I don't know who felt obliged to vote for him, I didn't. I am relieved that he has called a slight halt to the insane proceedings of ETS - I never thought he would do it. How did that happen?
I'm really worried about the Rio Tinto/Chinalco deal going ahead. Surely Mr Rudd will consider using the Future Fund to buy into our very precious minerals industry. What do you think will happen Barnaby? There should of course be laws preventing overseas investment into certain industries; no need to tell you that. Keep your sanity Mr Joyce. We praying for you.
I know which groups will be targetted and it won't be a distraction but a big money spinner.

So Barnaby,

How do you envisage we reduce our carbon emisison otherwise? Do you think that we will be happy because we kept our jobs as the sea levels rise, the Barrier Reef dies, droughts rage and cyclones desimate our agriculture and food supply? Will we say 'thank you for saving our jobs' then?

Except that a 5% emissions target will make almost no difference to our economy at all. The impact that will happen will be offset by tax reductions and welfare payments. Look at Europe - the ETS didn't bring famine to them. Where is your evidence to suggest that jobs will be lost. It is not 'obvious'. An ETS works in Japan, North-eastern USA and across Europe. It has CREATED jobs.

Get your facts right before using your undeserved power to scaremonger.

Mr Joyce
Climate change is not some scary long distance future option for our world. It has been going on for some time and has already caused some very undesirable changes with even more severly impacts to Australia and the rest of the world in the next decade.

The cost of this impact will be far greater than a few mining jobs in Queensland, which can readily be offset by even more jobs in new technologies with just a little thought and reasonable policy.

Get real and get on with some genuine reform.

Paul, where is all the proof of global warming causing problems, all I see is people exclaiming everything and sundry is the fault of global warming, here's a news flash the globe has been warming since the last ice age 10,000 years ago and will continue to do so until it starts into the next ice age regardless of what we do or don't do in terms of taxing everyone at every possible opportunity.

Here's another look at things, why are so many jobs leaving Australian and other first world nations shores, it's not to do with being cheaper, it was and has been cheaper for decades it's because of increasing red-tape and political intereference making it harder and more complex to do business so it just goes somewhere else where it's less hard and less complex.

More taxes is not the answer, less political meddling in our lives is to some extent.

Senator Joyce.

I do not believe the 'polls' regarding the public support for Rudd's ETS.

I applaud you, and encourage you to remain fervently opposed to the Emission Trading Scheme as I believe Australia has much to lose and nothing to gain.

Regards, Annie Bright

Senator Joyce
I too am a skeptic. Could you ask PW & her department some questions in parliament to get considered answers on record.
The first that come to mind is
"Is it a fact that the ice record shows that the CO2 concentration lagged temperature, both rising and falling?"
"What exactly has Al Gore lobbied for, and how often? Donations from associated organisations?"
"Is it true that sea level rise has risen by 1 mm/yr over the last ten years?"

I am sure there are many more that would be useful.

Regards George

Unfortunately hubristic jingles from "Environmentalists" have polarized the discussion of Climate Change even to the point that eminent scientists lower themselves to tit for tat accusations of dishonesty over the facts. Given that we all live in a kind of chemical soup dependent on both oxygen and carbon for our lives and livelihood then re emitting fossilized carbon that hasn't been doing anything to the atmosphere for millennia is surely got to do something. Fossil fuels have been great! They have fueled a civilization that's copied natural polymers to create petro-plastic that has now been recopied back into bioplastic (compostable). More new industries are being born from the emergence of green industries and rural Australia should be front and centre of this revolution. A well structured ETS should be powering these new industries. The Nationals should be leading the charge. Try: Bioplastic made from sugar cane. Biochar from urban and agricultural waste, hydrogen cars fuelled by pure metal rods that release hydrogen as the metal oxidises in water. This one could be an entire regional industry using solar-thermal electric power to purify the metal mined locally. The cars emit water with oxidised metal precipitate that can be returned to the regional electrolysis facility for repurification.

Most of the "renewable" options are flawed in any number of ways, hydrogen takes a LOT of energy to convert to/from so the efficiency is very poor, especially compared to petrolum products.

Wind energy can't provide base load energy, the wind doesn't blow consistently enough, there isn't enough rain in most of Australia for hydro and solar only works during the day time and going to and from batteries is very wasteful in most cases, there is no really good energy storage devices.

In fact only coal and nuclear are the main 2 options for baseload power, Australia should be building nuclear plants if the 1.5% of carbon we emit is going to be such an issue. Fussion power is and always has been a long way off, the plant being built in France won't be useful for at least 40+ years and fission technology over the last few decades has improved to the point you can build mini-plants that can power remote locations without needing to drag power lines all over the place and all the associated losses in sending electricity along very long power lines.

I'm with you Clive Baxter. I can't for the life of me understand how successive Australian governments have been so tame and timid with regard to nuclear power. (some people still equate with nuclear weapons I'm sure)

Even more puzzling is the current government which is pandering to the "global warming screamers" (at potential risk to our economy), and at the same time maintaining an eerie silence on the nuclear option.

How will future generations judge us? With a good deal of amusement I suspect.

Nuclear has over the years has unfairly been given a bad rap, due to incompetent mismanagement, or simply brain dead designs the russians should never have gone with, as it was a disaster waiting to happen, when not if!

Yet how many miners die each year coal mining? Why aren't the greenies jumping up and down about that? How many people in the US military services live and are surrounding a nuclear power plant on ships and submarines?

Nuclear power plants are the only real solution going forward for the massive power requirements we need now and going into the future, I'm pretty sure the greenies won't let any more coal fire plants be built in Australia so what's it going to be, coal or nuclear because nothing else will cut it and there is no one in their right mind that can honestly say otherwise because they will be lying through their teeth.

Barnaby's position on climate change may be good political strategy in the short-term for Barnaby's ambitions and grab a few headlines, but if he keeps up his looney rantings it wil only hasten the death of the party.

Action on climate change i.e gross feed-in tariff, mandatory renewable energy targets and a strong price on carbon emissions will lead to a jobs boom in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Many of these jobs will be located in rural areas, farmers like those in Germany would be able to generate their own electricity, Biomass power plants would spring up throughout rural areas, plenty of people would be employed to retrofit buildings.

Daniel, you like all the other people thinking "renewable" energy products will be the savour of us all, is what is going to put us into an even bigger mess, as I've tried to post above there is no sane "renewable" energy product that will actually benefit us, we can't store surplus energy during times of peak demand, and we can't rely on "renewables" to give us baseload energy at peak times so going down that path will only waste money and resources on efforts in a touchy feel good way that might make people sleep better at night thinking they've done their part to "save the world" but in reality it only distracts us from really doing the right thing by everyone and everything on this planet.

We need energy to survive these days, in the US old people die in winter because they can't afford to heat their homes and so they freeze to death, and encrouaging the governments of the world to put extra taxes on energy production is only going to increase the number of deaths of the poor and elderly, and Australia is currently heading the same way with 20% increase in energy prices, and that's before they start taxing the living daylights out of energy production.

How many more people have to die unnessicarily for the "greater good"?

I meant we can't store the energy produced from renewable sources at peak production times for use during peak demand times.

Denmark, Germany and Spain seem to be doing just fine getting on with a rapid increase in renewable energy, energy efficiency and reduced reliance on coal, which besides being the major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions is also so destructive to rural water supplies, agricultural output and the health of rural communities.

'Denmark transitioned from being 99 percent dependent on foreign energy sources such as oil and coal in 1970 to becoming a net exporter of natural gas, oil and electricity today. Denmark has the largest portfolio of wind projects integrated into their power grid and ranks fifth in terms of total domestic capacity. The country is the unchallenged world leader in terms of wind technology, exporting US$7.45 billion in energy technology and equipment in 2005. Primary energy consumption nationally has grown only 4 percent from 1980 to 2004, even though the economy grew more than 64 percent in fixed prices. At the same time, total CO2 emissions decreased by 16 percent.

How Did They Do It?

Denmark has a long tradition for broad political alliances on energy policies and the implementation of well-designed, consistent policy mechanisms. New policies are typically negotiated in a transparent manner with all political parties and possible stakeholders, and have included:

· Energy taxes, first passed in 1974 as a response to the energy crises, kept high and not lowered after fossil fuel prices dropped in the 1980s;

· A feed-in tariff requiring utilities to buy all power produced from renewable energy technologies at a rate equal to70 to 85 percent the consumer retail price of electricity in a given distribution area;

· Environmentally friendly zoning that forced cogeneration units to replace district heating units and prohibited the use of oil, diesel, and coal for many generators;

· Long-term financing reduced the risk of building larger projects and encouraging local manufacturing;

· Open and guaranteed access to the grid where Transmission System Operators (TSOs) are required to finance, construct, interconnect, and operate the transformer stations and transmission and distribution infrastructure for renewable energy technologies;

· A general carbon tax on all forms of energy, adding around 1.3 euro cents per kWh of additional income for renewable energy generators;

· Streamlined permitting that made the Danish Energy Authority the “one-stop-shop” for tendering of bids for renewable energy construction; approval of pre-investigation of sites, environmental impact assessments, construction and operation; and licenses to produce electricity.

http://www.scitizen.com/stories/Future-Energies/2008/03/Is-the-Danish-Renewable-Energy-Model-Replicable/

Daniel, perhaps you should try getting the real facts before spouting half truths.

"A report from Denmark 2 indicates that the Danish ‘wind carpet’, which is the largest array of wind turbines in Europe, generated less than 1% of installed power on 54 days during 2002. That is more than one day every week of the year without electrical power. However, if we broaden the definition of ‘without power’ slightly, the same Danish ‘wind carpet’ generated less than 10% of installed capacity for some 16 weeks during 2003. Yet Denmark has the same kind of northerly, maritime weather systems as does the UK. Thus the wind-generation industry is lying to us, once more, for a ‘wind carpet’ that generates less than 10% of installed capacity it next to useless, for the national electrical grid will never cope with such a massive reduction in power supply. In fact, wind generation is so useless, that Denmark, Europe’s largest wind generating nation by far, has never used any of its wind-generated electricity – because it is too variable. It is almost impossible to integrate wind power into a normal generating grid, and so Denmark has merely exported its variable wind supplies to Norway and Sweden. 3 These nations can cope with these electrical fluctuations because of their abundance of hydro-electric power, which can be turned on and off quite rapidly, unlike most other generating systems."

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/25/renewable-energy-%e2%80%93-our-downfall/

I am another skeptic who doesn't believe in the "human-caused global warming" hoax. If the Nationals are prepared to reject outright (not just tinker around the edges) the whole ETS fiasco, they would get my vote if they fielded a candidate in my Sydney electorate. Economic reasons against the ETS are fine, but I simply reject the whole "carbon" mythology.

Denmark has tertiary level manufacturing industries in the middle of the huge European Market. Denmark can afford to dabble with alterative energy schemes and not affect the bottom line. Also, they can buy nuclear generated electricity from neighbours. Coal is 20 % of Australia's minerals export income and a huge employer.

Remember the 1980's Labour federal governments that urged Australia to get out of mining and into manufacturing ?

its good to see someone standing up for the liberty of all australians

its kind of insane how people think the same goverment that tried to "tax and spend" their way out of a recession (utterly proving thier incompetence) can control the climate...what a laugh

people have become so dependent on the goverment its becoming scary

Daniel Kogoj,

Further to what Clive wrote, it might be worth looking at unemployment rate in germany and spain. they started their switch to green energy years ago, and look where they're at now.

Bottom line is this: renewable energy is great to dabble in, and when there are efficient storage methods it might even be worth installing on a widespread basis. But renewables will not provide the baseload power needed to maintain society.

If the ALP and greens were serious, they'd support nuclear power wholeheartedly due to its minimal nasty CO2 emissions. Gen IV reactors, due to come online within 10 years on a wide scale to replace earlier Gen II and Gen III reactors.

Gen IV reactors are fuelled by existing nuclear waste, and their own waste is radioactive for only 30 years or so. So in 1 piece of tech, you'll start destroying the world's stockpile of nuclear waste, as well as providing a safe and solid baseload power supply. *point to note, Gen IV Integral Fast Reactors are also unable to suffer a meltdown, due to their design*

The trouble with Kev is that he did not get voted in, John lost becauseof his Industrial policies. Now we have to endure a guy who thinks he is a mini Colossus, striding the world stage in two inch boots.

I am a small business man in my early 60's, I employ 5 people but regard what Mr Rudd and now Mr Turnbull are going to introduce in the form of a new taxation regime will be the straw that brakes this camels back. The most
probable outcome will be Australia again giving away its hard earned wealth to the carpet baggers. We need a new political party in this country,

thank you for opposing the ETS its the last thing we need keep up the good work