Australia votes to repeal carbon tax

[alp227]

Source: BBC

Australia's Senate has voted to repeal the carbon tax, a levy on the 300 biggest polluters passed by the Labor Party when they were in power in 2011.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose Liberal-National coalition beat Labor in an election last year, had made the repeal a central aim of his government.

Politicians have been locked in a fierce row about the tax for years.

Labor says it helps to combat climate change, but the Liberals claim it penalises legitimate businesses.

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28339663

[Matilda]

1. A victory for the Australian Tea Party.

Black armbands for Greens, Labor, and anybody with a functioning brain.

Australia is now poised to fall behind the rest of the world in dealing with the effects of global warming.

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[neverforget]

2. We're all too short sighted to give a shit about future generations.

We're way too selfish and live for the here and now.

[not fooled]

3. Murdoch at work?

...bet that Australia being the rock from underneath which Murdoch crawled, they've been getting a steady diet of Faux-type nooz --> RWers get elected --> giant cluster f*ck ensues.

Same thing as has happened in the US and, to a lesser extent, other countries around the globe: buy the media to control the message-->use said media to propagandize in support of Neoliberal economic policies + standard RW memes--demonize government, foreigners, immigrants, environmentalists, feminists, blah blah blah-->get the masses angry and then divert that anger in the desired direction, with the result that voters cut their own throats economically-->dismantle social safety nets, weaken environmental laws, weaken regulation--> wash, rinse, repeat around the globe.

[marions ghost]

4. That is exactly how they do it and the agenda is global

although Australia still taxes the rich much more than America does.

But yeah, Australia has its share of self-serving conservative corporates who care nothing about environmental degradation or future generations.

[cprise]

7. How Rupert Murdoch created the world’s newest climate change villain - Salon

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/22/how_rupert_murdoch_created_the_worlds_newest_climate_change_villain/

Unholy alliance: Murdoch, Norquist and Abbott

In 2010, Gillard managed to shepherd a cap-and-trade law to passage, in the form of the Clean Energy Future Act. However, the government’s popularity was on the wane, and the opposition party took full advantage. Tony Abbott called the science of climate change “crap” and various senior figures in his front-bench team openly questioned the scientific basis of anthropogenic global warming. Abbott spoke at anti-carbon price rallies in front of banners proclaiming Prime Minister Gillard as a “witch” and a “bitch.”

Behind the scenes, several key members of Abbott’s party including the now-Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, visited the United States to meet with conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, and conservative players in last year’s government shutdown debacle of 2013, including Matt Kibbe and Grover Norquist.

Gillard’s carbon pricing laws eventually came into effect in 2012, amid the biggest fear campaign ever seen in Australia. Rupert Murdoch-owned mastheads, controlling as much as 70 percent of the newspaper market, carried front-page stories attacking the laws.

[steve2470]

5. waits for more Aussie input, this sure sounds terrible nt

[SkatmanRoth]

6. This is not good; not good at all

We need to clamp down on these deniers. They have been getting too much publicity in the media. They ignore the science and claims for equal exposure in the press are misguided because the deniers are demonstrably wrong. The action by the deniers is going to severely injure civilization as we know it.