Newspoll shows Labor maintaining its 55-45 two-party lead from last fortnight. Kevin Rudd has gained a point and Brendan Nelson lost one on the question of preferred leader, Rudd now leading 65 per cent to 14 per cent.
UPDATE: The Australian has not published a graphic this time, but you can read all about it at the Newspoll site. The paper also reports on an Essential Research survey on emissions trading, but we are told only that “58 per cent of Coalition voters believe Australia should take action even if other countries do not”, while “only 25 per cent of the 1700 voters polled believed Australia should act only when other major economies agreed to do so”. The West Australian has also published results on the subject from last week’s Westpoll survey of 400 respondents in WA, showing “two-thirds of the poll’s respondents agree that a carbon trading regime should be introduced according to the Prime Minister’s timetable”. However, 69 per cent believe the US, China and India “would need to adopt their own trading schemes if Kevin Rudd’s plan for an Australian ETS by 2010 was to be effective”, and “47 per cent of respondents were not prepared to pay more for petrol”.
UPDATE 2: Full report from Essential Research here. It includes a 59-41 result on federal voting intention based on two weeks of data, with a 3 per cent shift denoting that the week past was quite a lot better for the Coalition than a fortnight ago. There were also questions on the Catholic Church’s response to child abuse by priests and religious affiliation in general. Results were obtained from a targeted online panel of 1013 respondents.
844 Comments
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This paper gives more detail on why permits should not be free but paid for at auction.
http://www.cpd.org.au/article/emissions-trading-ood-gogvernance-requires-100-auctioning
The other sus aspect of the Green Paper is that rather than pouring the money back into polluting businesses as compensation, it needs to be steered towards new non polluting technologies.
201 Steve
Don’t forget that HUGE Infrastructure Fund
JM, I think that the trading scheme needs to stack up as a going concern in its own right and that the money the Government gets from the sale of permits is better used in poducing jobs in the renewable energy sector than in compensating polluting industries.
That is what I meant, plenty of money for spending on renewable enrgy, improved infrastructure etc
Watching Hunt on Agenda, I’m absolutely convinced the man’s a tool operating in an environment clearly beyond his intellectual capability.
When asked a simple bait question:
Speers:”Why reduce excise while taxing carbon – isnt that churn and just defeats the purpose?”
Hunt:” Well nowhere in the world has introduced” blah blah blah, “It’s Labors policy….” blah blah blah – change the topic.
FAIL!
With Turnbull, Hunt and Nelson leading the charge on the politics of this, they are going to be slaughtered by Labor.
Hunt just regurgitates his talking points – no matter what the question.
On the various News.com blogs desperate Fibs are talking about wanting Johny to stand, to be parachuted into Mayo etc. Previously it was desperate wishing for Tip to lead. I think they know their side of politics will be slaughtered!
onimod
#193
I actualy like the idea of re inventing the wheel , so i’m all for FINNS #190 idea
Lets tax the consumers who want to buy a SUV’s or petrol guzler etc in their annual rego Now FINNS medium size car example is $70 cost to pollute , which I’d double Leaving solutions to Car manufacturers is not the answer nor relying on just taxation linked to capacity I feel the les transparent , the less likely effective Suggest Rudd should let the Govt tax the guzlers at the car yard in the open , and pour the proceeds to CC r & r or to consumer energy cost relief
the other bit with the Green Paper , am not sure the 90% free permits maybe too generous , like more info Also I am not happy they ar ‘free’ and then as i interpreted tradeable as well
They want Johnny to come back? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Yes, but you can only trade them if you actually reduce your emissions first… that’s the point. It’s all to encourage business to reduce emissions (by new technology or whatever) so they can trade the permits.
Another politician that needs a good kick – the Greens Little Miss Milne
“The Government should have taken responsible leadership and used the fuel excise to roll out public transport around Australia so that low income earners genuinely have an alternative.”
FAIL!
Adding a carbon price on top of the pre-existing fuel excise effectively taxes human mobility.
Inner city folks with good public transport and within walking distance of commercial and public services would be fine with such thing. The other 70% of the country that live in places where public transport is poor and doesnt run to locations where they need it – Little Miss Milne reckons they should be slugged now because the government didnt build public transport previously.
Regional communities where public transport is unviable get nailed, and the spatial distribution of income in this country is such that the places with poor public transport tend to be low income earning areas.
What a nice standard of living crunching, massively regressive piece of income redistribution.
Those caring sharing Greens heh.
Meanwhile, bringing public transport to those places would cost magnitudes of order more than would be raised with keeping the excise on petrol where it is and take 20 years to complete.
Apparently the genius of Little Miss Milne is such that she thinks screwing blind the living standards of the poorest in the country or those that happen to live in places where government planning has been hopeless, and punishing them for having the audacity of trying to earn a living (which requires driving to work) for 20 years is entirely acceptable.
It’s people like Milne that guarentee the Greens will never become a viable third political force.
Greg Hunt seems like a nice bloke, but he’s completely out of his depth as environment spokesman!
208 Ron
The capacity taxation hits at purchase time – in the $thousands
The yearly rego just shows you can afford the hunk of junk
I’m not necessarily opposed to either – it’s just that a lot of the world is already designed an operating within a system that’s tried, tested and effective.
This isn’t necessarily politics, but get a load of this:
http://business.theage.com.au/business/toll-roads-to-nowhere-20080716-3fna.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2
Corporations, governments and keeping the truth at bay…
As I said before I have no problem with the rebate on petrol prices – the price is already high enough to be forcing change. However I was dissappointed that free permits are being given out. This is only OK if there is a clear timetable for them to be phased out. Cushioning industries from impacts is only justified if it gives them time to reform. If they don’t reform then the problem isn’t solved because the industries concerned (aluminium and coal fired power stations) are precisely our biggest problem. We will never even get close to any targets if they don’t change.
On the plus side, if the ETS is introduced and seen to work then there is always scope to tighten it up later as all our competitors introduce one. The value of the carbon credits only goes up as ETS schemes tighten. That isn’t a problem because new industries only become more viable and investment is encouraged. Whereas the oposite – what happened in europe – where a tight scheme is promised and it gets watered down, lowers the value of carbon credits and destroys investments in alternative technology.
easy there Possum!
(I generally agree)
We’re still some way from the penny dropping in terms of planning.
Density is still very much a dirty word here, and not surprising given some of the bad examples we’ve got of it too.
From a big picture perspective you would have thought the Greens would have noticed the opportunity to realign wealth with this structural economic change – take from the rich and give to the poor, but they just seem to want to punish someone.
Are they a party full of journo’s or something?! (hahahaha)
Just saw Nelson on the news talking about higher electricity and fuel prices (no mention about the help many people will receive in this area of course) and how the green paper fails to explain how to encourage other countries to take up the cause. Is he saying we should be waiting for India and China still? I thought he’d stepped into line with his party on this one. What a tool.
“Dr Nelson today slammed the Government’s blueprint, saying the cost of living increases would unfairly target middle Australia.
He also said the 2010 startup date was too rushed and should be pushed back to at least 2011.”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24029380-12377,00.html
OK Brenda – what is different about your scheme?
Possum!
That was a tad harsh. The Greens policy includes improving public transport in rural areas.
Nelson just wants to be able to run a scare campaign at the next election without having to answer the hard questions.
GB @ 220,
I think that’s exactly the reason why Rudd is rolling out the ETS before the next election rather than after it. If it was being rolled out in 2011, Nelson could run a mega scare campaign without constraint, as people would have no idea how an ETS would affect their lives (and budgets).
However, if an ETS is already in place in 2010, it becomes much harder for Nelson to say the sky is going to fall in because people would already have experience living under an ETS.
Ms. jen, the love-in on the Gulag is getting a tad boring erh? It’s not very good for the gene pool you know, all these in breeding.
In one of the greatest “D’ers” in Australian political history, Brendan Nelson has declared that “the Emissions Trading Scheme slugs consumers.”
What does this idiot want? A complete turnaround in Global Warming without any changes or sacrifices, short, medium or long term, at all?
Fighting Global Warming is OK as long as we do nothing to change anything from exactly the way it’s always been?
He should have stayed on vacation if that’s the best he can muster in the way of rebuttal. Why doesn’t he just come and say it: “Global Warming is a myth”?
Jen if you think Poss was being harsh here you should see what he wrote in Larvatus Prodeo blog
.
Sorry about that – wrong button.
Dary B.
You don’t seriously think Nelson will be campaigning at the next election??
Oops – Gary
221 Swing Lowe – spot on.
jovial Monk-
as I have a deep and abiding fondness for Possum , I will ignore his anti Green rants as best i can.
“The Greens policy includes improving public transport in rural areas”.
Jen – how do they intend to do this?
I must admit after posting that the thought ran through my mind “but he won’t be there.” Just as well for the Libs. Maybe Howard could lead them? I’d love to see him beaten again.
Finns,
I don’t understand why you don’t comment on the US blog. It’s exactly the same as the one that was on this site – only now I’m the most conservative commenter on the site. We probably do need conservative commenters on that blog – yours would be welcome…
Not harsh enough Jen (@219) – it’s people like Milne that are holding the Greens back.
Improving public transport is a noble cause undoubdtedly, but it can really only be improved around the margins because the costs involved compared to the benefits are enormous, it’s money which could produce greater benefits in other areas.
For instance, for the price of a an extra 10 bus trips a week between a small town 50 km away from a larger regional city, and a bus route which actually drives around both areas to pick up and drop off residents to their destinations – an extra full time doctor plus nurse could be hired for that smaller regional community for the same price (That was the price I saw earlier this year when I helped some community development groups do their sums for grants)
Which one benefits the community the most?
Being a true political alternative means having a clue on how to manage the scarcity of resources to obtain maximum public benefit. Milne, like Brown before her fails on that basic point because they are more interested in preaching to the converted than joining reality.
Finns Sweetie,
I don’t reckon it’s too odd to find me visiting an Oz site the day the green paper is released given my political affiliations.
As for the US site- I have learnt heaps there in the past 3 days re the economic situation as well as political, and all done with the best of humour!
We are allowed to think about more than one issue at a time,surely.
Possum 211 and Onimod 216
I have done a bit of work on the relationship between population density and transport and it is a mishandled debate in this country IMO. You can’t make good public transport viable in very low density (eg western Sydney) but you don’t need to go to the Hong Kong extreme either. Medium density with connective and accessible street systems is what we should be aiming for, and is possible in an Australian context. Good examples are in some Scandinavian Canadian and NW American cities like Helsinki, Vancouver, and Portland. They work well in transport terms, have a good quality of life, and don’t feel crowded.
I have to say I think we should impose financial penalties on some very inappropriate development types, especially rural residential. Their environmental impacts are horrendous. At present many of these are actually state subsidised via flat rate infrastructure levies which do not reflect the real cost of servicing them. In some cases the density is so low that even public transport becomes unviable, since you find that with very low utilisation per bus or train it would use less energy to put the people in an economical car.
Regarding housing affordability I think that is an issue we need to disentangle from this debate. It is a serious problem but there are many causes, including taxation policy (negative gearing and investment rules), State land charges, compromised (developer infiltrated) planning systems (eg NSW) and a simple failure to train enough tradesmen in building trades. I don’t suggest we can solve all of those quickly and we can’t delay climate change action till we do. We have one of the most permissive land use planning systems in the world, and we are going to pay for it.
Socrates,
Me Too! Me Too!
Poss 234
I don’t fully agree with your comments on Public transport. It depends on how and where it is done. With urban freeways now costing in excess of $10 million per lane kilometre, they are not out of the question. In Sydney, with an appallingly inefficient rail operator, they cost a lot for governments to run. But some upgrades can actually reduce operating costs, and those are worth funding. Brisbane’s recent busway and Perth’s rail extension have both greatly increased patronage and only marginally increased opperating cost, hence are good investments.
The real economic question on transport is not the cost to government, but the total community cost. Here PT does better. Cars cost peopel a lot to run. European cities with higher government spending on public transport actually have lower total spending on transport, because most people only need to be in one car households.
See papers by Kenworthy and Newman and Richardson on this topic.
Ron @208, under what constitutional power could the Fed. Govt. raise vehicle registration fees? That is a State function surely?
Vancouver has a population of 600,000, Western Sydney? More probably. I live in a regional area 200,000.
What is the population density of rural Australia?
Pixies – Garden
Possum- there is plenty of discussion and (yikes) disagreement within the party around a range is issues. However the basic idea that the so-called ’scarce resources’ are not available to address say, both health and transport needs in rural areas is fundamentally disputed due to the extraordinay wastage and misspending by Government -eg: our involvment in Iraq. None of these issues can be looked at in isolation, and they need to be seen as investment in communities and therefore delivering long term benefit, rather than short term expenditure for an election cycle.
We have to change the way we think about infrstructure and development if we are going to address what I’m sure you agree is a catastrophic problem.
Sory Poss, I misunderstood your second last post; we agree.
Ruawake
Vancouver City itself has a population of 600000 but is part of an urban region (Metro Vancouver) with a population of over two million. It is a quite valid comparison to Brisbane, Adelaide or Perth.
Yes rural Australia is not viable for PT, but they are not congested and over 85% of our transport task is in the cities, so if we can fix them we solve most of our problem.
FINNS
now the 3 Amigos are called consevative , Robert Boland’s marxists must have taken over
Onimod
#213
I’m with you , happy to have also the taxation linked to car capacity etc , however like also transparency of hiher poluting vehicls paying a much higher rego , re competitiveness & re-selling public awareness so say a SUV maybe now a yuppee car , well lets change the perseption of it
Darius
#210
re the ‘free’ permits & my thought i didn’t like the idea they were also ‘tradeable’ , you’ve said they have to reduce there emissions first before trading them Can you point that out in green Paper , i got the impresion you could just stop mannufacturing part /all of your particular production , and be able to sell the free permit at a profit to another poluter , and do not see the emission gain there
Fulvio
Assumed the Labor family work together on CC , can tax imports constitutionaly
Socrates – I’m agreeing with you.
Net Benefit to Human Welfare is always my starting point with this.
The problem with public transport in rural areas is that it quickly runs into the opportunity cost problem a hell of a lot quicker than it does in higher population density environments simply because of the economies of scale and client usage volumes that more people provide.
The problem with public transport in our urban environments is the sheer cost of building the vast quanitites of it from scratch that we need for an effective system, particularly for the outer metro areas and urban fringe – even if it’s only linkages to pre-existing transport nodes. Because of the housing boom, the cost of buying out property owners in any proposed transport corridors is becoming prohibitive, meaning that highly expensive alternatives become viable like underground for some routes.
Either way, the timelines involved blow out significantly – and so do the costs. That’s not to say it shouldnt be done in urban areas – I’m definitely of the view it should be. But it’s no longer cheap, and the timelines involved are no longer short if the land corridor involved isnt currently government owned.
Jen said:
“We have to change the way we think about infrstructure and development if we are going to address what I’m sure you agree is a catastrophic problem.”
I do agree.
When I see the Greens come out and say where they’ll slash the amount of spending required to actually start to implement their policies I’ll certainly be able tio take them seriously.
Until then it just looks like the Greens exercising their mouths without wanting to touch the responsibility of a 100 bill financial redirection plan with a stick.
Ron @ 244,
Let me re-phrase then – we need more “pro-McCain/anti-Obama” contributors on the other blog. I have to admit it’s a bit weird arguing against Finns and GG after they were on the same side as me in the run-up to the Australian election last year.
As they say, the world’s a funny place…
SL, i tq for your open mindedness. however, it’s an Obama worship site and i worship no man, not even God. As my amigo GG would say, sadly.
btw: i am not a conservative commenter
Dr Nelson today slammed the Government’s blueprint, saying the cost of living increases would unfairly target middle Australia.
So he is proposing that only the poor and the rich should pay for it?
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