Agmates

The much laundered new era of Federal - State cooperation has fallen apart.

The Federal Governments battle to gain control of the Murray Basin Water took an ugly turn this week with Federal Water Minister Penny Wong dropping a ‘water bomb’ on the Victorian State Labor Government Premier John Brumby [pictured] .

“In an aggressive play that was dropped on the states by surprise, Federal Water Minister Penny Wong declared that grants for small-scale farmers to cease irrigating will be paid only to those whose home state has agreed to the Commonwealth’s demands over abolishing certain trading rules.

The move has renewed tensions between the Rudd and Brumby governments over reform in the Murray-Darling Basin and forces the Brumby Government to effectively choose between two groups of farmers.”

Struggling small irrigators have been lining up to take advantage of the exit grants scince they were first announce 2 months ago.

“Pressure from the Commonwealth intensified over the weekend when Ms Wong declared that farmers could not access the grants - worth up to $150,000 - until their home state had met the Commonwealth’s demands.

The incentive package has been offered only to “small block” farmers - those with less than 15 hectares of land - and is of most significance to farmers in Victoria’s Sunraysia district.”

Once again small farmers will be left high and dry whilst the Brumby government digs its heals in.

“The Brumby Government vowed to continue fighting to protect the 4% trading cap until late 2009, when it is scheduled to rise to 6%.”

It would be a real treat and a novelty for Australia to have just one State Political Leader who’s planning and policies had a longer time frame than the next State election.

Can there be a better example than the Murray Darling fiasco for the need to rid ourselves of the blight on our nation that is our system of State Governments?

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Prime Minister Kevin Rudd leadership is starting to sustain real collateral damage over his George Bush, G-20 gaffe.

“Mr Rudd’s embarrassment over the leaked discussion - in which he talked with Mr Bush about bringing together the G20 group of nations to deal with the international financial crisis - has increased, with reports now spreading in the media overseas, appearing in Britain and Asia, as well as in Washington.”

Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull is also starting to apply the blow torch:

Mr Turnbull said Mr Rudd had allowed a version of the call to get into the media, designed to make him “look like a diplomatic encyclopedia and make Mr Bush look stupid”.

“There is nothing that he could have done that could have done more damage to Australia’s reputation in Washington than that,” he said.

The Government has obviously been ignoring the incident hoping it would just fade away, but now even that strategy is backfiring :

Former diplomat Bruce Haig said the incident was a “silly thing to have happened”. But what was worse “is the slowness with which the Government has moved to distance itself from the statement”, Mr Haig said.

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On Sunday we reported that Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had been caught out ‘big-noting’ himself and basically being a bullshit artist.

The story first appeared on the front page of The Australian on the 25th of October.

I was appalled that an Australian Prime Minister could be so egotistical as to firstly divulge to his dinner guests the details of a private conversation with the US President and secondly to make up a story that was designed to make himself look like a Statesman influencing world affairs and too make the US president look like an ignorant half whit.

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AP Photo by J. Scott Appelwhite as appeared in the Times online.

Well the story has now spread from our shores. The UK Times online report yesterday:

A conversation between the Australian Prime Minister and out-going US president George W. Bush has threatened to turn into a diplomatic row between the two countries, after details of the private chat were leaked to the Australian media.

They told the paper the perception that it was Mr Rudd who leaked the details of his conversation with Mr Bush could cause damage to Australia’s close alliance with America and cast doubts internationally over his trust as a leader.

The Syndey Morning Herald Today:

Mr Rudd took the call from Mr Bush on October 10 while entertaining dinner guests at Kirribilli. It was reported that during the phone call, Mr Bush asked, “What’s the G20?” and that Mr Rudd was “stunned”.

The report prompted a swift denial from the White House via an article in The Washington Post.

“A US official who monitored the call denied that Bush made any such remark. In addition, the official said, Bush told Rudd during the phone call that other leaders were also advocating a G20 summit and that he was considering it.”

Hows this for political double speak and squirming as PM Rudd tries to deny it happened.

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This will be a true test for the Rudd Government. On the one hand you have a leading academic and RBA board member saying don’t rush into an ETS, while on the other you have former Rock Singer now Environment minister saying ‘bugger the economy’.

In an unprecedented move Reserve Bank of Australia board member and world renown authority on the economics of cliamate change Professor Warwick McKibben has called on the Rudd government to delay the start of Australia’s emissions Trading Scheme.

“Professor McKibbin [pictured] said today the Prime Minister should not act before Australia knows what commitments other countries will make to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at international talks in December 2009.

“There is no way that at Copenhagen there can be a firm commitment on abatement because the US administration, whoever it is, won’t have the people in place to negotiate a rules-based system,”

Hang on, the whole basis of the Treasury modelling was on the fact that there would be a global agreement reached at Copenhagen. Now just a week after the release of the modelling that premise looks shot.

The good professor is concerned about that a hastily implemented scheme will be out of kilter with the what the rest of the world does or does not decide to do.

But that does not worry Australia’s Environment minister Peter Garrett [pictured below] who once again has proven that he is off with the fairies.

“THE environment is bigger and more important than the economy, even in the midst of the worst financial crisis the world has seen for several decades.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett expressed that view to a meeting of prominent environmentalists in Melbourne last night, saying the economy was a “subset” of the environment.

Thats a conundrum, who should Kevin Rudd take his advice from on this one, the Rock Star or the Professor. Daaahhh, I wonder?

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Australia is crashing through the front doors of the great Carbon Constrained global economy, only to find that those already occupying the space are bolting for the back door.

“EUROPEAN Union member states are ready to grant car makers a three-year delay until 2015 to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of their new vehicles in light of the global economic crisis, negotiators said at the weekend.

During a meeting of representatives of the 27 nations, “a consensus was reached” on pushing back the original 2012 deadline to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, a negotiator said.”

At this rate Kevin Rudd is right on track to demonstrate why Australia is not thought of as a world leader. What world leader worth his salt would introduce a policy that will punish his countries economy during the worst global financial crisis in living memory?

Perhaps only one who believes it will look good on his Secretary General of the UN job application.

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We all know them, people who drop names, are into one-ups-man-ship, always having to make themselves look better than anyone else in the room. In Australia we call them ‘bullshit artists’, ‘blow hards’, ‘big noters’ or just plain ‘up themselves’. Whatever, they have a serious ego problem and are usually a pain to be around.

Our Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has an ego problem. As with all people who make up stories to make themselves look good, it usually come back to bit them on the bum. But not with consequences that the ‘big noting’ threatens strategic alliances with a ’super power’.

THE leaking of a sensitive phone call between Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and US President George W. Bush, and inaccuracies about what was said, will have ongoing consequences for relationships between the two countries.

After the call, on the evening of Friday, October 10, Mr Rudd reportedly told guests he had insisted to Mr Bush that the G-20 was the appropriate vehicle to co-ordinate a response to the ongoing crisis affecting world markets.

“What’s the G-20?” Mr Bush reportedly replied.

That remark, and the notion Mr Bush had not already been considering the G-20’s role have been denied by a US national security official who monitored the 30-minute conversation.

Senior diplomats at the highest levels of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) have confirmed to The Sunday Telegraph that Mr Rudd’s indiscretions have put at risk Australia’s alliance with the US.

“Gobsmacked” was the way one senior diplomat described the reaction of colleagues in Washington to the story in The Weekend Australian.

“From the point of view of other countries, the view will now have to be that their leaders will have to be much more guarded in their dealings with Kevin Rudd.”

The issue is the best example yet that Kevin Rudd is on a huge and dangerous ego trip. So desperate is he to impress those present at the dinner that he made up absolute ‘bullshit’ story that was designed to make him look smarter than the US President.

I would have thought just getting a personal phone call from the US President while at dinner would have been an impressive enough party trick.

Our Prime Minister has a serious self image problem and an ego that is dangerously out of whack.

This appalling episode makes Prime Minister Kevin Rudd a deserved winner of the Agmates Bullshit award.

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Former US president Bill Clinton admits that the US ‘free trade’ policy has forced millions of people in third world countries into poverty and starvation.

“Today’s global food crisis shows we all blew it, including me when I was president, by treating food crops as commodities instead of as a vital right of the world’s poor, Bill Clinton has told a UN gathering.

Clinton took aim at decades of international policymaking by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and others, encouraged by the US, that pressured Africans in particular into dropping government subsidies for fertiliser, improved seed and other farm inputs, in economic “structural adjustments” required to win northern aid. Africa’s food self-sufficiency subsequently declined and food imports rose.

“Food is not a commodity like others,” Clinton said. “We should go back to a policy of maximum food self-sufficiency. It is crazy for us to think we can develop countries around the world without increasing their ability to feed themselves.”

World-renowned environmental leader, food-sovereignty activist and author Dr Vandana Shiva agrees with Clinton and in this video takes aim at the IMF and World bank over the same issues.

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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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I don’t know? We have the Treasurer Wayne Swan standing up yesterday telling us if we don’t rush headlong into a Carbon Constrained economy that we are going to hell in a hand basket.

Here’s a chart of global atmospheric carbon concentrations . In 1979 global concentrations were 336 parts per million. Thirty years later they are approaching 386 parts per million. Thats a 50ppm increase in 30 years or 15%.

Below is a graph of Global temperatures for that same period 30 year period. As you can clearly see while Carbon concentration in the atmosphere is climbing rapidly, temperatures are have not shown anywhere near the same upward trend. The last 10 years since the El Nino induced spike of 1998 show the temps have dropped by 0.6 of a degree.

You tell me, if rising CO2 concentrates cause rising global temperatures - why isn’t it?

While this data is available to one and all, the Rudd government is going to lead us head long into a carbon constrained economy that at ‘best case’ scenario (that is if the rest of the world signs up and we can develop carbon capture) will see our Coal, Aluminum and Agriculture industries industries severely depleted.

But hey this is the same government that charged headlong into the bank guarantee without properly anticipating the consequences. They did this with advise from the Treasury who apparently could not anticipate the adverse consequences that surfaced just 3 days after the announcement of the guarantee.

Thats the same Treasury that released the ETS modelling yesterday, that said its just going to cost Australians $5-$7 a week to stop global warming.

Yes Right, clear as crystal isn’t it!

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If the Federal government were to adopt the recommendations of the Productivity Commission’s draft report into drought assistance for farmers and rural businesses will will see many rural communities decimated. Farmers will abandon some properties and small rural communities will become ghost towns.

Sensationally the report that reads like the work of the ‘grim reaper’ recommends that all current drought assistance being paid should be be scraped by June 2010 regardless of the season conditions that prevail between now and then.

Under the Commissions shock recommendations the only assistance available to farmers after 2010 will be income support (dole), which will be means tested, only available after any Farm Management Deposits have been used and only for a maximum 3 year period. Farmers will also have to go through a full review each 6 months to continue to receive assistance.

Small Businesses in Rural towns will receive nothing in the way of drought assistance.

The report recommends:

• Doing way completely with current interest rate subsidies by June 2010.
• Income support at the same level as the dole be would be only available to individual farming families for 3 years in any 7 year period.
• Income support to be reviewed every 6 months
• Income support only available to farmers with overall assets, (including the Family Home on the property) worth less than $3 million.
• No assistance will be available for rural businesses.
• The $150,000 farm exit grant to be scrapped from June 2009.
• Farm Management deposits to be retained, but should be drawn down first before farmers are eligible for any other assistance.

The reports recommendations reveal a bleak outlook for drought stricken farmers and rural communities.

Commenting on the report Acting Ag Minister Martin Ferguson guaranteed that existing rules of exceptional circumstance would not change for anybody currently receiving assistance.

The Commissions final report is due out in February 2009.

Since 2002 approximately 30,000 Australian farmers have received drought assistance totally over $1 billion dollars.

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