By Jo Nova
Labor wants the poor to subsidize the rich EV car buyers
Good news: The conservative opposition has promised to reduce the fines to zero for car manufacturers who sell “too many” diesel and petrol cars. This effectively negates the New Vehicle Emissions Standards (NVES), even though the Coalition says they will keep the standards (whatever that means).
As standards were ratcheted up the fines could be as much as $25,000 on the largest utes and 4WDs.
For a nation of petrol-heads, it’s amazing this diabolical policy hasn’t sparked outrage, probably only because it was buried in complexity. An honest government would have added a fee or a tax directly onto the kinds of cars they didn’t want sold — they could call it a pollution tax to cover the cost of the damage. The reason the Labor Government didn’t do that is because the unwashed masses would be revolting in the streets. So they make a rule that manufacturers have to sell a certain percentage of “good cars” that make future weather nicer (in theory), and then they can tell abject lies to the public like “it’s up to the car companies” and “manufacturers don’t have to pass the costs on” — as if any profit making entity can absorb fines of millions without raising prices.
The sole point of the NVES was to punish petrol and diesel car buyers and subsidize EV manufacturers, and pretend the government was not doing the taxing and subsidizing because the money didn’t pass through any bureaucrats hands, even though the sole cause of the money flow was indeed the government.
Election 2025: Liberals to drop fines on car emissions
By Greg Brown, Sarah Elks, and Joanne Panagopoulis, The Australian
The Coalition will abolish fines for car companies who breach targets under Australia’s first vehicle emissions standards scheme, in a major election commitment aimed at taking down the Albanese government’s claim that the price of petrol cars will not increase under Labor’s policy.
The Australian can reveal the Coalition will retain the New Vehicle Emissions Standards, but will not punish companies financially that do not meet the tough carbon goals. Coalition sources said the policy, to be announced during the campaign, has the backing of the sector.
Companies that miss the yearly target need to pay heavy fines or buy credits from suppliers that overperform, with industry modelling predicting car suppliers will be on the hook for $2.7bn of fines by the end of the decade.
The effect of the pseudo car tax would be to limit sales of petrol and diesel cars by raising their prices, or taking them off the market, while reducing EV car prices — a policy that takes money from the poor in the outer suburbs and country areas in order to subsidize cars bought by inner city rich people. As petrol and diesel cars became more expensive, obviously their second hand price would increase as well.
These people are professional liars:
Chris Bowen (Energy Minister) implies the Labor policy has reduced the cost of EVs in Australia already (even before it started).
Mr Bowen said. “When we came to office there were no models available under $45,000; now there’s eight. That is our policy starting to work with a lot more to do.”
Somehow fines and penalties “increase the options” — as if stupid companies overseas were making cheap electric cars but forgot to send them to Australia:
Jim Chalmers said the NVES was about introducing more options. “That will put downward pressure on prices over time,” the Treasurer said.
Peter Dutton needs to find short one-liner ways to sell this policy because it’s a vote winner.
The neutered NVES would be barely an aspirational fantasy goal without the fines. Presumably the opposition decided to keep it anyway just so the Labor Party couldn’t hit them easily with one-liners that “Liberals don’t care about pollution”. Where is our honest national conversation? Gone with the billion-dollar biased ABC, and government regulations that stop new competition arising in free-to-air media.
In fact the NVES is purely about CO2 emissions, not about pollution. Carbon dioxide is an asset to a dry agricultural nation. The Coalition should axe the NVES entirely. Petrol and diesel drivers help feed the poor.
In the UK, the same sort of rules were already in place, and due to the awful consequences on the car industry, even the untouchable Keir Starmer Government, years away from the next election, is already cutting fines by 20% and exempting British manufacturers like McLaren, Aston Martin and Bentley. Fines in the UK were as high as £15,000 per car, and set to get worse. The UK government has also added in all kinds of what they call “flexibilities” to keep the illusion that they are not back-tracking, while finding excuses to reduce the penalties. But of course, flexibilities are Soviet style complexities that means everyone needs more lawyers and accountants and more bureaucrats. It still feeds The Blob. It’s not the free market that brought the mass production of cheap cars to the unwashed masses in mere decades.
Complexity helps the rich and punishes the poor, it just hides it better. The opposition should wage a war against these deceptive schemes. All the same outcomes could be achieved through honest simpler tax plans. Only liars and cheats want to dupe the voters with hidden subsidies that help the rich.
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A few years ago Toyota Australia was reported for advising the Australian Government to ignore European Standards for vehicles and adopt North American.
I believe the reasoning was the politics of Electric Vehicles in European Standards.
My diesel 4WD Isuzu purchased new in 2017 complies with Euro-5 but I understand that later diesel engine manufacturers are struggling to meet European Standard for diesel engines emissions.
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Toyota may have had an ulterior motive (since they are all-in on hybrids rather than EVs), but they are correct. It makes way more sense for a continent-spanning low population density country with lots of wide open spaces to adopt vehicle standards from low population density continent-spanning countries in North America than it does for them to adopt vehicle standards from a Balkanized Europe full of tiny little population dense countries. What works in Liechtenstein and Monaco doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in Western Australia or Texas or Quebec or Chihuahua.
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Good news for all the sane buyers who want to purchase an ICE vehicle and a definite vote winner if they have the brains to advertise extensively for the next few weeks.
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The poor have subsidized green energy.
The rich however, subsidize the propaganda to convince the poor to be happier with more poverty.
“You will own nothing.”
The ‘Commonwealth’ countries are nearing full dystopia.
Mothership UK is already there.
Oddly in lockstep with former rivals France and Germany.
Canada is about to put an EU/WEF/RocksofBlack apparatchik in charge (because the last one was so popular).
All us Americans have is a 78 old year obstinate former TV personality that they turned into a victorious hero with their hysterical efforts to discredit him and ostracize half the American population.
Who has about 18 months to save the Alamo.
(May God bless and guide him.)
Good luck Ozzians.
Your going to need it.
So are we.
BTW … the whole point is make it impossible for us to own cars.
In my solid Blue US state, they’re damn near making it impossible to live.
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Please allow a little personal story.
Last year I was required to renew my driver’s license.
I have had this license in this God forsaken Democrat ruined state for 40 years.
That license has served as my one and only legal ID for said FORTY years.
This time I was required to show up with an ‘original’ birth certificate.
Being born long ago in a Southern US state, I can’t recall whether I was ever in possession of such.
I was able with great difficulty, and a year long effort at the expense of $300, to procure ‘original’ ID documentation.
In this same accursed state, an ‘immigrant’, can stroll into the DMV and stroll out with a DL without any identity documents whatsoever.
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Yet, NONE dare call it TREASON?
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Australian passenger vehicles emit approximately 50% more CO₂ than the global average. Over 85% of the global car market is covered by fuel efficiency standards that Australia has yet to adopt.
https://theconversation.com/australian-passenger-vehicle-emission-rates-are-50-higher-than-the-rest-of-the-world-and-its-getting-worse-222398
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Thank you. That’s great news Simon.
These emitters should be given a tax deduction. They are providing free fertilizer.
Do you care about people starving in Haiti?
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And we should be proud of this fact. Thanks for pointing out good news for a change.
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If one wades through enough of the content-free verbiage, it does eventually give part of the reason.
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The US figures are almost certainly skewed downwards by omitting their best-selling monster pickups such as the Ram, Silverado and Ford F-Series.
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“These people are professional liars.”
I have said this over and over again, Jo.
People like Bowen, Turnbull and Albanese lie as easily as normal people breathe in and out.
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Yes, many politicians here and in other places hold law degrees. Such people are TRAINED liars. That is their stock in trade. The sheeple need to be made aware of this fact. Don’t forget that you do not need any qualifications whatsoever to lead a nation, nor indeed, the entire free world.
I needed far more qualifications to run my landscape design and build business or indeed, to teach the skills to others.
Politicians in the main are only motivated by gaining power over others.
There are very few genuine exceptions.
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I’m suspicious already. LNP will keep the new standards but won’t impose any fines???
How long before fines are reimposed?? Always handy to keep ludicrous laws & strategies in the bottom drawer for use in some dreamed up “ emergency “!!
The “ gas “ which all politicians live in mortal fear of is harmless & it’s a fertiliser!!
If they’re going to interfere in the free market do it properly & scrap all the subsidies, rebates & exclusions ( fuel excise charges ) reduced or free annual registration fees.
I also suspect insurance of EVs has been subsidised by the latest round of insurance premium increases.
Either stop all BS, get rid of all subsidies paid to benefit the Green Blob or just leave the ALP in power. Nobody trusts them & trusting the LNP is marginally easier. Very marginally.
Grow a pair & dump Net Zero. The WEF / UN days are all but numbered!
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Graham,
Dead right – it’s a source of revenue left on the table . The old joke about politicians – how do you tell when they are lying ? their lips are moving.
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One thing I can’t understand is why the opposition isn’t calling out the ALP’s energy subsidies as an admission of catastrophic failure. They came into government promising a $275 drop in electricity prices and instead they made electricity so expensive that they were forced to borrow money to provide subsidies to make it affordable. Now we’ll need to pay off the borrowed money with interest, making a catastrophic failure even more catastrophic into the future. What they should do is remove the GST and all other taxes on energy, including electricity and petrol. Taxing energy makes no sense. You need to tax the profits of business, not the energy needed to start them up and keep them afloat.
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When the g.s.t. was introduced, we were promised there would be ‘no tax on a tax’. Bullsh*t. You have g.s.t. added on the end of every petrol receipt AFTER the excise is included. A certain vote winner would be to repeal this blatant tax grab forever. That would immediately reduce fuel prices by 10%, which is a vast improvement on Dutton’s pretend policy.
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Maybe people could stop dumping on him and stop admonishing those who don’t see voting for single policy minorities as the way forward. I’m looking at you Jo.
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Axe the tax. Stop the boats.
It was a 90 seat winner.
There were big policies behind this, but being able to sum up those policies in short messages is just good communication skills, it’s not “single policy minorities”. A good politician can communicate in the short and the long format. This is especially important when nearly all the media are on your opponents side. He has mere seconds to reach voters. The media do their best to bore the voters, asking trite, irrelevant questions, so most won’t tune in to long interviews.
Why did you think a suggestion to use short memorable quips was “dumping”?
If I wanted to dump, I would start with the Under 16 Social Media Ban.
As I said, the car policy of the Libs is a vote winner, but I don’t think the voters realize how much is at stake.
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Damned by faint praise. Ref. #11
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Unfortunately Labor voters aren’t enough astute to understand this.
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A car owner is a car owner. We all buy cars.
People will get it if we call it a $10k extra fee for a petrol car so you can help someone else pay off their EV.
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Who are they?
They are barely an “opposition” and they are not conservative but less Leftist than Labor.
And I am impressed that the Libs came up with this. I expected them to do nothing.
Maybe they are getting a bit of a clue.
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There are foreign readers. I have to give them the basic roadmap. Calling the Liberals “liberal” will confuse them. If I call them “conservative” at least non-Australians know they are not our furthest left major party.
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Has anyone actually read the Act that established this “New Vehicle Efficiency Standard”?
https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bills/r7182_aspassed/toc_pdf/24048b01.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf
Give it a go! Then please take a printed version to your local member, who should be out on the hustings, and have them explain exactly what “Vehicle Efficiency” means in this Act!
It has nothing to do with fuel efficiency!
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If Cuban’s can keep their very old Americans cars on the road for at least 50 years there is hope for us yet! To counter this complex vehicles we buy today may just be too difficult for mere mortals to repair when necessary.
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Yes, the the ALP and the Greens are professional lyers and are experts at muddying the waters. The term carbon emissions is deliberately confused with pollution and carbon dioxide is deliberately confused with carbon. Carbon dioxide, as we all know, is not a pollutant, it is essential for life on this planet !!!
Real pollution is much more difficult to fix, it is the crap that goes out weekly in our bins and all that cheap junk on the sides of the road. And all for landfill !!!
It is that real pollution we should be addressing. We could start by taxing some of that rubbish mostly imported from Asia and China.
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Keeping the legislation but not the financial penalties is surely the most despicable use of double speak? There is absolutely nothing to prevent a mind change at some future date. Why can’t we have a clear concise statement about climate change/net zero intentions. Politicians are so scared of presenting a black/white position incase it offends one/more of their backers. Never mind the electors they can be pacified with inflation causing borrowed money.
Say what you mean and mean what you say
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Penguinite,
Penalties for non-performance and competence testing before candidacy would help . If they had to balance the budget , and new taxes or increased taxes had to be approved by the electorate or they get fired would change the landscape . Put their skin in the game.
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A reminder to vote for the party that excludes liars and cheats…
Draw box on ballot paper…
Write “Party with integrity and the slightest clue of reality” next to it.
Tick box.
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Bolt recently interviewed a motor car guru – forgotten his name – who pointed out that China has been taking over the imports of cars into Australia. Blackout’s comment about cheaper cars might be right but once again the bullies of Beijing are certain to be closely involved.
We can only hope that the independent in the seat of McMahon – who has an enormous lead in the polls – gives the arrogant fool a shellacking in 3 weeks.
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Why do you assume there is a shortage of financial illiterates in labor to take Bowen’s place?
Why do you assume you or many others will know his name even if he is elected?
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Questions that need answers:
How much of the health budget is being used to subsidize green zero? 🔥💰
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I’m sorry to have missed yesterday’s discussion on the NVES. But I am posting again here..
It’s appalling NVES, New Vehicle Emissions Standards. Does anyone actually read this rubbish? It’s the most impenetrable legislation I have ever read.
And designed to be so. You can lose your business if you do not understand this law.
All transactions involving units are made through a registry.
There are a number of offences and civil penalties in relation to the vehicle efficiency standard and the registry.
A range of compliance and enforcement powers are provided for, primarily by applying the Regulatory Powers Act.
But the text! It is so filled with acronyms it is nearly unreadable. And formulae!
21 Emissions target
The emissions target for a vehicle for a year is the number worked out using the following formula: HL + MAF(DM-RM)
HL is the headline limit for the vehicle for the year.
MAF is the mass adjustment factor for the vehicle for the year.
DM is the designated MIRO for the vehicle for the year.
RM is the reference MIRO for the vehicle for the year
Final emissions value
A person’s final emissions value for a year is the number worked out using the following formula: IEV – U
IEV is the person’s interim emissions value for the year. U is the number of units extinguished under section 42 for the purpose of reducing the person’s final emissions value for the year.
19 Interim emissions value
A person’s interim emissions value for a year is the number worked out using the following formula (rounded to the nearest whole number and rounded up if the first decimal place is 5 or more):
18 Final emissions value
A person’s final emissions value for a year is the number worked out using the following formula:
IEV – U
where:
IEV is the person’s interim emissions value for the year.
U is the number of units extinguished under section 42 for the purpose of reducing the person’s final emissions value for the year.
19 Interim emissions value
A person’s interim emissions value for a year is the number worked out using the following formula (rounded to the nearest whole number and rounded up if the first decimal place is 5 or more): ∑i(Ei – Eti)
where: i is a covered vehicle for the person for the year
So I wondered how anyone in Canberra wrote this? And then I decided, they didn’t. They copied it from the UK.
A clue is in the text.
Headline limits for years in the introductory period were determined consistently with the NEDC (New European Driving Cycle) test procedure.
Now why are Australian laws referencing typical driving cycles in Europe? Obviously driving around Kent is very similar to driving around Bathurst. Or London with Adelaide.
and these ‘headline limits’ drop precipitously.
Item Yes Type 1 vehicles Type 2 vehicles
1 2025 141 210
2 2026 117 180
3 2027 92 150
4 2028 68 122
5 2029 58 110
So CO2 has to go down x 2.5 in four years! Surely they’re kidding!
How many more CO2 laws are there about which Australians know nothing? What is the total take in cash credits, kept out of general revenue?
You have to be kidding if you thought this could be understood by Chris Bowen or Jaqui Lambie.
We are being pushed off a cliff. And the law factory in Canberra is running full steam ahead with more and more departments collecting more and more cash for growing trees overseas. As NASA can tell you, growing trees does not affect CO2. It’s all international theft. All with the idea that Australia alone can save the planet. If you believe that, you are beyond help.
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And it all references a ‘person’. The closest I can come to the definition of a ‘person’ is that “Registry accounts may be opened by persons who have vehicles covered by the standard”
This implies a person is someone who has multiple ‘vehicles’, so presumably a dealer or importer.
This is in common with the RET, the attack is on dealers so that the public does not see what they are paying or that they are being offered cheaper electric cars because dealers are forced to sell them and so discount them and the loss must be added to the petrol cars.
It’s absolutely insidious. But no different to the Renewable Energy(Electricity) Act 2001 or the Safeguard Mechanism (2024). Britain copied our first successful illegal carbon dioxide tax where neither carbon dioxide or tax is mentioned. And we returned the favor by copying their CO2 penalties which push up the cost of petrol cars by penalizing car dealers or importers.
Parliament is out of control. They are passing laws which are intended to deceive the public and even the politicians. Many think Australia does not have some of the world’s largest and most punitive carbon taxes and do not know that this money goes overseas.
We have paid for the windmills but we don’t own them! Like in Victoria we have paid for the freeways but the new owners and the government split the loot. Like the Tullarmarine Freeway to the airport. The right to toll expired perhaps ten years ago and yet we still pay to drive on our own roads. And I presume the same people are the ones making very sure the rail to the airport is never built, even though the tracks have been there for a century.
Australia is being robbed by our public servants and the beneficiaries. These laws are illegal by all democratic tradition since Magna Carta. Enriching third parties and hidden in our costs of electricity and cars and goods and services so that no one knows they exist. Except the people who wrote them and those who receive the billions in cash.
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My concern is that these are not just lies. They are Australian laws with serious penalties. And no one can read them. Or understands them. I will have to dedicate some real time just to understand where the money goes in this law and how that translates into $10,000 extra for cars. This amount will explode by 2029. These are rubbish laws, unworkable, unjustified and not intelligible.
Laws must be written so that ordinary people can understand them easily. Otherwise what is the point of laws no one understands? How can they be expected to obey the law?
I am just appalled, not only at this law, but at the number of such impenetrable money grabbing society crippling laws. And always the money is turned into Credits/Certificates you have to buy with real cash. And no one knows where the cash goes or to whom. Or cares. We are saving the world.
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The problem is in Washington, Whitehall, Canberra. Public servants out of control. And parliaments rubberstamping wrong laws, laws they do not and cannot read and creating big departments for running registers to oppress the citizens with penalties for no justifiable reason at all.
For that you have Gillard’s CARBON CREDITS (CARBON FARMING INITIATIVE) ACT 2011
and Rudd’s NATIONAL GREENHOUSE AND ENERGY REPORTING ACT 2007
These are used to collect cash for CO2/CH4 and that money can go to anyone who qualifies for an emissions avoidance project.
You have to be mad to think this is all science. It is robbery with licence.
And the public has no idea how much of their money is flowing down these rivers, buried in everything you buy, not just electricity any more. But they are very careful to avoid taxing petrol as that is political dynamite. Just EVERYTHING ELSE.
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It’s a bit like Biden with his AutoSign. Who is writing these laws? They must be rubber stamps of British laws.
And to show how impenetrable this law is, the word ‘person’ is used 261 times. And it is not defined. That is intolerable.
Everyone is a person. It’s ridiculous to suggest that this act applies to everyone. So we are left to work it out, that a person is someone who registers and that persons is someone who owns ‘vehicles’ to which the act applies. Can a company register? Can a company be a person? There is so much unsaid!
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I even found it impossible to cut and paste as this Act uses Greek symbols for the rules stored as pictograms. What law required Greek mathematical expressions? You know you are faking it when you need complex formulae. I cannot even post them here.
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As with men in women’s sport, a thousand genders, what is needed is what Trump is doing. Full frontal.
Fire up those coal mines. Open those pipelines. Deport those illegals. Fund the police. Defund the myriad of sycophantic government deparments
Like a Federal department of Education when there is no Federal education. A Federal advisory gone completely mad and costing a billion $$$ a year when none should exist.
No carbon taxes/certificates/trade offs/restrictions. None. And remove all CO2 laws. There is no middle ground. No compromise
Man made CO2 driven rapid Armageddon Global Warming is not proven.
Jo, you have spent so much time and so many years fighting this hoax. And now it is continuing without any debate or justification.
The legislators are punishing all Australians for something which isn’t true.
And they know it isn’t true. The platform has to be to stop the insanity. And it has to start at the top
Stop the carbon taxes
Stop the multiple sexes
Stop the uncontrolled migration of inappropriate and even incompatible people
Stop the demolition of the defence industries
Stop the loss of jobs in manufacturing
Stop the subsidies.
I cannot be fiddling and interpreting all these mad laws. It’s like Wack a Mole. The very basis of them is wrong.
But Canberra is full speed ahead on net zero, carbon taxes, carbon credits, carbon certificates and shutting down the place.
They don’t care it’s all a lie. Are they deluded or is there a darker explanation.
I don’t care either. It all has to stop. As in the US.
CO2 cannot be controlled by mankind. Stop the insanity. Repeal all these laws as if they never existed. And fire the people in Canberra costing all that money. $1Bn a year.
And the $18Bn in the current spend, off budget of course, for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. The money is a total waste. We will never see it again.
Australia should be rich. All this CO2 religion is doing is wrecking the place. Rapidly. The 35% penalty rates on CO2 is absolutely insane. And this money just goes overseas, gone forever. No wonder we are $1Trillion in debt and this will explode. Stop the CO2 insanity. Cui Bono? Not Australia.
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Great post TdeF.
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