I Love A Sunburned Country

My Country By Dorothea Mackellar

I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror – The wide brown land for me!

A Country And A Continent Of Extremes.

The second stanza of Dorothea MacKellar’s epic Australian poem, My Country, describes a country and a continent of extremes.

This description is no better illustrated than the 2011 Queensland floods, Cyclone Yasi and the Victorian bush fires of 2009.

Apart from the contrast of beauty and terror highlighted in the classic Australian poem, the line “droughts and flooding rains” should have both global warming skeptics and activists alike pondering the poem!

Obviously extremes of weather have been here for some time, and are not just a result of over two hundred years of European settlement.

Am I A Climate Change Denier?

No, I am not. Climate change has been occurring throughout history, and well before humanity first hit the planet.

Whether we have anything to do with it is open to debate, which would be a lot better than the name calling and invective that passes for debate in this country now!

At the same time, any action taken to limit pollution has to be a plus.

What I am not sure about is whether or not Australia should introduce a carbon tax when our trading partners show absolutely no intention of doing so!

Nor do they show any intention of introducing any form of carbon trading scheme!

Vietnam has built eight new coal fired power plants over the past five years, while China is opening new coal powered plants at the rate of one a month! (New York Times)

Australian Gross Domestic Product Falls

Australia’s GDP shrank by 1.2% over the first quarter of 2011, the worst result since 1991, when we endured Paul Keating’s infamous “recession we had to have”.

Exports have dropped by 8.7% according to Bloomberg.com

While the drop can be explained by the slowing of coal exports due to cyclone Yasi and floods, introducing a carbon tax in July can only harm the economy more!

Am I A Troglodyte?

As much as Senator Bob Brown may think that anyone who disagrees with him is a troglodyte, I don’t think so!

His attack on members of the press doesn’t seem to have raised much of a fuss in comparison to the furore that would have occurred had Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott made the same type of accusation!

While the Australian Greens may wish to be seen as a mainstream political party, it would seem that they cannot take the heat that the Labor and Liberal parties endure almost on a daily basis!

While former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke has labeled Liberal leader Tony Abbott “as mad as a cut snake” because of his opposition to the Government’s climate change proposals, any thinking Australian needs to see these issues debated properly in the public realm before any action is taken!

If Ms Gillard does have a mandate to legislate a carbon tax, maybe it is time for a referendum in the form of an election on the issue!

Can Australia Afford A carbon Tax In July 2011?

As a householder, and a business person, if I heard that income from sales had dropped over the past quarter, I would be looking very closely at the situation!

The first thing that I would do is stop plans to do anything that may further jeopardize my “economy”.

I can’t see that a carbon tax will do anything but cut incentives for average Australians to work hard, and export jobs to countries that don’t have a carbon tax.

Costs of this tax will simply be passed on by companies.

A giant wealth redistribution scheme such as this will do nothing to cut pollution, but it will cut the standard of living for average Australians.

While Cate Blanchett and Michael Caton urge people to vote yes for a carbon tax, I’d urge the Prime Minister of Australia to show some leadership and call an election to allow them to do just that, if she is game!