Emissions rise under carbon price
Labor proposes a carbon price plan to “tackle climate change” and create what it calls a “clean energy future” by an implied decrease in greenhouse gas pollution.
However the Australian government-endorsed Treasury modelling report, “Strong growth, low pollution”, shows that under the carbon price plan, Australia’s domestic greenhouse gas pollution will increase to 621 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent in 2020, bigger than now or in 2000.
To any sane and honest person “tackling climate change” means decreasing greenhouse gas pollution.
However, searches of the “entire ABC site” using the taxpayer-funded ABC’s own search engine for “621 million” and “Strong growth, low pollution” yield 1 and 0 results, respectively, whereas a search of the ABC for the Labor government’s propaganda document and dishonest mantra “clean energy future” yields 348 results, noting that the 20-page Labor government document “Clean Energy Future” contains a falsehood on most pages.
Further, a search of the ABC reveals numerous instances in which it is falsely reporting that “gas is clean” or falsehoods.
Lying, as exampled by Labor and the ABC, impairs societal safety. There needs to be a royal commission into the egregious lying by omission and commission of the taxpayer-funded ABC.
Gideon Polya,
Macleod, Vic.
Take Gillard at her word
Everyone keeps on writing that PM Julia Gillard needs to put her convictions on the line and stand up for what she really believes in.
Everyone keeps on writing that she is being manipulated by the powerbrokers, the factions and the kitchen cabinets and of course by the internal pollsters.
What an insult to Julia Gillard! I know enough of Gillard to know she is her own person. She is part of the machinery, one of the powerbrokers and others in the ALP have come to trust her because of her views.
I believe that what you see is what you get. Maybe what Julia has put out is what she is about. I don't believe that she wants asylum seekers here. I believe that she believes in mandatory detention.
I believe that the “people smuggler business model” is one of her ideas. I believe that she doesn't believe age and disability pensioners should get a better deal. I believe that she is as harsh on our poorest as she claims to be.
In 1983, Gillard was the president of the Australian Union of Students. Her ugly will for power then and her obstinate views contributed to the redundancy of the union, which went out of business altogether til 1987.
What's happening now to the ALP and the Australian political landscape has not surprised me, and long ago I predicted such a parallel.
Gerry Georgatos
Bridgetown, WA.
Impose sanctions on Israel
Whilst acknowledging the Nazi atrocities of the concentration camps, it is time that Israelis accept responsibility for their own atrocities in Palestine.
The world rightly imposed sanctions on South Africa for apartheid. The free world needs to do the same for Israel until Israel pays due compensation and brokers a political settlement for the Israeli terrorism that established the state of Israel by displacing thousands of Palestinians from their rightful homes and land.
How quickly we forget the forgotten war on Lebanon in 1982 in which Israelis killed 17,500 civilians and wounded 40,000.
Babies were burnt with phosphorous bombs, bombs still used recently by the Israelis. Hospitals were destroyed as was the UN headquarters. Four hundred thousand were made homeless and 100,000 went without shelter.
A Palestinian woman’s, child’s or man's life is not worth any less than those tragically killed in 9/11, yet without such protests as at the BBC Proms [classical music festival] or outside the [Max Brenner] chocolate shops the world would read only the sanitised version of Israeli occupation promulgated by a pro-Israeli media.
Dr Colin Hughes
Midland, WA.
Offshore processing not moral or justified
Tony Abbott has offered the olive branch to Labor saying that the opposition will support legislating for offshore asylum processing involving Nauru because he knows an Abbott government would need Labor support to achieve the same.
If Labor and Liberal team up it could easily become legal to send these people to Auschwitz — this would be easier because Poland is already a signatory to the UN refugee charter.
Just because deportation to Manus Island or Nauru could be legalised does not automatically make it morally justifiable. For instance it has been reported that one in six of the asylum seekers held on these islands contracted malaria while under our care.
Tony Backhouse
Narraweena, NSW