What we're talking about

Phil of Springwood on "He's a dog..." @Bigfellah, with your permission, I would like to add that I thank you sincerely for acknowledging my success at being a ... more
Bella on Preferential voting FIRST PAST THE POST ~ is not as democratic as you may like to think.In a preferential system every registered voters final ... more
steve on A few facts on illegal boat people Hey Wendy - I'm an immigrant - I've lived here for 40 years and have learned to ignore people with attitudes like yours but ... more
James Weir on A few facts on illegal boat people Wendy, I'm surprised anyone lives in Adelaide. Even the Welsh born redheads are getting out of the place. more
Phil of Springwood on "He's a dog..." @Bigfellah. Again in typical Socialist Fashion, you are denying me my right to form an opinion. Mr. and Mrs. Newton ... more
Meg on "He's a dog..." I believe that any ordinary person who assaults women would have been charged and jailed not sent to rehab. Has Matthew ... more
Wendy on A few facts on illegal boat people Look around..In Adelaide now, you cannot spot an Aussie. Everywhere you look its Chinese/Asians, Indians and Pakistani's. ... more
bigfella on "He's a dog..." Hi z,The point is: How the heck would Phil of Springwood know what sort of parents Bert and Patti were to their son? For all ... more
z on Bob Brown Lazarus Where is the costings that they demand of everyone else, thier 5 minutes of fame will be up shortley more
Shanelle on System failure The whole system is stuffed. I have been apart of it for 10years now and still im confused. Im in a bad place at the moment ... more
James Weir on Barnaby Joyce How many Clem 7's would you like in your Super Fund, Barnaby? It lost $1.5B in it's current reporting period. Only Govts can ... more
Steve Martin on "He's a dog..." Rebecca Wilson as per normal is just plain out of touch.The hitting of women is wrong but personalising this with "he's a ... more
Ronny Of Brighton QLD on Preferential voting MichaelIve just come back from a holiday.That bloke Dean Jaensch Siad that if someone(call Him RONNY) had 40% he said 60% of ... more
z on Preferential voting the way it is working at the moment is the first loser joins with 2nd loser and so on untill they beat the winner, so a ... more
brisman on Bob Brown The guy is not green he absolutley red through to the core. His environmental visions are shallow and don't serve ... more
z on "He's a dog..." bigfella, Phil of Springwood is not talking from so called flippantly expertise, Ivory tower stuff but more from commonsense ... more
robert goodchild on Support our Diggers the sticker Idea is great.I would happily part with $20 for one and would like to see the profit go to families who have ... more
Phil of Springwood on "He's a dog..." Hey Bigfella, back again so soon after your mobs magnificent defeat by the Tories, I thought you and the rest of your Left ... more
z on "He's a dog..." Hey Phil, why don't you say what you really mean more
bigfella on "He's a dog..." Congratulations to Phil of Springwood,We've become accustomed to his astute political and social commentaries based on ... more

Phantom ETS jobs

Posted by: Michael Smith | 8 February, 2010 - 1:18 PM

Well we don’t have an ETS, and if common sense and the will of the people prevail we won’t get one.

Not before the US, China and India put schemes in place.

And that’s not likely to ever happen.

But that hasn’t stopped the “money-is-free” federal government from employing 150 public servants to “implement and administer” the scheme that never was.

Yes – 150 people. At a cost of $81.9 million this financial year.

What do they do? There’s no scheme to implement or administer.

They come to work every day at the Australian Climate Change Regulation Authority. It’s just one part of Penny Wong’s mammoth Department of Climate Change.

And it costs you $81.9. I’ve asked the boss of the Authority Geoff Leeper to come on the show – we’ll keep you posted as to when he might be “available”.

If we ever succumbed to the madness of an Emissions Trading Scheme, here’s how it would work.

It’s not complex at all. Everything would go up in price – let’s take electricity as an example.

Electricity producers who use coal would have to get, buy or borrow a “permit”. There are 4 ways to do that

They could lobby Canberra to get the permit for free (at first).
They could buy it from someone who has more permits than they need.
They could get the use of a permit through a derivative trade with a speculator (like the financial trades that made the GFC)
They could pay money for a carbon credit to a tribal chief in West Papua who reckons he won’t cut down his trees

Whatever, power costs will go up and the extra cost plus GST will be passed onto electricity customers or the power generator will go broke.

So how does that affect us? We pay more for electricity – many say 40% extra in the early days of the ETS.

Mr Rudd says he will compensate people who he thinks are likely to vote for him, he says 92% of people.

If he does and if it all works as planned, 92% of people will be in the same position as they were before the ETS. Except for all the money going through this extra bureaucracy.

And what about the other 8%? 8% of the population will pay for 100% of the emissions reduction effort. You beauty!

Lots of angry customers, lots of bureaucracy, heaps of red tape. And no effect on the climate.

Madness.

Blog comments

150 parasites at an average
cost to US of $546000, to administer Rudd and Wongs
obscene tax that we were
luckily saved from. This is
one obscenity compounding
the first.But then what else can you expect from this pair
of arrogant liars?

peter hansen Sunday 28 February, 2010 - 7:22 PM
G'day Smithy, We own 5 acres with lots of trees and we keep planting more, and seem unlikely to be paid/compensated for preseving and improving the place, why should we pay Carbon Tax? My neighbors on the other hand have knocked down most of theirs a few years back, does this classify them as oxygen theives? We used to joke about the air and water being free but it seems these have a price too. The real tragedy is that $81.9mil could have paid for a heap of re-forestation and created many jobs not to mention carbon and heat sinks. It's obvious Krudds answer to everything is money,money,money !!!!!!!!!!

Chris Wednesday 10 February, 2010 - 7:59 AM
But wait there's more, as the years go by the subsidies will come off (have you heard of any subsidies from the government lasting) And we can all have that warm feeling of doing something for the (pockets of the Pollies and their banker mates) planet.

David Tuesday 9 February, 2010 - 10:30 PM
Do you really believe that a TAX will stop climate change. If so can I interest you in a bridge?

A TAX will not make one iota of difference to the climate but will line a lot of peoples pockets... not mine unfortunately.

Dave Monday 8 February, 2010 - 5:04 PM