Kevin Rudd's great carbon finance bubble ...

Herald Sun:

Kevin's carbon finance bubble

Terry McCrann

11 August 2009

Kevin Rudd wants to effectively increase the GST by a quarter to 12.5 per cent.

He also wants to deliver power blackouts across Australia and even perhaps permanent electricity rationing; and/or send billions of dollar overseas so we can 'have the right' to produce our own electricity.

He may even, as analysis from CEDA warns, help create a new "carbon finance bubble" that according to CEDA's research director Michael Porter, "could eventually dwarf the recent Global Financial Crisis problems".

"If Wall St's manipulation of debt and derivatives gave us the GFC, the emissions trading is certain to give us far worse," Porter added.

This is just part of what we would get if the government's Emissions Trading Scheme or ETS were to pass the Senate and become law.

The Opposition's failure to effectively oppose the ETS at its appalling absolute core, might be bad enough. Although Malcolm Turnbull does seem to have been dragged (silently) screaming and resisting, to finally vote against it. Not though for want of trying to 'do an ETS deal'.

But any failure by him and his colleagues pales into insignificance against the disgraceful performance of the bulk of the media and in particular the Canberra Press Gallery, which has given the government a complete pass on the dynamics if not the detail of the ETS.

Because, it has to be said, they mostly worship at the same church as Rudd - the entirely secular 'Earth Mother' one. And who could possibly be against - this form of - 'Motherhood?'

Evidence? Where has anyone in the Gallery or indeed the wider media held the government - Rudd and his climate minister Penny Wong in particular - to account for the 'Big (and very deliberate) Lie' that lies at the very heart of it all and envelopes everything?

That it's the 'Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme' - when it has got nothing to do with reducing carbon pollution in the only true sense, bits of particulate floating around. It is all and only about - purporting to - reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.

Ah yes, but when we stop or reduce those 'dreadful polluters' in the La Trobe and Hunter valleys pumping out CO2, we'll also stop them pumping out 'carbon pollution' at the same time, won't we?

Short and total answer: no. The 'carbon pollution' in the CPRS is only carbon dioxide. Its deceptive use is designed to foster exactly that sort of sub-conscious impression.

The government is deliberately lying and the Press Gallery is utterly indifferent to, or indeed actually happy to broadcast, the lie.

And it works. In arguing the disastrous flaws of the proposed ETS yesterday, somebody who knows exactly what he's talking about, nevertheless drifted off into an observation about the "dreadful pollution" you saw and breathed on the way to Seoul airport.

The ETS will raise as much money as lifting the GST from 10 to 12.5 per cent. Just under $12 billion.

Indeed, if we get it, the impact would be very similar to doing exactly that - it is not an exaggeration to say it 'effectively' does raise the GST.

And then keeps raising it, automatically. That's the starting sum in 2012-13. It's specifically designed to keep going up to make carbon-based energy more expensive and less available by 'pricing it out of the market'.

We might be 'saved' because of what makes the greens unhappy. Under the Rudd-Wong ETS, we can buy permits from overseas. That's just wonderful -- we pay dodgy financial and other main-chancers billions to be allowed to continue to produce our own electricity.

It's all supposed to be OK. Because first it is designed to save the Barrier Reef if not the entire globe. Well it wouldn't, even if we did reduce our emissions. And if we buy in the right to 'pollute' we wouldn't even do that.

And because the government has promised to return 'every cent'. I'd suggest that's another, if somewhat smaller lie. Every cent.

But whatever, what would be, what should be, the media and opposition reaction if the government did propose lifting the actual GST from 10 to 12.5 per cent - and then to who knows what - on the promise of 'returning every cent'?

The massive uncertainty factor doesn't lie at Turnbull's feet but the government's. As the CEDA analysis shows only too clearly.

This will lead to power 'brown-outs' and blackouts; and perhaps permanent electricity rationing. As fellow commentator Bob Gottliebsen has shown, the disastrous long-term consequences are building right now.

There is no way coal-fired power stations - especially Victoria's - can commit hundreds of millions of dollars for vital maintenance. The prospect is that if we got the ETS many power stations would become unreliable and in some cases close.

This would be a disaster even if we had an 'alternative'. The only real one has been specifically prohibited by the Rudd Government. In any event even if a decision was taken today, the earliest we could get a nuclear power station is 2025.

The earliest we could expect to get significant amounts of base load power from nuclear is probably 2040. But only if we started right now.

Apart from the prohibition, nothing better captures the government's 'priorities' than pouring billions into pink batts rather than serious base load power generation.

To get any sort of significant power from nuclear we would have to commit right now to, say, a dozen stations

The so-called 'alternatives' are a joke. We could turn the entire south-eastern countryside into wind farms, and there would be times we would get zero or near enough to zero power from them all.

Back in 1914 the then British foreign secretary Lord Grey said: "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

Are we going to literally repeat it Down Under more or less exactly one hundred years later? Through our own, entirely modern, stupidity?

Grey was wrong about the latter: they were 'lit again' four years later. If Rudd and Wong succeed in turning them off, we should be so lucky.

See - Herald Sun - Kevin's carbon finance bubble.

Also see - The Australian - Emissions trading is a tax, no matter the name.