Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt implicated in fraud and hypocrisy ...

(Above: the lie, Rowe in 2010 with other cartoonists here, and Pope calling it in 2012, and more Pope here).


Watch out for this. It's a live one:

There's no point in linking to the AFR, which doesn't want to be part of the intertubes conversation, and prefers lurking behind its paywall, but the header is clear enough.

Does the pond regret its own header? Fraudsters and hypocrites?

Well no. Apart from developing a Huff Post/Daily Mail taste for outrageous trolling headers, if trading in international carbon permits comes to pass thanks to Hunt and Abbott - junk carbon so to speak - then:

(a) all the blather and carry on by Abbott and Hunt about trading schemes will have been shown to hypocritical hot air of the first water:

(b) all the blather and bluster about how the direct action plan will easily deliver the five per cent target will have been shown to a fraudulent lie.

Is it any wonder that the AFR also featured this story?

This story about dealing in carbon permits has been lurking for awhile - a couple of weeks ago the Fairfaxians ran with Buying carbon permits would be cheaper than Direct Action policy, Tony Abbott told. (forced video at end of link)

The report urges the government to reduce costs to the taxpayer and be more competitive by using a combination of domestic emissions reduction policies and the purchase of international credits. 
It finds the government could spend a fifth of what it plans to spend on its $2.5 billion Direct Action policy and buy enough international permits to reach an emissions reduction target of 19 per cent by 2020.

Yes, spend 20% of the risible direct action budget on offshore junk carbon.

And why would this be a problem?

Well there was Tony "climate change is crap" Abbott shooting off his mouth again:

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been a key opponent of the purchase of international credits, which he described in 2011 as ''money that shouldn't be going offshore into dodgy carbon farms in Equatorial Guinea and Kazakhstan''.  

So if Abbott and Hunt go ahead with the proposal, they won't be just implicated in fraud and hypocrisy, they'll be guilty as hell outrageous deception of the first water.

But but but billy goat, you say, how rich and redolent is the level of fraud and hypocrisy. What does first water actually mean?

Please allow the pond to climb into its time machine and head back to the AFR in August 2013, Coalition may buy overseas carbon permits:

The Coalition has indicated it is prepared to consider raising the 5 per cent target but not until at least 2015. Many climate change experts believe the Coalition will need to buy international permits to meet the 5 per cent target. 
On Sunday, Coalition environment spokesman Greg Hunt denied the Coalition would use international permits to meet the 5 per cent target.

Denialism. The line then being that the direct action plan was in hand, and it would work.

And this:

The Direct Action policy states the Coalition “will ensure that all action taken to achieve our 5 per cent CO2 emissions reduction target also delivers environmental improvements here in Australia, not overseas”. 
In 2011, Mr Abbott said money spent by companies buying overseas carbon credits didn’t actually reduce emissions and was just “a massive transfer of wealth from this country to carbon traders overseas”. 
“It’s money that shouldn’t be going offshore into dodgy carbon farms in Equatorial Guinea and Kazakhstan,” he told 2GB. 
“That’s no way to improve the environment here in Australia.” 
 And on another occasion, he said: “We all know the potential for fraud, the potential for scamming. I mean, even the European emissions trading scheme has been riddled with scamming and that’s in a culture where administrative probity is held in wide respect, let alone some of the other countries where carbon credits will no doubt be available.” 
Under Direct Action, the Coalition has claimed it will purchase abatement from Australian companies from as little as $8.50 per tonne of carbon. 
But even if this is possible, it is still considerably higher than international carbon permits: the European carbon price is around $6.40 and the United Nations “Kyoto” permits are 85¢.

And that explains why Tony Abbott has a trust and competence deficit.

When it comes to climate science,  he's a proven liar, hypocrite and fraud, and if Greg Hunt gets his way on this one, Abbott will also have been shown to be a fool ...

But wait, there's more. Here's the cheap joke that Abbott led with, in his interview with Alan Jones, a transcript of which is thoughtfully provided by WA Liberals here, little realising it would hang around in the digital ether like a fart joke:

The thing that struck me yesterday though was that the Government, even on its own figures, even after all the time and trouble of this great big new tax, our emissions are still going increase. I mean we are going to put in place this massive tax that’s going to leave 3 million households worse off even on the Government’s own figures and that’s before the price just goes up and up and up and even with all of this we’re going to have significant increase in our emissions and the only way we can meet our emissions reduction targets is to spend about $3 billion buying carbon credits from overseas and that’s money that really should be invested in Australia. It’s money that shouldn’t be going offshore into dodgy carbon farms in Equatorial Guinea and Kazakhstan and all the other places that Kevin Rudd visits.

Ah that joke needs a new punchline.

Dodgy permits in Equatorial Guinea and Kazakhstan and all the other dodgy schemes that Greg Hunt and Tony Abbott routinely visit ...

There was a lot more in that interview - it now reads like a precious time capsule of nattering negativity - with Whyalla - it'll be wiped off the map - getting a mention, and this:

ALAN JONES: You made reference recently to the 2009 Copenhagen Consensus Panel which includes a trade economist, Jagdish Bhagwati, and three Nobel peace prize winning economists. Now that panel has ranked investment in technology, and this is what just some of the people on my staff were saying this morning, and versions of what you are calling the direct action plan are way above carbon pricing as the best way to tackle climate change even if you believed in climate change. TONY ABBOTT: That’s right, Alan. Carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes were ranked bottom of the list by these three Nobel laureate economists and we also have a whole lot of very distinguished European economists come out the other day in criticising the European Emissions Trading Scheme which they say hasn’t reduced emissions but has been widely scammed and it’s been, they say, an economic own goal because it’s driven industry offshore without reducing emissions and there’s been all this opportunity for fraud. So, this is, alas, the world that the Prime Minister is begging to enter.

So this is alas, possibly the world that Greg Hunt and by extension the Prime Minister Tony Abbott are now begging to enter because all the bluster and blather about direct action was a reprehensible nonsense ...

The pond has absolutely no idea how the Bolter and the reptiles would handle Abbott and Hunt joining the international trade in carbon permits. And the pond doesn't care. Who cares what fraudulent hypocrites think about fraudulent hypocrites?

Meanwhile, is there any other news? Well yes, Paul Sheehan does a spectacular imitation of Neville Chamberlain in Time for Ukraine to divide.

How to appease the dictator Putin? Why give him a huge chunk of Ukraine ...

Of all the tone deaf times to scribble such a tone deaf piece. Only Sheehan, only the Fairfaxians ...

It was such a bit of Chamberlain in Munich waving a sheet of paper performance that it left the pond speechless ....

Meanwhile, the tone deaf Netanyahu, already with a plane load of dead women, children and the elderly in tow, and that's before the other innocent civilians are added to the total, has claimed the world is on his side ...

What a joke. Israel itself is riven, as shown by the sacking of rabid right wing deputy defence minister Danon, who came out with this:

In the Ynet interview, Danon said "the prime minister is responsible for good or bad. If the result of the operation is negative, the responsibility for the failure is with the prime minister. There is no need to sugarcoat. Hamas decided when we started, when we will finish, and has set the score." 
The rightwing politician emphasized his disagreement with Netanyahu: "That is why I, as a senior member of Likud, say that this operation has been run like Zehava Gal-On is the prime minister. This is Meretz policy." 
"I saw the compliments Netanyahu received from Gal-On and Yachimovich, everyone is clapping for the prime minister because of the feeble policy which is the policy of the left, of Meretz, and I am sorry because we promised somebody different." 
The Netanyahu statement said Danon's remarks were grossly irresponsible, particularly given his present position: "They are used by the terrorist organization Hamas to taunt the Israel government, as can be seen by the organization's media outlets." (ynet here)

So the hard liner is being outflanked by the hard liners.

Cue Haaretz:

At the beginning of Tuesday night’s security cabinet meeting, after the cease-fire imploded like a badly made soufflé, Livni said, “I understand Hamas announced its surrender.” Netanyahu, who was poring through papers, looked up. “What??” he asked. “Yes,” Livni said. “They heard that you just fired Danny Danon and they’re totally discombobulated.” 
The exultation at Netanyahu’s dismissal of Danon – the deputy defense minister and a member of the prime minister’s faction, who really did not deserve to remain in his post a minute longer after his remarks – was apparent across the political spectrum. In Likud, where Danon has no allies, no one shed a tear, to say the least. 
It was interesting to hear what his colleague in the right-wing branch of Likud, Deputy Transportation Minister Tzipi Hotovely, had to say this week. His pool of votes is also her pool, though she espouses a totally different approach. “I don’t hold with the militant thrust of some of my friends in the party,” she said. 
 “What they’re doing is populism. It’s terrible what’s happening these days in Likud. The prime minister is isolated in his own party; it’s hurting us badly as the ruling party. Instead of uniting over issues,” added Hotovely, who plans to hold a conference in the Knesset next week on the subject of “economic disengagement” from Gaza, “we are using militant language, attacking the prime minister internally, and being dragged into dealing with the emotions of the public. No one is talking about strategic goals. It’s all personal.” 
Danon’s dismissal touched off a wave of jokes in the political corridors. Example: “Who says there have been no targeted assassinations of senior figures in this operation?” (It was the target himself who bandied that jest about.) Netanyahu absorbed everything, seethed and fumed, and warned Danon personally not to overstep his bounds in an angry phone conversation on the second day of the Gaza operation. But on Tuesday, after the cease-fire decision, when the premier was informed that aggressive, mocking comments made about him by Danon were being quoted in the Hamas media – he’d had enough. He instructed the cabinet secretary to draw up a dismissal letter and pass it around to the ministers. One minister who got home in the evening and found the letter thought at first glance that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was being fired: The reasons cited in the Danon letter fit him to a T. (behind the paywall here but can be googled)

The world's behind Netanyahu? Why he's finding it hard to rustle up a friend in his own party...

Anything else?

Well yes. It turns out that, after all,  Can do can't do:

Yep, Newman holds Ashgrove by 5.7%.

If you read Campbell Newman will today retreat from some of the Government's most controversial decisions, you'll get a sense of what Napoleon must have felt on the way back from Russia ...

Sheehan as Chamberlain ready to reward the Stalinist dictator Putin, Campbell "can't do" Newman ready to head off to Saint Helena, or maybe Fraser Island, and Abbot and Hunt doing a sterling performance of Vichy France and Marshal Pétain, or perhaps a couple of Quislings in the mater of carbon permits ...

That's too much history for a Monday ...

(Below: a grim David Rowe and more Rowe here).