The 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…
DetailsThe Gillard Government must release in full its updated carbon tax modelling, and do so well before Treasury’s appearance before a Parliamentary inquiry this Wednesday, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment Simon Birmingham said today. Treasury officials have been scheduled to appear this Wednesday morning before the Joint Select Committee’s inquiry into the…
DetailsAustralians only have until this Thursday 22 September to make submissions to the shotgun parliamentary inquiry into Julia Gillard’s carbon tax. The Gillard Government thinks it’s reasonable for Australians to review and comment on over 1,100 pages of carbon tax legislation in a matter of days, having only called for submissions in Saturday’s…
DetailsAustralians have less than a week to make submissions on Julia Gillard’s carbon tax that she explicitly promised to never introduce. Yesterday the Labor-Greens dominated inquiry into the 1,100-plus pages of carbon tax legislation resolved to give Australians just six days to make submissions to the inquiry, despite the massive impact this tax…
DetailsToday, the parliamentary inquiry into Labor’s carbon tax legislation met for the first time. The desire of the Labor-Green-Independent alliance to avoid scrutiny and exert total control over this process was evident. Using their majority, they scrapped parliamentary convention for a Government-nominated Chair to be offset by an Opposition-nominated Deputy Chair. …
DetailsThe National Water Commission today released its third biennial assessment of the National Water Initiative and water reform in Australia. The report highlighted the slow pace of water reform, stating: “Nationally there has been disappointingly slow progress in the explicit identification of over allocated and overused systems and in restoring those systems…
DetailsThe Gillard Government has finally given an answer about how many self funded retirees will be worse off under its carbon tax, but immediately backed away from it, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment Simon Birmingham said today. “In an extraordinary interjection during Senate Question Time, in response to a question to Finance…
DetailsFor the second week in a row a delay to the release of the proposed Basin Plan has been announced. ?Originally the proposed Basin Plan was to be released in mid-2010. It was then promised that release would occur in early 2011. The promised release date was then pushed back to August 2011.…
DetailsWater Minister Tony Burke has signalled his intention to ignore a key recommendation of a bipartisan parliamentary inquiry on Murray-Darling Basin reform, Coalition Murray-Darling Basin spokesman Simon Birmingham said today. It follows the Murray-Darling Basin Authority today further delaying until at least mid-October the release of its proposed Basin Plan. The parliamentary…
DetailsLabor’s implementation of Murray-Darling reform is now running more than a year late and might not meet the legislative timelines demanded by the Water Act 2007. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority is apparently deferring release of the proposed Basin Plan until mid-October. This will come as a blow to those hoping for certainty for Basin…
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