Dear Ms Lambie,
Firstly may I congratulate you on your election to the Senate. You have undertaken a huge responsibility and I wish you well with it.
I have heard you interviewed a few times now and I have a few concerns I would like to discuss with you.
You seem very passionate about Tasmania. In an article in the Tasmanian Times you said “If I am elected I will be the first Senator that will be delegated the portfolio of Special Minister for Tasmania”. I am not sure if you typed that article yourself but you really need to edit it. There are many typos and you even got your party name wrong in one tortuous paragraph:
“The Australia United Party will give an immediate Duty off Care to the men and women that have been physically or psychologically damaged because of Military service that they received by placing their lives on the line for our country.”
More recently, you said on the ABC “like I’ve made quite clear, if it’s not going to suit my Tasmania, then I’ll be crossing the floor. That’s just the way it is. I have to put Tasmania first.” May I ask why you ran for Federal Parliament because you actually need to be basing your decisions on what is best for the world when you are running a country.
In a letter in the Advocate you said “We must become pro-active and install respect back into our youth,” suggesting a reintroduction of national service. I am not sure how one “installs” respect but, considering the number of cases of sexual abuse and physical degradation at the hands of their fellow soldiers that have come to light, and the failure to do anything about it, I am not sure everyone comes away from a military experience brimming with respect.
Rather than conscription, we could perhaps earn the respect of our young people if we stopped lying to them and actually started helping them. They might feel better if we considered them a precious resource and an investment in our future rather than a burden. We should be providing MORE choices for our kids rather than taking them away. Listening to them and involving them in decisions teaches them far more than dictating to them.
You list your Primary Policy Interests as Tasmania, Unemployment, National Security, Seniors and old age pensioners, the underprivileged, our youth (13 – 21), small business and Veterans Affairs. Unfortunately, when you have the responsibility of the balance of power, you can’t limit yourself to your areas of interest. You are going to have to put in the hard yards to understand every piece of legislation that comes before the Senate. This is an onerous task – just ask the Independents.
You are a very confident, strong woman and that is a good thing. Are you strong enough to know when you are wrong?
Which brings me to my greatest concern – your dislike of environmentalists and your absolute certainty that environmental protection and action on climate change are bad things. I hope I am wrong about this – it’s early in our relationship – but I am not encouraged by what I am hearing from you.
“What we will not abide by is a toxic economic dictatorship led by a minority.” July 20, 2013 criticising environmentalists who were opposing a proposed Tasmanian mine.
“We have had enough of people like you trying to shut down our livelihoods and drive our children out of Tasmania.” Letter in the Burnie advocate criticising a Tarkine forest campaigner.
“Who decided that animal rights had become more important than human rights?” I don’t think we have the right to wipe out other species by destroying their habitat just to give someone a job cutting down trees or digging up minerals. Most of our medicines have come from nature and messing with biodiversity can have unforeseen consequences.
When you were interviewed on the 7:30 report in September last year you said
“I support tearing up the carbon tax to a certain degree but some of that carbon tax is quite good. So, you know what, tearing something up and restarting again takes longer. We probably need to start that carbon tax at maybe three or four per cent.”
That does not fill me with certainty that you actually understand the carbon pricing scheme. Three or four per cent of what?
Then this week on the ABC you said
“Oh yeah, no, the carbon tax needs to go. It’s been an absolute mess since that was introduced. It is absolutely killing the nation.”
That’s not actually true Jacqui. I know you don’t listen to Tony Abbott but if you want my opinion I wouldn’t listen too closely to Clive on this matter either.
The CPI went up about 0.7% due to the carbon tax. By contrast, the introduction of the GST resulted in a 2.5% rise in the CPI in 2000 and the sky didn’t fall in.
Furthermore, in the first year after the carbon tax came into effect, more than half a trillion dollars was added to the combined value of housing and stocks listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, and total employment rose by 160,400.
Federal Treasury estimates that 51 per cent of an average household electricity bill is spent on network charges (compared to nine per cent on the carbon tax). Most of that is going towards paying off the $45 billion network companies have spent on updating and building new poles and wires over the last five years because they predicted an increase in demand for electricity.
Despite the clear reality of falling demand, the network companies insisted that demand was rising, and they carried on investing billions of dollars into the grid. Every dollar of that investment is now being recovered from consumers, via our power bills. Every dollar, plus 10 per cent: a guaranteed return granted to them by the Australian Energy Regulator.
The irony is, we’re paying higher electricity prices at a time when Australia has more energy than it can use. Nationally, energy demand is now lower than it was in 2006, which is due to the decline of the manufacturing sector, the rollout of energy efficient appliances and because over the last six years, 1.3 million households have installed solar panels on their rooftops.
We need carbon pricing for many reasons – to make polluters help pay for the damage they cause, to make industry invest in research and development of sustainable practice, to make business and individuals change their behaviour, to encourage investment in renewable energy which will be a growing industry of the future, to avoid being hit with tariffs or sanctions by other countries who have carbon pricing, but most of all to save the planet for our children.
I can only hope that you truly are your own woman and that you will feel the same anger that the rest of us are feeling at being so blatantly manipulated by corporate liars.
