Ok, I’m not talking about the pattern where Turnbull says something about the government, then Abbott says that it was all thanks to him and Turnbull says that his government has made immense changes but not too many just the important ones like who’s leader and nobody says anything for a few days and then Abbott bobs up in some foreign country insists to them that he used to be important and takes a selfie.
Recently I read that a couple of senators, independent John Madigan and Coalition MP Chris Back, have called for a moratorium on wind farms until the new studies have concluded.
Mind you, plenty of studies have concluded that there are no verifiable health risks from wind farms, but as with the inquiry into the Safe Schools program, that wasn’t the answer that some people wanted, so it should be shut down until an inquiry comes up with something that helps provide a justification for closing it down permanently.
Of course it’s true that living next to wind farm may cause you stress if you’re stressed about living next to a wind farm – just as living next door to Alice may cause you stress if you’re stressed about living next door to Alice – but when it comes to coal seam gas projects, not only doesn’t your stress matter, the NSW government is passing legislation which makes it an offence to protest. Pity it wasn’t in place before the convoy of no consequence or whatever it was called descended on Canberra to protest the carbon tax. Or something. I forget exactly what they were protesting, but in those days, Liberals seem to think that a protest meant that the government should sit up and take notice.
Something like that. My memory’s a little hazy from all the change… and continuity. Which isn’t a slogan, by the way. As he told us the other day, Turnbull doesn’t use slogans. I’ve heard a rumour that there’s a poster of Turnbull being released for the election campaign with the words: “Liberals: We don’t do slogans”, but I’m not the sort of person who just repeats rumours. Unless they’re really good ones and the source knows somebody who’s heard it from someone who may be credible.
But it’s Chris Back’s position that I’m most intrigued about. Senator Back is often refered to as a climate sceptic and has claimed that he has a better knowledge of such things because he trained as a vet, which gives him an understanding of science. He told the Senate that the term “climate change” was an oxymoron because the climate is always changing. And while he may have a knowledge of science from putting dogs to sleep or putting his hand up a cow’s bum, he clearly has a limitted understanding of words, as an oxymoron is something that’s a contradiction in terms such as “a deafening silence”, “genuine fake”, “definite maybe” or “honest Liberal minister”. What I suspect he meant to say was tautology, but the point remains.
He believes that we should stop building wind farms until the evidence on the health dangers have been examined yet again, while simultaneously arguing that there’s no need to do anything about climate change because nothing’s been proven.
But then the current government cut the funding to the Climate Commission because it couldn’t afford the million or so it cost to run it, but found $200,000 a year to fund a part time wind commissioner without batting an eyelid, so I guess that he’s not alone when it comes to inconsistency.
Anyway, let’s move and forget about that because tax reform is the number one priority of this government now that the Great Barrier Reef is off the endangered list and these studies suggesting bleaching are just one of those scare campaigns that scientists come up with so that they can get the funding that would be better spent subsidising jobs and growth by giving it to coal companies who are having a hard time of it lately.
The latest thing on the table is the suggestion that Scottie “Beam Me Up” Morrison and Malcolm “I don’t do slogans” Turnbull is the idea that the states could levy their own income tax. One presumes that this will be done where the job is located so that we don’t suddenly have a large number of workers using the Cayman Islands as their home address. Then again, as a number of companies probably have some overseas address, levying it at the location of the company may be problematic in the case of multinationals.
Of course, the whole idea of the GST was that it was going to give the states a “growth tax” and they’d get all the money and it would never be raised past ten percent and they wouldn’t have to beg Canberra for money and there’d be plenty for hospitals and schools and the roads would be paved with gold and the states would do away with all those fiddly, little taxes that they imposed and we’d all live together in perfect harmony because it was somehow going to do away with the “cash” economy and everyone would pay their fair share of tax and the pigs would reduce global warming by flying and blocking the sun from warming up the earth…
Something like that. Like I said before, my memory’s a little hazy from the constant continuity… Or did I say change?
Anyway, I’ll be interested to see how long state income tax is on the table. Lately any Liberal tax proposal – apart from a reduction in company tax – that’s put there seems to slide off so quickly that I can’t help but wonder if the legs are the same length on both sides; there seems to be a definite lean to the right.
