Say “Yes” to Economic Freedom

Say “Yes” to Dodgy, Partisan Polls

“Judgment Day is inevitable.” —Terminator,
in “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines”.

According to Sky News:

A leading climate change advocate maintains public sentiment for climate change action is improving despite a poll showing support has dropped to a record low.
According to the Lowy Institute poll, 75% of Australians believe the federal government has done a poor job addressing climate change.
Just 41% think the issue is a serious and pressing problem, down five points from last year and 27 points since 2006.
Australians are also much less willing to pay a price to tackle climate change, with 39% not prepared to pay anything extra.
John Connor, chief executive of The Climate Institute, a non-partisan and independent research organisation, said the polling was undertaken in April.
“It’s a worrying trend but not a surprising trend,” Mr Connor told AAP.
“We’ve picked up at least a change in the momentum since we launched the Say Yes campaign.”
Analysis of talk-back radio by the institute showed an improvement in support for climate change action since February, Mr Connor said.
“I’m not at all relaxed but I think we are seeing a turning point.”
The polling had tracked the decline of the debate over the years into one that is now extremely partisan.
“There was bipartisan support for action and the emissions trading scheme and an international legal agreement (in 2007),” Mr Connor said.
A strong commitment by the UK to act on climate change had also improved attitudes by Australians to a carbon price, he said.  [Right, John, keep thinking that.]

The Climate Institute is “a non-partisan and independent research organisation” though its representative admits involvement in a decidedly partisan “Say ‘Yes’” campaign?  It seems that The Climate Institute is a non-partisan and independent research organisation because it says so—and in the same, contradictory, post-modern way whereby a promise not to introduce a ‘carbon’ tax is parsed as a clear undertaking to impose the tax, and any conflictual evidence or incorrect prophecy from a climatologist constitutes a proof of whatever he conjectures.  Well, Say “Yes” to More Taxes, a leading, non-partisan, institute of analytical excellence in natural philosophy, says, “Rubbish.”

Here is what we can learn of The Climate Institute from its own web-site:

Who is The Climate Institute?
Established in late 2005, The Climate Institute is a non-partisan, independent research organisation that works with community, business and government to drive innovative and effective climate change solutions.  We research.  We educate.  We communicate.
Our vision is for an Australia leading the world in clean technology use and innovation, with clean and low carbon solutions a part of everyday life throughout the community, government and business.
The Climate Institute is primarily funded by a donation from the Poola Foundation (Tom Kantor Fund).

Climate Change & Faith
Faith is an important part of the Climate Institute’s perspective on climate change.  Religion, spirituality and faith provide an ethical and values based foundation to motivate actions for a better environment and a sustainable future.  The Climate Institute’s activities draw from close connections in many community and faith groups, and reflect concerns of these groups as well as their aspirations to create a more harmonious planet.

“Climate Partners” of The Climate Institute include The Westpac Group, GE and KPMG.  It is hard to discern any vested interest there.

Science out of thin air.  Energy out of taxpayers’ pockets.

As well as John Connor, who is destined to defeat an empire of robots amassed by the rogue military supercomputer, Skynet, the board of The Climate Institute also includes Andrew Demetriou, CEO of the Australian Football League since 2003, and Clare Martin, former Chief Minister of the Northern Territory.

So, clearly, from the same people who promote computer-modelling over empirical data, we now have the supremacy of talk-back radio analysis over a nationally representative opinion survey.

For an example of some egregious push-polling, see “A Survey on a ‘Price on Carbon’”.

(Thanks to a tip from Patrick Kelly.)

Say “Yes” to Tortured Tropes

Not since Sen. Bob Brown referred, many years ago, to “a slowly unfolding kettle of fish” have we heard such a finer exponent of the tortured metaphor as that rug-selling carpetbagger, and sometime school-bully, Mr. Andrew Wilkie MHR.  This week, on the ABC’s “4 Corners”, he opined that the Gillard Government’s implementing pre-commitment technologies on poker machines is:

one of the key issues upon which my support for the Government hinges.

From the same interview, the dippy but poetic parliamentarian explains vividly: 

It wasn’t on the radar.  No senior politician in the Government or the Coalition would go anywhere near an issue like this with a barge-pole.  It’s an absolutely [sic] minefield for one of the big political parties because it is just so hard.*  [...]
The moment I opened my mouth publicly I became a lightning rod.

The highly conductive member concludes:

People will be helped but if for any reason the wheels fall off and these reforms are not realised, so long as I know I’ve given it my very, very best shot, then I’ll be able to live with myself afterwards. 

*  such language, seemingly, is contagious: the reporter, Matthew Carney, explains:  “Julia Gillard was locked into Wilkie’s deal.  If Gillard didn’t make the reforms law by Budget 2012, Andrew Wilkie would pull the pin.”  The pin, no doubt, not of a grenade but of a lock’s hinge.

Say “Yes” to More Radical “Refugees”

Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young asserts that we should welcome all alleged refugees who have paid ten grand or more to be smuggled into the country—even those who might call for an overthrow of Australian democracy* or those who would demand that halal training centres† be funded by taxpayers—because refugees since federation have contributed to Australia.

“Australia’s a better place because of the more than 750,000 refugees who have settled here since 1901.

“From businessman Frank Lowy, who has changed the face of retailing in Australia, to comedian Anh Do, whose best-selling memoir which [sic] makes you grateful for one’s family, refugees have helped improve this great country.  [...]
“We also will continue agitating for all sides to back our bill before the Senate to amend the Migration Act so all MPs and Senators can have a vote on expelling asylum seekers to any third country, not just Malaysia.”‡

It is good to see Sen. Hanson-Young approve of Mr. Lowy’s capitalistic efforts which, usually, the Greens tend to calumniate;  see, for instance, Sen. Bob Brown’s media release, from March, 2009:

“The Greens welcome the government’s belated decision on ‘golden parachutes’ but we will continue to tackle the government’s failure to regulate CEO greed, which sees some annual remuneration exceed $10 million.  Most CEOs will be considering public hostility to excessive pay packets, but it’s the few who give the rest a bad name who require curbing,” Senator Brown said. 

*  see “Democracy is evil, Parliament is evil’ says radical Muslim cleric in billboard debate”, by Clayton Hinds, in Christian Today Australia:

Democracy and parliaments are evil, declared a radical Australian Muslim cleric in Sydney on Friday night during a debate with two Christian politicians.

Ibrahim Saddiq Conlan also called for the overthrow of the Australian legal system in favour of the controversial sharia law, the Islamic legal system.

“[the Australian legal system is] the primary cause of the spiritual, economic and environmental crisis in Australia,” he said.

“Democracy is evil, the parliament is evil and legislation is evil,” said Mr Conlon.

†  see “Australian Muslim community demands ‘taxpayer-funded halal training centre’”:

Australia’s top Muslim body has demanded a new taxpayer-funded halal training centre that would prepare refugees for jobs slaughtering animals in rural areas.

‡  The Migration Amendment (Declared Countries) Bill 2011 seeks to amend the Migration Act 1958 to require that any agreement to send asylum seekers to a third country is brought before both houses of Parliament as a disallowable instrument.

Say “Yes” to More Green Hypocrisy

Simon Benson and Gemma Jones, in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, report:

Greens leader Bob Brown is often accused of behaving like the defacto [sic] prime minister but no one expected him to take it seriously.

On Monday MPs were stunned to see he [sic] and his excited entourage commandeer the Prime Minister’s private cabin aboard the RAAF Boeing 737 VIP jet on a flight from Hobart to Canberra.

Several staffers aboard the flight – chartered to collect members stranded [!] in Tasmania due to the volcano ash cloud – claimed to have seen Mr Brown and his deputy Christine Milne make a “bee-line” for the front of the plane. [...]

“They definitely made a point of taking up the PM’s cabin at the front of the plane,” one Labor staffer said.

Another MP’s staffer also confirmed they were walking down the aisle at the front of the plane and looked in to see Mr Brown and Ms Milne in the private cabin. [...]

[The aeroplane] was used on Monday when Qantas cancelled its flights to and from Tasmania.

Nineteen people, made up of MPs and their staff booked on cancelled Qantas flights, had to use the RAAF jet to make it to Canberra for the start of the sitting week.

Other staffers of MPs aboard noted that the Greens leadership made sure, however, that they were the last off the aircraft when it landed in Canberra.

“They made sure they were the last off, so it looked like they had been sitting up the back of the plane. The imagery was that they were up the back among the people, when in fact they were in the PM's private suite.”

The 737 would normally take about 150 people on a commercial flight, sharing the carbon footprint around.

Neither Mr Brown or Ms Milne’s offices would comment yesterday.

These allegations raise many doubts because we here at Say “Yes” to More Taxes remember that, unlike other parties, the Greens have ethics and principles:  the Greens, according to their own Members Handbook, “value trustworthiness, sincerity and truth.”  For the Greens, furthermore, “the journey is as important as the final destination:  the processes [they] use to achieve social change must be consistent with [their] principles.” (p. 4)

The Greens famously oppose both hypocrisy and unnecessary emissions of carbon dioxide; accordingly, we eagerly await their refutation of these astonishing claims from what they pithily term “the hate media”.