Let's look at the entire picture of the failure of the Labor Party's ETS, vigorously opposed by Abbott and his Howard remnants.

As you say, both parties had such policies and the corrupt State by State elected and federally voting morons in the Senate opposed it.

The Rudd government put it up again and again it was denied.

In the meantime though, something rather sinister was happening and reminded me of the Packer media of 1975 which many of us thought could surely not happen again.

Yes Bernard, in your capacity as a Journalist, you could sit down and chronologically look at the Murdoch media, especially The Australian and how they personally attacked everything Rudd tried to do but, mostly his personality and principles. This while denying his government’s magnificent control of the world financial meltdown in Australia, the avoidance of recession, the decrease in unemployment and maintaining his Aaa rating with the IMF and the World Bank. As Ned said “such is life”.

And yet, Bernard, I am sure that you know why Murdoch slowly but surely built up a public frenzy against Rudd with the express purpose of forcing him to an election, whatever type, before he could keep his promise of a full term.  Which principle they would have thrashed him with anyway.

Rudd put his ETS forward again and the Liberal/Nationals opposed it again.

Rudd had his negotiators meet with the Liberal’s MacFarlane to NEGOTIATE an acceptable policy to BOTH major parties – that compromise was refused by the Liberals after they stabbed their leader Malcolm Turnbull in the back, elected Tony Abbott, (by one vote completely dividing the alternative government) and reneged on that agreement and dared Rudd to have a double dissolution.  So far correct?

By that time the unbeatable Kevin Rudd had been blamed for every minor fault or delay that had occurred since the Murdoch attack had begun.  Like his predecessor of corporate bastardry, Frank Packer, Murdoch’s timing was to force a double dissolution election and this was obvious when Abbott suddenly did another flipflop and decided that he wanted that too.

The Labor ETS was scuttled no matter how hard they had tried to be bi-partisan but, that was not in the agenda of the “powers that be”.

Rudd’s lowest rating was, if I remember correctly, down to 26% support BUT, as revealed by the ultraconservative ABC Insiders show, had only counted 400 opinions in the Miner’s W.A. – and that was approximately the number of clearly orchestrated “laughing protestors” led by an unprincipled sort of Australian in “Treeless” Forrest.

The conspiracy of the Corporations was predictable when Murdoch agreed to talk to Abbott (should that be instructed?) and coincidentally both Abbott and Murdoch began their plans based solely on hearsay, innuendo and blatant opinion lies which were dressed up as NEWS.  Murdoch feared the popularity of an honest man. Just like 1975.

Personally I am disappointed in your writing for the first time and I suggest to you that if you love this country as I do, you will put your priorities in order and stop the Corporations gaining absolute control over our nation as they already have in the US.

Australians need honesty Bernard and as Abraham Lincoln once said; “Let the people know the facts, and the country will be safe”.

God Bless Australia.  NE OUBLIE.

Hi Ernest, The only problem that I have with your hypothesis that uncle rupert is responsible for Kevin's demise & thereby, by default, Labor's failure to deak with carbon emissions, is that you don't offer a reason for uncle rupert to want to bring Kevin & Labor down.

And if your hypothesis is correct, then there must be a reason, just as there must have been a reason for uncle rupert to support Kevin & Labor in 2007, otherwise, how did they get elected?

What's changed Ernest? What was Kevin & Labor not doing in 2009, that they were doing when they were elected?

I don't agree with you about uncle rupert .... frankly, I actually think he's beyond politics in the antipodes.

No, I think, sadly, that the real problem is that all the major parties are now captive of the big end of town & they will do the bidding of those interests regardless of what might be in the national interest or the future of the planet.

The examples of my truth are everywhere, not just in respect of the government's failure to deal with climate change.

As I said, a pox on both their houses.

Cheers Mate.

The biggest policy disagreement between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd was over the emissions trading scheme.

Gillard was determined to stop Rudd proceeding with the scheme, and yesterday her campaign came to full fruition.

Her climate change policy is an elaborate way of saying that a Labor government will not commit to delivering an emissions trading scheme at any particular time, and perhaps not ever.

Why not? Because Gillard argues that Australia needs a ''deep and lasting community consensus''. She is setting up her 150-member ''citizens' assembly'' to confer for a year, as a way of trying to manufacture one.

Like her so-called population policy, in which she talks about everything except the two determinants of population - the birth rate and immigration - this is a non-policy. It creates talking opportunities, the chance to sound sympathetic to every concern, without commitment to any action.

We see the creation, before our very eyes, of the archetypal professional prime ministerial procrastinator.

Gillard herself described her carbon policy as ''a transitional step towards a national energy market which fully factors in the long-term costs of carbon pollution''.

Going forward, but in transitional steps. What does that look like? A sidestep? A shuffle?

Of course, there is another ''citizens' assembly''. It's called Parliament. But Gillard argues that it is not enough to have agreement between the political parties in Parliament.

She said at her press conference yesterday: ''I think we do need to learn a lesson about the fragility of consensus when we have politicians talking to politicians.

''We have seen that before our very eyes over the last year, a consensus established, Penny Wong as our minister shook hands on a deal. It was all going to be delivered through our Parliament and that consensus rapidly went away when Tony Abbott stepped in.''

By setting this new pre-condition, Gillard is actually setting an even tougher test, entrenching an even bigger structural obstacle to an emissions trading scheme, than she advocated in the inner sanctum of the Rudd government.

In the secrecy of that inner leadership group Gillard took an increasingly strident line against the emissions trading scheme.

In the week before Christmas, Rudd convened a meeting of his political strategy group in his office in the Sydney CBD at 70 Phillip Street.

With him were Gillard, the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, and two of Labor's key political operatives, Senator Mark Arbib and Karl Bitar.

This group would turn against him in six months, the core of the coup that struck him down at lightning speed.

Arbib, a former general secretary of the NSW Labor Party, would be the key powerbroker to mobilise the coup. Bitar is an Arbib protege, Labor's national secretary.

The meeting was called to consider whether Rudd should call an early election, in February or March. It would have been waged primarily on the government's pledge to implement an emissions trading scheme.

The government had been stymied by Abbott 's opposition in the Senate only a few weeks earlier, giving it the constitutional cause and the political case for an early election.

But a big complication was the fresh failure of the international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen. Rudd had just returned from the gathering, exhausted and dispirited.

In the Phillip Street meeting, Arbib and Bitar laid out the dangers of an early election, possibly a double dissolution, on climate change.

The nub of the warning? That Abbott would run a big scare campaign based on the rising cost of living that an emissions trading scheme would involve. Labor would lose seats.

Rudd raised another concern. The failure of global political will on display at Copenhagen was bad enough. But all countries had agreed to lodge submissions in February outlining their plans to cut carbon emissions.

What would happen if the big carbon emitters - maybe the US, maybe China - all came back with pathetic commitments, starkly exposing the hollowness of the global climate change movement, right in the the middle of an election campaign on climate change?

The risks were big. But Labor was polling very strongly. The unanimous view of the meeting was that if Rudd were to run a climate change election, he should do it early. He should do it now.

When they left the room, Bitar booked television ad space for a February or March election.

They went on Christmas holiday. Rudd seemed torn. When he returned to work this year in mid-January, Gillard had changed her mind.

She told Rudd that he should not under any circumstances consider going to an early election on an emissions trading scheme because it was too politically fraught.

Around the same time, Labor tested the idea with focus groups. The secretariat quickly came to the conclusion that it would be impossible to sell the idea of rising electricity prices, caused by an emissions trading scheme, to marginal voters.

The moment for an early election came and went.

In the inner counsels of government, Gillard's opposition to the emissions trading scheme hardened. In April another crunch moment arrived. The government had to decide whether to include provision for a scheme in the budget that was to be delivered in May.

At this point Gillard wrote a minute, and circulated it to some of her cabinet colleagues, proposing a new approach - the ''bipartisan position''. This was that the government should only commit to implementing an emissions trading scheme in the event that the opposition did, too.

An argument raged. Gillard and Swan argued that another effort by Labor to go it alone, in the face of opposition intransigence, would be politically ruinous.

But the Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner, and the Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, were vehemently opposed. The ''bipartisan position'' would effectively give Abbott power of veto over Labor policy.

Rudd, Tanner and Wong argued that it was outrageous for Labor to put its climate change policy into the hands of a climate change denier. Australia would never have an emissions trading scheme under this formula, they claimed.

The outcome was a compromise, and it was disastrous for Rudd's prime ministership. Rudd agreed to shelve the scheme for at least three years.

When the Herald's Lenore Taylor disclosed this decision in April, it precipitated the fatal collapse of Rudd's approval ratings. Arbib, Gillard, and Swan came after Rudd two months later.

So yesterday, Gillard actually toughened the test for Labor to move to legislate an emissions trading scheme. No longer content to have a political consensus in Parliament, she has now established the new test of a ''deep and lasting community consensus''.

The Prime Minister cited a precedent for such a politics-proof consensus: ''We look at some of the transformational changes in this nature - I have used the example of Medicare because I think it's a good one.

''Medibank, Medicare was once hostage to the cycle of politics. Opposed by the Liberal Party, it would be introduced and repealed in part, and then Labor would come and rebuild it.

''Today, of course, no one goes to an election saying they are going to repeal Medicare. I want to get to that point'' with an emissions trading scheme.

This sounds persuasive, but it is a false analogy. Gough Whitlam did not wait for a deep and lasting community consensus to legislate Medibank. If he had, we'd still be waiting. He legislated, and he argued and fought and campaigned for his cause.

Whitlam led. Gillard fudges.

John Connor, the chief executive of the Climate Institute, observed that ''we are still far short of a credible plan on climate change and pollution''.

The state of progress under Labor is so negligible that John Howard might well have brought Australia closer to an emissions trading scheme by now if he had won the last election.

His former chief of staff and a key strategist, Arthur Sinodinos, told me yesterday that a re-elected Howard government would have moved to implement an emissions trading scheme.

The head of Howard's Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Peter Shergold, had designed one, and Howard had promised to put it in place if re-elected.

''When Copenhagen collapsed, we would have wanted to wait and see,'' said Sinodinos. ''But the advice from Peter Shergold was to go ahead anyway and put the institutional framework in place, so that we'd have first-mover advantage whatever happens.

''So we may well have put the institutional framework in place'' - a system for issuing and trading carbon permits - ''but not have turned the switch on yet.''

So a re-elected Howard government would probably have done at least as much as Labor towards an emissions trading scheme, and possibly more.

What, exactly, does Labor stand for?

Great procrastinator takes reins of inaction on climate change

G'day John,

The short answer is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I have always tried to give an alternative to any situation that I oppose personally. That is when the matter concerns an issue that we, the public, can do something about - and I believe I have been doing that.  I also believe that what we write here is monitored somewhere especially since it reflects the real freedom of speech and opinion. 

That means we may be able to do something about it even if only at the election next when the danger of a rogue and unreliable Tony Abbott might just get away with it.  That is of course with the current obvious help of the Murdochracy and its well known methods of negative politics to the ones that they are disposing of, like Julia and the best lot of front benchers I have had the pleasure to listen to at Question Time.

The independent British papers and those in the US have consistently agreed that the Media Barons, of which Rupert Murdoch would have to be one, if not the most, internationally influential and absolutely politically inclined as indeed they all appear to me anyway.  That is why I have monitored the Murdoch The Australian to gauge what HE decides about the Rudd government now that he has allowed that to happen (my opinion only).

Whilst Howard had respectfully given the Corporations a Corporation’s government led by most foreign and wealthy companies like News Ltd. - including such things as killing the “Cross Media Ownership Laws” and introducing the GST, Australia’s biggest single tax in our history and the Corporation’s friendly WorkChoices legislation just to mention a few - he had eleven years of newspaper support – until 2007. 

Ever since Howard met with Murdoch in 2007 and it was reported that Murdoch had said to Howard “you have had your time” or words to that effect – and then Kevin Rudd was also given an audience with the “King maker” and I guessed that he was maybe asking for a fair go, and so it came to pass. Coincidence?

The British newspapers generally acknowledged that the Murdoch media was after the Labor government there and so that came to pass. (Talk about Paul the Octopus?) It is also a major buzz in America that Murdoch and his compatriots are not happy with the “people friendly” attitude of the Obama Democrats and will probably interfere with the mid-term elections there with the intention of making him a “lame duck” for the next Presidential election.

And John, my additional opinion is that News Ltd and the Fairfax media used false and skewed negative opinions on the Rudd government’s “work in progress” by simply finding individuals to complain about it. That was to belittle the improvements to schools; insulation of homes with the double purpose of less omissions and saving of energy which was rorted criminally by the “bottom of the food chain” exploiters of a good faith act of the Rudd Government and unfairly found guilty by the Murdochracy without any proper investigation or unbiased reporting.

When a government in a media controlled “democracy” has a reform in progress, it is not “NICE” to take it by the throat and crush it even before it is “fairly completed?”  The media treated the Rudd reforms like a mechanic being abused by a car owner because he still had the engine stripped down and it was taking too long.  We have all experienced that on one side or the other. But say an even local newspaper got a hold of that and persecuted the Mechanic – in my day people took time to think and reason – today that could cause the Mechanic to lose his business. 

I am currently rewriting a small amount of Howard’s “New Order” who were never brought to justice even though their behavior was criminal and obviously so.  Would you seriously say John, that the Howard “New Order” who wanted an “Inspirationally Nationalized” (or NAZI for short) administration was a good idea?

Cheers mate.

God Bless Australia and may we at last, realize the danger of VOTING for absolute Corporation power. NE OUBLIE.

While the Zionists blackmail the world with their "yes but no" nuclear policy, closer to home we have the fearful possibilty of returning our independence to the bought decisions of an increasingly powerless and unreliable nation.  They are not our shield against real or imaginary terrorism but are a target because of their own terrorism. Money is the root of all evil and we are all guilty.

My appreciation of the writings of Bernard Keane are still intact and I admire any contemporary Journalist who can genuinely appreciate the "smoke and mirrors" of modern Americanizing of Australian politics.

As a simple man I try to use the freedom provided by this forum to put my views without fear of a Malcolm Turnbull court summons.  But I am prepared to face that if it happens, in the meantime, I will have my say which perhaps, sixty six years of taxpaying since I was 14 may have given me that right.

The Murdoch media in particular has been trying and succeeding, to concentrate their readers on the "mistakes" of the Rudd and now Gillard government and this effort has the same subjective effect in every state of Australia - more power than any one corporation had before Howard.  This, of course, takes the pressure off the Liberal candidate Tony Abbott to the point where he now claims to be the favorite for the Prime Ministership of our country.  Fair dinkum – media fairness has never been so absent as now.

The American "head of the snake" policy merely allows the media to concentrate on the faults of just one contestant, if they do not like them, or the imagined assets of the other, under the same premise.  It has been evident that the media led by Murdoch have concentrated on their opinion of the Labor Party’s faults while ignoring the continual flip flops of Abbott, and the divisive attitude between their caucus members and - that is why they only talk to him in “locked down” situations, devised by “Captain Smirk” Peter Costello the creator of the massive foreign debt.

When Australians vote for a government, they were once happy to align themselves with the local constituents and judge them on how they have carried out their duties for their voters. Sure, incumbents are favorites but, they have something to lose, not so the opposition.

There seemed to me to be an attitude of savior faire post WW II and we were happy to accept the ultimate decision of the majority of Australians.  If our local member was active and acceptable to the people whose welfare and duty of care was paramount – we would certainly know.

To satisfy our all powerful super power friends, we have allowed ourselves to be subject to the nation which absorbs some 50% of the world’s entire resources and yet, they could not handle the recent “recession” which they probably caused, while our Rudd government managed to do so – despite the American Corporations' Liberal party in Australia.

While there appears to be some “freedom” life left in the US, the Lobbyists with bulging wallets will corruptly decide the outcome and I am afraid that we will be part of the sacrifice to their failure in honest regulation.

God Bless Australia and may we have a government which does not owe our souls to any non voting foreigners, and I am with Fiji in that they are trying to maintain their identity.  We would be respected more and less of a target for terrorism.  NE OUBLIE.

According to 64% of Australia's largest focus group, the What the people want project run by eJournal On Line Opinion, Julia Gillard's Citizens' Assembly should be abandoned.

Out of 1,666 responses, only 24% approved while 64% disapproved.

Only ALP voters favoured the proposal, and then only by a margin of 56% to 23%. 92% of Liberals, 88% of Nationals and 61% of Greens voters were opposed.

Chief Editor of On Line Opinion Graham Young said that the pool of responses from the What the people want qualitative survey was 11 times larger than the proposed 150 people who would form Ms Gillard's assembly, and probably more statistically significant.

"The responses show this was an unwise move by PM Gillard. The overwhelming majority of respondents attributed the move to bad faith, although other respondents believed it was a good move to consult the community."

"Analysis of the data using Leximancer software reveals a number of key themes. A large percentage of voters believe that parliament is elected to make these decisions, that they are decisions which should be taken at an election, and that an assembly would be a waste of time."

"Other voters were more cynical and saw it as a political move, designed to delay real action until after the election, or to avoid it altogether. Kevin Rudd was frequently accused of being all talk and no action, now it is Julia Gillard's turn.

Australians tell Gillard to abandon Citizens' Assembly

Yes John...

All Tony and Julia have to do in this Climate Change policy is to read all of Gus' rants on this site and follow the instructions... If they don't understand or don't have time to collect all the bits, they can ask questions to which I would answer as clearly as possible.

But we are in an election campaign where Tony the-lying-defribillated (he appears to have the energy of a corpse being revived with 20,000 volts) always twist the value of things including that of a "Tax on Carbon" as if it was "evil", all without recognising the signs that 2010 is likely to be the warmest year on record, since record have been kept — and that amazingly we are a period of "cool" sun. Yes, the sun is very very quiet... Beware when the sun starts its next cycle of "hot" soon...

-------------------

Currently, the Sun is experiencing its longest solar minimum on record, with little sunspot activity and few solar flares or coronal mass ejections.

Solar minimum impact

To see what effect solar minimum is having on the thermosphere, Emmert and colleagues monitored the impact of atmospheric drag on satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). These satellites fly through the thermosphere, so the thicker the thermosphere the more drag it puts on spacecraft.

The researchers expected to see a contraction in line with solar minimum, but the level of collapse was up to three times greater than solar activity alone can explain.

They believe an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may explain the contraction. CO2 has a cooling effect in the thermosphere, which would then amplify the impact of the extended solar minimum.

Doesn't add up

But the researchers found low levels of EUV radiation only account for about 30% of the collapse, while the increase in CO2 levels account for another 10% at most.

That still leaves some 60%, which can't be explained by current modelling.

Furthermore the current anomaly appears to have commenced in 2005, well before the current solar minimum began.

Emmert and colleagues think there may be an as yet unidentified climatological tipping point involving both energy and chemical feedbacks.

Dr Phil Wilkinson of the Ionospheric Prediction Service with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology says it highlights something is going on that science doesn't understand.

"They are suggesting that the whole composition and chemistry of the thermosphere might have changed and the way we come out of this solar minimum will tell us how it's changed," says Willkinson.

"Or it could be that minor constituents in the thermosphere play a far more important role than we thought and we're only realising that now. If that's the case then the thermosphere will eventually return to normal conditions."

Wilkinson says the only real impact of the thermosphere collapse is in space, where less atmospheric drag will keep spacecraft in orbit longer.

"That's good news if you want to keep your satellite flying, bad news if you're trying to de-orbit space junk."

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/07/19/2955888.htm

-------------------------

The thermosphere is the biggest of all the layers of the earth's atmosphere directly above the mesosphere and directly below the exosphere. Within this layer, ultraviolet radiation causes ionization. The International Space Station has a stable orbit within the middle of the thermosphere, between 320 and 380 kilometres (200 and 240 mi). Auroras also occur in the thermosphere.

Named from the Greek θερμός (thermos) for heat, the thermosphere begins about 80 kilometres (50 mi) above the earth.[1] At these high altitudes, the residual atmospheric gases sort into strata according to molecular mass (see turbosphere). Thermospheric temperatures increase with altitude due to absorption of highly energetic solar radiation by the small amount of residual oxygen still present. Temperatures are highly dependent on solar activity, and can rise to 1,500 °C (2,730 °F). Radiation causes the atmosphere particles in this layer to become electrically charged (see ionosphere), enabling radio waves to bounce off and be received beyond the horizon. At the exosphere, beginning at 500 to 1,000 kilometres (310 to 620 mi) above the Earth's surface, the atmosphere turns into space.

The highly diluted gas in this layer can reach 2,500 °C (4,530 °F) during the day. Even though the temperature is so high, one would not feel warm in the thermosphere, because it is so near vacuum that there is not enough contact with the few atoms of gas to transfer much heat. A normal thermometer would read significantly below 0 °C (32 °F), due to the energy lost by thermal radiation overtaking the energy acquired from the atmospheric gas by direct contact.

The dynamics of the lower thermosphere (below approximately 120 kilometres (75 mi)) are dominated by atmospheric tide, which is driven, in part, by the very significant diurnal heating. The atmospheric tide dissipates above this level since molecular concentrations do not support the coherent motion needed for fluid flow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermosphere

-----------------------

I have my own theory as to why the thermosphere has "collapsed" but I need to do a bit more research before expressing it. Often such theory seeds can be found in some old science books where people have expressed crazy ideas at the time. By extrapolating from these either in the same line or sometimes in total opposition one can find some elegant solutions that fit. On this one I trust Julia more than Tony. He spins on the spot like a fake coin in a game of two ups. We think heads, he falls bum. We loose.

May the best woman win the election...