Agmates

South Australian Liberal Senator Mary Jo Fisher writes:

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Mary Jo Fisher

Treasury confirmed in Senate Estimates on Wednesday that real wages will be 10 per cent lower under Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) modelling by 2050.

CPRS modelling means workers taking a pay cut to stay in a job, with Treasury confirming that CPRS modelling shows real wages must fall by 10.3 per cent under the Garnaut 25 per cent model, or else unemployment will rise.

When I suggested in Estimates that Treasury produce all the documents involved in the modelling process, department official Megan Quinn replied,

“If we were to produce every result from all of the 8 economic models and analysis used, it would run to boxes that would potentially fill this room.”

But the whole of Parliament won’t fit the job applications of workers forced to find lower paying jobs.

Evidence given at Wednesday night’s Senate Estimates confirmed earlier evidence from respected economist Dr Brian Fisher that

“real wages have to be lower than they otherwise would have been to maintain everybody in a job”.

Treasury modelling supposedly showing that the CPRS will not cost jobs overall, also assumes that real wages will fall to prop up the job market. It assumes that to support the CPRS, workers across the nation will be happy to take a pay cut, so that they and other workers can have jobs.

Australian workers don’t realise that one worker’s job will be another worker’s pay-cut. The Prime Minister must tell Australian workers that they will trade wages for jobs, if he trades in pollution.

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END

Have Your Say!

Agmates member Peter Gough writes:

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There are two comments that need to be made about the CPRS back down.

It was only a few days ago that Penny Wong greeted Professor Ross Garnaut’s proposal to delay the scheme with cries of derision and statements about the impending doom that would result from even the slightest delay.

What happened Penny ?

I might be a bit slow but I haven’t noticed any new changes in the last fortnight. Or is it just that Kevin forgot to tell you that he was going to pull the pin ? Worse still, has a decision to reverse one of the the most important Labor election platforms been made on the run in the last week ? I think not !

The real problem is not jobs but the financial elephant in the room.

I refer of course to the Federal Court’s judgement regarding compensation for loss of property rights compensation.

Spencer -v- Commonwealth of Australia {2008} FCA 1256

In the Federal court the Honourable Justice Emmett in paragraph 149 of the decision there is a strong endorsement of the Property Rights of Mr Spencer as quoted below :

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149 “I consider that Mr Spencer has established that there is a serious question to be tried as to whether he has suffered such sufficient detriment as a consequence of the 1997 Vegetation Act and the 2003 Vegetation Act as might constitute a taking or acquisition in respect of Saarahnlee.

Further, to the extent that there was a benefit to be derived from the grant of carbon sequestration rights by undertaking voluntary restraint, it is certainly arguable that Mr Spencer has been deprived of that benefit.

Whether the restriction is such as to constitute a taking or acquisition or expropriation may depend upon detailed evidence of value. Nevertheless, there is at least a seriously arguable case for concluding that there has been an acquisition of property of Mr Spencer’s.”

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By signing the Kyoto protocol Lu Kewin has exposed the Commonwealth to a massive payout to rural landholders. Implementing a CPRS and including soil carbon sequestration ( as is now being considered by the Obama administration in the USA ) will result in what has been estimated at between 5 and 10 Billion dollars compensation to the rural sector land holders.

This would be totally unacceptable to Labor and Liberals alike.

Watch for the referendum ( at the next election) clarifying the position in the Constitution of State Governments and Municipal Councils in such a way as to remove this huge compensation payout.

You heard it first on Agmates !

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END

First by posted here.

Have Your say!

Livestock producers world wide need to stop sticking their ‘head in the sand‘ over global warming. I know that the majority of producers just want to get on with their lives and hope that all of this will either go away or just won’t impact on them that badly.

Any regular readers will know that NASA scientist Dr James Hansen spearheads the push to rid the world of fossil fuels. Hansen wields enormous influence with not only the UN, but world leaders.

In this video Hansen tells listeners that two things must happen to reduce Carbon emissions and save the planet from certain destruction:

1. Governments to immediately decarbonize their economies and stop burning and mining coal.

2. Private citizens should stop eating meat and live on a plant based diet.

Australia is only 12 months away from introducing an emissions trading scheme that will effectively tax our mining companies $5 billion over the next 5 years. Hansen has specifically targeted Australian Coal exports saying:

“Australia exports coal and sets atmospheric carbon dioxide goals so large as to guarantee destruction of much of the life on the planet,”

Watch the video and see what Hansen recommends as the number 1 thing private citizens can do to stop global warming -- it’s not changing your light bulbs or switching to solar hot water.

The spread of the Hansen virus threatens to wipe out the livestock industry world wide.

I can almost hear you say that most folks would never voluntarily give up eating meat and thats true. However with a legislated emissions trading scheme or carbon tax, the government can tax any industry they deem undesirable out of existence.

The governments climate change adviser Ross Garnaut has already warned that the livestock industry will be one of the hardest hit industry sector under Australia’s carbon emissions trading scheme.

In fact a number of the countries leading economists have already warned that once Agriculture becomes a covered industry in 2015, most farming enterprises will be unviable, particularly livestock producers.

Forget the foot and mouth virus or mad cow disease the real and present threat to livestock producers in Australia is the Hansen virus.

(thanks to Agmate Jeff)

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Whilst conservation, Green groups and Rupert Murdocks News media is pressuring the Rudd Government to announce deep cuts to Australia’s Greenhouse gas emissions, it’s own Climate Change adviser Professor Ross Garnaut is telling them not to go it alone.

In an article in today’s Australian Newspaper Professor Ross Garnaut writes:

“No country acting alone – not even the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, the US and China – can cause the risks of dangerous climate change to fall substantially by its actions alone. A co-operative effort involving all substantial economies is required.

Each country acting alone in its narrow national interest will calculate that it will be better off if it does as little as possible to reduce emissions, whatever other countries are doing, so long as it does not believe that its inaction will influence materially the actions of others.

In this, climate change is more difficult than other international policy issues.”

So what are the chances of an international agreement being reached?

It is more difficult than trade liberalisation, in which, despite the charades of trade negotiators, each country would be better off liberalising its trade whether or not other countries were doing so.

It is more difficult than arms control negotiations, in which there is at least a fiscal gain from doing more, whatever others are doing.

OK so the chances of reaching an international agreement on climate change appear to be worse than slim. What are the consequences of Australia going it alone. Garnaut is clear on this:

With climate change mitigation, one country acting alone accepts costs without substantial benefits.

Have your say!

Nationals Senator Ron Boswell [pictured] writes.

Queenslanders can expect even more draconian electricity price increases under the Federal Government’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

Queenslanders have had three increases in the maximum charge price for electricity since the industry was deregulated, but these increases, large as they are, will be insignificant compared to the electricity cost increases expected under the Rudd Government’s proposed ETS.

Treasury modelling predicts that, under a CPRS -5 scenario, the average wholesale electricity price will increase by 66% in Queensland between the years 2010 and 2015*.

This increase in the wholesale costs will translate to an average household electricity price increase of 21% in 2010 under the lowest target ETS (CPRS -5) and a 44% price increase in 2013 under the Garnaut -25 scenario**.

The modelling shows that the Rudd Government’s Emissions Trading Scheme will be a huge cost burden on Queensland Families.

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The mainstream media is full of summaries of what kevin Rudd has achieved in the last 12 months.

As the 24th of November approaches, lets take a look at it through the eyes of Rural & Regional Australia.

Despite promising on election night ‘to be a Prime Minister who will govern for all Australians’ once you look at it like this you’ll see that in its first 12 months, the Labor government has done virtually nothing for farmers or rural & regional Australia.

Photo of PM giving his victory speech on the evening of the 24th November 2007.

November 24th 2007 – After almost 12 years in power the Coalition Government is ousted by the Kevin Rudd lead Labor party.

November 26th 2007 – Results in, Nationals Lose two seats. Now only have 10 seats in federal Parliament. Agmates calls for a change of party leadership.

November 29th 2007 – Brendan Nelson wins Liberal Party Leadership

December 2nd 2007 – Warren Truss elected by party to lead the Nationals after Mark Vail steps down over dismal showing in polls.

December 3rd 2007 – Kevin Rudd sworn in as new PM and ratifies the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.

December 4th 2007 – A 38 year old Lawyer, Shop Steward, Union organizer who knows nothing about rural Australia is appointed as the new Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry. Meet Tony Burke.

December 5th 2007 – Northern Territory Country Liberal Party Senator is elected as the Nationals Leader in the Senate.

February 1st 2008 – Federal National party meet in Sydney to consider the recommendations of the party review compiled by former party leader John Anderson strategist Michael Priebe.

February 13th 2008 – Prime Minister Rudd’s historic Apology to the ‘Stolen generation’.

April 20th 2008 – Australia’s 20/20 Summit, attended by 1,000 of Australia’s ‘best & brightest’ to come up with ways to move us forward as a country.

May 13th 2008 – Treasurer Wayne Swan hands down his first budget with a projected surplus of $21.7 billion. The Budget is full of bad news for farmers.

• Over $1 billion cut from the Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry Budget
• Scrapping the successful Farmbis training program.
• Savagely cutting food innovation grants.
• Closing CSIRO agriculture research sites in Queensland, Victoria and WA,
• Broken election promise for support to rural research and development.

May 27th 2008 – Rudd Government breaks first election promise to the bush. $63 million in cuts to CSIRO research, including 100 full time staff and the closure of agriculture research facilities across Australia.

June 22nd 2008 – 60 years of a Single Desk wheat marketing structure in Australia is ended when Agriculture Minister Tony Burke gets the Australian Export Wheat Deregulation Bill through the Senate.

July 16th 2008 – Climate Change Minister Penny Wong releases the Governments green paper on an Emissions Trading Scheme.

July 28th 2008 – National Transport Shutdown commences

August 12th 2008- CSIRO report predicts fuel will hit $8 a litre as Oil peaks in July at US$147 a barrel.

August 12th 2008 – ACCC hands down the findings of its inquiry into grocery prices. Finds in favour of the Australian Supermarket Duopoly over farm suppliers. The inquiry’s findings are lambasted as a sham.

September 1st 2008 – Climate Change Minister Penny Wong admits Government is spending $9 million on Climate Change TV ads. Ends up being $14 million.

September 3rd 2008 – Wheat growers Vote to relinquish control of one time monopoly wheat Exporter AWB.

September 6th 2008 – Disaster for the Federal Nationals as they lose the Federal seat of Lyne in a bi election after former Leader Mark Vale quits politics. The Nationals now are down to just 9 Federal MP’s. In better news for Western Australians the Liberals & Nationals sweep to power in the state election.

September 10th 2008 – Federal Water minister Penny Wong announces that the government has stepped up it’s Murray darling Water Buyback scheme with the $23.75 million dollar purchase of Toorale Station Near Bourke NSW.

September 16th 2008 – Malcolm Turnbull defeats Brendan nelson in a party room vote to become the new leader of the Liberal party.

September 16th 2008 – Senator Barnaby Joyce is elevated to be leader of the the Nationals in the Senate as Senator Nigel Scullion steps down from the position.

September 24th 2008 – US President George Bush in an address to the world speaks on what was then a crisis on Wall Street but was to quickly become the Global Credit Crisis.

September 27th 2008 – Independent Senator Steve Fielding forces the labor Government to exempt farmers and regional tourist operators from the Luxury car tax. The exemption is worth $40 million.

September 30th 2008 – Professor Ross Garnaut releases his final report into Australia’s Emissions Trading Scheme. Grim reading for farmers.

October 7th 2008 – RBA cuts interest rates by 100 basis points. The biggest single reduction in 16 years.

October 12th 2008 – PM Rudd announces the Bank Deposit Guarantee.

October 15th 2008 – Treasurer Wayne Swan announces the $10.4 billion dollar economic stimulus package. Estimated that 2.9 million rural & regional Australian’s will get $4 billion of the cash hand out.

October 17th 2008 – Federal Ag Minister Tony Burke summons rural industry leaders to Sydney for a global credit crunch crisis meeting.

October 20th 2008 – PM Kevin Rudd announces the government will inject $600 million into local governments infrastructure projects.

October 31st 2008 – Productivity Commission recommends Governments scrap all drought assistance payments to farmers after June 2010.

November 4th 2008 – RBA cuts offical cash rate to 5.25%

November 5th – 2008-09 budget forecast slashed from 21.7 billion to just $5.4 billion.

Have I missed anything?

Have Your Say!

In what can only be described as a scandalous act of deception it has been revealed that the IPCC has grossly overstated global livestock emissions.

The FAO report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, [pictured] made public last year to world acclaim, states that livestock contributes 18 per cent of the global warming effect, even more than transport.

But buried in the report is the information that deforestation – mainly in the Amazonian rainforest – is included in that figure. Without it, livestock’s contribution falls to less than 12 per cent.

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One of the report’s main authors, Pierre Gerber, a Food Agriculture Organization of the United Nations livestock policy officer, has been openly critical of IPCC Chairman Dr Rajendra Pachauri and others, saying they had misused the information in the report.

If you recall, based on the report Dr Pachauri [pictured] an Indian Economist and Vegetarian has been campaigning for the world to eat less meat to fight global warming.

In Professor Ross Garnaut final report last week he devoted an entire section to cutting Australia’s livestock emissions, extensively quoting the trumped up 18% figure for Australia’s livestock emissions.

This is just another example of how the IPCC has distorted and misconstrue the science. Yet they still maintain credibility. This is the science that Kevin Rudd and his Labor team are relying on to set policy in Australia.

The emissions trading scheme Rudd intends to introduce in just 14 months time will cost ordinary Australians $5 billion dollars in Carbon Taxes in the first year. Based on this kind on dodgy representation of the science, it will be an abject disaster, particularly for Australian Agriculture.

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(thanks to Agmate – Jeff)

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Have Your Say!

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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

Beef consumption per head of population in Australia has not changed since 1960. Ross Garnaut and others fanciful suggestion that Australians should shift from eating beef and lamb to Kangaroo would entail a massive re – education program of consumers and or incredibly cheap retail prices.

The below graphs sourced from ABARE show that the retail price is an all important factor in what meat familes buy and consume.

You can see from the graph that retail beef prices in 2006 were just above those of 46 years previous. Poultry on the other hand was just 20% of its 1960 equivalent. Note the big beef price drop during the beef crash of the 1970’s.

Now for the Consumption per capita (person) for the same period.

Things we can learn from the two graphs.

1. Note the only time that beef consumption has risen during the 46 year period was during the 1970’s cattle crash. Except for this period beef consumption been flat lining for the last four and a half decades. This is despite Meat and Livestock Australia spending millions of dollars of producers levy money on domestic promotion over the last decade.

2. Sky rocketing consumption of Poultry (900% increase) is in direct relation to the plummeting retail price.

From the two graphs it would appear that if Roo meat was to retail at about the same price as Poutry, Australian consumption would automatically dramatically increase.

There is the conundrum. If Roo meat has to be sold at those sort of prices, how do producers make any money from the enterprise? Currently beef producers receive about $2.50 – $3.50 a kilo carcass price for beef. Roo carcass price is approximately 0.70 cents – 0.90 cents a kilo carcass weight.

There are about 3 million Roo’s killed each year for consumption. Of the 3 million 30% go to pet food and 70% to human consumption. Of that 70% – 30% is sold domestically and 70% is exported, with the largest market Russia. The Russians cheifly use it as a beef substitute filler in cheaper sausage meats.

Senator Ron Boswell touches on why producing cheap Roo meat is an impractical dream.

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Have Your say!

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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

QLD Senator Ron Boswell [pictured] has written to Agmates about Ross Garnaut’s fanciful suggestion that Australian farmers graze Roo’s instead of cattle and sheep.

This article has earned Senator Boswell our latest Agmates “Onya” award.

In the article he demonstrates a particularly deep understanding of how the Australian Farming industry works. This understanding is something that Garnaut and the green brigade supporting this fanciful idea obviously lack.

KANGAROO FARMS – A EUREKA MOMENT FROM GARNAUT

The Garnaut Review suggests that Australia takes 9.1million hectares out of current land use to grow trees and that we run 240 million kangaroos instead of 7 million cattle and 36 million sheep. This is a daft proposition totally removed from reality.

On Page 547 of the Garnaut Review, it says:-.

“They conclude that by 2020 beef cattle and sheep numbers in the rangelands could be reduced by 7 million and 36 million respectively, and that this would create the opportunity for an increase in kangaroo numbers from 34 million today to 240 million by 2020. They estimate that meat production from 175 million kangaroos would be sufficient to replace the forgone lamb and beef meat production …”

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It reads more like a sci fi horror movie than an intelligent policy proposal.

Firstly, taking 9.1m ha to grow trees will savage agricultural food production, hurting domestic food security as well as that of our overseas buyers.

Secondly, the idea of running kangaroos on such a massive scale beggars belief.

• All the fences would have to be trebled in height for starters.
• New investment in saleyards, kangaroo trucks and abattoirs would be required.
• Even tagging poses problems if the National Livestock Identification Scheme applied.
• I don’t think the Australian people would like to see their national symbol branded with a branding iron.
• Producers would have to establish stud breeder criteria and registration, artificial insemination procedures and so on.
• Kangaroo stewards at Royal Agricultural Shows would need to be trained and appointed and probably protected as they led the Show Champion Kangaroo around the ring.

Woolworths could re-badge themselves as ‘The Fresh Roo People’.

We would have to invest in new advertising to market our product overseas, perhaps along the lines of ‘Put another roo on the barbie’ or ‘Where the bloody hell are roo?’

Seriously, can you take this report seriously?

How do we sell the need to adapt to climate change when the leading advice contains this fantasy?

END……….

For that great piece of common sense Senator Boswell joins out prestigious list of Agmates “Onya’ Recipients.

In fact this is Ron’s second “Onya” award. (to date the only person to have won two).

So “Onya” Ron from the Agmates community. A big Thumbs up.

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Have Your Say!

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

Professor Ross Garnaut in his final climate change report does see a silver lining for farmers and rural communities. The potential revenue for biosequestration for farmers at a carbon price of $20 a tonne is $5 billion dollars a year.

Opposition climate change spokesperson Greg Hunt [ pictured] is a biosequestration enthusiast:

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“We have been talking of a conservative target of 60 to 80 million tonnes a year of natural sequestration, he says.

Garnaut has gone for a bolder figure of 250 million tonnes from a combination of soils, pastures, woodlands and forests.

I don’t think that is outrageous or unreasonable in terms of its potential for Australia. At a carbon price of $10 a tonne, that is $2.5 billion going to rural Australia each year.”

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One of the major stumbling blocks for Australian farmers to realize this potential is that the Kyoto protocol does not recognize carbon sequestration from soils, pasture, woodland or forests established pre- 1990.

The second impediment is a globally accepted accounting method for sequestration by soils and pasture.

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