The emissions trading scheme White Paper:

Andrew Lewis writes: Re. “Rudd’s talking out of his mandate” (yesterday, item 1). As my inbox recently told me, courtesy of John Dewey, “Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business”. Nowhere is this more evident than the miserable ETS policy target announced yesterday. But for those who weren’t watching closely, the game was up when the Labor Party and Ross Garnaut’s report basically negated any consideration of a carbon tax as opposed to a trading scheme.

A carbon tax is a direct mechanism that could reward reductions in carbon emissions with money in the pocket of those who do the right thing, and penalising directly the profligate consumer. Using a trading scheme is an indirect methodology reliant on market dogma that has been proved fanciful, which may work or may just make a lot of traders a lot of money while potentially doing nothing, and complicating our tax system and removing personal incentive to reduce consumption. And we give the permits away to the biggest polluters.

“Dog’s breakfast” doesn’t do it justice. A complete and utter failure of heart, of substance, of policy. An egregious example of institutional stupidity brought to you by big business and spineless government.

Michael Cooper writes: What a surprise to find we’ve elected Kevin Howard as PM — same same but different. At least we now know Kev Kopout’s true colours! What a waste of space this government is, just as Keating predicted, a poor copy of the timid and grossly inept NSW Labor morass. Look after the “mates” first then let the punters have the leftover crumbs.

Just as well those who run the planet realised that climate change wasn’t going to be effectively tackled by politicians, and so, with the gentlest little pin-prick in the debt bubble 18 months ago, have done more for climate change abatement than all the political jawboning to date.

Then there’s Obama who has already articulated a vision where the US strategic reliance on fossil fuels is to be ruthlessly crushed by the adoption of new “green” technologies. Watch in amazement as Kev Kopout does a triple-backflip, with pike, trying to keep up with the shifting sands of the new technological reality.

Colin Prasad writes: A soft start to the ETS only makes the mandatory renewable energy target (“MRET”) more important as it has a more direct impact on green energy investment. The proposed ETS carbon price won’t be enough to give green energy a second wind (hehe). The government needs to enact its promise of 20% renewables by 2020 (or 45,000 Gwh) ASAP to give the industry certainty. In fact, they should increase it to 25%.

Kevin McCready writes: Why do the words “little weasel” come to mind again?

Jo Robertson, Media Adviserfor Senator Steve Fielding, writes: Re. “Possum: A lesson in political pragmatism” (yesterday, item 11). In yesterday’s column Possum Comitatus produced an authoritative looking graph which bears no relationship to Family First’s climate change policy. We would be keen to know where he sourced his information. Family First supports a cautious approach to emissions trading and welcomes a less extreme initial target, but has never canvassed a negative target.

It was also claimed that Family First Senator Steve Fielding is a “Coalition sheep in sheep’s clothing.” Again, the facts get in the way of a good story. In recorded votes in the Senate this year to 13 November (the latest stats on the Senate site), Family First voted with the Rudd Labor Government 47 times out of a possible 111 votes. To put those numbers into perspective, the Greens voted with the government 42 times. Perhaps they’re the Coalition sheep? Wonder why Possum Comitatus doesn’t mention that?

I. Sluyters writes: Can we have more articles like Possums please he always makes so much sense. Of course we cannot go over the top with climate change for starters it would never get through the senate. Not to mention now the worst economic times in our life time it makes sense to go slow, Mr. Rudd knows what he is doing I would say.

Concrete Bob writes: Below is a graph I’ve knocked up which captures my understanding of the current correlation between where the political parties stand and where their actions (or lack there of) will lead. I think it nicely captures the lack of difference between Labor and Coalition. And it even manages to suggest that the Green’s position (no doubt fearful of being painted as extremists) is less than we need.

The next subprime wave yet to come:

Julian Gillespie writes: 60 Minutes in the US reported on 15 December the likely further pain to come in the US mortgage/housing market. We continue to witness the cascading subprime mortgage defaults ever since the interest rates on those mortgages peaked and set around October 2007.

Next to default (apparently) will be Alt A and particularly Option Arm mortgages (both used on more expensive properties than subprime) once the interest rates on these latter mortgages start resetting up from about mid 2009 to nearly double the current rates — the resetting is currently avoidable.

Subprime mortgages represent approximately US$1 trillion, Alt As represent about US$1 trillion, and Option Arms about US$500-600 billion. If (as the 60 Minutes report states) the default rate on Alt A and Option Arm mortgages are expected to reach 50-70%, then the subprime problem will look like an entree, and the USA’s “soft landing” will look more like a comet running out of runway.

Anyway it looks like Act 2, Scene 2 begins about mid 2009.

Arming the police:

Matthew Weston writes: Re. Steve Martin (yesterday, comments). A quick piece of information re batons and knives. A person within (and I may not have the exact number but its close!) seven metres who lunges at you with a knife will get you, regardless of if they have been shot as they are in motion, even a taser has trouble stopping you, simply on the basis of inertia. And should you be stabbed, you are in far more trouble than TV would indicate.

A simple stab thigh may well hit the femoral artery, and you bleed out in a matter of minutes, and a tourniquet will struggle to stem the flow due to its depth in muscle tissue (which is a real problem with shooting someone in the leg as the pundits claim is a viable solution), or a stab in the shoulder, similarly large veins and arteries (not to mention the brachial nerve junction). Knives are very dangerous, long bladed ones more so, and police and others trained in the use of firearms are trained to stop people getting close with them, as they can kill.

In this very sad case, a taser may well have worked in keeping the young lad further away, but there are real concerns about their use, with those who are drug affected, or even those with elevated blood pressure (such as from way to many energy drinks, or from the adrenaline rush of rage), but its a tough call. The presumption that they are not dangerous is a wrong one, calling them non lethal makes them seem somehow safe, but they are not, anything that stops a person from doing something has an element of risk, and that risk needs to be addressed openly, not hidden under euphemisms.

The circumstances of the lead up to the tragedy need to be explored, how this rage built unnoticed needs to be understood. Here, once again, we have what looks like a mental health issue being dealt with by police, as we don’t have a mental health system to speak of.

Linda Manning writes: What about arming our Police with a net to subdue lads with knives, swords, spears and other weapons? A net, expelled under pressure, will capture, hold and subdue the person and not harm him or her.

Wilfred Burchett:

Mark Aarons writes: Simon Nasht (yesterday, comments) falsely claims that I have drawn an analogy between Adolf Hitler and Wilfred Burchett (yesterday, comments). Nasht is completely confused: on 11 June 2008 on Late Night Live in discussion with Robert Manne, Phillip Adams asked us both whether Burchett had been a traitor. Manne re-confirmed his long-held view that he had been, while I said:

I think that Robert Manne has made a very compelling case about that. We’ll never know. He was never brought to trial. It’s one of those intriguing historical questions. In the same way that I firmly believe that a very significant number of Nazi war criminals, who ought to have been convicted, are living or have lived in Australia — we’ll never know for sure. It’s something that historians are now going to have to debate.

The reference to Nazi war criminals, by the way, was aimed at Robert Manne who had been a bitter critic of my work on that subject in the 1980s. In no way did I compare Burchett with Hitler, or even Nazi war criminals; my comment was about the fact that history is now the judge, a conclusion which any reasonable listener would have drawn.

The strange thing about Nasht’s confusion is that he was in the studio when I said it, filming for his forthcoming “documentary” on Burchett. Even stranger, Nasht spoke to me after the segment and stated two things about Tibor Meray, whose book on Burchett I had reviewed in the June edition of the Australian Literary Review:

  1. That Meray had falsely claimed to have been awarded the Legion d’Honneur by the French government.
  2. That Meray had falsely claimed to have spoken at the 1989 reburial of Imre Nagy, the communist leader executed for his role in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.

Nasht was wrong on both matters, but he has never withdrawn his false allegations against Meray. His latest public attack on Meray is just as scandalous and avoids the forensic job that Meray did on Burchett in his book which, unfortunately, shows that Burchett went to his grave being dishonest about his awful role in Stalinist Europe in the 1940s and 50s and in Maoist China in the 1960s and 70s, to mention only two of the many areas covered by Meray.

Far from admitting such mistakes, as Nasht claims, he hid them, not only from his readers, but even worse, from himself. And for the record, no Nick Shimmin (12 December, comments), I am not one bit “envious” of Burchett; I am quite happy with my own record as a reporter and writer in which I have tried to face history, not distort it.

James Jeffrey, who is eagerly anticipating Simon Nasht’s film on Wilfred Burchett, writes: Re. Simon Nasht. It’s a cheap shot to describe Tibor Meray as merely “sitting in a Paris apartment”. Meray was a communist who turned against the Rakosi government, a regime so extreme even the Kremlin thought it was over the top. Much of what Burchett wrote about Hungary during the Rakosi era was fanciful, grotesque BS, converting a police state into a happy people’s democracy. If Burchett had instead been a cheerleader for fascists, it’s doubtful we’d still be having this debate; funny how Stalinists get more leeway.

Meray didn’t leave Hungary until the 1956 uprising had been crushed and the reformist prime minister Imre Nagy had been arrested; Meray was just one refugee among 200,000. He certainly wasn’t the only one aiming for somewhere relatively sane like Paris. I don’t know about Meray’s novels, plodding or otherwise; it’s possible that part of his oeuvre played no role in him winning the French Legion d’Honneur or the Hungarian Pulitzer, or his being asked to give a graveside oration at the 1989 reburial of the executed Nagy. But his book On Burchett is calm, detailed, and particularly instructive about Burchett’s time in Hungary. I hope Nasht gets to talk to a lot of the locals from that time, perhaps a few relatives of the victims of the show trials Burchett was such an active publicist for, even decades later.

Burchett did good and courageous things, but went seriously off the rails. It’s silly to portray him as Satan, but to keep pushing the line that he was some sort of visionary who merely made a few mistakes is distasteful. Best of luck with the film biography, Simon.

Bruce Watson writes: Simon Nasht’s film will certainly be interesting to see. I look forward to the section in which Burchett assists in the interrogation of Commonwealth and US Prisoners during the Korean War, something that despite separate and independent evidence given by some of his victims, he continued to deny to his death.

Similarly, can anyone point me to where Burchett himself retracted the Soviet propaganda he churned out faithfully in the 1950’s or undertook courageous or “passionate” investigation into the Gulag? Burchett’s hack work ludicrously disparaged fundamental Western freedoms such as to vote and travel, and dishonestly presented a lifestyle under Stalinism bearing no relationship to reality?

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