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Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy (Read 52920 times)
Senexx
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Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy
Feb 6th, 2010 at 6:17pm
 
Tony Abbott's Environment and Climate Change policy can be read here (pdf) if you have the stomach for it.

Quote:
This will be achieved without new or increased taxes on Australian industries or increased costs to Australian households and families.


This is the key phrase in the entire policy.  The traditional question then becomes how will they pay for the policy?  After all another statement is:

Quote:
Our policy will cost $3.2 billion over 4 years...


So Abbott’s policy is to find $3.2 billion over 4 years, that’s $800 million a year without any new taxes and without any increased costs.  Surely this shows Abbott and perhaps the Coalition itself are living in a fantasy land.

Barnaby Joyce, Shadow Finance Minister gives the game away on Lateline:

Quote:
LEIGH SALES: Tony Abbott says the Coalition needs to find $3.2 billion over four years in the Budget to find this. As Finance Minister, where will some of those savings come from?

BARNABY JOYCE: A whole range of issues. I’m too willing to drill into the figures, but let Mr Swan show me the mechanism of how we are going to do it.


Tony Abbott’s Coalition will find “those savings” by cutting back expenditures in other areas of the Budget but they are incapable of saying where as Senator Joyce makes clear.  It does not matter where in the Budget these expenditures are cut, it will result in “increased costs to Australian households and families.”

The only way this proposal and the other proposal in Abbott’s Environment and Climate Change policy can be made tenable is by deficit spending.  Tony Abbott has all ready argued against the current stimulus spending which has taken the budget into deficit as has Barnaby Joyce.

So, either the policy is not credible or the coalition is ignorant to the hypocrisy within their policy.
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Soren
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Re: Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy
Reply #1 - Feb 6th, 2010 at 6:23pm
 
Or they will cut back on schoolhall spending.

You forget that a very common way of finding money is to cut spnding on a couple of things. I don't think it would be terrible hard to find 'ideological' spending', whichever side is in government. In a roughy trillion dollar budget, finding 3.2 billion dollars (3.2 %) can't be that hard.
Next time you have $100 in your pocket, ask yourself - can you spare $3.20 for ice cream?
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Senexx
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Re: Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy
Reply #2 - Feb 6th, 2010 at 6:33pm
 
Yes they could cut back school hall spending, which would increase the cost that schools would have to pay for school hall spending underway.  Which will ultimately translate into an increased cost for households and families.

The very thing the policy denies will happen

Quote:
This will be achieved without new or increased taxes on Australian industries or increased costs to Australian households and families.


By cutting any costs that the government is spending, it increases the costs that the private sector has to pay for that service.

The policy outlines quite clearly that they will pay for it without increased costs or new taxes.   This is clearly a lie but probably one spoken in haste, not through any ill-intention.
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Soren
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Re: Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy
Reply #3 - Feb 6th, 2010 at 6:42pm
 
Not all government spending is on services.
And some services ought not to be paid for by government.
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Re: Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy
Reply #4 - Feb 6th, 2010 at 6:44pm
 
Senexx wrote on Feb 6th, 2010 at 6:33pm:
The policy outlines quite clearly that they will pay for it without increased costs or new taxes.   This is clearly a lie but probably one spoken in haste, not through any ill-intention.



We pay for everything already. The government is an instrument of the people, not the other way around.
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Re: Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy
Reply #5 - Feb 6th, 2010 at 7:19pm
 
The best way to reduce GHG emissions with least harm to the economy is to put a price on it. The coalition often has the better policy from an economic perspective, but not this time. This policy totally discards economic reality for cheap populism.
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Darwin
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Re: Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy
Reply #6 - Feb 6th, 2010 at 7:24pm
 
Well said, FD!
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Soren
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Re: Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy
Reply #7 - Feb 6th, 2010 at 9:14pm
 
freediver wrote on Feb 6th, 2010 at 7:19pm:
The best way to reduce GHG emissions with least harm to the economy is to put a price on it. The coalition often has the better policy from an economic perspective, but not this time. This policy totally discards economic reality for cheap populism.



What's the 'popular' bit?
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Re: Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy
Reply #8 - Feb 6th, 2010 at 9:28pm
 
All carrot, no stick. Straight from the horse's mouth. Carrots grow on trees, BTW.
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Soren
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Re: Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy
Reply #9 - Feb 6th, 2010 at 9:36pm
 
So people can recognise the greatest moral issue of our time (CO2 reduction) only if it is beaten into them with the tax stick?
Big brother's hoof is showing. The government (elected by the people) turns out to be more in tune with what people (ought to ) want than the people themselves! Thank you Karl, thank you Vladimir, thank you Adolf.


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Re: Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy
Reply #10 - Feb 6th, 2010 at 9:41pm
 
Quote:
So people can recognise the greatest moral issue of our time (CO2 reduction) only if it is beaten into them with the tax stick?


That's not what I said. What I said was, using a pricing mechanism will get you the reduction in GHG emissions you want for the least impact on our economy. If you want to become a hippy all of a sudden and hold hands round a campfire sharing carrots with mining executives, knock yourself. Just don't pretend it is economically rational.
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Re: Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy
Reply #11 - Feb 6th, 2010 at 9:50pm
 
freediver wrote on Feb 6th, 2010 at 9:41pm:
Quote:
So people can recognise the greatest moral issue of our time (CO2 reduction) only if it is beaten into them with the tax stick?


That's not what I said. What I said was, using a pricing mechanism will get you the reduction in GHG emissions you want for the least impact on our economy. If you want to become a hippy all of a sudden and hold hands round a campfire sharing carrots with mining executives, knock yourself. Just don't pretend it is economically rational.



Ridiculous.
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Re: Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy
Reply #12 - Feb 7th, 2010 at 9:03am
 
How so?
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Re: Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy
Reply #13 - Feb 7th, 2010 at 9:46am
 
It brings up the question of how could you fund a  carbon reduction scheme. One of the ways would be to stop subsidising diesel to mining companies. That would give us 7 billion dollars a year towards such a scheme. Then we could stop subsidising people who have more than 1 child.

All these subsidies are contributing to the problem. Of course, it wouldn't be a very populist move. The latter would not help with election chances, so a good idea immediately goes out the window.
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Senexx
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Re: Abbott's Innocuous Climate Change Policy
Reply #14 - Feb 7th, 2010 at 12:00pm
 
Soren wrote on Feb 6th, 2010 at 6:42pm:
Not all government spending is on services.
And some services ought not to be paid for by government.


I agree.

Soren wrote on Feb 6th, 2010 at 6:44pm:
Senexx wrote on Feb 6th, 2010 at 6:33pm:
The policy outlines quite clearly that they will pay for it without increased costs or new taxes.   This is clearly a lie but probably one spoken in haste, not through any ill-intention.



We pay for everything already. The government is an instrument of the people, not the other way around.


I agree.  However whether a cost is cut by the government, no matter what goods or services, it will increase the cost elsewhere.  We call this opportunity cost, it is a trade-off, all policies have this - except this one apparently.

The policy clearly states it will do this by not increasing the cost of anything.
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