A new alliance between Al Gore and Clive Palmer is likely to result in the repeal of the carbon tax, but the big winner is probably the global warming industry, not the ordinary Australian. Indeed if you think your electricity bill is about to plummet, you’ve been mislead. 
Much of the increase in the price of electricity over recent years can be attributed to the mandatory Renewable Energy Target (RET): a government legislated requirement on electricity retailers to source a specific proportion of total electricity sales from renewable energy sources including wind and solar, with the extraordinary costs paid by all electricity users.
Al Gore appears to have convinced Clive Palmer, to support the repeal of the carbon tax on condition that the RET is consolidated. Earlier today Dennis Jensen spoke in the Australian parliament about some of the lucrative deals that Gore has done over the years:
Indeed Dr Jensen’s speech provides some historical context, while Jo Nova explains what the conditions Palmer has placed on repeal of the carbon tax will mean longer term for Australia:
It seems now that Palmer’s amendments to repealing the carbon tax do not include an Emissions Trading Scheme … but keeping the $10b Clean Energy Finance Corporation is a win for Gore, and so is keeping the RET (Renewable Energy Target) and the Climate Change Authority — it’s another government funded advertising unit for the carbon scare campaign. The more patrons who are dependent on the carbon-subsidies, the more pro-carbon lobbyists there are. And they lobby like their livelihood depends on it — because they have nothing if the government policies don’t prop up their pretend free market.
As Ross Garnaut, a long-time proponent of climate alarmism and phony markets, commented today:
We’re in a better position than when we were facing abolition of carbon pricing, major tampering with the Renewable Energy Target, abolition of the Climate Change Authority, abolition of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
It may not be the ideal way of doing things, but Mr Palmer’s support for keeping existing arrangements will have important effects.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I wouldn’t trust Palmer as far as I could bump him…but you have to wonder on the LNP. govt’, who now seem to be serving the whims of a ; one-man house of reps’ / 3 senators complete conservative majority !
As a “lefty” leaner (not a righty “lifter” who will “lift” the shirt off your back, given the chance!) I am beginning to wonder just where this fairy-dairy-land parliament is going!
Block supply, I say…draw a line under this farce of a parliament and force the parties AND the people to go to another election with serious intent!
If/When these two get together, you can bet it is not for the betterment of humanity.
If it takes a double dissolution to get Al Gore and his climate cronies out of our political system, so be it.
To the polls!
Overnight we now find that Xenophon, Madigan and Muir could yet vote against the removal of the co2 tax.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/ricky_muir_could_still_save_the_carbon_tax/
I won’t believe we’ll see the removal of this stupid tax until I see the count on the day.
It’s also a pity we can’t remove all of the RECs and other billions $ of nonsensical waste of our taxes, because none of it will make a scrap of difference to co2 levels or climate or temp for thousands of years.
But how do we make the OZ electorate aware of these simple facts?
” But how do we make the OZ electorate aware of these simple facts?”
Neville…you DEMAND that those “nest of Leftie vipers” in the Murdoch media go for the jugular !….damn if those ex commies and socialists like Albrechtson and Kenny aren’t selling the country to the Soviet Union all over again!
Another election?
Seriously?
The last one was only 9 months ago.
The result was clear.
The new Senate from that election starts in just a few days.
It would be unAustralian to go back to the polls now. . .The electorate would severely punish those who forced such a thing to happen. . .It is one of the reasons Labor lost so many seats last Sept.
Political argy bargy and leadership battles.
Tony would not need Senate approval to reduce the budget of the CCA or the CEFC would he ?
Krudd got such as the CSIRO to perform tricks for him , with budget and personnel changes. Lets wait and see how this plays out.
There must be some very nervous Labour MPs out there.
I don’t see that their constituents are about to tolerate the cost of electricity, coupled with its accompanying loss of manufacturing jobs, for much longer.
Something must give.
In the meantime Clive got more done with his $200,000 , than the Coalition has managed since Labour first started it all.
Tony’s frenemy spends multiples of that, just getting his precious self elected.
*Much of the increase in the price of electricity over recent years can be attributed to the mandatory Renewable Energy Target (RET)*
Pure BS of course.
The increase in power price is all down to privatisation and greedy profiteering.
Enron set the bench mark and all power companies are avidly following.
And as for the *nest of Leftie vipers” in the Murdoch media* well here is the stuff of total delusion.
Leftie viper Murdoch media indeed.
He would be most upset with that description of him, being a fully paid up member of the far right redneck neocons.
O/T Debbie,
Did you hear this?
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bushtelegraph/bitterns/5544800
The announcer is still probably convinced that , in her mind , the birds have just turned to rice bays as a refuge and luckily ecologists have stumbled upon them. The actual expert is clear about it all though.
R le P,
Enron was Algore’s major sponsor back in the day.
Seems you have frenemies too.
my electricity bills state 30 % of the cost of my power is due to the carbon tax and measures to improve clean energy. There is no doubt however that govt commitments to guarantee a return on investment have given a green light ( haha) to companies to gold plate their systems, forcing the price of electricity to very unreasonable and unjustifiable levels, with resultant negative consequences to the economy and living standards. Govt’s have a lot to answer for, as do our regulators.
‘Regulators’ , yes . Where did IPART, ACCC ,etc, etc, come from and more importantly, has anyone actually seen them do ANYTHING helpful to the Nation?
Surely , when s State Govt takes huge dividends from utilities, someone of those overpaid unrepresentative agencies notices ?
*when State Govt takes huge dividends from utilities,*
And privatised companies will not take huge dividends?
Of course they run power companies for the “feel good factor” not for huge profits.
Perhaps state governments could provide power on a full cost recovery basis without the need to take dividends?
RLP, get the political dog whistle out of your mouth, your comment is irrelevant in this context….private companies taking huge dividends was a large part of my point about the cost of electricity (because they have been legislated to be allowed to raise prices to guarantee a return on capital investment…this is a political and regulation problem irrespective of your side of politics. And SP’s point about state dividends is equally valid…the more profit the more tax they collect).
The carbon tax, renewables and profit gouging are exactly why our prices have gone from some of the cheapest in the world to some of the most expensive.
All of which are wrong and doing little for the environment but lowering all our material and non material living standards.
If you cared about the lower income people (and the economy and jobs) you would be up in arms about any reason for high electricity prices.
Do you make comments just to disagree without actually engaging your brain?!
Ian @ 10:13.
We’ve always had them here.
We would prefer the ABC & all the other boffins to bugger off & leave them alone!
They are a very shy bird and they don’t hurt anyone or anything.. .the last thing they need is ‘do holders’ creeping around them trying to catch them on camera.
The boffins would be far more useful if they bothered and harrassed the ducks!!!!!
‘Do Gooders’!
Bloody auto correct!
Sorry about that 🙂
Re electricity dividends.
Go check what SHL is doing.
Ian and Debbie,
Thanks for your link and comments about the Brown Bittern.
Huge storm about to hit!!….climate change is upon us!..gather around the mast fellow believers and pray to the good lord above for salvation!!….failing that, a couple of quid ea’. in the kitty box will suffice!
Sounds like Jaycee read this 5 years ago and has been the meat in the sandwich ever since:
http://www.news.com.au/national/weve-got-5-years-to-save-world-says-australias-chief-scientist-professor-penny-sackett/story-e6frfkp9-1225806754392
It looks like the CEFC will be directed away from funding the useless wind energy fraud.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/save_our_scenery_rescuing_landscape_from_palmers_ban/
Hi Toby,
You summed it up to perfection.
Hi Debbie,
So did you.
Hi sp,
In NSW the County Councils did just that MRCC had the cheapest domestic power in Oz Murrumbidgee County , the cheapest industrial power.
It was reliable and in MRCC’s case there was a major retail arm, which helped with costs.
Then the robbers in Sydney, fixed it, took the reserves, and prepared it for sale, by artificially creating big profits. Deja vu Telstra.
We will get a ridiculously expensive ‘service’. A few overpaid ignorant politicians get to strut the big business stage, The ACCC will obediently tell us how we are better off . Then, because some US corporation grabs the majority shareholding, the TPP will forbid us from EVER fixing it.
I, for one am starting to lean toward the people who believe that something more than elections may be needed to fix it.
The five minute ruling on Tas forests and the ruling that if NZ suspended import of (possibly) diseased US pork, it would be an illegal trade barrier,
( thereby stopping Oz from even applying), show how far we already are down the drain.
Well somebody has to feed the chooks.
That said, there is simply no case that can be made for an ETS, aside from the very visible financial one.
Should we allow this emperor’s new clothes madness, to become the flavor of the month, then there are around 140 billions PA, is waiting in the wings, for global traders in intangibles, to collect from the unwary.
As the most commonly traded commodity, absolutely, positively, the best we’ve ever seen, carbon will with the passage of time, become increasingly traded, and therefore, increasingly valuable!
Consequently, the reported alleged rorts and rip offs, will become increasingly common, but just as virtually invisible, or hard to detect or monitor.
The only motive for a billionaire, is surely profit, and for what, shuffling paper?
I could do that Clive Baby, and I’d only need a million a month, after tax! Chicken feed!
I believe we need to completely rethink this, and then come back to the idea of just putting a price on carbon, with a tax.
The tax could be a million dollars a ton, but only if it were accompanied by a compulsory cap!
The cap could be current emission; meaning, no one in their right mind would ever need to pay this tax; albeit, it would still be big enough and loom large enough, to progressively moderate behavior, as the cap was very progressively lowered over very reasonable time.
A steel maker, i.e., could halve their emission, just by using the locally invented direct reduction process, and then halve it again, by building a thorium power plant adjacent to the mill. The old pig iron mills would have to go!
Or be left to the Chinese, who, even with slave wages, could no longer compete!
Then reduce carbon again, supplanting waste rubber and plastics, for the coal/carbon required, in what remains a heat assisted chemical process, that more accurately describes steel making!
And aluminum, nickle, titanium and other smelting, would be similarly able to virtually halve their emission, by placing a thorium reactor or reactors, very adjacent to their smelting operations.
And even less expensive than Hydro power!
Look mum, no expensive transmission lines!
Aluminum .i.e., is just congealed electricity.
And the most compelling reason, for the producer, would be the virtual halving of energy costs, as the first and most cogent business case reason for converting to thorium power.
The second, would be an ability to permanently contain these costs, making almost any smelting venture more and more viable, right here, with the passage of time.
We have huge reserves of thorium! Enough we’re told, to power the world, for 700 years!
State and federal Governments,needs to come to the party, by legislating, to allow private operators, to build their own modest thorium reactors, say, at a max of 50 MW, with a caveat, that they must be buried at a minimum of a 100 feet deep, and in solid bedrock!
I suspect, there’d be something of a “gold rush” for thorium/rare earth deposits!
And nobody could say, we had squibbed on placing a real price on carbon; given, ours would be a million dollars a ton!
And if anyone complained, but no Australian pays this tax!
We could always say, yes I know, chuckle, chuckle, giggle, chortle, aren’t we the clever ones!
Alan B. Goulding.
Palmer scraps a tax that costs him $6 million a year and the useful idiots help and cheer. Including Al:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_did_palmer_fool_so_many_journalists_while_saving_himself_a_motza/
When they hate Abbott this much, they can’t think straight.
Senator John Madigan will definitely vote out Labor’s stupid co2 tax. I must admit I was a bit worried for about 24 hours. But Xenophon and Muir are still on the fence.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/tax_axe_safe_john_madigan_denies_hed_vote_against_the_carbon_tax_repeal/
Gosh Alan!!…you make it all sound so easy!…like it’s just too good to be true..where do I sign up!?…..who do I send the dosh to?…when can i connect to the grid?…..I’m excited!!
Oh for goodness sake, youse climate delusionals are just that. Delusional. Why not back away and admit the evidence does not support your argument and just give up?