Bishop Hill Green bloodbath
Sep 12, 2013 Climate: Parliament Via GWPF, The Australian is reporting that the newly installed Abbott administration in Australia is moving quickly to shut down the green machine in Canberra:
Public servants are drawing up plans to collapse 33 climate change schemes run by seven departments and eight agencies into just three bodies run by two departments under a substantial rewrite of the administration of carbon abatement schemes under the Coalition. The move is forecast to save the government tens of millions of dollars. The Climate Change Authority, which sets emissions caps, the Climate Commission, which has conducted research into climate change, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which funds renewable technologies, are all slated to be abolished under the plans.
The shutting down of any sinecure is good news. That Tim Flannery's Climate Commission is among the first to go is doubly welcome.
Reader Comments (45)
DECC next and quickly!
As a little puppet character on English summer beaches used to say "That's the way to do it!"
After DECC, the Carbon Trust must be next on a UK list.
http://www.carbontrust.com/
And I am delighted my previously expressed cynicism is being proved wrong.
How about elevating the members of the Climate Change Committee to the HoL?
Oh sorry, quite a few are already there........
Great news. Off to Aus. 31 Oct to celebrate 2yr birthday of grandson.
Hopefully, Abbot and his team really open up Aus for business and tidies up the economic mess left inevitably by the numerically challenged socialists.
"Conan! What is best in life?" "To crush your enemies -- See them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!"
They are quick with the boot gawdblessem. This from March last year;
"QUEENSLAND Premier Campbell Newman has ordered Anna Bligh's husband to begin dismantling green energy programs he helped create, as the new LNP government moved to slash environmental spending to offset the federal carbon tax."
Apparently, Bligh expected a golden goodbye. Give them picks and shovels and tell them to clean up their mess.
plans to collapse 33 climate change schemes run by seven departments and eight agencies into just three bodies run by two departments
That is just a wet dream for any respectable civil servant. They could collapse it down to just one agency with two sub departments each operating 33 climate change schemes. Result - twice as many schemes and a pat on the back.
Good to hear. The CC nonsense always seemed very atypical behaviour for Aussies.
Let's hopeThe Aussies do better than the bonfire of the QANGOs that Cameron promised. Only the SDC was abolished. There is a huge list of other bodies in the UK that should be scrapped.
Cheerio cheerio cheerio...
Cheerio cheerio cheerio-ho...
Recently seen near a prestigious Australian university's climate science group.
/snigger
Let's hope there is real follow-through, rather than just moving chairs from one set of buildings to another.
Excellent - but I won't be wholly content until the trials start.
Six phases of the CAGW project:
1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Despair
4. Search for the guilty
5. Punishment of the innocent
6. Praise and glory for the non-participants
We have got to number 3.
Where Oz leads may the UK follow.
Not enough to collapse them down. They should be utterly and completely closed and all their bosses and staff put out of work.
I'm with spence & Philip Bratby on this - civil servants putting themselves out of work? I dearly wish Tony Abbott is successful in his quest, but until there is concrete proof of the number of jobs eliminated, and ordinary people can get back to living their lives without constant interference, I wouldn't get too excited.
"Yes Minister" was uncannily accurate even 30 odd years ago, and now we have the added problem of Common Purpose working their own agenda behind the scenes.
This is going to give me a real headache for the forthcoming Ashes series. Torn, at present more likely to be chanting Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi than singing Jerusalem.
Philip
When the new boss of the Charities Commission here in the UK was announced last year, there was some rejoicing from the BH benches - esp from Richard Drake. The fake charities are still very much with us, funded by the governement and telling them which deluded policies to follow.
It's not likely to achieve much but of course it's best to get moving with cuts early.
Sep 12, 2013 at 3:13 PM | Phillip Bratby
There was a much trumpeted Bonfire of the Quangos in Wales. The Welsh Assembly took them in-house!
Oh, let them please shut the whole lot down. The likes of Flannery have had a magic-carpet ride courtesy of the Australian tax-payer for years. I would love to see his blustering reaction to the sudden turning off of the funny money tap. Such preening self-righteousness reduced to hand-waving impotence. Oh, yes please.
And then let's do the same to the smirking certainties of Ed Davey and his smug cohorts at the DECC.
I'd second the scrapping of the Carbon Trust, a complete waste of space if ever there was one. More important, though, would be to eliminate the CC from DECC. But the tentacles of CAGW hysteria run deep - as CC legislation has taken hold, the entirely new 'profession' of carbon accounting has sprung up, and certainly in the utility sector in which I operate, companies are having to expend a not inconsiderable effort quantifying and reporting carbon.
Well look what happened in parliament this week . . . catching up to the Aussies . . . nuke your Climate Change Act!
"Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con): I am delighted to be one of the four remaining MPs who voted against the Climate Change Act in the previous Parliament, all of whom are in the room today. Although my hon. Friend rightly wants to chastise the Government, does he acknowledge that the Act, which has done so much to add to people’s energy bills, was actually steered through Parliament by the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), who is now Leader of the Opposition? Does my hon. Friend also agree that the Labour party has played a huge part in increasing energy bills, and that it is no good for Labour Members to complain about fuel poverty when they have created so much of it?
David T. C. Davies: Indeed, I do agree. I am sorry that I was not a member of the famous five who voted against the Act in 2008, but I hope I will now do something to put that right. I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) here, because he helped to steer the opposition to the Act at the time.
I must confess that I was one of those who accepted the arguments that were made—I supported the Act when it was passed. Of course, part 1 clearly states that the Act is open to amendment if the science changes or if significant developments in science become clear. I contend that, given what we now know about climate science, we have a strong argument for reconsidering the Act with a view to either revoking it completely or drastically amending it."
http://www.thegwpf.org/mps-attack-impact-climate-change-act-families-industry/
dennisa
That at least is an improvement. A If the government thinks it's necessary then they should be responsible for it. That way B somebody is accountable to the taxpayer (and voter).It's fairly obvious in the UK that the Sir Humphreys have been busy building resilience and redundancy into their empires - every Agency now sponsors a raft of client organisations which although nominally "independent" - are almost wholly dependent for funding on the "mother ship" sponsoring agencies - loads of crony filled "Trusts" (what a foul abuse of language that title is for many of them) and mini-me "Agencies"...
One might have a modicum of sympathy if any of them did anything constructive related to the notional raison d'etre for each organisation - but it's plain that they are build-outs of bureaucratic self interest with vestigial or non existent accountability only back up through the sponsoring organisation.
It'll be interesting to watch and see if Abbott manages to uproot the weeds and terminate the termites.
Plans are in the wings in the UK for a shell game involving DECC, Natural England, The Environment Agency and their associated parasitic mates - but it will be same old game behind an expensively re-branded facade.
According to one informed estimate 80% of Environment Agency activity/employees is/are pointless - leeching funds for no discernable gain beyond filling the pockets of the participants and really annoying their victims...
What a joy it would be to see the entire staff of DECC receive a nice little P45 each, accompanied by an application form for joining The Department of Energy - with only 1/5 the number of posts available...
Tim Flannery's gone , that is nothing but good news .
The question is will he found a nice safe home in some green lobby, for services , or will he have to find a safe home in academy?
Oh - I forgot - the Sir Humphreys have also made a virtue out of sponsoring "Not for Profits" in various guises, "Community Interest Companies" and the assorted research an education activities of green NGOs and perverting existing charities (RSPB alone £20 million there) DECC and Whitehall are building out funding to green groups around the country for eco-friendly schemes
Augean Stables anyone? - where's Hercules? - that's quite a pile of ordure to shift....
7:45 PM KNR - Flannery is still on the staff at Macquarie ? - the arse will then no doubt spend more of his persecuting academic deniers then eh? Amputating the state funding to NGOs and assorted other parasites in the AGW scam is going to be quite a challenge - won't anybody think of the birdies?
Going down !!!!!!
It looks like Julia Gillard was sabotaged (knitting, partner stories). I suspect Huhne and Tim Yeo had their protection removed too.
Taxi for Ed Davey !!
Tony Abbott has given rough estimates of proposed cuts to the public service. Typically they read like this news report from the Canberra Times - "The Coalition has been quite certain, and unequivocating, about the reduction, by attrition of the public service by about 12,000 people".
Pity that I have to read this news elsewhere. Anyway I am delighted that these agencies will be going. Money has been wasted on them and that is money that can be spent elsewhere or be used to drawn down our burgeoning government debt.
I wonder what our glorious BBC - 'the envy of the world' -( No, sorry! that's the NHS isn't it - the supposed healing organisation the employees of which kill thousands of people a year through incompetence and neglect) will respond and report this. They will no doubt be working on a distortion of the facts to suit their pro-green agenda. I haven't seen anything yet, they are still full employed hero-worshipping Obama and trying to get him out of the hole he's in over Syria and his support of the murdering sadistic Islamists - the 'rebels'.
"by attrition" sounds suspiciously like "natural wastage" .
i.e, not replacing those who leave. But people seldom leave publicly-funded jobs with no equivalent in the real world.
We've been losing so long we've forgotten what victory looks like. This is just losing less badly, not a win.
The Coalition are still funding three separate Agencies to invest taxpayer money in playing King Canute. Even if every Australian Agency achieves their every aim, the weather will not change in any measurable fashion. But the Budget bottom line will.
Likewise, I would be very surprised if Flannery doesn't have a Golden Parachute.
I would prefer that these three agencies also lose their (Climate) budget, and the funds be evenly divided between paying off Labor's enormous debts and restoring part of Australia's Foreign Aid.
Leo Morgan,
Just keep a steady pace. There is increasing realisation in Australia, thanks to excellent blogs like Bishop Hill, that this initial cleanout is just a beginning. Tony Abbott has promised to maintain a steady, cautious, considered pace. Wholesale retrenchments are not in that category. However, he realises that it is not just these climate related organisations have to go. They are symbolic of a type of structural cell within society that has passed its use by date. Typical properties include an overbearing, aggressive attitude to the public; plans hatched in secret; ill-defined powers; high rate of levy raising; little obedience to the public will.
They will be changed, steadily, to give smaller government and fewer expensive, shadowy bodies that are good at diverting funds best used elsewhere.
They have been given advance notice. The brighter bods will be in the process of returning to more productive tasks by now. Six years will see a different country.
Here in the UK the usual suspects are busy - it ain't over by a long way. Is there a Fat Lady?
http://www.green-alliance.org.uk/grea_p.aspx?id=7242
re: Green Alliance
Disappointing to see that something called "Campaign for Better Transport" is joined with groups who routinely oppose roads and airports being built or improved. Better transport needs better roads and airports, even if you prefer rail, bicycles or airships. It also needs affordable fuel, another thing routinely blocked and opposed by the other groups in the alliance.
The arrogance and authoritarian tone in which these unelected activists announce their "Green Standard" is about what's expected. Nevertheless one does hope the age of Green Entitlement is over and they will now have to argue their case and submit to scrutiny like any other lobby or interest group.
Geoff Sherrington is correct. This will take time but Abbott is committed to doing it. The incoming government have also issued a press release promising an audit of "increasingly ridiculous research grants" awarded by the Australian Research Council. One that has come to notice is this -
Presumably LGBTI folks will be tattooed or branded on the forehead so that emergency services can treat them in a different and more caring manner to the other boring folks alongside them who are also up to their necks in floodwater. Then of course there's the role of the Arts in Climate Change. For a snip at $164,000 we get - The shrill shrieks of outrage from the social science community are becoming deafening. But perhaps they have a point; how can a nation progress if funding for this type of research is reduced rather than increased.
Sep 13, 2013 at 12:03 PM | GrantB
Are LGBTI people more or less vulnerable than masochists and how do they compare with sadists? Researchers should be up in arms! There are all sorts of money making, career enhancing opportunities that they will miss out on, thanks to the "bigotry" of the new Australian government.
LGBTI is a BLIGhT on the language.
Sorry, didn't mean to sound GLIB or BIGoLTed but this kind of BILGe annoys me.
kellydown
Calm down, old son! This is the way of the modern world.
Console yourself with the thought that there are so few of them that they need to lump themselves together to try and attain some sort of critical mass.
My own view is that the majority of each of those groups (and I confess my knowledge is limited though not totally non-existent) would much prefer to get on with their lives quietly and in a moderately tolerant environment then be the poster children for some sort of bandwagon.
Like every other group in society their rights stop when they bump up against my rights (and vice versa of course).
Fred, thanks for highlighting Philip Davies, an unsung opponent of the orginal Bill (because he was a teller) and also the bloke who, in the tradition of Dalziel, asked devastating questions of Murdoch's dopiest scion in a broad Northern accent. Murdoch, which many readers will recognise as such, is a Scottish name. The notion that cheques for 750 thousand quid to settle legal suits were signed without question or inquiry would have sent the old man's blood pressure through the roof. No doubt, Rupert knew about it already, but Davies (who would have made a fine barrister), put it beyond doubt in the public eye, in less than an hour. I like that guy. If you want to see how he did it, look Davies up on youtube.
As for purging all the climate madness from government, there is a long way to go. It has seeped through State and local government in a way that will not be easy to change. But kudos to Tony Abbott for leading from the top.