The Gillard Government approved a $20 million grant in this year’s budget without any application or analysis into its merits, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment Simon Birmingham said today. The absence of any rationale for the funding was revealed by departmental officials under questioning from Senator Birmingham in a Senate Estimates hearing…
DetailsRatepayers in more than 100 council areas around Australia stand to suffer yet another hit from the carbon tax, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment Simon Birmingham said today. Clean Energy Regulator or ‘Carbon Cop’ officials have told a Senate Estimates hearing that, on top of those ten councils* recently named on a…
DetailsLAURA JAYES: Today, more proof that the political debate is as fierce as ever. Daily, the Opposition Leader and the Prime Minister trade barbs that are as much about personality as they are about policy. TONY ABBOTT: As the leader of a party, you can be the chieftain of a tribe but as…
DetailsLUKE GRANT: Taxpayers are footing a multi-million dollar travel bill as part of Labor’s clean up of its disastrous $2.5 billion Home Insulation Program or ‘Pink Batts’ scheme, linked to at least four deaths and more than 200 house fires. This information has come to hand, I suspect in Senate Estimates, by Senator Simon…
DetailsHOWARD SATTLER: On this ‘Mad as Hell’ Monday, this will get you mad, too. Taxpayers are now paying out, or have paid out, more than $3.4 million in travel costs to fly insulation safety inspectors around Australia to check on faulty or dodgy insulation installations under the Federal Government’s failed $2,500 million that’s…
DetailsLEON BYNER: Well, the Price is Right… we’ll talk to Larry Emdur about what price we’re talking about but we really have to ask the same thing about this carbon tax because we now find that SA Water are going to have a tax liability of about $6.2 million. Now, this is pretty interesting…
DetailsMICHAEL SMYTH: Well, a few months ago on this program we were speaking to our traffic guru Nick Green about the increasing delays being faced by Adelaide drivers and the frustration that it’s causing and he said if you think things are bad now, just wait until our train network gets busier more…
DetailsThe switchover to digital TV in regional South Australia will cost many hotels, motels and caravan parks thousands of dollars in areas where terrestrial TV transmission towers aren’t being upgraded, Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham said today. It could cost tourism operators up to $750 to convert each TV to digital satellite under the…
DetailsSONYA FELDHOFF: If you live in a regional area, as you’d be aware, coming up in the next couple of years there is going to be a big switch to digital TV and we’re gearing up for that and many people are being helped out with that switch but there are concerns starting to…
DetailsSIMON ROYAL: Residents of the South Australian town of Truro are taking their fight over digital television to Canberra. They’re furious at the extra costs they’ll have to pay to install individual satellite dishes to receive the signal when it’s switched over. This, mind you, is for free-to-air TV the stuff you’re watching…
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