Does Australia have poor quality teachers?

In its amusing Leftist way, "New Matilda" has broached this question.  Conservative State and Federal politicians have said that the quality of teaching in Australian schools needs to be raised and this has aroused "New Matilda" ire.  So I read the characteristically long-winded article concerned right through looking for contrary evidence.  There was none. It was just a very wordy fulmination.  It was just an outpouring of rage, as one expects from Leftists. I reproduce some of it below.

Most amusing of all, they DO look at the evidence on one thing:  The policy of the last Labour government of giving every child a laptop computer.  So this wonderful Leftist idea worked wonders? No. They quite fairly point out that it did no good at all!

So are there any scholarly comments or constuctive suggestions in the article?  I can't see any.  It is just an offended shriek.

I was also amused that the two female writers confessed that they are not themselves teachers.  Leftists love "ad hominem" arguments so let me use one against them.  I taught for many years at both the secondary school and university levels and, along the way, got to see a bit about my fellow teachers.  And the unavoidable conclusion is that teacher quality is very patchy. 

And teacher training has got nothing to do with it.  Like university degrees for nurses, it may even be a negative influence.  The expansion of teacher training from one year to four has certainly not been shown to raise teaching quality.

As the "Teach for America" program has clearly shown, teachers are largely born, not made.  And born teachers are rare.  So I concur with the judgements of some of my fellow conservatives that teaching quality in our schools is often poor.

Unlike them and unlike "New Matilda", however, I have a solution that works and has been working for many years.  Teachers themselves usually decry it but the evidence has long been in.

What is needed are large class sizes so that the limited teaching talent that is available can be spread widely.  I can dig up plenty of research evidence to that effect if anybody wants it.


Teachers are the scapegoats for any shortcomings in our education system. Maurie Mulheron, the President of the NSW Teacher’s Federation, who is an actual teacher, who has taught actual students, in actual classrooms, argues that, “Many of our schools are akin to emergency wards in hospitals. No-one talks about the quality of doctors and nurses – they talk about the quality of health and the resources the hospitals need”.

Furthermore, reforms have characteristically happened to schools and teachers, rather than in collaboration with them. Funds are issued and cut upon the whim of the politician, and the syllabus, particularly Australian history, is a political plaything.

But if you ask Christopher Pyne, he will insist that a researcher once told him that “teachers are the biggest influence on student’s achievement”, and thus you do not need any more ‘resources’ aka ‘money’.

Piccoli and Pyne must be the products of exceptional maths teachers, because what they are doing is economically clever, albeit socially inexcusable. Pyne, in an article written at the beginning of the last year, argued:

“The quality of our teaching and quality of our teachers is seen as one of the important, if not most important, determinants affecting education performance…. A quality education system must be underpinned by quality teachers. The profession knows it, parents want it, our students deserve it and the nation needs it.”
Inspiring stuff. Except for the part where he says that teachers have been very bad for a while now, and despite his best efforts, he cannot sculpt a quality education system out of crappy teachers.

Apparently teachers are letting down parents, students, and, well, not to exaggerate, but the entire nation. You know how everything in the United States is Obama’s fault? Teachers are Australia’s Obama.

Can’t get a job? Thanks TEACHERS

Kicked your toe? Thanks TEACHERS

Nation goes to war? Thanks TEACHERS

If we weren’t so angry, we would almost respect Pyne’s political manoeuvre to shift all blame for everything that goes wrong onto one of the most underpaid and undervalued occupations.

It is borderline genius.

To clarify, Pyne would have us believe that it is the individuals who educate our nation’s children, who teach them to read and write, and add and subtract, and speak languages and draw, and play the bloody recorder (now THAT, they owe an apology for), and understand their bodies and sexual development, and discipline and focus, who are to blame for students’ less than exceptional results.

It is the individuals who accept the wage which may mean they can never own a home in Sydney, or claim helicopter rides on tax, or go out to fancy lunches and get drunk on Fridays, who must work harder, and study Masters and PhDs which do not necessarily correspond to more money, who need to ‘be better at your job plz’ quote Mr Pyne.

Pyne might have had a little more credibility if he had read the research correctly.

The Conversation ran an article a few years ago, which clarified that whilst teachers are the biggest in-school influence, various other school and non-school factors far outweigh the influence of teachers. Funding matters, as does socio-economic status, and available resources.

We’re no ‘Education Minister’, but we do not accept that the alleged “dumbing down” of students is a result of teacher quality.

You know what this week is, Pyne and Piccoli? It’s Book Week.

Primary School teachers all over Australia are dressed as Little Red Riding Hood. We would take your argument more seriously if you were dressed as Voldemort and Humpty Dumpty respectively. Oh, and Joe Hockey can be Robin Hood, except he steals from the poor and gives to the rich.

There is a great deal that NAPLAN cannot test. Among them is enthusiasm for learning and teacher quality.

So it’s time for Pyne and Piccoli, who have fabricated the teacher’s fall, and criticised them for not doing it all, to get all the state governments and all those Liberal men, to try and build up the teaching profession again. [How?  More money, I guess.  That's the invariant call from teacher unions.  It has never been shown to work, however]

https://newmatilda.com//2015/08/30/abc-why-teachers-are-responsible-all-our-failures-and-other-political-silver-bullets

A serious problem with Australian tax: Removal of CGT indexation

Below is a rare sensible post from "New Matilda".  I have removed the bilious preamble

We would be helped by restoration of capital gains tax (CGT) rules that Treasurer Peter Costello discarded in 1999.

Many commentators, particularly those on the "left", rightly criticise the government for giving a 50 per cent tax discount on capital gains, but the story is a little more complex.

Until 1985 Australia had no effective taxes on capital gains. In a major set of tax reforms the Hawke-Keating Government introduced an effective CGT regime with two important provisions. One was that CGT was assessed only on the real (inflation-adjusted) component of capital gains: illusory gains resulting from inflation were not taxed. The other was protection against a large and once-off capital gain pushing a taxpayer into a high tax bracket.

That system came as close as practicable to perfect neutrality between income from corporate dividends and income from capital gains.

That was to change in 1999, when in the name of encouraging "financial dynamism" (bankers' code for irresponsible speculation), John Howard's friend John Ralph convinced Treasurer Peter Costello that the CGT system needed changing.

As is well known, that change meant that the CGT for assets held for more than a year is now based on only half the gain.

The other big and less publicised change was removal of indexation. From 1999 onwards CGT has been applied not only to the real gain, but also to the inflationary component. To illustrate, if someone invests $100 in a company's shares, and three years later sells those shares for $150, over which time inflation has been 10 per cent (a typical three year inflation figure), under the old system the base would have been indexed upwards to $110 and CGT would have been levied on a real profit of $40.  Under Ralph-Costello new system CGT is levied on half of $50, or $25.

That's the usual way the Ralph-Costello changes to CGT are viewed, as a big gain for investors.

But consider that same $100 invested by a patient investor with a long time horizon - perhaps as a shareholder in a private company. If, after 30 years, that company had not increased in real value, which is the case for many stable enterprises, on realisation the investor would not have incurred any CGT under the old system. But with three per cent annual inflation its nominal value would have increased to $242 (100 x 1.0330), and tax would be applied on $71, being half the nominal gain of $142.

The Ralph-Costello changes tipped the scales in favour of short-term speculators, and against the interests of those who were in it for the long haul. Costello was sold the idea on the basis that the old system was too complicated - it seems that he found year 6 mathematics a little too complex.

The members of the Ralph Committee, which included Westpac boss Bob Joss, certainly knew their mathematics. A system favouring short-term over long-term investment means more commissions for stockbrokers and other coupon clippers, and more money sloshing into and out of bank accounts. A triumph of the paper economy over the real economy.

In the early 2000s Peter Martin and I were among those who warned of the consequences of the Ralph changes, particularly in relation to housing, but people were too busy making profits on negatively-geared property to read such killjoy material.

The experience of 2008 should have made clear the consequences of "financial dynamism" and of policies that encourage short-term impression management over long-term wealth creation, but we don't seem to have learned from the GFC.

In yet another call to sanity Black Rock CEO Larry Fink has written to more than 500 of America's largest companies warning them to resist pressures "to meet short-term financial goals at the expense of building long-term value", and calling on governments "to address public policy that fosters long-term behaviour". He suggests that rates of CGT should fall, the longer the investment - the very opposite to the system Costello loaded on to us.

But our government isn't listening. The government's tax discussion paper doesn't acknowledge the disincentive effect of non-indexation of CGT - instead it repeats the idea that indexation carried "complexity" and a "compliance burden", implying that Hockey, like Costello, also struggles with high school mathematics.

https://newmatilda.com//2015/08/05/rewarding-financial-industry-and-undermining-green-energy-double-win-hockey-and-costello

Leftist Jews are a strange lot: Michael Brull, for example

Most Leftist Jews are in the USA but there are quite a few in Israel too. Australia has one (though not the only one) in the person of Michael Brull, who writes for the far-Left "New Matilda". In a recent article he condemns Israel as "racist". The way Leftists use "racist", it usually means something like "normal" so that is of scant interest.

What got me was the way he wrote of Israel's most recent intervention in Gaza: "Israel invaded and bombed Gaza last year".  No mention that it was an attempt by Israel to stop the constant  rocketing of Israel from Gaza. It was even pretty successful at that. How does anyone manage to close their eyes to that?  The man seems deep into Freudian denial, a serious neurosis.  As an articulate Jew he can hardly be unaware of the whole story.

And we have this from him:

"In a way, Australia’s an extreme example. A lot of racism passes without comment or condemnation here. Perhaps this shouldn’t be too surprising: Australia’s history is among the most racist on the planet. Because of the White Australia policy, and the devastation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, Australia is still overwhelmingly white. Ethnic minorities have struggled to gain enough power, influence, and even visibility to successfully resist the kind of bigotry and prejudice that pervades our society, major institutions and halls of power."

He completely overlooks Australia's biggest minority -- about 5% of our population:  The Chinese.  There are people from various Asian sources in Australia but, regardless of source, most of them are Han Chinese.  Why is that?  Because the unfortunate Han are persecuted everywhere in Asia except in their homeland.  There are Chinese minorities throughout Asia, particularly in SouthEast Asia.  There are even Chinese restaurants in Bombay.  I ate in one once.

But whenever there is some sort of political upheaval, the Han are blamed for what is wrong and get it in the neck. Their homes are burnt, their businesses looted and they are all to often killed or driven out:  Quite reminiscent of Jewish history in Europe.  And the Han are of course well aware of their marginal status in the countries concerned.  So at every opportunity many who can do so get out -- mostly to countries with European populations, such as Australia.

Australia?  That hotbed of racism?  The Han clearly don't share the Leftist view that Australia is a hotbed of racism.  They have been coming for many years so would have heard by now if Australia was indeed a hotbed of racism.

There have always been Han in Australia.  My mother's grocer was a Chinaman. But the big influx started in the aftermath of the Vietnam war.  Most of the "boat-people" from Vietnam were Han, fleeing racist Vietnamese.  They got onto rickety boats and came to Australia at the risk of their lives.  Many of them disappeared at sea.

Like John Howard, I was apprehensive about the Chinese influx. I was aware of the old "White Australia policy" from Federation days (abolished by the conservative government of Harold Holt in 1966) so thought that the Chinese influx  might incite race riots.  Both Howard and I were wrong.  We underestimated our fellow Australians.  The Chinese were absorbed without a murmur.

But were they?  I personally have certainly seen no evidence of animus against them but statistical evidence is hard to find.  I have been a keen reader of the news for most of my 72 years and I recollect no accounts of anti-Chinese riots.  I have heard grumbles once or twice about them but that is all.  And race-relations are after all a major interest of mine. I have had over 100 papers on the subject published in the academic journals.  So neither in the popular nor the academic literature have I seen any mention of anti-Chinese upheavals in Australia.  Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence but I think it is pretty indicative in this case.

There are of course tales of minor discrimination at school and such places but the "cool kids" at school discriminate against members of their own ethnic group so that means nothing if taken in context.  The upshot is that the Han move unhindered among us as our medical specialist, our pharmacist and our restaurateur (etc.)

And something that is very vivid about race relations in Australia is the huge frequency of little Chinese ladies paired with tall Caucasian men.  I see examples of it almost every day in the shopping centre I usually go to.  Neither the man nor the girlfriend on his arm seem to realize that they are racists!

So why is all that important?  Because it shows that Australians are NOT racist.  If they were, a visibly different group like the Han  would surely be persecuted.  They are not.  So if Australians are critical of other ethnic groups, it is because of something other than racism.  Southeast Asians are demonstrably racist but Australians are not.

And it is far from clear that Australians were ever racist in any serious sense.  As is set out extensively here, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 was primarily devoted to protecting existing Australian workers from low-wage competition.  Some of the speeches made in support of the Act utilized the racist beliefs that were common worldwide at the time but the basic motivation is perfectly clear if you look at all of what led up to the Act.  

There were some anti-Chinese riots on the goldfields of the 19th century but they were again largely economically motivated.  The Chinese miners were taking away a lot of the gold.  And most of the people on the goldfields at that time were immigrants, not native-born Australians.  A bit more on racial attitudes in Australia of the early days here

Now that I have looked at what Brull did not cover, let me look at what he did cover.  The bulk of his article is an assemblage of criticisms of Islam.  He rightly says that Islam is not monolithic and that the majority cannot be blamed for the deeds of a few.

Since it is clear that Australians are not racist, however, such criticisms cannot be taken as flowing from racism.  Even more fundamentally, Islam is a religion, not a race.  Muslims are of many races and you can change your religion but not your race.  So on that ground also Brull's claim of Australian racism falls by the wayside.

But is criticism of Islam legitimate and proper?  Brull clearly thinks not.  But why not?  Leftists sometimes make swingeing criticisms of Christians so why are similar criticisms of Islam not allowed?  Both are major religions.  I await Brull's article assembling and condemning Leftist criticisms of Christians.

So what is wrong with Brull?  Why all the selective reporting?  I cannot believe that he is unaware of the sort of thing that I have just covered and he seems too articulate to be a raving nutter.  So I must conclude that he knows perfectly well that what he writes is propaganda, not balanced reporting.  He knows that, in typical Leftist style, he is reporting only those things that suit him.  He is a crook.  

But why is he a crook?  It is because his writing is a servant to his hate, not any attempt at an accurate picture of the world.

But why is he suffused with hate for the world about him?  In his case it is moderately clear.  He is a Jew.  And the world that Jews inhabit has been incredibly hostile to them.  Hating that world is understandable, if stupid.  The world has changed.  Outside Muslim lands, Jews are no longer endangered.  But Jews do tend to feel the burden of the past heavily upon them,  which is why a big majority of American Jews are Leftist. Leftists are people who, for whatever reason, hate the world about them: "the system" or the "status quo" if you like.  Brull has joined that sorry fraternity.

But it is surely strange that, despite their great intellectual gifts, so many Ashkenazim seem incapable of truly critical thinking where politics is concerned.  From Moses onwards, the Hebrew prophets condemned Jews for their whoring after false Gods.  Not much seems to have changed.  Emotion swamps reason still.

Tony Abbott Has No Intention Of Reaching His Flimsy Emissions Target

The combination of policies being deployed by the government will not help them achieve even the weak target announced today, writes Ben Eltham in the Leftist "New Matilda".  I suspect Ben is right about that. 

And Ben spells out well that Abbott is acting only on political pressure.

Where Ben is a big laugh, however, is that he does not seem to know about the "pause", which even Warmist scientists acknowledge.  Ben speaks of the "terrifying momentum of climate change" when it has in fact no momentum at all.  The only terrestrial temperature changes of the last 18 years have been in hundredths of one degree Celsius, changes which are not even statistically significant, meaning that from a scientific viewpoint, they do not exist. 

I suspect that Ben is good at detecting crookedness in Abbott because he is such a big crook himself.  "Terrifying momentum of climate change" does not even do Warmist scientists justice. It is an outright lie. Ben is talking though his anus

The news that the Abbott government has settled on an emissions reduction target for Australia out to 2030 heralds a new turn in climate politics in this country.

The target, announced by Prime Minister Tony Abbott today, is a 26 per cent reduction on 2030 levels compared to 2005. It would put Australia at the back of the international pack – offering less than Canada, the United States or Europe. Only Japan is offering a smaller target.

On the one hand, of course, this target is manifestly inadequate. A modest decrease in carbon pollution is not nearly enough to arrest the terrifying momentum of climate change. As glaciers and ice-caps melt and bushfires intensify, the world is running out of time to stop global warming before it runs away with a liveable climate.

Rapid and deep cuts to emissions are the only practical and ethical policy. The non-political Climate Change Authority recommended a 40-60 per cent cut by 2030, based on the available science.

On the other hand, it’s amazing the Abbott government committed to an emissions target at all. This is the government that has loudly proclaimed its undying love of fossilised carbon, a government hell-bent on burning as many dead dinosaurs as it can dig from the soil. This is also the government that contains many avowed climate sceptics, and which campaigned so successfully against the Labor Party on climate at the last election.

The 26 per cent figure appears to have been massaged with a view to party unity. The government was today openly briefing press gallery journalists that climate sceptics in the party were consulted about it, and “could live” with the target. That in itself tells you quite a lot about the way this government conducts climate policy.

Say what you like about the snail’s pace of international action on climate, there is no doubt that Australia has been dragged to this position by international pressure.

Australia under the Coalition has stayed inside the Kyoto protocol, and that means we need to commit to a new emissions reductions target in the run up to this year’s climate talks in Paris.

In the media conference today, Prime Minister Abbott was at great pains to point out that Australia’s emissions reduction target was “smack bang in the middle” of rich world emissions targets. You’d have to say that, without this international pressure, Australia under the Coalition would not be formally committed to reducing emissions at all.

The government claims Australia will make the largest per capita reductions of the rich industrialised countries. That’s a fudge to begin with: it highlights just how pollution-prone our economy currently is. Countries in Europe and even in Asia start well ahead of us when it comes to their relative emissions intensity. Australia has so far to travel because we are already so dirty.

Never mind the target – can the government actually deliver? No.

The government plans to meet the 2030 target essentially on a wing and a prayer.

https://newmatilda.com//2015/08/11/tony-abbott-has-no-intention-reaching-his-flimsy-emissions-target

Wind Inquiry Recommends careful regulation

Without the hyped original headline on it, the report below from NM seems pretty reasonable

The Senate Inquiry into wind farms has tabled a final report. The report recommends a series of ‘National Wind Farm Guidelines’ to be enforced against state governments which would have their eligibility to participate in the Clean Energy Certificate market created under the Renewable Energy Target threatened if they fail to comply.

The committee, which was dominated by senators who have publicly voiced their aversion to the wind energy sector, also recommended the establishment by statute of an ‘Independent Expert Committee on Industrial Sound’ (IECIS).

The committee on industrial sound would carry the remit of “conducting independent, multi-disciplinary research into the adverse impacts and risks to individual and community health and wellbeing associated with wind turbine projects”.

Earlier this year the National Health and Medical Research Council completed its own report which found that “there is no direct evidence that exposure to wind farm noise affects physical or mental health”.

But the committee took aim at a number of respected institutions and academics who concurred with the international consensus that wind farms are not harmful to human health.

The Australian Medical Association was accused of a “lack of rigour” and “slavish repetition of the findings of the National Health and Medical Research Council’s reviews,” which the committee was also highly critical of.

Instead, it recommended the committee on industrial sound become the dominant body and assume responsibility for developing a system of ‘National Wind Farm Guidelines’ in an attempt to push states to accept Federal standards on “visual amenity”, noise levels, standard buffer zones from residences, and community consultation processes.

The report is predicated on the position that “the wind sector in Australia is suffering from a crisis in community confidence” and that this must be solved through greater Federal involvement, despite recent polling indicating voters want the Commonwealth to do more to boost clean energy.

“There is deep scepticism within many local communities about the way in which wind operators are monitored and the complicit role of state governments in fudging results that find compliance,” the report said.

Under the recommendations state and territory governments would be required to “seek the advice of the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Industrial Sound [as to] whether the proposed project poses risks to individual and community health” before granting approval.

State governments would then be unable to approve a project until the Federal Health Minister was satisfied the “risks to human health” had been mitigated.

The Federal government has already agreed to key recommendations of the report, including establishing the committee on industrial sound by the beginning of September this year and creating a Wind Farm Commissioner to handle grievances.

Labor Senator Anne Urquhart has already made her party’s grievances clear, with Labor slamming the report as “reckless, ridiculous and irresponsible”, a position which raises questions about whether the Federal government will be willing to open a new legislative battle front to implement key recommendations.

Senator Urquhart was the only Labor member on the committee and she prepared a dissenting report to prosecute the opposition’s argument that “this isn’t just an attack on wind” but rather the nation’s “entire renewable energy industry”.

“The majority report is belligerently deaf to the expert advice that wind energy is not only safe, but it is affordable and should play a critical role in Australia’s transition to a low-carbon economy,” Urquhart said

“Not one professional scientific, medical or acoustics body in the world holds the proposition that wind farms are dangerous to human health, and yet the majority report predicates a raft of onerous recommendations on this completely unsubstantiated claim.”

Federal Labor recently announced a policy of achieving 50 per cent renewable energy within 15 years and its state satellites are likely to share Uruhart’s concerns over “the Prime Minister’s blind obsession with destroying an industry that promises billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs in regional communities”.

The Victorian Labor government recently called on the Commonwealth to relax the Renewable Energy Target’s foundational legislation after the opposition was forced to cut it by 20 per cent, but yesterday’s recommendations could create far bigger headaches if successfully implemented.

The report recommends a project’s ability to attract subsidies under the Renewable Energy Target be contingent on its compliance with Federal guidelines on matters such as “visual amenity” and noise levels, including retrospectively with companies given “a period of no more than five years with which to comply”.

It also argues that all new projects should be eligible to trade under the Renewable Energy Target for no more than five years and that this should be subject to a requirement to “link the issuing of renewable energy certificates with confirmed greenhouse gas reduction”.

In 2013, wind power attracted 60 per cent of Renewable Energy Certificates and accounted for 63 per cent of total renewable-generated electricity.

In its dissenting report Labor criticised the Inquiry’s terms of reference for not considering “the broader imperative … to mitigate the impact of climate change”.

“In short,” the dissenting report reads, “the terms of reference have been framed so as to avoid consideration of the primary issues that must be addressed by public policy regarding Australia's energy generation mix”.

https://newmatilda.com//2015/08/04/wind-inquiry-recommends-vast-escalation-federal-government-power

A Leftist account of Australia's climate policy

NM sees that the current policy is only very light Green.  They deplore that.  I praise it. I have deleted some abusive adjectives below

In stark comparison to the wide-ranging plan Obama announced to curb America’s carbon pollution, the climate the Abbott government has cultivated around global warming leaves it with very few options.

Clearly, there will be no carbon tax. Axing the tax has - as we all know, know, know - been perhaps the government’s proudest achievement. And true to form, after Labor announced a couple of weeks back that they would introduce an emissions trading scheme, Hunt has repeatedly parroted the false declaration that “an emissions trading scheme is just a carbon tax with a different name”.

Presumably that means that an ETS - favoured by lefty institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and at least 40 national governments worldwide - is also off the cards.

Let’s face it, this government has always been about Direct Action! Getting in there; planting trees; raising a (green) army! That’s the ticket to electoral success and the government shows no indication of admitting one syllable of failure.

But there are other ways - besides great big new taxes on everything - to tackle emissions. In the pensive hours before the major new US policy was detailed, media speculated it would pave the way for a massive escalation in renewables deployment.

On this point too though, the government has been direct with the Australian people about its inaction.

As the Prime Minister, defending the government’s tardiness in slashing the Renewable Energy Target, told broadcaster Alan Jones: “What we did recently in the Senate was to reduce, Alan, capital R-E-D-U-C-E, the number of these things [wind turbines] that we are going to get in the future.”

“Frankly,” Abbott said, “I would have liked to have reduced the number a lot more”.

While it “got the best deal [it] could out of the Senate”, the government only managed to cause investment in renewables to tank by 90 per cent. What a hash! But the point is that renewables have more or less been ruled out by the Abbott government.

So why not just pump up the Direct Action to give the government a way out of this jam?

Here’s the thing; the only way the government could feasibly use Direct Action to cut carbon pollution to the levels that’ll be required after the current 2020 commitment period is by dramatically modifying the so-called ‘safeguard mechanism’ that’s built into the scheme.

Under its policy the Abbott government pays polluters to pollute a little less, and the safeguard mechanism was supposed to prevent the polluters that aren’t being paid from going silly and increasing their emissions.

Right now, it’s more or less lying dormant, which brings us back to that RepuTex analysis and its judgement of the government’s climate policy as “untenable” unless the safeguard mechanism is beefed up.

As the analysis notes, “None of Australia’s top 20 emitting facilities are currently expected to incur any liability under the scheme, despite almost all being forecast to grow their emissions over the next ten years.”.

Basically, there’s nothing to stop big polluters from polluting more unless there’s a serious tightening of the policy, and emissions increases from those vast majority of companies that would have no obligation under Direct Action to cut their carbon are likely to far outweigh the mitigation that the government is using our money to pay for.

But there’s hope. “While the scheme is currently a ‘toothless tiger’, it may readily be characterised as a ‘hidden dragon’ given the potential scope for a more meaningful compliance market to emerge,” the RepuTex analysis said.

Unfortunately for the Abbott government the Labor Opposition, which might ordinarily be quite fairly characterised as a ‘toothless tiger’, would exploit the hypocrisy the government would need to display to fix the safeguard mechanism in its quest to make climate change a key battleground at the next Federal election.

For the government to make the ‘safeguard’ mechanism work, it would effectively need to put a cap on carbon in the economy and create a financial disincentive for polluters who exceed their share.

On Hunt’s  logic, which dismisses anything that caps pollution, that’s just another damn carbon tax.

https://newmatilda.com//2015/08/04/tax-government-can-never-truly-axe