Despite my Re-blogging of Yale’s Clive Palmer post and my, well, less than complementary assessment of the fat man it seems that of he is true to his word he may just be able to Save the Abbott government from itself by preventing the creation of the expensive and pointless “direct action ” climate policy .
Clive Palmer has declared the Abbott government’s Direct Action policy is “dead”, saying his Palmer United Party will use its numbers in the Senate to block the Coalition’s policy to replace the carbon tax.
Mr Palmer said on Monday the controversial policy, which aims to reduce emissions largely through payments to businesses, was “hopeless” and would be “gone” if his party, Labor and the Greens all vote against it, as they have previously indicated.
“It’s goodbye Direct Action,” Mr Palmer told Fairfax Media.
“It’s gone.”
Mr Palmer had said earlier in the day he would not support Direct Action if the Abbott government made any changes to the pension, in light of
growing speculation that there are plans to raise the pension age to 70 and tighten eligibility requirements.
But on Monday afternoon Mr Palmer went a step further and said there would not be any circumstance in which his party would vote for Direct Action.
The government plans to spend up to $1.55 billion over the next three years on the scheme, but several senior economists have questioned whether Direct Action can meet its emissions reduction target of 5 per cent by 2020 with that budget.
Mr Palmer said the policy did not make economic sense and questioned whether it would have any environmental effect.
“We can’t see any reason to vote for Direct Action,” Mr Palmer said.
“We think it’s hopeless.”
The green religion is worse than the Spanish inquisition #qanda.
— Iain Hall (@theiainhall) April 21, 2014
Its a nice bit of sport for a Monday night Comrades
Iain Hall's SANDPIT 
and your solution given that you believe that there is no problem remains a blank canvas. (place head back in sand)
describing Clive Palmer as the “fat man” adds nothing to your assessment of the individual other than showing your childish school yard attittude. personally I am looking forward to the fun and games that are round the corner.
Les
Do know what is worse than doing nothing about a problem?
Its doing something that will not even come close to having a the slightest effect upon it. That is what both the carbon tax and Direct Action really are they are both doing the wrong thing because both can have only the tiniest possible effect on the climate and both cost or economy a great deal of treasure and administrative cost. The simple fact is that I am NOT burying my head in the sand on the Climate change issue at all its you true believers in AGW who are doing that by being wilfully blind to the impotence of all of the mooted “solutions” even when it glaringly obvious that they can never work as the Profits of your faith insist that they need to do.
Finally Palmer is unhealthily obese and looking the other way and pretending otherwise is stupid. In any case my point was to highlight the contrast between the smallness of what he is claiming with his rather gross corporeal manifestation.
right
Yes I know that I’m right on this Les 😉
Palmer’s just grandstanding (again), Iain. He can’t block the budget (and thereby defeat the Direct Action funding) because Labor have already said they won’t support him on that. Good to see you agree that Abbott’s DA is a waste of $3 billion though. It certainly is. As is his PPL scheme, only that’s a waste of $5 billion+. Gee, and you reckon Labor were wasteful? Nice of him to give big tax cuts to big corporations and especially to Gina, while taking (Labor’s) tax breaks away from small businesses like mine, that make up 70% of all businesses. And this is the bloke you reckon knows how to run the economy? Mate, he’s only there for the top end.
Ray
you must recall that I have only ever given the direct action policy very limited support at best.
As for PPL well I reckon that it will end up be somewhat less generous when it finally gets through the parliament.
I’m not querying your support of DA or the PPL, Iain, only your support of someone who would propose to introduce such schemes that, in your opinion, are nonsense. Abbott is simply proving he doesn’t have a clue.
All ‘green schemes’ are a disaster. Roof-top photovoltaics are an environmental and financial disaster. They don’t reduce the need for coal-fired base-load, they just reduce the efficiency of the system and so in doing increase net emissions. Same with all other ‘green schemes’. They will always create more problems than they solve. Their main function is to make juvenile lefties feel better about themselves with token pointless gestures.
The coalition should thank Palmer for the vicarious aid he is giving if he prevents them from doing really stupid things; the kind of stupid things Labor excells at. And we need a long break from that kind of idiocy.
Yes it’s time for a bit of Conservative lunacy instead GD.
Well, no, it’s time to stop wasting money on futile feel-good green schemes that make juvenile lefties feel better about themselves and the nation a whole lot poorer as a result.
better to waste money on women of substance instead then GD?
Money spent on wine women(of substance) and song is never wasted Les
I agree and disagree with you, GD. A rooftop of about 20 standard solar panels will produce 5 KW, enough to power a medium – large household. The problem though is in (a) the cost of installing them (b) the ability/inability to store excess power produced in daylight in batteries for use when the solar panels are not producing.
We should never have embarked on this path of sky-high prices for coal-produced electricity without having viable and cost-efficient alternatives. Instead, we would be better off (in the long term) producing more coal-fuelled electricity (at much lower prices) in order to drive and encourage industry innovation and economic growth that would utimately lead to breakthroughs in clean energy infrastructure and technology.
It’s still not too late to realise that the way to reduce greenhouse emissions in the long haul is by actually increasing them in the short term. Instead, we have demonised areas like the Latrobe Valley, put people out of work, denied new coal-fired power stations and forced consumers to suffer. For no gain. People need to understand that our huge supplies of brown coal have served us very well and can continue to do so for a long time yet. They are not the ‘problem’, they are the solution.
Gee Ray this must be a very special day Ray,You me and GD agreeing about something!
I’ve never been in favour of punishing the public (and business) just because we have an abundance of brown coal and want to reduce our dependency on it. It’s not a thought-through plan to tax carbon and encourage/set-the-stage-for power companies to hike up prices to force people to (a) use less electricity or (b) install expensive solar. Nor is Abbott’s DA plan thought through and is even more wasteful. The access to affordable energy from Australia’s abundant resources to heat or cool our homes, to cook with, to connect to the world and to brighten our lives is a well-earned right and any Govt action that threatens or impinges on that right is totally unacceptable.