Post Budget Blues

Two weeks after the Federal Budget the fur is still flying.
Are you surprised? I'm not after the effort Mr Abbott went to in Opposition making everything simple, sloganish and sooo negative.

Street Art: A sign of things to come perhaps?

They are now reaping the results of the 3 year intensive, misinformation and almost hate campaign against Labor.
Labor of course is somewhat hamstrung by its own problems, mainly having lost credibility they are still struggling to have any meaning except when behaving like Tony Abbott.

Its clear to me we will need to cut something
Its clear also that some form of taxation will need to rise to meet the outgoings, whether that is GST, Carbon Taxes, or levies.
We also face the positive tsunami of costs associated with an ageing population, expensive basics and movement of wealth offshore.
I'm happy to work, part-time til I'm 65, but by then the chronic conditions that already afflict me may be less easy to manage.
My employer may also not find me productive enough.

Attacking the most down and out is not really an efficient way of raising the funds. My observation of the people who come into my library looking for work shows me many are pretty unemployable, unless you forcibly pick them up and dump them in the outback to do hard physical labour, where personality 'quirks' may not be too important. Certainly, organisations that exist with customer service functions would not employ them.

My colleagues with disabled adult children tell me the sheltered workshops which employ them are being closed through withdrawal of funding from State and Commonwealth bodies. A retrograde step if I've ever heard one. These people actually work for what they produce, somewhat cheaper than the rest of us and are grateful for the job.

But lets face it, the poor will get much poorer with this budget.
Crime will rise, health will disimprove and an opportunity to invest in the next big thing - Carbon friendly business and jobs- is being squandered.
Apart from the deficit levy, the rich and big business are getting away with little impact on their bottom line.

So keep the Carbon Tax and Mining Tax Joe and Tony, and work on reducing the spending.
Attacking the poor, elderly and unemployed will get you sacked from Government, eventually.
Unless you produce the mother of all disinformation campaigns in the future.
A likely prospect.

Budget BS

Tonight the Federal Government will hand down its first budget. After all the speculation we will finally learn what cuts, levies, taxes and broken promises the Treasurer will make to fund his "budget emergency"
You can bet he won't keep the Carbon Tax which was actually very effective and delivered money into the Federal coffers as well as encouraging investment in efficiencies (productivity gains) and new technologies (innovation and jobs).
This government has managed to get rid of or try to cut anything that has the words Solar, Renewable, Science and Carbon in it. That's where ideology takes you of course!
Meanwhile I generated 3.5 kWh of my own electricity today with a 1 kW unit.
A few years down the track, when the rest of the world is reaping the current investment boom in these new Energy and Job programs, we'll be still stuck with old system, high carbon emissions and higher costs.
Several ABC Radio National Programs highlighted these issues in the weekend Science Show, Ockham's Razor and Background Briefing.;

1. Australia Playing Catchup With US, Europe and China in Renewable Energy. You can see University of Queensland Solar real-time graphs here.
2. Death Spiral Begins for Australian Electricity will tell your where all your electricity costs go - 50% to poles and wires and very little to the Carbon Tax. Discovered by a NSW Farmer no less.
3. Ockham's Razor " Decarbonizing for Growth" with Michael Molitor gives some big number and big ideas on how to maintain growth for the next 2.5 billion people. I have some criticisms of this talk as little discussion was made about resource constraints, EROI and other factors that come into play moving to this Brave New Renewable World. But I did like Professor Michael Molitor's discussion on GDP and GPI: Genuine Progress Indicator.
4. Lastly the Background Briefing "The Price of Power" by Jess Hill

Michael Molitor's comments "Of course, the most efficient means of transferring investment into highly efficient low or zero carbon assets is to launch a carbon tax.  The Australian Government did this in 2011 and some of the roughly AUD$7 billion in annual revenue went to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation"

and 

"Even more controversial, what if reducing carbon emissions represented the only pathway by which global economic growth targets could be met? If this were true, and my research suggests it is, then instead of a race to the bottom where everyone fears reduced economic growth from high carbon costs, we move to a race to the top where reducing carbon emissions becomes the most attractive growth opportunity in history".

So I'll probably throw up my hands and swear while watching the budget thinking of the short sighted politicians and their big business mates who are denying the bleeding obvious, and expecting me to pay for their mistakes!
Thank you ABC for providing intelligent and alternative commentary. I just hope you survive the Budget! 
Sign the Petition : https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/media/save-the-abc--2/protect-our-abc--2

Tide is Turning: Australia, Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Deficit Levy.

While driving to work yesterday, consuming my fossil fuels in the increasing congestion of Melbourne's suburbs, I listened to an ABC Radio National Breakfast report on the United Nations Environment Program including warnings from IMF and World Bank against investment in Fossil Fuel Industries.

Here is the podcast.

The Age reported on 12 April 2014" leaders of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and United Nations on Friday called upon finance ministers to use fiscal policies, such as carbon taxes, to combat climate change."

Christine Lagarde's Dimbleby Lecture (02/02/2014) can be found at the IMF Website. This part of her speech is of great concern to us in Australia:

" Overcoming climate change is obviously a gigantic project with a multitude of moving parts. I would just like to mention one component of it—making sure that people pay for the damage they cause. Why is this aspect—getting the prices right—so important? Because it will help to reduce the harm today and spur investment in the low-carbon technologies of tomorrow.

Phasing out energy subsidies and getting energy prices right must also be part of the solution. Think about it: we are subsidizing the very behavior that is destroying our planet, and on an enormous scale. Both direct subsidies and the loss of tax revenue from fossil fuels ate up almost $2 trillion in 2011—this is about the same as the total GDP of countries like Italy or Russia! The worst part is that these subsidies mostly benefit the relatively affluent, not the poor. Reducing subsidies and properly taxing energy use can be a win-win prospect for people and for the planet."

https://www.flickr.com/photos/greenstonegirlpix/14063622923/

This comes at a time where our 'beloved leaders' in the Federal sphere are ripping up any and almost every environmental policy they can lay their hands on, including the Carbon Tax.

Australia is "open for business" to rip us off with fossil Industry subsidies that do more harm than good, and cannot be supported when you factor in environmental damage and the idea that markets are self correcting.

So why is Australia bucking the world  trend??

Why can neither the Labour Party nor the Liberals do something about professional  lobbying by those industry leaders who use the money and influence to sway our Governments to do the wrong thing by the people and the environment?

The corruption hearings in NSW are opening eyes to how politics and business can be done. This is not news in Australia and affects all the big political players and industries.

But the good news is that our World corruption ranking has dropped according to Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index 2013.

However, our environmental rankings must be plummeting. Go figure!

PS I'm happy to pay back the $900 given by Kevin Rudd & Labour - I invested this in solar power and have made a profit since then.