Today marks one year since the release of Labor’s widely criticised Guide to the proposed Basin Plan, yet anxious Murray-Darling Basin communities continue waiting for release of the actual plan, Coalition Basin spokesman Simon Birmingham said today. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s Guide was released a year ago today, and provoked angst throughout the…
DetailsAustralia’s union movement is backing the Government’s carbon tax even though it expects it to reduce both real wages and economic production, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment Simon Birmingham said today. Joel Fetter, Policy Director at peak body the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), today told the shotgun Parliamentary inquiry into…
DetailsDAVID LIPSON: It’s finals week this week but today’s titans’ clash is happening off the football pitch. The battle over Andrew Wilkie’s pokie reforms has intensified after several AFL [Australian Football League] club presidents slammed the mandatory pre-commitment technology. … ANTHONY BALL, Clubs Australia Executive Director: Millions of supporters, millions of players, kids and families…
DetailsAustralians concerned about Julia Gillard’s carbon tax must ‘speak now or forever hold their peace’, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment Simon Birmingham said today. It follows the Government-imposed deadline of today for the receipt of submissions to its shotgun inquiry into its carbon tax legislation. “In allowing just six days to…
DetailsI welcome today’s announcement by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that it will start negotiations to continue televising South Australian National Football League (SANFL) football and other local sport beyond the current season. This announcement is a pleasing response to last week’s resolution by the Senate, which I was pleased to sponsor with…
DetailsGRANT GOLDMAN: Now, Australians concerned about Julia Gillard’s carbon tax must speak now or forever hold their peace [almost]. That’s what Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment Simon Birmingham has said today. We have him on the line. Morning, Simon. SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Good morning, Grant. Good morning to your listeners. GRANT GOLDMAN: Yes, and I think you’ve picked up…
DetailsThe Gillard Government’s refusal to release updated modelling on its carbon tax will today see a farcical first hearing of the Labor-Greens dominated shotgun inquiry into the legislation, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment and inquiry member Simon Birmingham said today. Treasury officials are among those appearing before the Joint Select Committee this…
DetailsUpdated Treasury modelling on the Carbon Tax is worthless. The revised modelling, released only minutes before today’s Join Select Committee on the Carbon Tax legislation continues to rely upon the assumption that the United States will be part of a global trading system by 2016. Yet the chance of the United States…
DetailsGREG HUNT: At six minutes to this morning’s committee hearing, the Treasurer finally released the updated Treasury modelling. What we know from today is this the ‘world’s best Treasurer’ has the world’s worst modelling. This carbon tax modelling is worthless because it is based on a fantasy. It’s based on a fantasy, still, that the United…
DetailsThe Labor-Greens dominated shotgun inquiry into Julia Gillard’s carbon tax legislation is descending from farce into high farce, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment and inquiry member Simon Birmingham said today. A committee already dominated by the legislation’s Labor-Green proponents, given just three weeks to inquire into more than 1100 pages, affording Australians…
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