Mining billionaire Clive Palmer sides with Triumphal Tony Abbott (“Climate change is crap!”) to axe Australia’s so-called carbon tax. There is no meaningful plan to put in place an alternative policy on climate change. Already conflicting stories are coming from the political parties that voted to axe the tax about an agreement to work towards an alternative.
A tragic day for everyone except the big end of town and those who think policy on climate change is just another opportunity to win a cynical political victory.
The polluting industries and the miners crack open the Grange Hermitage (at $3000 a bottle). Clive Palmer whose Queensland Nickel company carbon pollution bill was over $8 million last year, now won’t pay a cent. Victoria’s five coal-fired power stations – the dirtiest in the country – can now pollute at will, and get a $2 billion windfall profit ‘compensation’ for their trouble.
How did they get away with it? A study of 10 major newspapers in a six-month period in 2010-11 found 82 per cent of Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited’s articles on the carbon tax were negative. To paraphrase Julia Gillard: It doesn’t explain everything, but it sure explains a lot of it.