Turnbull effectively pulls Australian out of Paris Climate Agreement, but still wants to meet carbon reduction commitments “for free”. By Joanne Nova.
Faced with a possible and imminent challenge from Peter Dutton, a limping Malcolm Turnbull has done the barest minimum just to stay in power. He has capitulated, and won’t try to mandate the Paris agreement through law, but he still wants the nation to meet the Paris agreement. If he had pushed it through Parliament he would have faced a leadership challenge for sure, and pundits are saying it’s still likely. How long will liberal lemmings allow him to lead and give up the easiest, well trodden and winning election strategy?
Tony Abbott is leading the nation from the back bench.
Most of the party is too afraid to even talk about how much warming humans may be causing lest they be called a “denier” for doubting that it is not exactly the same as an unaudited, unelected and unaccountable foreign committee says. The nation can’t even have a sensible public discussion on climate change.
As Andrew Bolt says Turnbulls leadership is now terminal. His clumsy gambit to present the NEG as a done deal too early shows how non-consultative he is, how bad his judgement is, and makes those that defended it look like fools.
The new “Ministerial Agreement” arrangement may be worse because it probably suits the Deep State even better. Decisions about whether to proceed will be done by a Minister advised by unelected committees using models based on a bunch of assumptions about “the cost”. Turnbull has led the party for three years while electricity costs have jumped seismically and now he just wants to keep prices at this obscene level? …
ABC viewers blind-sided by reality again:
On Tuesday The ABC news audience heard what a unified success it was for Turnbull to get the NEG through the party meeting. It turns out this was a complete bluff — most of the party didn’t even know what was in the plan (the Labor Party got a copy before them). The ABC didn’t point out the obvious — that speaking up against it, or threatening to cross the floor was a major risk, so Turnbull’s gambit was that he might get the illusion of support and unity by railroading it past the party in a high stakes situation. Instead it took other journalists at The Australian and on radio — Ray Hadley — to ask the right questions and expose how deep the resentment was and how fragile the “unity”. So fragile that three days after his big win Turnbull’s head was almost on a block. We pay a billion dollars for blind propaganda. …
The NEG was not about electricity costs, it was (is) primarily about emissions:
The purpose of the NEG was first and foremost to lock in emissions reductions. Fines for failure to cut emissions are one hundred times higher than fines for failing to provide electricity.
Daniel Wild, IPA: “The NEG is functional equivalent to the Renewable Energy Target, an Emissions Trading Scheme, an Emissions Intensity Scheme, and a carbon tax.”
When it comes to climate, the PC left and Malcolm Turnbull just cannot help themselves. It’s all spin and deception, because they cannot brook any compromise or face the possibility that the carbon dioxide theory of global warming is greatly exaggerated.
Turnbull lost the leadership of his Party in 2009 because he deceived his party and forced through his climate wishes over the majority of the Liberal Party — which promptly elected Tony Abbott instead. And here he goes again, apparently.
