Methusala

Oh, did I forget to mention $800,000,000 in back taxes owed by the News Ltd group FORGIVEN? And how about novated car leases for all the people who want the taxpayer to pay for their BMW's? You have a lot to thank the Lieberals for.

Couldn't think of a better way to spend taxpayers' money. Save the economy from the fate suffered by most other OECD economies during the GFC. Now anyone want to donate $8billion to the reserve bank? Yes, you over there , what's your name? Joe? Thanks. How about giving all those profits back to the poor miners? Yes? What's the name? Tony? And who wants to donate the poor people's money to a $20 billion slush fund for Big Pharma? Your name Sir? Dexter Dutton was it? No? Peter. Well thanks to all you generous folk.

Turbo planner, try the ABC's Fact checker.(http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-04/hockey-tax/6066142). They found the statement untruthful. A lie.

No wonder that most Australians don't know what the average level of tax paid is. Joe Hockey, the other suppository of wisdom, very deliberately told an untruth when he claimed that Australians worked for half the year to pay tax.

Apologies to Teckair...mistaken identity (must try harder) Don

"Why should the over achievers who have worked hard to get to where they are." Teckair Are these over achievers people like Gina Rhinehardt and Jamie Packer or simply people who were born into a privileged family who could afford a good education or people who were born clever or without some form of disability? To not understand that in a caring society some people are going to need help to live as they should in one of the wealthiest countries in the world is just dumb. I don't believe that you have really thought about this. Perhaps the "Pub test" is not all that great in deciding what place we want to live in.

TP. If you are going to submit mindless twaddle please try to footnote your opinions.

For once I agree with something that "Teckair" has to say. At least he recognises a mess when it visits him. Govt debt is a good thing especially when, like private enterprise, it is used to provide infrastructure in health, transport and education. The govt can borrow at extremely favourable interest rates to boost our productive capacity now and down the track. BTW I think that it shows a special kind of ignorance to claim that Keynsian economics is anything but the gold standard in understanding how economics works. I studied economics in years 5 & 6 in '67 - '68 from Paul Samuelson's outstanding economics text and have not found anything since that can't be explained except in his terms. Voodoo economics only survived while the US's prodigious export of manufactures lasted. Go see the rust belts and 3rd world conditions of many millions of Americans. Still, the truth don't matter to blind truthers. Don

It's plainly obvious. Howard sold assets that produced healthy profits to feed consolidated revenue. That is to allow govt to provide services such as health, infrastructure (roads, bridges, railways etc. They were kicked out. Ms Bligh did the same with QR. She was bundled out. Campbell Newman attempted the same trick. He was given the boot. Abbott is trying the same trick. No one mentioned the plan to sell Medibank Private prior to the election. They will be kicked out also. It is obvious to blind Freddy that the Australians don't like the sale of productive assets at bargain basement prices to prop up an unsustainable political agenda. The next mob in will get the message, I hope. Don

Congratulations all Queenslanders for recognising what was wrong and correcting it. Seems that they are able to elect good alternatives to govern as well as to represent us on the RAA board

Congratulations to Sceptic 36 for his timely interjection paraphrased as :- "WE THE PEOPLE SHALL DECIDE...". Of course we need to understand with absolute clarity the point made by George Orwell in his novel "Animal Farm", that not all of the animals are equal (and that Pigs turned out to be more <equal>!) This translates, for those who don't study the literature, to mean that people such as Rupert Murdoch, Gina Rhienehart and many others who have privileged access to the mass media, or are backed and assisted by these people have the power to scandalously manipulate public opinion. This , I believe, is what gives the "deniers" and "climate skeptics " the authority to proselytise their corrupt version of "facts" as FT refers to them. I do appologise for my sometimes blunt delivery in this forum. As the Norman Ross adds used to say, I wouldn't do this if I didn't believe it to be vitally important to throw this Mob out. Don

Oh, how well the current govt is doing in controlling the "Budget Emergency", HawHawHaw! They have done nothing but add to the current account deficit. Anyone here care to remember that one of their first actions was to reinstate the "BMW's for executives" rort which allowed privileged people to "salary sacrifice" (what an evil misnomer) to cover lease payments on their luxury cars at the ordinary (non-privileged) tax payers' expense. They have destroyed promising industries and the major technological innovator (ie the motor industry) for effective savings that amount to pocket change. Compare this to the money laid on to polluters and upper middle class mothers-to be. You deniers are certainly steeped in denial. Regards, Don PS: If you wish to urge me to "keep up", please trot out a more accurate line of arguments to support your case. Talk about 3rd rate debaters.

Tell hwer that she is a very pale flicker against the late and great Gough and no more so when compared to Julia

I find little difficulty keeping up with the obvious. When I mention deniers its not a compliment.

"A few hot days...", actually equates to the hottest decade since records began. "facts, much overrated!", as FT says. You deniers are probably stocking up on coal for the summer.

I guess that some people don't allow themselves to be blind to the evidence! Radical eh? Even that many years ago we have stories about St Paul's revelation on the road to Damascus.

Many posters have given an array of possible (with a little investment) and existing solutions to the question of ,"What if the sun doesn't shine", (like at night ). The posters for the negative case choose to disregard this so that (presumably) they can hang on to their one thread arguments. This thread has become a perpetual circle and has very little point continuing. As they say...just my opinion. Regards, Don

Good to see that the right wing nut jobs are sooo concerned with protecting the public purse that thePM's advisor now wants a royal commission into thr BOM's conspiritorial global warming falsehoods! This country is so on the skids.

Saw this plant in the Mojave Desert between Las Vegas and Los Angeles a few months ago. Very impressive.[ATTACH]47456._xfImport[/ATTACH]

The amount of energy falling upon the surface of Australia is prodigious. The means of harvesting this energy are well understood and production costs are falling rapidly. The (partially) true 'truism' that 'energy produced from renewable sources is harvested at inconvenient times' is used by (mostly) intellectually dishonest supporters of old polluting energy production systems in order to support their arguments. There are means available to bank this energy and, again, the technology is well understood and available. Thermal energy can be efficiently harvested by heating water or alternative matter to store solar energy for reuse within limited time frames. Pumped storage is already installed in the Snowy. I have seen a well engineered plan to add greatly to the Snowy's potential in this field involving a 55km , large diameter tunnel from Tantangara to Talbingo dam. This scheme foresees an enlargement of Tumut 3 power station and pumped storage using the largely unused reserve capacity of Tantangara pondage. The Tumut 3 power station already has 2 large capacity pumps installed for use of pumped storage. The main problem is the lack of political will and reluctance by the controllers of capital to engage in such projects. These projects are only the tip of a veritable iceberg of possibilities that could be realised if innovation was unrestrained. Sorry for introducing the concept of conspiracy but 'if it quacks like a duck..etc'. BTW conspiracy theories abound when one notes the stories from ICAC concerning Big Business and politicians.

Anybody who claims to be the repository of all wisdom is bound to come a cropper. Can't come soon enough for some. I don't think that there has ever been enough human wisdom to out forcast nature. There is though the precautionary principle that states loosely that if the outcome of an action cannot be forcast in advance then we should proceed very carefully. Most of us aviators would see the commonsense in that. It is common in debate these days to claim that we should attempt to not damage the future of our progeny by our current actions. The scientific observations of a steady and increasing elevation of CO2 in the atmosphere correlates to a rising temperature trend is worrying and should alert those precautionary instincts.

Increased acidity in the oceans? Coral bleaching on the reef? Polar bears going hungry? Glaciers disappearing at an unheard of rate? Increasing intensity and frequency of wild fires around the world? Deserts encroaching on arable land? Tell them their just dreaming! Short memories and attention spans. Methane...around 25x more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. The tundra is lousy with it. Some gamble you guys are prepared to take.

Bexrbetter and Dafydd have made some telling points in this discussion and have much more information to impart from a personal perspective than do I. I do resent the implication that my views are guided by <quasi religious fervour of "global warming">. I cannot see that mass depletion of polar ice sheets, a succession of warmest years or decades outstripping any historical trends nor measured increase of atmospheric CO2 equates to dodgy shrouds of Turin or "miracles" at Lourdes. Anyway, still waiting for a reasoned defence of feeding potable water to a few lousy sheep. Huh?

Turboplanner said,"You've got a nerve demanding answers when you can't provide answers yourself, or make a rational argument." This is what I see constantly...when you can't put together a cohesive argument, then insult will do. I know all of the arguments and we have seen them canvassed constantly in the media. My beef is that the oponents of rational discussion will never argue point to point but don't resyle from insulting their opposites. I have been a plumber for 40+ years and I can't believe that anybody thinks that feeding good potable water, treated at great expense by the authorities is only fit to be thrown at animals. And then you complain about what you are charged for the privilege! To get back to the stream behind this discussion the sooner coal is dead and buried the better for all of the earths creatures.

Whenever progressive, scientific evidence based (97% of climate scientists) ideas clash with the selfish interests of 'established players', then rational arguments go out of the window. I asked in a previous post what a primary producer was doing watering livestock with potable drinking water. No answer. Is it still ok to water sheep with drinking water during a drought? Short memories indeed when we forget how perilously close communities came to drying out completely during the '10 year drought'. ACC is well supported by rock solid evidence and, no, I don't feel that I need to state the arguments here - they are available publicly and have been canvassed 'for ever'. My point is that specious arguments such as China is worse or the climate is actually cooling are wheeled out as though they are fact. Renewable energy is clean efficient and as close to non polluting as you can imagine. The fact that a federal Govt is in denial does not mean that King Canute was right. We have everything to lose if we don't go with the rest of the world on this one. BTW my nom-de-plume is meant as a very light-hearted jest. Regards, Don