Tag

Greg Hunt

20
Jun
2017
0

Does Turnbull Have an Energy Policy?

I referred yesterday to the publication in the AFR of my letter headlined “Emission Target should be Reviewed”. This raised the possibility that Australia might follow the three largest emitters (China, India and the US) by dropping our target of a 26-28% reduction in emissions by 2030. Today I also had the following letter (abbreviated by Ed) published in The Australian
24
Jun
2016
0

Unfavourable Polling for Coalition & Some Reactions to Turnbull Dinner

The reactions to Turnbull’s dinner at Kirribilli House with “dozens” of Muslims vary but will likely have only limited electoral influence in a context where the latest Fairfax –Ipsos poll shows for the second time that Labor is ahead at 51/49 on a TPP basis. While the Newspoll of marginal seats suggests this may not be sufficient to win (because the support for Labor is not fully reflected in marginal seats), the Fairfax poll seems to confirm that there has been a slight swing against Turnbull since the election started. In one sense this is surprising given the greater extent of promised additional unjustified expenditures announced by Labor, the fact that it has acknowledged that it would have higher Budget deficits than the Coalition over the next four years, and numerous policy announcements that provided the opportunity for extensive criticism, including the claim that Turnbull would privatise Medicare (Turnbull favours government interventions and the claim just gave him justification to confirm that without upsetting colleagues). But Turnbull has so far failed to exploit Shorten’s poor budget policy partly because the Coalition itself has already budgeted for high deficits and this makes it more difficult to distinguish between the two major parties. In addition, Turnbull has continued to announce expenditures which while claimed as already provided for in the Coalition budget estimates (The Australian’s SPEND-O-METER shows $5bn announced by Turnbull cf $16.2bn for Labor during the election campaign) give the impression that both sides are adding to deficits and that the differences between the two are small.
20
Jan
2016
0

Various

It is sad to tell you that Professor Bob Carter has died after a heart attack. His CD in Wikepedia is provided here but it does not do justice to the contribution Bob made to the questioning of the thesis that human activity is causing dangerous global warming. One of his achievements was the leading role he played, amongst a group of distinguished scientists, in the production of the four volumes of a report by the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change setting out the reasons why the human activity thesis does not stand up to close examination. That report was started in 2007 by the Science and Environmental Policy Project which is based in Virginia in the US. SEPP was founded in 1990 by atmospheric physicist Fred Singer and its former Chairman was Frederick Seitz, a former president of the US National Academy of Sciences, now deceased. So Bob was working with the tops in his profession.
5
Dec
2015
0

Climate Hustle Film; California Killings

My acquaintance James Alfred Brooks has forwarded to me a copy of the advance information about a new documentary film on climate change to be given its premiere in Paris on Sunday ie about a week before the draft communiqué has been finalised. The initiator of the film is Mark Mariano who was adviser to US Senator Inofe but has for some time been operating an independent think-tank and is a well-known sceptic on the dangerous warming thesis.