Tony Abbott abandons climate change action
As the world warms, Abbott goes backwards The Age 4 Sept 13, Like the anectodal frogs in a gradually heated pot of water, our would-be leaders seem inured to climate change. While the major economic blocs are moving to tougher carbon pricing regimes to cut planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, Australia’s contenders for government have shown little urgency on this issue during the federal election campaign.
Coalition leader Tony Abbott has just walked away from a long-term, albeit modest, bipartisan commitment to a 5 per cent reduction in the nation’s emissions from 2000 levels by 2020. He now promises only ”as much emission reduction as we can for the spending that we’ve budgeted”. That is not nearly enough, according to several independent analyses of the Coalition’s ”Direct Action” policy of taxpayer-funded payments to primary producers and industry to cut emissions.
Mr Abbott has shed any pretence that he sees emission cuts as a priority. Good governments, though, heed expert advice, and the advice from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, the CSIRO, the World Meteorological Organisation and national scientific and climate research agencies around the world is clear…….
Draw the line in the Senate Very few people know this, but legally you can vote both ways on the Senate ballot paper. In other words, instead of completing either option, voters can do both: the short-cut above-line and the more time-consuming below-line procedure. Below takes precedence, but if the vote is informal the above-line option comes into play.
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