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Australia's Senate has voted to repeal the carbon tax, a levy on the biggest polluters passed by the previous Labor government. Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose Liberal-National coalition beat Labor in an election last year, had made the repeal a central aim of his government.
Politicians have been locked in a fierce row about the tax for years. Labor says it helps to combat climate change, but the Liberals claim it penalises legitimate businesses. The Australian Senate voted by 39 to 32 votes to repeal the tax. Introduced in July 2012, it charges the 348 highest polluters A$ 23 (£ 13; US$ 22.60) for every tonne of greenhouse gases they produce.
The Climate Institute think-tank said in a statement that the move left Australia "bereft of credible climate policy".
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot said the carbon tax had been "useless and destructive". He says he plans to replace it with a A$2.55bn taxpayer-funded plan under which industries will be paid to reduce emissions and use cleaner energy.
(Score: 3) by RobotMonster on Friday July 18 2014, @06:12AM
This is from a government without a science minister.
I guess it is to be expected when the Prime Minister is a Jesuit-educated creationist...
Sigh.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @06:51AM
Keep in mind that what he's done is move the taxation of pollutants from the producer of said pollutants to the taxpayer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday July 18 2014, @07:04AM
Mate, I don't know about "Jesuit-educated creationist" ... You may call him a religious bigot, but maybe you'll have to drop the jesuit attribute, it doesn't fit with Abbot.
You see, the jesuits have a good dose of social justice [bc.edu] in their ideology: none of this inside the socialize costs, privatize profit, everything else be damned attitude present in whatever Abbot does (including the interception of refugee boats in high seas and detaining them in secret [theaustralian.com.au] - even ignoring humanitarian considerations, that's borderline state-sponsored piracy).
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by RobotMonster on Friday July 18 2014, @09:23AM
I didn't say he was a good student!
However, he was educated at Jesuit schools.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 18 2014, @09:29AM
FTFY
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by RobotMonster on Friday July 18 2014, @09:30AM
Lols; fair enough! :-)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @08:01AM
Wherever he learned creationism, he probably didn't learn it from the Jesuits. The Catholic Church generally doesn't believe in such nonsense, the Jesuits least of all. There was Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J., who among other things was among the palaeontologists who discovered Peking Man (they even called him the Jesuit who believed man descended from monkeys), and was influential in the Catholic Church's current general attitudes towards evolution and science in general. The official position of the Church today seems to be more that it isn't really that concerned with such questions of science. If science shows that evolution is how humans came to be, then they'll say that God used the mechanism of evolution to create humanity. They screwed up with Galileo five centuries ago and they seem determined not to make the same mistake again today. This is also why just about every Catholic school out there teaches evolution, just as secular schools do. You can be Catholic and believe in either evolution or creationism, but the latter is far from being a mainstream belief in Catholic circles the way it seems to be among Christian evangelicals.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by marcello_dl on Friday July 18 2014, @08:39AM
How does this make a government more or less scientific?
Politicians scientifically try to strengthen their own feud, that's all.
Of course the combination of interests that put politicians in office makes sure their feud remains slave to their interests, so you see political fight, scandals and get the impression that the new boss is same as the old boss.
Who cares what the decisions are about, if they benefit the environment or not.
Don't forget that CO2 is just one aspect in the process called pollution, and that a nearly inhabitable planet is actually a wet dream for powerful enough people, because that means mandatory therapy for everyone, which is a level of control way beyond 1984's fantasies.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RobotMonster on Friday July 18 2014, @09:14AM
Doing away with the entire science ministry seems to be less scientific than having one.
Shutting down the independent scientific bodies whose job it was to inform government on matters of science can hardly be argued to be a scientific approach.
Your other points are valid, but this government is demonstrably anti-science.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by sjwt on Friday July 18 2014, @09:02AM
Lets add the follow up statements by one of these big polluters who stated that without the 'rebates' they get, they have had to downgrade there bottom line by $200Millon. Carbon tax was just a way to funnel more cash into the big business who have bought the unions and the labor party.