Ever wondered what is included in Tony Abbott's Direct Action plan?

Australian voters have been hearing about Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s greenhouse gas emissions policy for some years now.

This appears to be the core of the opt-in Direct Action Plan:

The Emissions Reduction Fund is the centrepiece of the Government’s Direct Action Plan….

The Emissions Reduction Fund will provide incentives for businesses, not punish them…..

The Emissions Reduction Fund will focus on lowest-cost emissions reductions…..

Emissions reduction methods will set out the rules for estimating emissions reductions from different activities.

the Emissions Reduction Fund has three elements:

            crediting emissions reductions

            purchasing emissions reductions, and

            safeguarding emissions reductions…..

The safeguard mechanism will apply at the facility level rather than the company level and will be restricted to facilities with direct emissions of 100 000 tonnes of CO2-e a year or more. This approach will make the mechanism highly efficient by covering approximately 52 per cent of Australia’s emissions while limiting the number of covered businesses to around 130….

The Government will work with businesses to establish a flexible framework for complying with the safeguard in the unlikely event of baselines being exceeded…..

A menu of methods will be available so that businesses can easily participate in the Emissions Reduction Fund using the methods that best suit their specific projects…..

As occurs under the Carbon Farming Initiative, Australian Carbon Credit Units will constitute personal property with legal title registered on the Australian National Registry of Emissions Units. This will provide certainty for businesses and ensure that emissions reductions are credible. It will also give businesses the flexibility to sell their credits into the Emissions Reduction Fund or to use them in other ways, such as in voluntary offset programmes…. [Abbott Government Emissions Reduction Fund White Paper 2014]

As befits any Abbott Government policy, the Direct Action plan is still rather vague on precise detail.

However, this hilarious little anti-burping, anti-farting kill-em-early-and-kill-em-plenty management plan is apparently being considered for absorption into the Emissions Reduction Fund:

Herd management projects

(1) For paragraph 106(1)(a) of the Act, this determination applies to an emissions avoidance offsets project which can reasonably be expected to avoid emissions from cattle by any of the following:

(a) reducing the average number of days from birth to slaughter in the herd;

(b) reducing the average age of the herd;

(c) reducing the number of animals in the herd.

Greatest area of need for people with disability left unmet by Abbott Government according to the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations

Media Release 6 Jan 2015:

‘Greatest area of need for people with disability left unmet by Government’ said Matthew Wright, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations (AFDO) and spokesperson for the disability peaks.

Responding to claims in The Australian newspaper by Minister for Social Services, Scott Morrison that the new peaks funding ‘supports the area of greatest need’, Matthew Wright said “The department has cut or not provided funding to the highest population groups of people with disability in Australia’.

Both the NDIS quarterly report and Disability Support Pension (DSP) statistics show consistently that intellectual disability, autism (also the fastest growing disability), mental illness and physical disability are the four most prevalent types of disability.

‘All of these groups including the National Council on Intellectual Disability, Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia (A4), and Physical Disability Australia have not been funded as part of this process’.

Bob Buckley, Convenor of A4 said “No other disability organisation at the national level has any effective track record of representation or advocacy across the full spectrum of people living with autism.  People with some of the worst disability outcomes are again left without funded support.”

Support to over 200,000 Australians with a disability will be ceased as part of the process, and any protection from adverse action for the most vulnerable Australians will be lost’.

“Intellectual disability is consistently one of the top three primary conditions in DSP and NDIS data” said Mark Pattison, CEO of National Council on Intellectual Disability.

We are still urgently seeking a meeting with Minister Scott Morrison, said Matthew Wright. 

The disability peaks support the push for a Senate Inquiry into the process that has led to people with disability being left without essential support.

Please direct all media enquiries to Mr Matthew Wright on 0428 608 861. 

Even Liberal Party rank and file detest Tony Abbott

Letter to the Editor in The Sydney Morning Herald on 24 December 2014:

Tony Abbott will never learn. His harsh and inhumane policies on refugees, young people, the unemployed and so on have already (and deservedly) earned him acute unpopularity. Now he appoints his henchman Morrison to apply his blowtorch to all social welfare recipients.

One thing he can be sure of – he heads a one-term government. The untrustworthy Bill Shorten, of all people, is destined to become our next prime minister by absolute default.

Having once been NSW and federal president of the Liberal  Party I have to say shame on you Abbott, Morrison and Hockey. You three may get your just desserts. But in the process you will have dumped on the entire Liberal Party community.

John Valder 

Bayview

Lapse in taste by News Corp

Hot on the heels of News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch's December 2014 callous tweet comes The Guardian 9 January 2015 report of this exercise in bad taste:  

News Corp Australia’s most popular magazine insert has advertised for fashion interns by using a photo of a young woman dressed in underwear on all fours on a bed.

Best Headline of the Holidays

BOOM, BOOM! Best of Tony Abbott Jokes

Found on Twitter  ‏@wrb330 

News Corp masthead accuses rival media outlets of "co-opting readers into group think"

On 3 January 2015 The Australian decided it was time to give its readers the chance to laugh at the editorial staff by accusing others of its own journalistic sins:

This may come as a surprise to @JohnQuiggin but we love a contest of ideas. And we’d love to see the same ethos alive at other media outlets. We’d take great delight if controversial, unorthodox views were to be found on a regular basis on, say, Fairfax websites or the ABC. Sadly, with few exceptions, the editorial policy appears to be more about co-opting readers into groupthink, the enemy of rigorous, informative and productive public debate. Memo to the ABC’s Mark Scott and Greg Hywood at Fairfax Media: Journalism is not sociology.

GROUND ZERO: a rather strange use for a little Google api

Carlos Labs asks: Have you ever wondered what would happen if a nuclear bomb goes off in your city? 

Here is ground zero on what would possibly be three popular targets if the political opinion polls were weaponised:

Remembering Julia Gillard - Part Two

Julia Gillard became Prime Minister of Australia on 24 June 2010. After the federal election in August 2010 she formed a minority government. Ms. Gillard ceased to be prime minister on 27 June 2013.

Below are the measurable effects of her government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL GREENHOUSE ACCOUNTS Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, June Quarter 2012

Emissions increased in the June quarter 2012, with trend emissions growth subdued at 0.0% and seasonally adjusted and weather normalised emissions increasing 0.4% on the

previous quarter (Figures 1-3).

The fugitive emissions sector increased in trend emissions for the June quarter 2012 (section 2.4). This increase was offset by decreases in emissions from the electricity (section 2.1) and industrial processes (section 2.5) sectors, which resulted in zero trend growth for the quarter.

Annual emissions for the year to June 2012 are estimated to be 551.0 Mt CO2-e. This represents a small decline in emissions of 0.1% when compared to the year to June 2011.

                                                                    

The national carbon pricing mechanism (popularly known as the carbon tax) introduced by the Labor Gillard Government began on 1 July 2012.

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL GREENHOUSE ACCOUNTS Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, June Quarter 2013

Emissions increased in the June quarter 2013, with both trend and seasonally adjusted emissions growing by 0.3% (Figures 1-3).

Agriculture (section 2.6), industrial processes (section 2.5) and transport (section 2.3) sectors contributed to the quarterly trend increase in emissions. This was partially offset by trend decreases in emissions in the stationary energy excluding electricity (section 2.2) and fugitive emissions (section 2.4) sectors.

Annual emissions for 2012-13 are estimated to be 545.9 Mt CO2-e. This represents a 0.1% decline in emissions when compared with the previous year.

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL GREENHOUSE ACCOUNTS Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: June 2014

Emissions increased in the June quarter 2014, with trend emissions growing 0.4% on March 2014; increases in the stationary energy (section 2.2), electricity (section 2.1) and agriculture (section 2.6) sectors were partially offset by decreases in transport (section 2.3) and fugitive emissions (section 2.4). Seasonally adjusted emissions increased 0.2% (Figures 1-3).

Annual emissions for 2013-14 are estimated to be 542.6 Mt CO2-e3. This represents a 1.4% decline in emissions when compared with the previous year.

Over 2013-14, there was a decline in emissions from electricity (section 2.1), reflecting lower electricity demand and changes in the generation mix. Emissions from transport (section 2.3), industrial processes (section 2.5) and agriculture (section 2.6) also declined over the year. These declines were partially offset by increases in the fugitive emissions (section 2.4) and stationary energy (excluding electricity) (section 2.2) sectors.

The national carbon pricing mechanism was ended by the Abbott Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government on 1 July 2014.

Professor of Geology and Director of Melbourne Energy Institute at University of Melbourne, Mike Stanford, 4 November 2014

Across the National Electricity Market (NEM) we are tracking towards an extra 14 million tonnes CO2 for FY2014-15 compared to FY2013-14. If we get lower than average rain, electricity sector emissions might grow by a few more million tonnes and exceed 10% over the year.

The pertinent numbers are shown in the figure below. In the first hundred days since the repeal NEM emissions were up 4 million tonnes on the equivalent period last financial year according to figures from the market operator AEMO.

CEDEX Carbon Emissions Index, November 2014

In the June 2014 CEDEX® report we said “it now appears that June 2014 may mark the low point of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions for the foreseeable future”.  That is what is now happening. 

Why the rest of Australia is hoping the 31 January 2015 ballot box delivers a fair go for Queenslanders

Once the age of digital news dawned it would be fair to say that a good many Australians began to know something of the politics (and the woes of long-suffering voters) in states other than their own.

Such is the case with Queensland.

However, many of their fellow citizens are not just hoping that Queenslanders get a a fair go and that Campbell Newman's regime dies at the state election ballot box on 31 January 2015 because of the personal, societal, economic, institutional and environmental damage the Liberal-National Party has inflicted

No, it's also because of an unhealthy political friendship. An association with the person and ideology of this man below, seen in too many photographs with Premier Newman for their bond to be ignored.

Click on image to enlarge