Minister Wong Runs Aground   21-September-2009

Senator Wong’s personal yacht Fantasia has apparently run into the rock of pragmatic politics. As was always to  be expected the world does not have much to gain when all Australia has to offer to the global warming debate is  a new form of bureaucracy underpinned by a massive new tax.

The Norwegian’s gave us Nokia; the U.S. split the atom, gave us Silicone Valley, computers and modern  production techniques; Japan gave us Toyota, Sanyo and the Bullet Train; China gave us everything cheaply and  Mr Rudd is going to travel to the G20 and deliver Australia’s climate based aspiration for a massive new tax and  supporting bureaucracy. Not surprisingly the world’s not very interested.

If he really wants to assist the climate, Mr Rudd must deliver something at the forefront of technology. The  inspiration for the development of a mechanism to deliver a higher level of carbon efficient production, not the  regression associated with an inhibitive new overhead and associated bureaucracy entrenched in the massive  new tax system of Australia’s CPRS.

Developing nations must do what they have to do, which is to develop. They shall do this regardless of Mr Rudd’s  or Ms Wong’s proclamations on environmental global leadership. Not just the developing world but the world in  general will politely hear a nation that represents approximately 1.5% of the world’s GDP and then they will  promptly forget about them and go on with business as usual.

The salient lesson for Australia is if the rest of the world thinks our scheme is economically suicidal then maybe  we should take the cue from them and not implement it. If Australia’s approach is manning the life raft as the  economic boat steams happily over the horizon leaving us forlorn and destitute in an economic ocean of grief  completely of our own making then what sort of example is that to the world. More to the point as the economic  ship cruises away from us we will be little more than a passing memory of some well meaning but rather peculiar  fellow travellers of a distant past.

The world is never lead by the soft option of bureaucracy and taxes. The heavy lifting is done by the proven  efficiencies of new technology that win on commercial terms on equal footings. It appears finally that Mr Rudd  and Ms Wong are coming to this conclusion but the insanity of it all is that they still insist in casting us into the  economic life raft from a ship that hasn’t even got a sign of a leak.



Source: Senator Barnaby Joyce

