Agmates

Queensland Senator and Leader of the Nationals in the Senate Barnaby Joyce. From his desk Senator Joyce writes on the impacts of the Rudd Governments Emissions Trading Scheme on the State of Queensland:

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With Queensland’s largest export being coal, the Government’s planned emissions trading scheme is a direct hit to the State’s bottom line. The ramifications of the emissions trading scheme will be felt by the people of Queensland more than any other State.

Not quite what we expected from a Queensland Prime Minister.

This Government tax grab in the form of a “Carbon Pollution Reduction” plan will be a price mechanism to reduce the competitiveness of the coal and aluminium industries, followed by the agricultural industry in the not too distant future.

In the interim, the mountainous State Labor debt will continue to grow. Queensland will be facing a debt of AU$65 billion, when you consider the addition of an emissions trading scheme. Such a burden carries major ramifications for the State, from overlooked infrastructure to the collapse of public private partnerships.

When all is said and done, we will be able to say with confidence that the Labor Party has been the author of a complete economic fiasco for our State.

Mr Rudd’s catchphrase of “I’m from Queensland, I’m here to help” has proved prophetic for the people of Queensland. His belligerent persistence to chase an emissions trading scheme will be factored into the decisions of the international participants in our economy and the domestic aspirations of everybody from the commercial hub in Brisbane to the industrial hub of Townsville, to the export hub of Gladstone and flowing through to the domestic tourism industry in Cairns.

The economic development inspired by mining will be something for the history books.

The people of Queensland will be happy to know that in his earnest self-righteous endorsement of Queensland’s path to perdition, Mr Rudd’s epistle was based on economic conditions that are so far from the reality of where we are now, his oversight is nothing short of overwhelming.

Being the largest exporter of seaborne coal in the world, Queensland has more than 30 billion tonnes of identified resources of black coal in situ. In addition, the Sunshine State is one of the largest beef producers by region in the world and is one of the fastest growing value adders of bauxite in aluminium production.

Responsible for such a notable contribution to the Nation, Queensland has a great deal to lose at the hands of this imprudent plan. We have a whole new theory of economic decoupling, only this time we will see a separation between Queensland and prosperity.

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John Mikkelsen [pictured] writes:

JUST what will it take to get some action on fuel rip-offs in the wake of the global financial crisis and tumbling international oil prices?

By now even the dogs are barking about it.

Everybody knows we are being taken for a ride by the oil companies - the letters to the editor and SMS text messages keep repeating it, the TV news and current affairs programs are pushing it.

It’s obvious to everyone, with the very significant exception of the Federal Government, their new Fuel Commissioner and that other toothless tiger, the ACCC which is supposed to safeguard consumers against profiteering.

Well, with the international oil price hovering around $67 a barrel or about $80 below its peak several months ago, you don’t have to be a mathematician to realise it greatly exceeds the drop in the Aussie dollar over the same period.

But the price of unleaded and diesel fuel has slowly trickled down about 10 cents a litre over that period.

A couple of independent retailers in Sydney highlighted their dissatisfaction with the oil companies’ restrictive pricing policies when they dropped their prices below $1 a litre during the week. A couple of Brisbane servos did the same yesterday when the average unleaded price there was around 143 cents a litre.

They may have created traffic chaos for the authorities, but they made their point.

An NRMA spokesman came out against the restrictive pricing that discriminates against the independents. He said that with the present low international oil prices, motorists in New South Wales should be paying no more than 135 cents a litre. If you translate that to Queensland, where the State Government supposedly provides a subsidy of 8.35 cents a litre, we should be paying around 127 cents a litre.

At the time of writing, Gladstone’s two supermarket “discount” sites were selling unleaded for 147.9 cents a litre, with distillate at 155.9 (Woolworths/ Caltex) and 157.9 (Coles/Shell).

But credit where it’s due. A small independent outlet at Boyne Island was selling unleaded for 142.9 and distillate 146.9 cents a litre.

According to NRMA president, Alan Evans [pictured], the supermarket “duopolies” enjoy a buying advantage over independent NSW sites of eight cents a litre from the oil companies.

His message was that if the independents are squeezed out of the industry, the major players will have open slather to virtually charge what they like.

Isn’t that what we are seeing already?

The other concerning news amidst the global financial turmoil is that Australia’s inflation rate has (hopefully) peaked at five percent. With the price of fuel impacting on every commodity we buy, that’s no big surprise.

It’s time PM Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan took the next decisive step to introduce a realistic competitive domestic fuel pricing policy to replace the present anything goes “free market forces” system.

Or are they worried about how much they would lose in combined GST and excise if the price dipped below $1 a litre where it should be headed?

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Got a tip off, article or have you seen a video or item you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

Tim Curtin is a economist who lives in Canberra. Below is a comment he posted on the article “Is Kevin Rudd another James Hansen Disciple“:

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Good stuff, Agmates.

Here are some comments of my own on Barry Brook (banned of course from his Blog bravenewclimate), what is he scared of?

Brook has been reported by the media endorsing the so-called Global Carbon project, which is yet another largely CSIRO-inspired ramp, led by James Hansen’s friends, the notorious data manipulators Pep Canadell and Mike Raupach.

Their cheer leader, Barry Brook’s [ pictured below] puff ends by citing GCP’s claim that:

“Emissions from the combustion of fossil fuel and land use change reached the mark of 10 billion tonnes of carbon [GtC] in 2007.

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Natural CO2 sinks are growing, but more slowly than atmospheric CO2, which has been growing at 2 ppm per year since 2000″.

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Let’s analyse this more closely.

Brook chose not to explain that 2ppm equate to 4.25 GtC (i.e. 2.12 GTC = 1 ppm). So what we had in 2007, on the Brook/GCP data, is 10 GtC of emissions, and 4.25 GtC of atmospheric increase, leaving no less than 5.75 GtC (57.5%) taken up by the “slow growing” natural sinks, above the average of 56% since 1958.

But then as a mere economist whom am I to query the accounting techniques of Nobel [Peace] Prize winners like Canadell, who thinks that the rise in atmospheric CO2 since 1958, from 315 ppm to 384 ppm at end-2007, reveals an annual growth rate of 1.89 % pa. (this fictitious rate is what underpins the Garnaut Draft Report).

Finally, Brook assures us that

“450ppm CO2 commits us to >2 degrees C global warming and all the disastrous consequences this sets in train”.

Whatever happened to CO2e, which as Garnaut states, is already at 455 ppm?

These disastrous consequences should already be apparent. Perhaps the meltdown on Wall Street is caused by CO2e emissions?

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Interesting that Barry Brook has blocked Tim Curtin from commenting on his blog. Then again not surprising as the Hansen lead Climate Alarmist avoid any kind of professional academic scrutiny of their outrageous claims. Two words - Hockey Stick.

(thanks to Tim for his input)

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Got a tip off, article or have you seen a video or item you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

We have not heard from our great mate Joel Gill in the USA for a while. That’s understandable as he on the campaign trail for the upcoming November US elections. Joel is standing as the Democratic Nominee for Mississippi.

In an Email Joel writes:

G’ Day Mate, I know it has been a while, but my plate has been pretty full as Nov. 4 approaches.

Thought you might like to see some of the devastation in Texas from Hurricane Ike. Regards, Joel Gill

Thanks Joel and and all the best in the upcoming poll from your friends in the Agmates community.

“In its brief lifespan of only 13 days, Hurricane Ike wreaked great deal of havoc. Affecting several countries including Cuba, Haiti, and the United States, Ike is blamed for approximately 114 deaths (74 in Haiti alone), and damages that are still being tallied, with estimates topping $10 billion. Many shoreline communities of Galveston, Texas were wiped from the map by the winds, storm surge and the walls of debris pushed along by Ike - though Galveston was spared the level of disaster it suffered in 1900.

(Click here to see 28 photos total like the one below)

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Got a tip off, article or have you seen a video or item you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

CEO of the QLD Farmers Federation John Cherry [pictured] writes:

The Australian Farm Institute has done farmers a huge favour pointing out the massive cost that an Emissions Trading Scheme could impose on farming.

While that cost will be biggest for livestock producers if methane is included from 2015, all farmers will cop it on the inputs like fertiliser, diesel and freight from 2010 (although a rebate on on-farm fuel use will be offered for the first three years).

Queensland Farmers Federation has been arguing that the Government needs to look at more cost effective alternatives, such as uptake of better farm practices on soil, water, feedstock, nutrients and vegetation. A lot of this is not counted under the Kyoto protocol’s accounting rules, making emissions trading even more troublesome for farmers.

While the Government has acknowledged that farming faces particular challenges and will not be included fully in the ETS in 2010, it has not offered full compensation for the cost impost then (even though the ETS will make us less competitive in export markets).

Nor, has it been prepared to seriously consider alternative approaches for the future.

Incidentally, your article was heavily critical of the National Farmers’ Federation’s stance on the ETS. I think this is a bit unfair.

QFF is not a member of the NFF, but we are very supportive of the huge amount of work NFF has put into its
comprehensive 47-page submission on the Government’s emissions trading green paper delivered last week.

That submission covers all the big issues in an informed technical way building up a compelling case for a better approach.

Clearly though, farmers have a long way to go to persuade Canberra that emissions trading might not be the best thing since sliced bread for our sector.

As the Farm Institute’s research and similar work done in New Zealand shows, failure to get this policy right could be devastating for the profitability of our sector.

And that would be on top of what ABARE tells us will be the very substantial cost of adapting to climate change and increased climate variability for our sector.

John Cherry

CEO Queensland Farmers Federation.

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Australia’s leading GM Crop commentator David Tribe [aka GMO Pundit] writes:

Voters in WA are being offered to make a choice about GM crop technology.

But if Labour still retains power after the election, choice about GM technology will be out of reach for WA farmers…

The current choice for voters is between the WA Labor policy of banning genetic modification of crops, which closes off options for crop innovation, and the Liberal’s policy which allows for farmer choice, and also opens up a future with profitable new cropping possibilities such as insect-protected cotton on the Ord River.

A good example of how Premier Alan Carpenter’s [pictured] GM ban stymies innovation is its entrenchment of WA canola grower dependence on atrazine herbicide.

Atrazine herbicide is currently banned in Europe, and is a marketing disadvantage when selling canola into that market.

The acceptable daily intake of atrazine is sixty-fold lower than that for the safer alternative glyphosate.

Labor’s GM ban prevents replacement of WA’s current widely used atrazine tolerant (TT) canola varieties with environmentally superior and better performing GM varieties that allow glyphosate to replace atrazine..

Labor’s Premier Alan Carpenter’s campaign slogan is Vision, Stability and Leadership.

Stability of sorts — more of the same — but precious little vision when it comes to capturing cost-savings and new market opportunities for farmers.

It’s a strange vision that seeks to promote the state a clean and green by locking farmers into using atrazine if they want to get good canola yields. Its tunnel vision that locks’s out viable cotton growing on the Ord.

To get away with this charade, Carpenter is hoodwinking city voters into thinking he’s protecting them from GM vegetables and fruits appearing in the supermarkets. He’s announced a million dollars of spending to test food products for content of GM components (undermining in the process the existing Food Standards Australia and New Zealand as the national food regulator), and posing for photos while making announcements in front of fields of radish.

There are no GM fresh vegetables being marketed in Australia.

Fortunately both the WAFarmers Federation and the Pastoralists and Graziers Association are standing up to protect farmer’s choice on this matter. And WA Liberal’s Colin Barnett is supporting trials of GM cotton and canola.

The big issue of the current global food crisis, and the part that modern crop science is playing in providing better food security has been getting a good run in the general media lately.

Lets hope that WA voters have been tuning into these serious big picture messages, and also that more voters (especially those in city electorates) realise that farmers deserve the right to make their choices about what they plant and don’t plant.

Decisions about how to make farms more profitable and sustainable have to be taken away from politicians like Carpenter.

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John Mikkelsen (pictured) in his weekly column for the Gladstone Observer writes:

I’M a great believer in the old adage, charity begins at home.

Yes, there are other countries doing it tough and if people, churches and charities want to donate their hard-earned dollars to help educate and feed starving kids in Africa or any other third world country, that’s great. Those kids deserve it and Mrs Mikko and I will put our hands up to help too whenever we can.

But I do object when our governments dole out millions for political rather than humanitarian reasons to countries such as Indonesia.

A sizeable segment of that country’s population seems to think the only good Australian is a dead one as evidenced by the Bali bombings - and a large percentage of our generous government handouts seems to go to military build-up rather than the poverty stricken living on the pickings from rubbish tips.

Makes one wonder about priorities; sometimes even the churches seem to lose sight of what is happening right here in Australia.

Take last week’s issue of Agmates Rural News - an on-line free weekly newsletter which provides an excellent mouthpiece for our struggling rural community and allied industries.

The publication points out that 37 religious leaders meeting in Sydney - including Christians, Muslims and Jews - were calling on the Federal Government to aid countries in the Pacific affected by climate change.

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“Churches preach faith. It seems that faith now extends to the certainties of climate change, although not one of them is a scientist, and even when a huge proportion of the scientific community don’t believe,”

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Agmates states.

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“The president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Ikebal Patel, says Australia has a moral responsibility to act because it is the biggest polluter in the region.

In the Pacific there are people who live from day to day, from hand to mouth, and any effects of our climate change on them is really a responsibility that we should seriously look at and make sure that we do support them,” the Islamic leader is quoted as saying.

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Which prompted the following response from “Mick”, one of Agmates’ subscribers:

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“Yes, in our neck of the Pacific those ‘who live from hand to mouth’ are called pensioners, farmers and truck drivers … we have hundreds of thousands of ‘em. Sorry these religious Top 40 are not praying for them, only preying on them … at least on their money to go to Samoa and Tonga … Climate’s been changing every year - it’s called the weather…”

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Anyone who doesn’t believe our farmers are doing it tough must still believe in the tooth fairy and the effectiveness of bodies such as the ACCC to achieve justice for them and ordinary consumers like you and me.

After months of study, that body has come up with Grocery Choice, a website that has cost anything from $10 to $15 million to set up, which compares monthly grocery prices around the nation.

Struggling mums with kids in tow, busy workers and aged pensioners who wouldn’t know the first thing about accessing websites will probably find the savings that offers are on par with the much hyped Fuel Watch if it ever gets up and running - bugger all.

But what has really riled the farmers is the ACCC report to the Federal Government which maintained farm gate prices for products such as eggs, milk and meat were rising at the same rate as supermarket prices.

Agmates says it appears the ACCC has fudged the starting points for measuring prices in each industry “to give the results it or the big supermarket duopoly’s wanted.

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“Economics best practices for testing data is to have a common start date to analyse from. Instead, the ACCC has beef pricing starting in 1998, milk in March 2002; both were low points in the farm gate commodity price cycle and the results show a favourable result for the supermarkets… Had the ACCC chosen the beef start year in 2001, it would show that beef producers are actually receiving less today for their cattle than they were seven years ago.

“What has happened to input costs and supermarket prices in the last seven years?”

….I find none of the above surprising. As someone once said, “There are lies, damn lies and statistics…”

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Meanwhile the silence is deafening following my recent challenge about fuel pricing - particularly diesel. At the time of writing one of Gladstone’s major supermarket “discount” outlets was still charging 175.9 cents a litre - eight to a whopping13 cents more than some independent sites which started dropping their prices a couple of weeks ago.

Now the ACCC is reportedly chasing companies making exaggerated claims about environmental performance in light of looming carbon taxes.

Go figure.

The Australian Governments proposed Emissions Trading Scheme is the greatest threat to viability of farming since we removed all trade protection from our Agricultural exports.

South Australian farmer John Michelmore writes:

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” I just calculated the typical carbon tax on a cow per annum. If this goes ahead and farmers can’t off-set their land use changes it could be the end of the beef industry in Australia.

We won’t be able to compete with any overseas country that doesn’t have a carbon control program.

Methane production per cow per day is 350 grams. Say methane is 20 times worse than carbon dioxide. That makes an equivalent carbon dioxide emission of 7kg per day.

At $40 per tonne CO2 carbon levy that’s $102 per cow per year. Even at $15 per tonne that’s $38 per year.

If a cow lives for say 10 years that’s somewhere between $380 and $1020 per head. If you sell your steers at 9 months thats up to $76.50 each. You can see why agriculture has been left out at this stage.“

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Have your Say! What madness is at work when governments are trying to develop the technology to tax farmers on their animals flatulence?

South Australian Farmer John Michelmore (pictured) writes:

The impact of methane on global warming and the sources of methane have now attracted the general medias attention.

Cattle have been singled as responsible for a large proportion of methane emissions world wide, and now results in the call for a reduction in the worlds cattle herd.

It appears probable that emissions permits (taxation) are under consideration for Australian livestock producing methane in their digestive tracts.

This series of articles on methane attempts to explain the science behind methane in the atmosphere and whether a tax on methane emissions in Australia will have any impact on global warming.

It is imperative that Australians understand global warming and the potential risks to our economy from an ill conceived emissions trading scheme based on inconclusive science and unlikely to be adopted by other major methane emitters.

Australia’s methane emissions barely rate as a percentage of global emissions. Therefore reducing Australia’s methane emissions will have insignificant impact on our climate unless the major emitters also reduce methane emissions; assuming we can actually control atmospheric methane.

Can we as Australian’s afford to be the first to set an example and take the economic consequences of an emissions trading scheme probably not adopted by the major methane producers; India, China, Europe, Africa and the United States?

We still haven’t learnt from our Free Trade experiences of the past, where our manufacturing industries have been decimated by free trade that no other country adopted. How are China, Africa and India expected to control their methane emissions when farmers are at most subsistence, and have little choice about their food production methods?

Methane is produced and consumed by a number of pathways in the world environment. Production occurs naturally from a number of sources and also results from human activities (called anthropogenic methane).

The overriding question is whether an economic accounting system is valid for methane, and what actual level of methane production can be related to human activities.

The current level of methane in the atmosphere (1750 parts per billion) accounts for about 20% of the “heating factor” created by the gases that could result in global warming. There has been an increase in methane in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution from a peak historical level of about 750 parts per billion.

There is no doubt the incidence of solar radiation on the earth, and the resultant increase in temperature can drive both carbon dioxide and methane level increases in the atmosphere. However the reverse also applies and no theory really adequately explains current levels of methane and carbon dioxide levels because of the complex scientific issues involved.

There are numerous feed back loops that impact methane levels.

The question is whether the human race can control what is happening to our environment?

The overriding question is: - Does the Australian Government expect that we can influence the major human induced methane emissions in other countries by example, and in the process push the Australian economy further into recession?

Maybe Dr Brendan Nelson was correct in his idea to move in line with major green house gas emitters.

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South Australian farmer John Michelmore writes:

It is blatantly obvious to many that carbon is not a pollutant, but an integral part of the environment.

Again the government has the cart before the horse. They sign to Kyoto protocol and embark on the introduction of a carbon trading scheme.

They then spend money on a community education scheme (9 million dollars by October) knowing that the majority of the population hasn’t a clue about the long term impact on Australia, when our competitors USA, China, Indonesia etc etc etc may well not introduce this tax burden to their economies.

The government also knows that there are serious questions in relation to the science behind the IPCC reports and the Guano Report (sorry for the spelling error). The reports are in the mainstream media almost daily if one cares to look.

For example David Evens who was a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005 says of himself:

“I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.”

In this tremendous article in last Fridays Australian Newspaper David says:

It was great. We were working to save the planet. But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

“There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.”

An education scheme for the general public would include this, wouldn’t it?? Education is done as part of a decision making process, not after the fact.

Based on the governments ads I’ve seen, this is not education, its propaganda in its worst form.

Education is when the public is given both sides of the story and allowed to decide for themselves on whether man made carbon dioxide emissions are impacting the world climate.

Education is not, calling carbon a pollutant and blaming the poor state of the River Murray on climate change induced by our carbon dioxide emissions. The state of the River Murray is only a function of poor government in Australia, nothing else.

Australia adopting a carbon trading scheme will have NO impact on global climates because we as a population are insignificant in the world.

I only hope that the general public can see through the propaganda.

Sure I agree we need to look after the planet for our descendants; but economic suicide for Australia isn’t going to be at all helpful to our kids.

I just can’t believe that our government believe that Australia’s adoption of a carbon trading scheme will make any difference to what other sovereign countries do. In the meantime Australia and its population will go broke.

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Have Your say! Have you seen the Ads. I was offended the very first time. What do you think?