Saturday
Sep072013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Aussie elections open thread
Sep 7, 2013 Climate: Parliament Foreign Here's a thread for anyone who wants to discuss the Australian election result. What does it mean?
Sep 7, 2013 Climate: Parliament Foreign
Reader Comments (104)
Yeah thanks Ross Lea for pointing out the Beeb has led with "strident influence" as an explicatory.
The key thing is that this mindset has the initial stance that people are sheep to be led - this bad analysis is their weakness.
I love the sound of privileged leftist tw*ts crying in the morning :)
I want to be over bearing predictive but I think it could be summed up as say, some wikipedia future article about the early 21st century shift - I am sure will happen, that falls through a worn hole to today - has gaps :)
A following on system of "Geek manifestos" and scientifically defined "Moral Landscapes" quickly followed on their heels in an attempt to justify the solipsistic privileged western pseudo scientific justified point of view... but by then everyone .... it seems clear there actually was a psycho social .... pathology .... but it was not their own creation but their last best hope of cynically defined social dependency ..... as a continent - Africa - could afford an iPad or more despairingly for that class do better ( the Mosambique "Inteligente" is another story) and they told them to metaphorically f-off.....
Once they found it impossible to get their way…
Sep 7, 2013 at 11:24 PM
Nice one razor teeth:-)
Feel free to carry on causing carrion.
...............Though...................I do hope that, If I ever meet up with a Leopard in my basement - he may be a little kinder to me?!
The swing against the Greens in the State of Tasmania was 9%. The map of Tasmania changed from red to blue overnight. Tasmania is the State that has suffered most from Greenism and Green Politicians. After their failed alliance with the Greens, the Labour Party will no longer touch the Greens. They are now finished as a political force in Tasmania and the rest of Australia.
Richard Drake on Sep 7, 2013 at 8:01 PM
"The right was deeply humbled by the defeat of Hitler ..."
Hitler was a Socialist, a National Socialist!
"The Greens will keep alight the light on the hill but this time it will be solar powered."
Honestly, that's what the Green winner in Melbourne Adam Bandt said. I presume he meant to say the energy gathered by solar panels during the day when the sun is shining will be stored in batteries which in turn will keep the light on the hill alight. Free energy to keep our hopes up!
The Greens lost a quarter of their votes Australia wide since 2010 elections. That is 1 out of 4 of their supporters is out of the tent, or climbed down the tree. The next election will bring more misery to that climate doomsday cult, one can only hope. They felt the pain yesterday. That they retained their one and only lower house seat can't hide the lack of cheerfulness in that victory speech. I'd hate to be there when they find out you just can't keep the light on the hill alight with solar panels. You can, but it won't be free.
I am impressed with Tony Abbott's performance. I have never voted for a right-wing party and never will. So I spoiled my ballot paper and voted informal. While I was walking away from the booth, an election staff member pressed one of those purple 'I VOTED' tags on my chest. I felt proud for having done my duty as a citizen. Honestly, I did.
Robert Christopher: I know. I have seen the world that way since reading None Dare Call It Conspiracy in New Zealand in 1976. It was a point Gary Allen and Larry Abraham made well in that book. But it's not the only way to look at it. What of the considerable portion of upper crust in England who sympathised with Hitler and his anti-semitism in 1930s? Were they socialists? Were they of the left? Not by any reasonable definition. Orwell would not have thought of them as comrades at any stage. Nor Churchill - but he came to see how different Winston was from all of them, naming the hero of 1984 after him after the War.
I don't think we should hesitate to talk of these categories for the simple reason that they are used all the time. More recently than 1976 I have been helped by authors like James Billington and Michael Burleigh to think of the common roots and similarities of far left and far right, of the two totalitarianisms they led to, at such cost to ordinary human lives, and their differences. Then Richard North on Radio 4 made me come at it differently again. Journey in progress.
Those of the left supporting the mainstream view on Bishop Hill for 'climate truth and energy freedom' are almost of necessity more humble than the rest of us. So I don't see it as a problem here. But in the comments of the Guardian I agree with those that say they do see a problem. I was trying to explain it.
What does it mean? It means that science, observational data and a more nuanced perspective on climate related issues will have a chance of being heard after being drowned out by pure green ideology and the corruption of political self interest for the past 6 years.
I've said it before and will say it again, Abbott will not repeal the carbon tax....Oh, change the name and a few personalities for sure but there will be no significant reduction in the tax base.
The carbon tax is a significant factor in Abbott's win, but perhaps not the most important. As an elderly Australian who has been watching political shenanigans here and voting for more than 50 years, I think the most telling and long-lasting factor is what is best described as "La Trahison des Clercs".
Labor's problem is well described here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11776&page=3
It's a conservative forum, but the points are well made. Basically, the Australian Labor Party, the workers' party, has been hijacked by the progressive middle class intelligentsia and, as the headline says, they have poisoned the well.
"Apart from the concern of whether Abbott will repeal the Carbon Tax, one would hope that he will also dismantle the bureaucracy of the BORG (per Chris Monckton's report on JoNova and WUWT). If Abbott turns out to be just another tool of the UN's Agenda 21, then I fear for the future of Australia - and the the rest of us in the West."
Sep 7, 2013 at 5:50 PM | Unregistered CommenterSnotrocket
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Unfortunately, the BORG that Monckton refers to is a State, not Federal, entity, run by a State Labor government. But there are plenty of BORG wannabees in the Federal bureaucracy, and here's hoping that Abbott ensures that they are made to feel unwelcome and kept firmly under control.
For those who are sceptical about Abbott's determination to get rid of the carbon tax - I am as cynical as the next person (if not more so) about political promises. But I believe this one. It is partly because of Abbott's character - he is not, and never has been, a slippery operator. It has cost him dearly at times. It is also because he well knows that the broken promise "There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead" was the death knell of Julia Gillard's career.
I'm still in a state of unreality here. It's a beautiful Spring day, the birds are singing etc and that awful government is gone! It feels as though I'm just about to wake up and they'll still be there.
I just hope that some of the cannier UK politicians are paying attention. Backing slowly away from lunatic greenie policies is surely the way of the future.
It means we replace one bunch of incompetents, liars, frauds, half-wits, drunks, and unemployables with a completely different bunch of incompetents, liars, frauds, half-wits, drunks, and unemployables.
There is little doubt that Mr Abbott will get rid of the carbon tax. However, the true test of his sincerity will be the net effect of his actions: i.e. what will he replace it with?
Keep in mind that total elimination of any tax on carbon is effectively a strong criticism of the current policy of our colonial master -- the USA. This is something that conservative Australian politicians simply do not do. (And, make no mistake, the Australian Labor Party is conservative, too.) If President Obama were to suddenly reverse his stance on carbon there would be no problem. Until that happens I believe that Australia will loyally maintain a policy roughly describable as "Carbon is bad and must be taxed ... somehow!"
From Oz. You will have sieved the grain from the straw above. Initially i.e. four years ago Abbott was declared unelectable by many of our commentariat. He was not popular; why I don't know. He was an active member of his local surf club and volunteer bush fire brigade and participated in bike and road foot races, He was infamous for being photoed in his ' budgie smugglers' (very short swimmers) He had been active in student politics and was knicknamed the mad monk after he abandoned his religious studies. As an MP he regularly visited Indigenous communities in Cape York as Jo has described.The Labor Party decided Abbott was a bad, bad bad man and relentlessly pursued him with that mantra for four years. We will soon see if he is! I believe he will make good PM; he will have to make compromises of course. Cheers from , today cloudy Sydney
Sep 7, 2013 at 4:59 PM | johanna
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I certainly hope that the uncovered corruption and Labor filth has had, and will continue to have, a big impact in your voting preferences ... this is what you have been supporting "most of your adult life" by voting for them.
Labor has been reduced to its lowest ever primary vote, a tad over 30%, in Australian political history ... and long may it stay there. They ran a filthy and vile campaign devoid of truth and bordering on libel in instances, but then that is to be expected of cornered rats. The upcoming promised Royal Commission into Union (AWU) will toast many of them !
The Greens have lost 25% of their support as well ... good riddance ... which indicates that Australians do not support catastrophic warmist policies ... the Carbon (Dioxide) Tax is history.
My message to the corrupt 'climate scientists' of the universities, CSIRO, and BoM ... your days are numbered less than 10 and your funding will be directed elsewhere to more deserving initiatives.
Australians have spoken and warmista scaremongering will no longer be tolerated !
Tommo: A really useful summary, thank you. Every PM makes compromises, it's which ones that make the difference. He sounds like he could be good indeed. The example of scepticism with success could be catching.
Sep 8, 2013 at 12:03 AM | sHx
<Blockquote>I have never voted for a right-wing party and never will. So I spoiled my ballot paper and voted informal. While I was walking away from the booth, an election staff member pressed one of those purple 'I VOTED' tags on my chest. I felt proud for having done my duty as a citizen. Honestly, I did.</Blockquote>
...
Sorry mate, but you did not do your duty ... you wimped out. The Australian Liberal Party can hardly be called a "right wing" party, far from it. You will deserve every bit of political policy that goes against you ... sorry but I have no time for political fence sitters.
Streetcred: how can a piece of policy go "against" someone who didn't vote for the opponents of it?
While people are decrying the whiny nature of much of the left regarding Abbot's win, you don't exactly act as a poster boy for the right. Someone acts in a way that favours your side and you treat him as scum. Perhaps next time he will learn, and will return to voting Labor!
I know exactly why someone might spoil a ballot. In fact I may do it myself next election. Not because I'm a fence-sitter (far from it) but because no party is currently reasonably representing my political position.
If the right wing parties in Australia were to go all out carbon hating again, but the left-wing ones became climate sceptic, what a bind that would place you in! Would you support Labor to avoid a carbon tax, or would your historical preference make you hold your nose? These binds are placed on voters all the time, and we do what we can to work round them.
Streetcred, when I got involved in Labor politics as a young gel the party was very different from what it is today. It really was about the "cream of the working class" rather than the "dregs of the middle class". Of course, in those days everyone was a lot poorer, and many ordinary people could not even afford a home phone or a car.
Today's Labor Party is essentially a machine for delivering sinecures to "mates" (which it always was) but has completely lost any kind of moral compass. The NSW State Labor government had a decade in office during which crooks plundered the public purse, and everyone just averted their eyes. In deference to the Bish's aversion to being sued, I will not explicate on the doings of Julia Gillard and her then boyfriend in Victoria - but Michael Smith's blog is a rich source of material. There is much, much more, but the bottom line is that Labor is now rotten to the core. That was not always the case.
My father, a lifelong True Believer, will never forgive me for deserting the Labor Party. But I would rather have a (relatively) honest conservative government, even if I don't support quite a few of their policies, than a bunch of sleazebags who will overlook just about anything in a classic case of Noble Cause Corruption.
"Soon there will just be the EU as the only group of nutcases supporting destroying their economies"
The reason is that the EU has an undemocratic uber national government. They just implement what ever they want über nationally and thus bypass national democracy.
They are trying the same globally with a climate treaty and global government trough UN(UNEP).
While I am not usually given to outbursts of patriotism, here are a couple of songs that encapsulate what it is to be an Aussie. Both are short and catchy:
Gangajang - Sounds of Then (This is Australia)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML9h3I5Uktw
and
The Go-Betweens - Cattle and Cane
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq1s6FCEoZM
Although most of us flock to the cities, the call of the vast interior is very powerful indeed.
We will find out soon if Abbott is the real thing or another empty suit.
@Radical Rodent
Not a Lincoln quote. Google tracks it to a William J. H. Boetcker.
My wife (who has taken Aussie citizenship) came back from voting and said "It's crazy, you have to put seven candidates in order of preference, once you've put a 1 against the LNP, a 7 against the Greens and a 6 against the ALP, how do you sort out the other assorted nutters?"
I really don't think Tony Abbott dare not do all he can to scrap the carbon tax. He has witnessed how the issue destroyed Julia Gillard's career. She was prepared to go back on her promise not to introduce one in order to gain power by making a pact with the devil. A competent prime minister might have been able to pull it off but her spectacular incompetence and lack of core beliefs other than that she should be prime minister meant that she just went from disaster to disaster.
He can afford to push the issue because if Labor forces a double dissolution election in order for Abbott to have the numbers then the electorate are likely to punish them further. Rick Bradford said the senate was green dominated, they actually only have 9 of the 76 senators but they hold the balance of power if the LNP and ALP oppose each other. The ALP has the option of supporting a carbon tax scrapping bill and making the greens irrelevant.
Looks like the ALP will choose Bill Shorten to lead them, yet another clown:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2012/apr/27/bill-shorten-loyal-politician-australian
I like this quote from Abbott in this Piece in Spiked.
Time's up for this Ruddy Technocracy
What does it mean?
some of the green meanies , but not enough , looking for work.
perhaps we can say that although a very poor scientists and addicted BS artist , DR pysco , was at least far sighted enough to do a runner to the UK before the house fell down. Although why the RS felt the need to hand him a ton of cash and why Bristol University give him a job , remains a mystery.
I've got to be careful what I say here because I am a confirmed dyed in the wool Aussie advocate, there are no warm rose tinted bespectacled vision of old empire illusions though. Playing on Australia's links with the old country are a personal slight to some and I can fully understand that, having some Irish blood in me.
Australia, should be first with the first world, a 'young' country endowed with enormous mineral and fossilized carbon resources, it should not allow itself to be exploited by the big Asian powers but divide and override and steer an independent path, not isolationist but pragmatic 'Realpolitik'. Of course, Australia's interest lie with and in the Pacific mainly, it should encourage strategic links with the USA and be very wary of the giant from the Yellow sea - trade yes but not allow itself to be pushed around. Links with the old world should still be strong however, the Anglosphere is a strength and we should be maintain our friendship, interchange of people and trade links as equal partners.
Australia's political infatuation with the green mania is something of a total mystery, I can't help but think that, the green disease rolled over from the old world and particularly from the UK, or did you get it all on your own - did the Aus pols get hooked by the USA Jim Hansen brigade/Al Gore/UN lunatics?
The green lobby, was fully installed and embossed by the political claque and many voters in Australia still buy into that pulped fiction [CAGW]. Green policy, carbon emissions targets meant industry was taxed off-shore and an industrial inertia has stymied Australian growth and employment prospects, put it this way, in a nation so bounteously endowed with such rich resources, why is the unemployment level so high? With the caveat that not everyone seeks work of course.
So, the insane situation came about where Australia was not able to smelt and utilise its own resources because the pols thought that carbon emissions targets were more important than the bottom line, that somehow China shipping, smelting steel from iron ore and coal mined in Australia [thus causing world CO2 emissions] - was somehow preferable to Australia doing so - warped thinking? So, Australia has remained mainly a primary producer when it should be the industrial hub - secondary and tertiary big beast - first among equals of the Pacific rim.
Green policies, green inertia and lunatic in-fighting and a confusion of ideals has kept Australia back, lets hope that Tony Abbot can start to put Australia up where it belongs because a strong and prosperous Australia benefits the whole world.
There has been a lot of talk of "Left" and "Right" at one time in my life I have voted for all three major parties. Next time I will vote for the party with sensible policies on 1) Energy 2) Protecting our boarders 3) Sound economics (that means not wasting money on getting to Birmingham 28 mins earlier). So far, God forbid, it looks like UKIP ! I think voters in OZ have taken the same line and voted for sound government.
"Sorry mate, but you did not do your duty ... you wimped out."
No Streetcred, sHx didn't. I have no idea what the formal definition of a democracy is but these three should feature -
1. freedom of expression
2. freedom of association
3. freedom to vote
We have them all but we also have enforced compulsory voting. Only 10 countries in the world do that and we are one of them. That's why we have a large number of informal votes and in the recent Senate election we get the ridiculous situation where a virtually unknown party looks like getting a seat because they were first LHS on the ballot paper. And another with 0.5% of the primary vote. I'm guessing, but I presume sHx voted informal because he couldn't be bothered going through the bureaucratic BS involved with being pursued by the Electoral Commission and paying the $20 fine. I haven't voted for 40 years because I refuse to grace such enforced electoral stupidity by lobbing up and writing GF on the voting paper. I just send 20 bucks in a week early. Saves paperwork all round.
Some say, well you haven't got the right to complain about anything, Bullshit, see point 1 above. I didn't vote for Tony Abbott because I refuse to be forced to turn up and vote, but I am delighted he is now Prime Minister because of all things he WILL get rid of our stupid carbon tax. Even better, he is slowly but surely crushing the Greens.
jones -I've said it before and will say it again, Abbott will not repeal the carbon tax. I'll have a lazy ton to say he will within the duration of this parliament. Loser pays to the Bishop's tip jar.
When we had local elections recently there were over 30 candidates on the ballot paper. Only two had sent us information about themselves. My wife voted to avoid the hassle of the fine but she felt she had no choice other than to spoil her vote as she otherwise ran the risk of voting in someone whose politics she is opposed to. The whole thing is a farce. You should be able to just vote for the candidate or candidates of your choice and leave the other boxes empty. As per my comment above, my wife would have preferred to just put a 1 against the LNP and leave it at that. If the candidate you vote for doesn't get enough votes to proceed to the next round of counting you are saying that you want your vote binned and not transferred to someone you don't support, and that should be your right.
Thon Brocket (Sep 8, 2013 at 7:59 AM):
You may be right; Lincoln may have been quoting him (what a rat – giving quotations without attribution! Makes him seem so… American, I suppose… or in the mould of Galilieo, a great man who was also happy to accept the accolade due to others), or there may have been coincidence in thinking. Those quotations I offered are more commonly attributed to Lincoln, though.
As for our cousins in Britain’s more extreme southern counties – let’s hope your new PM has more about him than Britain’s present (and all the hopeful wannabes, of which there are rather too many) PM. Let’s hope he cleaves to what he is quoted as saying by Hector Pascal: “Government’s job is rarely to tell people what to do; mostly, it’s to make it easier for people to make their own choices.”
It means being a warming sceptic or opponent of mass immigration is electorally popular even when ABC (like the BBC) propagandises against it - good news for UKIP.
It also means the BBC (like ABC) is not only a totalitarian, big state, propaganda organisation making no attempt to show balance but it is also less powerful than it used to be.
Congratulations Australia!
Way to go!
Viva Australia!
Blimey, they even have a WikiLeaks party.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/07/assange_fails_in_bid_for_election_to_australian_senate/
"... I have never voted for a right-wing party and never will..."
Sep 8, 2013 at 12:03 AM | sHx
Isn't that the definition of bigotry?" I am unavailable to reason, evidence and persuasion, my mind is closed". Tribal Leftism. It comes fitted as standard for those whose ideas fail to withstand scrutiny. For them, National Socialism will mysteriously always be "right wing". You can see why.
Athelstan wrote:
You have got an important truth right there. Not everything in Australia is a half-shadow of Empire or even Europe. It's not only insulting - well, annoying, we don't get insulted that easily - but misleading to assume that.
But then you almost fall prey to that fallacy yourself by musing that Greenie-ism must have belatedly trickled down to Australia from elsewhere.
Some cultural phenomena could be said to originate in Australia, and one of those is probably the idea of the Green Party. Not only was Petra Kelly inspired by the "Green Bans" of Jack Mundey and the BLF, but the UTG of Tasmania is said to be the first established Green Party" anywhere. Look them up.
Cameron's congratulations to climate sceptical, carbon tax abolishing, international aid cutting,Tony Abbott on his election victory are unbelievably sincere-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2414825/Tony-Abbott-called-David-Cameron-congratulate-election-win.html
Sep 8, 2013 at 5:26 AM | Mooloo
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Your duty is to put the needs of your country ahead of your personal political grievances ... if you don't like either, then vote for the one that is going to provide the best outcome, overall, for the majority of your fellow countrymen. It is not a difficult concept to grasp. Spoiling a vote is wimping out.
Sep 8, 2013 at 5:33 AM | johanna
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Thanks for your response, Jo ... I understand what you say, my in-laws have the same history, it's a bit like turning around an oil tanker.
:) Smithy's blogsite is a source of daily inspiration proving that there are intelligent fellow Aussies equally as appalled with the corruption as we are. My experience leads me to believe that the corruption was already endemic in Bob Hawke and Keating's days, just not that evident ... how does a union hack, only ever 'worked' in the union movement, with a penchant of antique clocks and piggeries, become so fabulously wealthy all of a sudden ?
Commenter Radical Rodent
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/lincoln/prosperity.asp
Rev. William John Henry Boetcker, but the wisdom in the words is not lost.
I've always found my experience of visiting and living in Australia like stepping back in the 1970s!
Phil R (Sep 9, 2013 at 2:17 AM):
Thank you for putting my right – so Lincoln was not the cad as appeared, filching others’ works for himself. Sadly, though, the wisdom of those words is being lost; look at the politics of envy that is endemic in the UK, and has been for decades: “I’m not rich – why should you be allowed to be!” Even sadder is that it is a philosophy spreading like cancer through the “western” world.
Anon - ah yes, the 70's in Oz. Those were the days my friend. We were out of Vietnam, life was good. Jump in the Kombi, down to the beach; fishing, surfing, great music, bronzed bikini clad sheilas, half a beast on the barby, crates of cold ones or a squiffy for those so inclined.
Not a knuckle cracking, hand wringing, climate change worrymeister within cooee. I'm delighted you enjoyed the experience, I certainly did. Love to see you back again.
No, really.
Ah yes, nothing sums 70s Australia up better than this (1980-released) song:
http://youtu.be/cFKxbr4_-Vc
Cheap wine indeed. Now Aus wine costs more in Aus than in the UK. The days when greenies were a pressure group , not a political party, and protested about pollution and demolition but didn't try to stop every project, everywhere, from getting off the ground.
GrantB...think you missed the point! Oz now is like the UK in the 70s!
Oz now is not like the UK, or anywhere else, in the 70s. I was in both Australia and UK during that decade. Australia's legacy manufacturing industries left the country in the 1980s when protectionism was largely abandoned, just like the UK's did, although Australia did it under a Labor govt without the union confrontation of the Thatcher years in the UK. Perhaps it would have been better if there had been a showdown..
I was more referring to the backward nature of the society! Midly racist, midly sexist! mildly culture (less)!
And you, John are big on stupidity, ignorance and prejudice. Troll elsewhere.
As are you Mr Pascal...ouch! You old guys on this blog are might sensitive.
Forgot to add...many who post on here, comment with ignornace, stupidity and prejudice, why only shout 'troll' when it comes from someone who clearly disagrees with your world view. If you are unable to pick up on a poor attempt at humour...then I'm sorry for you.
DNFTT
No, you misunderstand me, I know of the old battles in Tassie and I've also been around the block. Environmentalism, the neo-enviro's are a different beastie, cross fertilisation of bonkers ideas and international groupthink these days pervades these loony green covens - from Australia to the EU and Britain, LA to NYC and up to Newfoundland and beyond.
We have a brain-dead set of eco-loonies in England and most of them probably originated from the ban the bomb era and the cultural Marxist lunacy beginning in the late sixties, left wing campuses helped enormously along with new courses, Trotsky and Mao were still 'in' - in sociology and the humanities - environmental science has a lot to answer for.
Here, there are no virgin forests or 'unspoilt' landscapes in Blighty. The British greenies are always labouring under the self induced illusion [see Balcombe] the idea that 'we' are despoiling a wonderful natural landscape when in actual fact industry and manufacturing have been going [everywhere including the South Downs] on in this country for the better part of 6000 years.
Australia, in the outset had a cause - in Tasmania [save the ancient woodlands] and other regions from the Flinders to the Kimberleys. Now, eco-warriors - it's the same BS and the same tired script MAN MADE WARMING[!!!] - they're all the bloody same - watermelons, whether they are born in Sydney or, London.
In the Pilbara, an ancient craton - I'd be slightly compromised - yes stuff needs to be mined, the area is so rich in mineral resources but how can you mine with ecology and local sensibilities in mind - I dunno. Still, I know mother nature can heal herself - she disdainfully sniggers at mankind and his puny crustal scratchings and we should have the sense to know it. 'More things under heaven and earth' and all.