'How to stop the US sabotaging a global response to climate change' in one easy lesson

Once again we have witnessed the United States impose its will on a reluctant world. The UN December 2007 conference on the Kyoto Protocol and climate change has bowed to American pressure. The Bali 'roadmap' has been watered down until it is simply another signal that it's acceptable to continue to go slowly on any global response to climate change.

 

Sometimes it seems that US economic might and defence capability leaves us all with no choice but to cave-in when this bully thumps the table to protect what it sees as its own economic 'divine right'. However, concern over global warming is so widespread that ordinary people now have an issue which unites their individual economic power into an international might which could take on the US.

 

So if you are one of those ordinary little people who want to see global warming tackled before it is too late, use your personal economic power to send a message to America to shape up or ship out. Decide today that you will no longer buy goods, services, products or produce which originate in the US or come from US-owned companies.

Boycott America until it decides to become a responsible global citizen.

 

Where to start? Look at the labels on groceries stacked on supermarket shelves, make sure you check company and country of origin on those jeans, CDs, stereos, TVs, washing machines etc., that you are thinking of buying. If you own shares, become an ethical investor and dump any that represent US-owned companies. 

What better way than to start than with the Fortune 500 at:

 http://www.fortune500s.net/fortune500-list.php 

 

If America only views the world through the prism of its own short-term economic bottom line - let us all give it a bottom line to remember in 2008.

Australia leading from the rear on climate change

Fair dinkum, it's embarrassing. There's the Rudd Government huddled at the bottom of a Bali trench yelling "Charge!" and urging other nations over the top in this latest battle of the War on Global Warming.

While the Rudd Government's loyal opposition, protected by its non-combatant status, hands out white feathers to delegates as they move up to the firing steps.

I know Minister for Climate Change and Water Penny Wong is probably breaking her heart trying to do a good job at the UN conference, but it is disappointing to see a new government (which earlier this year promised Australia that it would have 20% renewable energy by 2020 and committed itself to establishing domestic emission reduction targets) publicly and privately knuckle under to American interests in this way.

It's no way to fight a war. It's no way to tackle climate change. It's no way to protect Australia's future.

Like many others on the North Coast I await dispatches from the front this morning and hope for better news.

Why are greedy tax cheats accorded protected species status?

Adele Horin in The Sydney Morning Herald (December 15), has rightfully pointed out the slanted position taken by authorities when addressing the issue of moneys missing from the public purse.

Horin takes a look at how welfare cheats and tax cheats are treated in Australia.

Welfare cheats are soft targets so they get a hammering but tax cheats, who are a protected species, get easy runs home.

In part, Horin wrote:

If tax cheats were hounded as assiduously as welfare cheats, Australia would be better off. But under the old regime, welfare cheats - so-called - were pursued to the ends of the Earth while tax cheats slid under the radar.

Millions of dollars were poured into detecting welfare fraud while in the last years of the Howard government one-third as much was spent tracking down tax cheats, according to budget papers.

The inequity led Professor John Braithwaite, of the Australian National University, an expert on corporate crime, to remark last year that the DPP had taken "soft, easy cases and they are the frauds of poor people. The frauds of sophisticated rich people who are aggressively defended by the best lawyers money can buy deliver lower success rates [to the DPP]."

The government stood to recoup far more from tax cheats than from welfare cheats. On economic grounds alone, it should have ramped up the fight against tax avoiders. According to budget papers, for every dollar spent chasing tax avoiders, the government would recoup $7.53 compared with only $1.94 from the welfare fraudsters. In the end, fewer than 3500 people are convicted of welfare fraud in a year from a population of 6.5 million social security recipients.

Read the entire article "Tax dodgers laughing as the poor are hounded" at:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/tax-dodgers-laughing-as-the-poor-are-hounded/2007/12/14/1197568262862.html


Unfortunately, Horin didn't include superannuation cheats in her article. Although they didn't get a mention, superannuation cheats are out there in big numbers.

So, you ask, "Who are the superannuation cheats?"

Answer: These cheats are thieving employers who do not make the mandatory super contributions for their employees.

"Who's responsible for ensuring employers do the right thing and meet their responsibilities and pay their employees' super?"

Answer: The Australian Taxation Office.

"If the ATO doesn't address the issue of tax cheats properly how can it be expected to address the problem of super cheats?"

Answer: To use the words of Horin, "more hounding, and more tabloid headlines, would not go astray."

PS:
Memo to all employees - contact your super fund and check to see that your employer has paid your super in full. Unfortunately, many employees are being dudded every pay period. Their pay slips show how much super should be going to their fund BUT their employers are pocketing it for themselves.

You can change the racing silks but the nag remains a nag and not a thoroughbred

The post-election Liberals yet again showing signs of desperation.

"Queensland Liberal Senator Ian Macdonald, the former Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation, today urged the Nationals to join the Liberals to form a united conservative party.

He said it was a "farce" that the two parties pretend to be different.

It's not the first merger proposal between the two parties, with then prime minister John Howard and Nationals leader Mark Vaile blocking a proposal from Queensland Nationals leader Lawrence Springborg and his Liberal counterpart Bob Quinn in 2006."

The Australian article yesterday:
 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22924634-12377,00.html

 

I would have thought that the Nationals only chance to regain ground over the next three years lay in donning their own distinctive colours, distancing themselves from the now discredited Liberal Party parliamentary nags and running candidates against their current coalition partner at the 2010 federal election.

As it now stands the Liberals frequently treat them as an irrelevancy - so why shouldn't voters.

Stakes raised in opposition to Japanese whale hunt

Australia is looking to the Rudd Government to begin active protection of whales in Australian territorial waters.

"The Humane Society International is seeking a Federal Court injunction to stop the Japanese whalers and says the public will expect strong action from the Rudd Government if the group is successful.

"They will be required to stop the hunt," HSI spokeswoman Nicola Beynon said to ABC radio.

"The traditional means for stopping the hunt would be to intercept the ships and forcibly stop the hunt.

"And if the Government's not prepared to do that, the Humane Society International and the Australian public will be expecting them to find some other means of stopping the hunt."

 

The Coalition squibs it.

"While the Coalition opposes the whale hunt, Dr Nelson – the former defence minister – says the proposal to use the navy to gather evidence on Japan's whalers raises more questions that it answers.

And he is worried it could harm strong security and trade ties with Japan."

 

News.com.au article yesterday:

 http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22924711-29277,00.html

A blast from the past

Just for the record, this snap shows Chris Gulaptis (middle), who was the National Party's unsuccessful candidate for Page in the 2007 Federal election, providing 'advice' to the current State MP for Clarence Steve Candsell (left) and the former Federal MP for Page Ian Causley.

Whatever Chris said, it wasn't worth a cracker.

Coalition still in terminal post-election spiral?

The Liberal Party has been locked in its own internal blame game at federal level and is tearing itself apart at state level in Western Australia, Queensland and the ACT, with the Liberals ACT leader Bill Sefaniak being the most recent victim to lose his head on the block.
Continuing Federal Liberal leadership speculation indicates the blame game is not about to end anytime soon.
The Age article today:
http://news.theage.com.au/turnbull-denies-leadership-challenge/20071214-1h29.html

Here is an short honour role of the principal blame gamers.
Andrew Robb:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/13/2117529.htm?section=australia
Wilson Tuckey:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/12/2117120.htm?section=justin
Alexander Downer:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22895466-33435,00.html
Brian Loughnane:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22916201-2702,00.html
Malcolm Turnbull:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/libs-blessed-to-have-turnbull-nelson/2007/12/02/1196530481020.html
Peter Costello:
http://news.sbs.com.au/worldnewsaustralia/costello_blames_howard_for_election_loss_136671
Tony Abbott:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/libs-turn-on-howard/2007/11/26/1196036812217.html
Christopher Pyne and Nick Minchin:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/articles/2007/11/26/1196036846690.html