Who is Henry Ergas and why did he hop aboard Teh Rabbit's Fright Bus?

Prompted by a tongue-in-cheek Jeremy Sear tweet asking the questions “Where the hell is Henry Ergas pulling this "$1 trillion" figure for the carbon price from? And who is Henry Ergas anyway?” I went looking for answers.

This is Henry:

Pic from The Australian

This is what what Wollongong University has to say about Henry:

Professor Ergas is a well-known regulatory economist who held a range of leading positions at the OECD before returning to Australia in the mid-1990s. He chaired the Australian Intellectual Property and Competition Review Committee for the Australian Government in 1999-2000 and was a member of the Prime Minister’s Export Infrastructure Task Force in 2005 and the Defence Industry Policy Review in 2006. He has published extensively on infrastructure regulation and cost-benefit analysis."

This is what Liberal Party hacks have been saying about Henry:

“evidence before the inquiry by Professor Henry Ergas, the carbon tax will cost the Australian economy more than $1 trillion between now and 2050.”

This is what The Prof tells the Murdoch meeja:

“the carbon tax will cost a year's national income: that is, $1 trillion.”

This is what the Liberal Party’s best mate told the Senate Carbon Tax Inquiry on 10^th August 2011:

“Yes. What is available that Treasury have indeed released, and I congratulate them on doing so, is a spreadsheet that is similar to a spreadsheet that they had released for the CPRS model and that spreadsheet allows you to look at the change in the value of GDP under the base case, as it were, and with the so-called core policy, which is the primary abatement scenario that they model, and also under the so-called high-price scenario, which is where you go for more ambitious abatement. So what you can do, Senator, is you can use that spreadsheet—and you do need to make a number of assumptions—to calculate the value today of the change in GDP under those alternative carbon tax scenarios. To put it in perhaps simplistic terms—but this may help explain what is going on—say that in 2020 GDP would otherwise have been $2 trillion and instead, under the modelling of the core policy, it is $1.8 trillion, and in 2030 it would have been $3 trillion and instead is $2.6 trillion, you can take that difference and express it as if it were a value today. You can bring it back to the present. To do that you have to find some way of adding up amounts at different points in time. You have to take some account of the time value of money. In the calculation that I set out, I used a discount rate—that is, the assumed time value of money, as it were, that is used in the Garnaut report. When you do that, you get a GDP loss that is in the order of somewhere between $890 billion and $1.345 trillion for the core policy scenario. I rounded it to about $1 trillion.”

This is the conclusion he drew for the Business Council of Australia:

The Gillard government's emissions trading scheme poses a $9 billion risk to the already stretched federal budget in its first five years if carbon price estimates prove optimistic

And this is how good an economist ol’ Henry is:

Extracted from ASIC's database at AEST 20:14:00 on 15/10/2011

 

Name	NETWORK ECONOMICS CONSULTING GROUP PTY LTD
ACN	006 819 969
ABN	72 006 819 969
Type	Australian Proprietary Company, Limited By Shares
Registration Date	27/07/1987
Next Review Date	27/07/2010
Status	Deregistered Date Deregistered 21/10/2009
Locality of Registered Office	not available
Jurisdiction	Australian Securities & Investments Commission
Former Name(s)	ERGAS & ASSOCIATES PTY. LTD.
	WATRON PTY. LTD.
Extracted from ASIC's database at AEST 20:41:54 on 15/10/2011

 

Name	CONCEPT ECONOMICS PTY LTD
ACN	129 990 530
Type	Australian Proprietary Company, Limited By Shares
Registration Date	03/03/2008
Next Review Date	03/03/2012
Status	Deregistered Date Deregistered 08/05/2011
Locality of Registered Office	not available
Jurisdiction	Australian Securities & Investments Commission

From Bloomberg Business Week:

Network Economics Consulting Group Pty. Ltd. provides economic and strategic advisory services.

Mr. Henry Ergas Managing Director  

From Manta:

Concept Economics Pty Ltd

Henry Issac Simon Ergas Director

Inevitable conclusion – why on earth would I trust the carbon tax sums done by a Menzies House amigo who apparently couldn’t balance the books of two businesses?

Some advice for polluter: sell a couple of racehorses, pay your bills and get your house in order!

South Grafton abattoir owner Ramsey Food Processing has been found in contempt of court relating to initial charges of polluting waterways in 2008.

On Thursday, Justice Sheahan of the New South Wales Land and Environment Court held the company in contempt of court orders and noted "for the record" that the defendant did not appear at the day's hearing.

Ramsey Food Processing failed to carry out an environmental audit of the abattoir's operation and failed to place notices in local and State newspapers to notify the public.

Justice Sheahan adjourned the contempt proceedings for further hearing on conviction and sentence on December 7 and 8, 2011.

He ordered the defendant to pay the costs of the prosecutor's motion "as agreed or assessed".

Read the full report in today's Daily Examiner here.

Source: The Daily Examiner, 15/10/11

Translation: I really don't like the Nationals pre-selection candidate

One of NSW Nationals preselection candidates in the run up to the Clarence by-election gets a vote of no confidence from one local in a letter to the editor in today’s The Daily Examiner:
I HAVE written a letter that I hope can be published and shared among the people of the Clarence Valley.
This letter has to do with the preselection occurring in the area and may very well help the people of the valley to vote right in order to assure the best, most promising candidate is chosen this weekend.
In 2007, Nationals Party MP Ian Causley retired after serving the party for 11 years. It was then that Chris Gulaptis (local man of Maclean at the time) became the new Nationals candidate.
While Mr Gulaptis was putting up a tough campaign, he still faced a difficult contest from his Labor opponent Janelle Saffin throughout the election.
The November 24, 2007, federal election revealed that Janelle Saffin accumulated more votes than Gulaptis from within the communities and was sure to be the better MP out of the two.
This outcome left many National Party members and supporters extremely disappointed.
During the campaign, Mr Gulaptis made himself well known as a friendly, compassionate and dedicated candidate.
When the announcement came through that Ms Saffin had won the seat and defeated Gulaptis, it wasn't too long before the people of the National Party realised there was another side to their "perfect candidate".
It is only expected that after an election is held, win or lose, that the candidate shows some form of appreciation and gratitude towards his/her members and volunteers - normally an after celebration.
Mr Gulaptis provided nothing for his party.
In fact, for a man who loved the party so much, it proved easy for him to decide that working in politics was no longer of interest to him.
He walked from the Nationals and left the Clarence Valley with his tail between his legs.
It is for that reason Gulaptis sounded like a media clown when he commented: "The Nationals on the North Coast are like a second family to me." The former candidate has always claimed that he relocated to Mackay in 2008 for work reasons.
There, in north Queensland, he had found himself a new career at a surveying firm and became responsible for its management.
It was not his decision to leave that left the people of the Valley saddened, but the shock of how soon it happened after the election.
The people of the Clarence Valley should want their chosen candidate to be somebody who is true to themselves and can be trusted; somebody who will show more concern about the people and the community in which he/she lives than themselves and their reputation. If Chris Gulaptis is appointed to the seat, all we can hope for is that the going never gets tough.
THERESE MANNING,
Maclean

Pic from The Daily Examiner

Saturday's Adult LOL

2010

In the US and in the online adult industry making those DVDs

http://bit.ly/qtaQmd

2011

In Australia with complete memory loss concerning any adult content

http://bit.ly/niRA7X

The Movie Rights Group which obviously thought no-one would notice. LOL.