When you get all of your advice from the business sector of the community, it is hardly surprising that profit becomes your foremost goal and privatisation and deregulation the means to achieve it. 

Australia had the highest per capita CO2 emissions in 2012 at 18.8 tonnes. In the US, emissions per capita were 16.4 tonnes, and just behind came oil-rich Saudi Arabia with per capita emissions of 16.2 tonnes.  The EU and China – both major emitters in absolute terms – had much smaller per capita emissions, at 7.4 and 7.1 tonnes respectively.

While Australia’s domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions represent some 1.5% of the global total, its global carbon footprint – the total amount of carbon it pushes out into the global economy – is much bigger.

Australia is the world’s largest coal exporter. By adding emissions from exported coal to our domestic emissions, Australia’s carbon footprint trebles. Its coal exports alone currently contribute at least another 3.3% of global emissions.
In aggregate, therefore, Australia is at present the source of at least 4.8% of total global emissions. That’s without considering natural gas exports.

The proposed “mega coal mines” in Queensland’s Galilee Basin, producing for export, will be responsible for an estimated 705 million tonnes of CO2 per year and would turn that region alone into the world’s seventh largest contributor of emissions.

Countries such as Australia, Canada, the Russian Federation, and Saudi Arabia fail to accept any responsibility for the emissions caused by the fossil fuels they export.  They also ignore the carbon footprint of manufactured goods they import from other countries like China.  To say our contribution is miniscule is a deliberately contrived falsehood.



The Abbott government is preparing Australians for an overhaul of the welfare system, with Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews indicating too many depend on the government for their incomes.  Mr Andrews said the review shows that more than five million Australians, or about one in five, now receive income support payments.

In his 2009 book, Battlelines, Mr Abbott wrote that one of the Howard government’s most significant achievements was “slowing the rise in the number of people claiming the disability pension”.  Mr Andrews suggests that the difference in indexation between Newstart and pensions leads to a “perverse incentive for people to get onto the DSP”.

Parenting payments and the disability support pension were two areas of welfare that “would be sensible to review again”, Mr Andrews told the ABC.

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John S wrote on Jan 28^th, 2014 at 5:36am:





I put this thread up over 24 hours ago and I have proven one thing. None of you can defended Abbott, his ministers or their policies unless you put bull syhte on the thread by one liners or you highjack the thread if you don't like it.