The outgoing PM in Australia serves as a warning to incumbents. If you combine unpopular climate change legislation with a big tax increase, you lose your job. The legislation was defeated, and the tax increase on mining has now been abated.
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July 2, 2010
Thanks for this comment. Yes the world is changing and all major parties must take heed in this, people do not like change it can mean a complete reverse in policies etc.
July 2, 2010
Does this apply to Presidents? With the Bush tax cuts due to lapse on 1st January – so effectively a tax rise taking place – and cap & tax being pushed forward on the back of the Gulf Oil spill I wonder if the Democrats are taking note.
Glad to see the coalition, to date, haven't been pushing ahead with anti-energy madness of the kind proposed during the boom period of a windmill on every shed and solar panels on every roof. On the other hand neither are they pushing forward with pro-energy policies so need to wait and see what the next 5 years bring.
July 2, 2010
Try doing a planning application for new housing as I am doing at the moment. There is indeed a whole bundle of expensive, inadequate green nonsense to tag on and it stands to get worse.
July 3, 2010
Remember that you can bypass the LA and use a private company to carry out the building inpections when you start construction. I did this recently. It gets right up the LA's nose, who see it as loss of power and control.
July 3, 2010
If only my tory controlled council would privatise the planning department ~ someone might answer the phone!
July 3, 2010
I'm doing a planning application for a tiny porch to link to a long- existing side garage where I want to create a granny flat for an elderly relative To my mind it falls clearly under permitted development. I has now taken 2 failed applications to the LA and my appeal is now in MONTH 5. Total so far £1000 and 15 months wasted, and I haven't even started on the green nonsense which will come with building regs! I can't imagine attempting 'housing' plural.
July 3, 2010
Chris
Seems a rather obvious question but did you speak to the Planning officer first before you put in the Application.
Reason I ask. I have completed hundreds of Planning Applications over the years and only three have had to go to appeal through failure first time around.
Very important to get Planning Officer on your side if you can, it then often goes through under delegated powers and never goes before a committee. Having said that I agree that Planning laws do need a change as so much does not come under the Planning remit in making a decision which should..
July 3, 2010
My sympathies, I know what you must be feeling around now. I spoke to a planning officer once who was somewhat "relaxed" following some refreshments and he said most granny-flat applications are ultimately withdrawn because by the time consent is possible, granny no longer has need of said flat.
July 2, 2010
It is a failing of many who label themselves as "environmentalists" that to prevent or attenuate climate change, they ask the public to accept rationing, with that enforced with the stick of higher taxes. Few look to a simpler solution – address global and local population over-crowding – presumably because there is no money in that for governments and others!
Of course Rudd was ejected for a number of reasons, amongst which he talked big and achieved little.
July 2, 2010
Had that been the case dear Gordon would not have lasted so long.
July 2, 2010
And if you’re Australian PM, be careful of following “dodgy” sites on Twitter; better still don’t be a twit at all.
Although he did claim that the dodgy sites were in fact following him.
It seems that the sites followed weren’t about polar bears
July 2, 2010
Will Millibland come to regret his lack of ruthlessness in failing to ask Gordon to step aside?
We will wait to see if it transforms the australian electorate's opinions.
July 2, 2010
Our PM will be judged by many on how he deals with the EU.
On Climate Change – it is a pity that most politicians are blind to the rent-seeking aspect of many academics and their research funding needs. If people are buying the climate-change idea as an 'absolute certainty' then who are the academics to disabuse them and so loose their funding?
July 2, 2010
There is going to be increasing problems for all governments who premise major areas of policy on either bare-faced lies and/or pseudo-scientific hypotheses, especially when these lead to higher taxes higher and living costs or the deaths of military personnel .
The problem that administrators now face is that people can inform themselves from internet sites that provide informed and intelligent comentary which is both focussed and uncensored.
July 2, 2010
The climate change nonsense just will not lie down. Human kind adapts. Always has always will except for one polluting factor. Too much in-judicial breeding.
July 2, 2010
I always thought he would not last long after reading that he was televised, in the Australian parliament, eating his ear wax.
July 2, 2010
No John you are quite wrong about why Rudd was replaced.
The Australian Labor Party got rid of him because he totally lacked any leadership qualities. He was losing the voters before the mining tax, or the climate change fiasco. He was a weakling who tried to overcompensate by being excessively "presidential' and excluding the powerful talent within his own party. The ALP has always been far more ruthless than its UK counterpart, you may remember twenty years ago the ALP sacked Bob Hawke who had won three elections because they thought rightly, that Keating was a better bet to win a fourth.
I am living in Sydney at the moment and predict that Julia Gillard will win the election due shortly quite easily… except in NSW where the ALP State government is so corrupted it will reduce their vote.
Gordon Brown would never have been elected leader of anything in OZ
July 5, 2010
Gordon Brown was never elected leader of anything in the UK, either…
July 2, 2010
I see no indication that Dem Tories are taking the slightest notice of the collapse of all credible scientific evidence in support of Mann Made Warble Gloaming. Investigations are being packed with bought and paid for eco-freak and results fudged to avoid the truth.
We are still in the grip of folk like Huhne who (in a key ministerial position) is twisting energy policy to avoid admitting that water, wind and waffle wont work and that no nukes are needed to avoid power cuts later this decade. Even the hilarious failure of the prize winning green power generation scheme on Eigg is being brushed under the carpet by the eco-fanatic BBC.
I do hope you're right, but fear you're wrong on this topic.
July 2, 2010
Sorry for posting "Off topic" but it's relevant to taxes, cuts and savings and their consequences.
The coalition has brought forward plans to introduce later retirement age for payment of state pensions, but the previous government introduced this:-
Source – BBC Web State Pensions explained.
"A woman with a working life of 44 years will need 39 qualifying years for a full pension and a man with a working life of 49 years will need 44 qualifying years.
However, if you reach state pension age on or after 6 April 2010, you will need 30 qualifying years for a full basic State Pension.
Can anyone explain to me why the previous government introduced this, how much it will cost and why the coalition have not repealed it?
July 3, 2010
Andrew
Yes your point about now requiring fewer contribution years is an absolute nonesense with regard to the cost effectiveness of State pensions, as you now need fewer years to qualify than before. But you cannot withold payment if you have already passed the lower threshold of qualification, so in effect your additional NI conributions earn you diddly squat..!
July 3, 2010
Alan,
Thank you for your reply. As far as I can ascertain this was introduced without any costs/savings being presented to parliament. I wonder what they might be, especially given that pensions to retired make up the major portion of state benefit spend?
It also seems to be a most unfair tax. Those who have worked longest pay most and subsidise those who have only worked for 30 years. No tapering, just 14 years less for men and 9 years less for women. Why?
I'd really appreciate any comment John might care to make.
July 2, 2010
In the interest of all our future do something to contain our own pet climate-(enthusiast-ed) Chris Huhne. Surely no one with an internet connection and a modicum of intelligence still buys the Climate Alarm Industry? (Impressionable?ed) Academics chasing grants from Government departments, Carbon Traders and Fake Charities "activists" pumping out press releases for our lazy journalists to retype. You may recall Ken Livingstone's deputy Nicky Gavron flew every month to another world conference on Climate Change – the biggest gravy-train of this century. Daniel Cohn Bendit – marxist revolutionary Dany the Red now "Dany le Vert". Green is the new red. .
It has to stop because its phony and its actually costing us the earth chasing this non-existent problems.
July 2, 2010
My daughter and her man live in Australia and have gone native there. They tell me that they both support the Green Party, despite the climate change legislation.
July 2, 2010
He talked a good talk on some areas, but like many before him in many different Countries, he got carried away with his own thoughts at the expense of ignoring the majority.
You eventually reap what you sow, in our Country it takes a little longer to be found out than in others.
Why is it that political climate change supporters believe that paying money to the Government through increased taxes helps solve this problem, when all they do is spend/waste that money on something else, or some other Benefit.
July 3, 2010
A case of window dressing, one socialist (taxer-ed) replaced by another.
July 4, 2010
This illustrates the importance of carrying people with you through difficult and necessary decisions. On tackling the problem of the deficit the government is being brave and honest about the gravity of the problem. The Coalition is also making attempts to minimise the impact on service provision.
On climate change, we have had many dogmatic statements about the collective opinions of experts and the science being settled. This is accompanied with wild allegations on the motives of critics (in the pay of oil companies) or their very sanity (flat-earthers, or equivalent to holocaust deniers). To carry the majority forward, the scientific case needs to be made more clearly. That means opening up the black box of climate models to independent investigation and subjecting empirical studies to full statistical tests. Conflicts of interest should be stated and recognised. Like in a court of law, when people can see the robustness of the case, then the doubters will be the silenced and sacrifices willing made for the sake of our descendant’s futures.