to use normally restricted to emergency and public transport traffic lanes.
    Charging points are being put up at the ordinary fossil fuel vehicle owners tax payed and license fee expense
    ……….
    So who is going to be expected to pay for the new power generators that will be needed to produce the electricity to charge up millions of EV’s.?

    Who will be expected to pay to rebuild many parts of the national grids to take the load of millions of EV’s being charged around the same time each day?

    In the increasing chances of power restrictions due to poor or completely non existent government planning and preplanning, [ Australia in particular ] who will get priority for power, EV owners or the citizens in their homes and businesses?

    Who will have to pay to dispose of the few million tonnes of out of life batteries beginning in less than a decade, as with the solar panels right now, with their toxic and dangerous chemicals.?
    ………………..
    The politicians who never seem to bother about running through the often tragic and disastrous unintended consequences of their latest ; “it sounded like a good idea at the time” or aren’t mentally capable of doing so, are all on picking winners once again.
    And that, as sure as night follows day, will lead to economic and possible social disasters on a grand scale considering the size of the global vehicle industry.

    And as usual the people NOT responsible for the utter politically created disaster, the tax payers and non EV owners will be expected to pay for all of the above.

    Meanwhile a whole gamut of politicly well connected corporations and individuals will trouser billions of the publics funds and then slink off into the deep black darkness.

    Before anything more is done by politicians to throw bucket loads of money in the direction of EV and EV pushers and pimps, politicians should sit down and think through what will be required in an overall system built for EV’s and what it will all cost?

    And who will pay and how?

    And most fundamentally, the reasoning behind having mass EV transport as there are already papers and studies out there that indicate that EV’s, after taking into account the building and operation of the required increase in base load generators to charge the EV fleet , the building of transmission lines and an EV charging network, the losses in power between the generators and the EV’s individual charging points, the losses in the actual EV’s operation, when ALL of these factors plus others are taken into account, the emmissions of the total EV supporting network on a mass scale pass the ordinary fossil fueled vehicle and its supporting network, its “well to tank” supporting network by quite a large margin.

    So what exactly is the political reasoning for going to EV’s in the first place?

    Or is it nothing more than a blatant virtue signaling exercise by the politicians and ivory towered elites at the ordinary citizens entire very significant expense.

    60

  • #
    tom0mason

    Why have the invisible hand of the market and commerce dictate what people choose to buy, when you can employ the dead hand of bureaucratic government control what is sold.
    As evidenced by the history of the old Soviet Union, any country called ‘The People’s Republic of…, and North Korea today, it always makes for a much more equal society, — don’t it?
    Indeed Australia seems to be modeling itself after the South American socialist ideal, following in the wake of such luminaries as Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, dictator Raúl Castro in Cuba, Brazilian President and former communist terrorist Dilma Rousseff. And what a fine bunch they are, improving each of their countries to become the envy of the world?

    Of course the socialist/communist naysayers will immediately jump to the extremes of relativistic comparisons, but the bottom line is that allowing market forces to govern is the more efficient way to improve a society. Sure it may not always be ‘fair’, but socialism is the more costly and more ‘unfair’ way to fail most people.

    50

  • #
    TdeF

    All this grief on the absurd premise that Carbon Dioxide, the essence of all life on earth, the essential chemical from which all living things are made. Is a pollutant? The worst pollutant in human history? How did anyone get this accepted?

    Climate Change, sea rise, more frequent storms. These are all made up facts unsupported by any science. It’s not true anywhere I have been. It is not true where I live. So where it is true?

    As for even the incredible even fantastic idea that mankind actually controls CO2 levels, that is obviously not right. CO2 levels are totally unaffected by 350,000 windmills or all the new power stations or world wars, even volcanoes. CO2 ignores us. Science tells us plainly that CO2 levels are controlled by sea surface temperature. Warmer oceans, more CO2.

    We however are spending billions just in Australia to control CO2 levels. What utter, utter nonsense.

    Why does our political class believe this stuff? Or don’t they. Is just about more control and more money? Like everything else in Canberra. No wonder voting had to be made compulsory in Australia. These rapacious spoiled children just want more without working.
    Too many people paid far too much money to tell us the “Science is in”. In what?

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    • #
      Interested

      Excellent postTdeF!
      You’ve captured perfectly the frustration of trying to find any semblance of truth or common sense in the Global Warming Scam. But the reason, of course, is simple. There isn’t any!
      Once you examine the actual data, you find ….. nothing!
      The whole thing is a ‘will-o’-the-whisp’ – the closer you get to it, the more it fades away.
      Close examination of the numbers shows there is no truth to Global Warming. The emperor, as they say, “has no clothes”.

      Your analysis of the salient parts of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming deception is spot-on.
      CO2 is an indispensable part of life on Earth, yet it has been successfully equated with pollution.
      There’s 50 times more CO2 in the oceans than in the air and Henry’s Law dictates that warmth shifts the equilibrium toward outgassing of CO2 into the atmosphere. Cooling shifts it back toward re-absorption of CO2 into the oceans. CO2 isn’t INCREASING global temperatures ; it’s AFFECTED by global temperatures! And yet, once again, we’ve been successfully persuaded of the exact opposite.
      Global sea-level is almost a contradiction in terms. It’s affected locally by subsidence, human aquifer usage, prevailing winds, and even local gravitational variation. There really ISN’T any such thing as a “global mean sea-level”, despite what you hear daily in the news. Yet we hear unremitting nonsense about manmade CO2 artificially “raising global sea-level” and we’ve been persuaded it’s the truth.
      Storms are NOT worsening, yet everyone has been convinced that they are. Strong tornadoes too are reportedly worsening, yet the data shows clearly they are NOT! Politicians like Barack Obama have repeatedly proclaimed the weather is becoming wilder and more destructive, without ANY trace of actual data to back it up. But still, it’s accepted as fact by the uncritical media and our politicians and the frighteningly-amenable general public.

      As you say, the phrase “the science is in” has no meaning. Science is not a political debate. Einstein’s General Relativity is STILL ‘up for grabs’ after a hundred years; still subject to continuous testing to see if it will fail.
      Saying “the debate is over” is entirely meaningless in the science arena. It’s verbal garbage! Yet so many of us seem to think it’s OK to say it …. and to believe it!

      When you think about it, the truth is simple. Everything we’re being told is false. Accept that premise and it all starts to make sense.
      Adolf Hitler said:-
      1) “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”
      2) “The great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.”

      There’s no point telling the politicians and the media that they’re wrong. They already KNOW that!
      This isn’t an accidental foul-up; it’s a deliberate undermining of everything we’ve known during the last century and more. We’re quite purposefully being set up for a game-changing alteration to the reality we were brought up with and everything is designed to facilitate that agenda.
      Anything which anchors us to the past and gives us direction is being chipped away.
      It’s much easier to create a new social order if the old one has been undermined completely and we have nothing familiar to hang on to.
      Even simple gender identity – ‘Arthur or Martha’ – has now been swept away in favour of multiple confusing brands of human sexuality. When EVERYTHING is relative – truth, morality, gender …. everything! … then a new order will be easy to put in its place. Confusion will make it easy!

      We’re definitely fighting the wrong thing here.
      What we’re fighting is not a failure of our politicians and media to understand the truth. It’s actually much more sinister than that.
      It’s a DELIBERATE distortion of the truth we’re up against!
      THE ‘ELITES’ know that what they’re saying is false.
      The problem lies with us.
      WE simply don’t seem to understand that THEY know it!

      Examine the facts, day by day, armed with this understanding, and the frustration will fade away. Because you will see the extent of the deception.
      And, believe me, it’s enormous!

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    Joe

    Why put the tax on the cars themselves. Even if you drive your new car very little you are going to be paying the same tax as someone who drives theirs a lot. What if you plan to run your new car on home brew ethanol – you not only get hit with excise duty on the fuel but now with a big tax on your new car. What if you plan to run your diesel on veggie oil – same story.

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    Ve2

    Electric 4WD’s, should do wonders for the outback tourism industry when all those gray nomads and their 1.5 ton caravans stop coming.

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    • #
      Dennis

      I haven’t sighted an EV towing a caravan yet, or recharging facilities.

      But I did read a US road test of an EV towing a caravan and the report not surprisingly complained about the Tesla EV range being less than half the manufacturer’s claim of best range.

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      • #
        Ve2

        Wonder what the range is when it’s got a full load of passengers driving at night in the rain with the heater going full blast towing a caravan.
        Come to think of it, how many recharging station can accomodate a car towing a trailer.

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  • #
    William

    This is a more or less repeat of a post I made WAY upstream, and nobody seems to have noticed it.
    I am repeating it here in hopes of getting an answer from somebody who knows.

    Over the past couple of weeks I have sold several items on E-Bay Australia. These items were each sold for less than $100.
    E-Bay charged me 10% GST on each sale. They even charged me GST on the postage!
    So it would appear that much of the discussion in this thread is moot; the b****rds are already charging GST; and they snuck it in without anyone (at least me) noticing it.
    Does anybody know anything about this?

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    • #
      Robber

      William, GST is payable on goods sold in Australia. So goods bought from Amazon Australia pay GST. But if you buy something from Amazon US, they have not been required to pay GST. Now they will, or stop selling from their US store into Australia which is what they have decided to do.

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    Asp

    This really has nothing to do with ‘pollution’ or ‘climate’ or anything. It is just another tax.
    Politician spend a large amount of their time to devise means for sucking more tax revenue out of the general population in a way that affects only a minority, and does not jeopardize their chances of being reelected. It is far easier than trying to sell responsible spending or government cost cutting when you have a large family of entitlists to feed.The trillions in the superannuation funds held by Australians is demonstrably a no-go zone. We have a carefully concocted ‘surplus’ that must be protected at all costs, especially with what is likely to be a closely contested election in the not too distant future.
    By being seen as ‘protecting the environment’, this tax will appeal to those who bask in the light of moral righteousness, and hit only those with enough scoot to buy a new car, definitely win-win. Now that the government no longer has to keep a comatose car industry on life support, there is little risk that this will cost Australian city jobs, rural jobs be damned.

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    Interested

    Asp: “The trillions in the superannuation funds held by Australians is demonstrably a no-go zone.”

    This is partially true, in that overt attempts by the government to dip into it would no doubt meet with fierce opposition. But recent events have shown that private individuals, pretending to be financial advisors, have managed to syphon off large amounts of that money over a number of years while our politicians have stood idly by.
    Perhaps our politicians are interested to see how much our superannuation can be misappropriated without us knowing about it? And without us organising lynching parties in the streets?
    Because our superannuation funds are actually ripe for the taking, and we don’t even know it.

    After the major collapse called the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), 10 years ago, central banks staged what’s called ‘bail-outs’ using their monetary reserves, massive money printing (Quantitative Easing), and lowered interest rates, to prop up various insolvent companies and financial institutions deemed “too big to fail”.
    But we didn’t learn our lesson and, since then, global indebtedness has risen much higher than it was in 2008.
    And the central banks no longer have the fiscal fire power to bail out the big losers when the next inevitable – and much bigger – financial crash comes our way.

    For this reason, governments anticipating GFC II have quietly introduced new laws. Unofficially, they’re known as ‘bail-in’ laws.
    First used in Cyprus a few years ago, these laws allow financial institutions to dip into the savings accounts of their customers to obtain enough money to save themselves from insolvency.
    And they did!
    It’s reported one elderly Cypriot man lost all his retirement savings – €130,000.00 – and committed suicide.
    Australia has these laws too; they’re already on the books – requiring just a quick signature to bring them into play.

    But here in Australia, there’s a financial institution guarantee called the ‘Guarantee Scheme for Large Deposits and Wholesale Funding’, introduced in 2008.
    What it does is to guarantee savings up to $250,000.00 per account, per Tax File Number holder.
    So, if you have $1 million, you’d be wise to deposit it an at least 4 different bank accounts, or banks, in order to avail yourself of the government guarantee.
    Assuming the government guarantee works as advertised, deposits up to $250,000.00 should be safe.
    The rest will likely be totally or partially confiscated by the financial institution concerned in order to offset its debt obligations and avoid insolvency.
    That’s right. They’ll use YOUR money to pay off THEIR debts!

    The interesting thing in all this is superannuation. You see, thousands of people might subscribe to a particular superannuation ‘Balanced Fund’, say. This fund might therefore contain literally billions of dollars. But ultimately there’s only one man’s signature at the top of the page: the Fund Manager’s. And there’s only one Tax File Number for the whole fund.
    Are you getting the picture?
    The financial institution concerned might take the contents of that Balanced Fund and use essentially all of it to pay off its debts in a financial crash, and thus save itself from bankruptcy. The government is obligated to guarantee just $250,000.00 of it!

    So, if Australia’s financial institutions are compromised in a ‘GFC II’, and our central bank has insufficient funds to save them (which is true), the laws quietly introduced after GFC I will facilitate ‘bail-ins’ …. using YOUR money!
    After all, we’ll be told earnestly, it’s a national emergency. “We all have to do our bit!”

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