One of my readers (you know who you are) spent many years in Australia and keeps a close eye on national issues there. He sent this link in which one of Australia's respected journalists wrote a a persuasive article for the National Affairs this weekend.
It highlights the EU and the carbon tax from an Australian perspective. Here are a couple of quotes to whet your interest:
In foreign policy we are much closer to the US, hard-headed, pragmatic, jealous of our national sovereignty, much less interested than Europeans in pooling sovereignty in supra-national organisations such as the EU. The UN has a better name in Australia than it does in the US, but it has nothing like the legitimacy and normative power that it has in Europe.
Europe plays a role in our carbon tax debate in several ways. Bizarrely, it is the government's model. The latest report by Ross Garnaut constantly extols Europe's emissions trading scheme.
Europe also sends us a steady stream of sanctimonious officials and busybodies to tell us our climate change policies are inadequate.
Even more important, perhaps unconsciously, the culture of European politics has seeped into the Gillard government's management of the carbon tax debate.
Such a pity we have so few journalists who will criticise our government so articulately. It's an intriguing read.
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15 comments:
Maybe SR it is because the Aussie media are not so in thrall and in the pockets of their politicians?
Just a thought.......
You shurely don't mean that WfW.
Aussie gerrymandering and who is in whose pocket in the past is infamous.
I mean to say, if I had a fiver for every politician on the make who made a "fact finding" pilgrimage to Oz in pursuit of "self fulfilmint ideals" and instruction manuals on how to obtain them, then I would have become a very rich man indeed.
The best laugh was this radio interview that Jill Duggan did in Oz. She's an EU carbon expert for the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Climate Action (sic).
Her plan is to reduce EU carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 and didn't know what it would cost ( £250Bn) or what effect it would have on temp ( 0.05C ie negligible)...
http://www.mtr1377.com.au/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=8095
From what I understand this chap who wrote this is freelance WfW. If he's not he will be by now. :)
Aye wisnaeme, I wonder which country they emulated? :)
Thanks for that link RM. I heard about that somewhere but haven't read the link.
The house of cards continues to fall - without the assistance of even one wind turbine.
SR. You need to fast forward to half way through the radio show to get Ms Duggan's car crash interview.
I worked for the Australian Government in London for a few years when I was in my twenties, and one thing I learnt was that, to Australians, Australia comes first, and there is nowhere in the world that is better than Australia. They might discuss the faults of the country amongst themselves, but if an outsider was present, they would close ranks and refuse to accept any criticism. As a country they do their own thing, and if someone doesn't like it, hard luck. They are very patriotic, as are the Americans, but unlike Americans they don't make quite such a show of it, probably due to their largely British descent. So sending them envoys to tell them what to do is largely a waste of time and money, although it does provide these envoys with a nice holiday at the taxpayers expense!
It is perhaps worth noting that Australia avoided the worst of the bank crisis and at the moment their dollar is appreciating. I just regret that I didn't emigrate there when I had the chance all those years ago.
RM, I've just heard it. Car crash right enough!
EP I'm glad you picked up on the journalists comments about the 'visitors'.
I think may do regret not emigrating or staying when they visited.
I was going to say I just hope they don't think Britain's, well, England's, part of the EU. But the UK government is, so maybe I should say I hope they don't think the British/English people are part of the EU. Because we aren't. Opinion polls prove it. In most respects we have much more affinity with the US, Canada, Australia and NZ than we do, e.g. with the French or Bulgarians.
Well, let's not beat about the bush. We have much more affinity with the US and the White Commonwealth.
I don't know what the Scottish government's, or for that matter the Scottish people's, position on the EU is.
Rant over. I'll go back to being a Bulgarian kulak.
It's a 'government' thing, they can't help it but find any excuse to raise income.
Any one remember the purpose behind the introduction of VAT?
John McC, the Scottish SNP government are extremely pro Europe.
Crinkly,I can hardly remember the reason for the introduction of the carbon tax. :)
Crinkly, allegedly it's easier to collect than a sales tax because a seller can't be totally sure who is the end-user. Wikipedia has a good entry on it.
Digressing, I discovered my neighbour fom hell had been disqualified as a director because of her involvement in a £24 million "carousel" or missing trader intra community fraud. Unfortunately, the Judge ordered a stay of prosecution because HM Customs didn't disclose all their evidence.
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