The Prime Minister said on Q&A last night that he wouldn’t mind the drinking age being lifted to 21.

This is probably the dumbest idea since cutting back on the solar panel rebate. Lifting the drinking age would be counter-productive and unfair.

It is stupid for a number of reasons:

1. It would instantly double the number of underage drinkers making the problem that much worse. A problem that is already impossible to police would be even more difficult to stop.
2. Instead of getting drunk under supervision legally at home or in a pub young people will go to the local park instead and get paralytic with a bunch of their friends. Raising the drinking age is supposed to cut down on drunken violence in the city, but all it would do simply shift the drunken violence to the suburbs. In a park there is no bartender to cut you off or bounces to break up fights.
3. It is incompatible with our culture. The drinking age has been 18 now for so long that nobody considers it a bad thing to drink at that age. It is a rite of passage to finally be allowed to drink. At high school I knew the odd person that waited to till 18, but I just can’t imagine anyone waiting for 21.
4. You can’t drink responsibly if you are drinking illegally.
5. May increase access to other illegal drugs. If I remember back to when I used to drink underage in a park or at someone’s house whose parents were not home, there was always a group of guys on the couch smoking pot and a bunch of girls in the corner popping pills. If you are already doing something illegal you may as well do something that is only slightly more illegal.
6. It is bad for the economy. There are many clubs out there that cater solely for those under the age of 21. What would happen to these clubs and the people who work at them?
7. It is moving the goalposts. Many kids have been waiting for 18 and suddenly changing the age to 21 is just unfair. An age has to be picked where a kid is finally accepted as an adult.

Binge drinking, alcohol fuelled violence and drunk driving are all serious problems that kill teenagers, but increasing the drinking age is not the solution and might even make those problems worse.

Driving while drunk is already a criminal offence. Is somebody who habitually drives drunk going to remedy their behaviour if drinking at their current age is now illegal? If you live in the real world the answer is of course no.

We are now officially living in the future as Apple have finally released a tablet. The name made many people cringe, as it kind of sounds like something that belongs inside women’s underwear when it is that time of the month.

Anyway, it looks fantastic and I’m sure it will be a success. Everybody will want to use the iPad to read ebooks. Ebooks are not available on iTunes instead you need to download the iBooks application and buy ebooks through that. Alternatively you could still buy ebooks online from Fictionwise or somewhere like that. This is a minor irritation compared to the fact that due to geographical restrictions the vast majority of ebooks aren’t available in Australia.

I want my ebook

According to the Fictionwise website ebooks are not available in Australia due to the way the book publishing industry works. The publishing industry has always worked on the idea that the rights of books could be sold to publishers according to geographical region. This idea is basically incompatible with the idea of the Internet, but these contracts still apply to ebooks. Publishers are legally obliged to make sure their ebooks adhere to these contracts.

The result is different publishers produce the same titles in different countries and each individual publisher needs to release ebooks in the different countries before they can become available.

Even if a company wants to sell all ebooks to Australians they can’t. That is correct: I can’t buy ebooks because I’m Australian.

Legally that is

This forces many e-book fans to download ebooks illegally using filesharing networks. I personally do not feel comfortable doing this and would much rather be able to buy ebooks legally.

There is also the choice of buying them illegally by using a foreign friend’s credit card or using IP masking techniques.

Why me?

The inability to buy ebooks is an irritation for most people, but there are many people who can’t physically read a book. Someone with muscular dystrophy such as myself can have great difficulty holding a book and turning the pages. With an ebook all you need do is press a button or click a mouse. There are mechanical page turners available, but they are very expensive and don’t work so well. I am also not a fan of audio books as it tends to go in one ear and out the other and what about people who can’t hear.

E-book crusade

I am hoping that the release of the iPad will increase the number of Australians wanting to read ebooks and this will force the hand of publishers to be more ebook friendly.

I also plan on finding out as much as I can about the reasons why ebooks are not available in Australia and to fight for the rights of Australians to read ebooks.

Global warming deniers do seem to get a lot of airtime a lot more than they probably deserve.

Over time I believe more and more people are becoming convinced that global warming is a fact. The Black Saturday fires no doubt convinced many Australians of the fact of global warming. We see glaziers around the world shrinking and Greenland actually turning green.

As people shift from the sceptical camp only the more extreme deniers are left over -there are some people who will never be convinced. Some people see conspiracies around every corner. They don’t trust the governments, scientists, corporations or any kind of organization. Generally they are called the black helicopter people. Many of these people are fearful of the creation of a new world order or world government. This is an umbrella conspiracy theory built on the foundation of thousands of other conspiracy theories.

The other great conspiracy theory is of course that global warming is a myth. Lord Christopher Monckton former adviser to Margaret Thatcher has developed a unique method of fusion, unfortunately it is not the kind that could save the world.

Lord Monckton has fused the two greatest conspiracy theories ever into one unified theory. Did you know that the Copenhagen climate change treaty will create a global Communist government? The treaty will supersede the constitution of every country that signs it. Don’t ask me how this is possible. The Lisbon Treaty that created the current European Union constitution took years and years for every country to sign it. Every individual country needed to have a referendum.

Constitutions generally have defence mechanisms against sweeping changes such as signing over sovereignty. A referendum needs to be held for changes to a constitution and referendums are notoriously difficult to achieve agreement on.

Where do these denialists come from and why do they have so much power? On many news shows there is a desire to present balanced information (or appear to). On topics where there is a scientific consensus such as global warming it would be difficult to find people that are able to argue for the negative in a scientific way. Instead news shows grope for pundits such as Andrew Bolt and Lord Monckton who have no scientific training. The problem is both sets of arguments are presented as being equal, for those watching it is difficult to know what to believe.

In this environment extreme views seem proliferate with those who can shout the loudest or is more extreme than anyone else gets the attention.

Anyway, here is the video that inspired this post:

There are a few things I don’t understand about these rabid climate change sceptics that are tearing apart the Liberal party at the moment.

1. Why the Earth is Flat

Forget the science, forget the sceptics, forget the climate change evangelists, forget the climate cliques, cables and secret societies. The whole debate boils down to a very simple idea.

Remember 20 years ago when there were people around who were still a little sceptical about the dangers of smoking. Back then I would say to smokers, “Breathing in smoke is never going to be good for you.” All the science of the anti-smoking lobby did is prove what any person with half a brain could have figured out for themselves.

The climate change debate is exactly the same. Is cutting down half the Earth’s rainforest going to be good for the environment or bad? Is paving over a surprisingly large percentage of the Earth’s surface going to be good or bad? Digging up coal and sucking oil out of the ground and burning it is going to affect the environment, no?

There is such a thing as natural climate change, but to suggest that humans do not have any meaningful impact? Well you better start smoking because cigarettes do not cause cancer. You haven’t seen proof that the earth is round, better start believing it is flat – just to be safe.

2. Who’s your sceptic?

It continues to amaze me the impact that green house sceptics have. It seems to me that most of them are geologists who at one time or other worked for the coal or oil industry. Scientists are sceptical by nature; they have to be as they are continually having to come up with new ways of testing each other’s theories.

A theory is only valid if it can stand up to testing and experiment. In this scientific world it is very difficult if not impossible for a lie or mistake to go undetected for long. It is only after a theory has been tested by multiple individual scientists and universities that anybody outside that world ever hears of it.

The theory of man-made global warming has undergone more testing than any other theory you can think of. It is different from many other theories in that it is difficult to perform experiments on, as we don’t have more than one Earth. Instead scientists use increasingly detailed simulations. They are also able to find ways of looking into the Earth’s past, such as analysing gases trapped in Antarctic ice for thousands of years.

The average person isn’t going to understand the intricate detail of the science. We are not scientists, but we can come up with thought experiments like mine above to figure it out. We can also choose to believe science. You believe in science every day when you drive your car or use your computer. Science is more than a group of nerdy men and women, it is a system that has given us amazing things. In this world it is really the only thing we can trust.

What these liberal rebels don’t understand, is that if you don’t know you should defer to an expert, preferably an expert whose work has been backed up by other experts.

3. It All Comes Down To Warcraft

I think that the many Australian politicians who are sceptical of climate change believe that it doesn’t really matter if they are wrong, because Australia only releases 1% of the world’s greenhouse gases. This assertion appears correct when you first look at it, but under analysis it is quickly proved false. Consider this example:

A few years ago my brother and I were playing World of Warcraft. WoW was all about killing monsters. Some monsters are so big they require cooperation to beat them. For the biggest monsters 40 players would need to gather together and form a raid group. Every player would need to do as much damage as magically possible to bring down the boss.

One day my guild was completing the dungeon Molten Core. We had one more monster to kill his name was Ragnaros. We were all there ready to kill the monster, but one guy’s mum wants him to go walk the dog – now or else. So 39 of us start killing the monster and we are succeeding. We get him down to 50% health and after a bit longer 9%. At this stage people start dying and the amount of damage that the group can deal plunges down. The numbers tick down slower and slower. Finally we get to 1% and the last one of us dies.

What this example shows us is that: everybody needs to do their bit. If every other country that only releases 1% emissions also decided to do nothing – that really would matter.

4. Did John Howard Complain?

I don’t understand how the Liberal rebels are unable to follow what the majority of their party has decided. I’m not sure if they fully respect democratic tradition. The majority decide on a course of action and those in the minority have to respect it -without resorting to drastic measures. When John Howard was in charge there was no way in hell that this would have been allowed to happen. When Howard lost his seat he respected what his electorate had decided and he never complained.

The rebels are also going against what the majority of Australians want. They seem to think they know better. Or they are playing some strange political game that involves tearing apart the party they were elected to represent.

RIP Liberal party

I am not the biggest fan of the Liberal party, but I will feel sad if it does die. Australians don’t like it when political parties are unable to contain internal disagreement – look at the Democrats.

One of the things that makes Australia such a good place would have to be its political stability. I believe the two-party system plays a big part in this even if it pisses us off sometimes. One thing I am just itching to see is the polls – although it isn’t difficult to predict which way the Liberal party will have gone.

Maybe a new party will form led by Tony Abbott. It doesn’t take a climate change scientist to figure out what that party should be called…

I haven’t been able to blog for the past week because I’ve been busy setting up my new computer. The excitement of getting a beast of a computer is sort of ruined by the pain of installing all the software, getting all the drivers working and setting the preferences so the computer is just right.

Here is my new computer:

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Intel Core i7-870 CPU
Antec 900 Advanced Gaming Case
4 GB of RAM (needs more, 16 GB maybe)
NVIDIA GTX 295 graphics card
Seagate 1.3 terabyte HDD

A very nice machine.

One good thing about setting up my new computer is it forced me to go through the my documents folder to find what I wanted to keep and wanted to throw away. I have got into the habit of writing comments I leave on other blogs in Word before I submit them. In this way I don’t lose the comment when I accidentally hold down backspace or the cat decides to jump onto the keyboard, but it also allows me to keep a record of comments. Look at these few gems I dug up. I don’t know the blogs I left them on and I don’t know when I left them.

In this one I was obviously having a discussion about the health system with a bunch of libertarians. They believe in a user pays system and that the government should but out on any kind of regulation at all.

Ra, SB, Yobbo,

I have spoken to many people who have lived in the US. Their number-one complaint is the nonexistent public health system. You really want to live in a country where you have a car accident then have many operations to get put back together then receive a $50,000 bill?

You’re a moronic, uncaring fool if you want the same for us.

Yeah I know you’d rather the money spent on public health care went back into your pocket. I don’t know how greedy people like you sleep at night.

I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for our public health system. If you don’t like the way things work in Australia go live somewhere else. We happen to be a caring nation. Deal with it.

Can we still be considered caring with Kevin Rudd’s refugee policy?

This next one is from when I made the mistake of leaving a comment on an ultra-right-wing site. As I found out they don’t like having their views challenged.

“…site for leftoid scumbags or pretentious wannabe intellectuals to strut their pathetic wares.”

The problem for someone like me who visits a site like this is that none of you want to engage in a legitimate discussion. What happens to so many people who have firm views is they engage in personal attacks, instead of defending their views using reason. How can you hope to convince anybody of your beliefs if you are unable to defend them without verbal violence.

Of course all of you are entitled to your opinions and I would fight for your right to have them even though I disagree with them. I believe that opinions should have a firm foundation if they are to mean anything. This means a lot of discussion a lot of thought and argument.

I would really love you guys to make me think. Tell me what is actually wrong with what I have said and why.

See you, I probably won’t be back.

I seem to be really good at getting into fights on my blog. I dared to write a post about the protests in Tibet just before the Chinese Olympics in 2008 and a Chinese person by the name of Yun really didn’t like what I had to say. This started a very heated discussion in this post that just degenerated into pointless insults. I agreed to disagree, but this wasn’t enough for Yun and he started to spam my site with copyrighted material supporting his views. I was forced to ban him.

Yun, you are setting a marvelous example to the rest of the world of the quality of people in China. In case you can’t realize, I’m being sarcastic.

This is my favourite quote of yours, I feel it demonstrates your true character: “I will lay back and enjoy more of the terrorists masterpieces in the years to come. And I will have no sympathy for you westerners at all. YOU GUYS WELL DESERVE IT!” In Mao’s day, they would line someone like you (a nationalist) up next to a mass grave and stick a bullet in the back of your head (see, I can be nasty too).

I hope to hear more from you in the future.

I am a bit ashamed about my reaction. Suggesting that someone deserves a bullet in the back of the head is not a worthy thing for anyone to say. I find it very scary that there are people around with views such as his.

Many bloggers have no doubt heard about Rupert Murdoch’s swipe at Google, Wikipedia and blog sites over theft of news articles. He believes that free online websites should not quote news articles without paying for them. To some people this may sound fair, but I think if Mr. Murdoch goes through with this plan to try and make blogs and news aggregators pay for quoted content it will seriously damage his business.

Rupert Murdoch is forgetting that almost every single time one of his precious news articles is quoted there is a link showing where the article came from. 99% of bloggers quote a small part and then link back to the article that inspired their story. There are not many bloggers who will quote an entire article and if they do that is stealing. Fair use provisions in copyright law in most countries mean that it is legal to quote a small part of a copyrighted article as long as you say where you got it from.

By taking a swipe at Google he is also on the wrong track. Seldom does Google News contain an entire article. Google News collects the most popular articles and then provides numerous links to a wide variety of similar articles. I never visit the website of the Sydney Morning Herald or the Washington Post I get sent there by Google News. These sites probably wouldn’t get half the visitors they do without the Google search engine and news site.

Wikipedia does cop a lot of flak from academics and those in the media. Wikipedia does seem to be updated very quickly, but it is not a news site. Users of Wikipedia are not allowed to copy articles word for word and if they do the piece is quickly taken down. An absolute defence against plagiarism has always been to write what you have taken in from a particular article in your own words. Wikipedia articles also link to the source material.

I believe Rupert may be upset about the slow death of traditional media. It is sad when a newspaper dies, but I believe there is no reason why newspapers cannot transform themselves for a new age. It is possible to make money online and if the Murdochs embrace their entrepreneurial spirit their empire will not crumble. If Rupert picks a fight with the Internet, that is kind of like fighting the ocean or the weather – it is not a fight a man can win.

It seems totally bizarre to me that there are people protesting against the wind farm to be built near Colac, Victoria. There are protest movements around the world against the creation of wind farms. Some people find them ugly and claim they make noise that keeps them up at night. Some environmentalists claim they kill birds and bats.

Contrary to what a lot of these protesters believe windfarms do not create a lot of noise. There are many videos on YouTube that prove this, at least to my satisfaction.

Recently there is a new complaint against windfarms. Apparently windfarms create massive amounts of infra-sound that can cause a very rare and little-known illness called vibroacoustic disease. This sounds very plausible, but there are several things wrong about this theory.

1. Every scholarly article you find about vibroacoustic disease appears to be co-authored by the same man, Dr. Nuno Castelo Branco. This is a problem because until there is a number of papers supporting the theory that infra-sound can cause disease it can only be considered conjecture. There doesn’t seem to be agreement in the medical or scientific community that the disease exists at all.
2. If infra-sound from windmills created disease hospitals would be filling up around the world. Just as some people believed, and some continue to believe that mobile phones can cause brain cancer, but there is no epidemic even though virtually everybody in the Western world uses a mobile phone.
3. There are many other sources of infra-sound the wind itself for one. There are many machines that we live with every day that create huge amounts of infra-sound. How come this does not seem to cause any ill effect?
4. Some animals such as whales and elephants use infra-sound to communicate. If infra-sound is damaging to life surely these animals would have died out or stop using infra-sound to communicate.

Even though there is virtually no scientific evidence to say that infra-sound could be damaging there is also no scientific evidence to say that it isn’t damaging. Being a scientific person I’m forced to say there is a very remote chance it could be damaging. Any concerns about sound, infra or otherwise, can be solved by situating windfarms away from houses. The Colac windfarm will be situated on grazing land between Mount Gellibrand and the Princess Highway – not in residential areas.

There are people against any kind of new technology. People by their nature are also scared of change. When the printing press was brought to Europe it helped spark some of the worst wars the world has ever seen. These days people are far more open-minded, but there are still those that use the fear of job loss, disease and large corporations changing the landscape to resist development.

There are pundits who use the results of a Spanish study to say that windfarms cost jobs. The study authors claim that for every one green job created two are lost. In subsidising the cost of creating green power the cost of electricity goes up. Companies have to pay more for energy and therefore employ less people. But the fact is we don’t all live in Spain. Companies can always increase efficiency and reduce energy wastage saving money. They can also install solar panels reducing the need for electricity from the grid and getting paid for the energy they return to said grid. The green energy jobs knife cuts both ways. By supporting the green energy industry in a given country that country could become an exporter of green technology creating more jobs.

Another complaint about windfarms is the way big corporations seem to have overtaken the industry and claim to be making large profits from green energy. The green energy industry is subsidised and of course those subsidies to go to help windfarms achieve a profit. But there are also average people making a profit from windfarms, such as the farmers that allow turbines to be built on their properties. Subsidies are needed to encourage the development of green energy projects – even if you ignore global warming. We need to transfer over to renewable energy simply because fossil fuels are finite. All those electric cars need to get their electricity from somewhere.

Windfarms make a positive difference for the environment. They are needed to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and to help battle climate change. Even if you are a climate change sceptic you cannot deny that fossil fuels, particularly oil, are running out. Possible possible disease affects from infra-sound can be completely eliminated by situating windmills away from people. Offshore windfarms are ultimate solution out of view of everyone except fishermen. Yes some birds may get killed by wind turbines, but climate change kills animals too. Windfarm protesters really do have very little to complain about, but of course this won’t stop them.

The first rain in over three months has finally put an end to the Victorian bushfire crisis. It has now been a month since Black Saturday when thousands of homes were destroyed and over 200 people lost their lives.
 
I think it is now time to talk about what created the conditions that led up to a series of the worst firestorms Australia has ever seen.
 
The highest temperature ever recorded in Victoria of 46.6°C (115.9°F) occurred on Black Saturday the 7th of February, 2009. There had been over a decade of drought and it had not rained for three months previously. Just a week before Black Saturday, between the 28th and 30th of January there were three days in a row over 43°C (110°F), something that has never happened before in Melbourne.
 
I believe these three days were the biggest contributors to the perfect fire conditions on Black Saturday. These three over 43°C days caused severe heat stress and outright killed many plants. Many of the trees survived one of these days, but after two they were dead and after three they looked like they had been baked in an oven. The leaves on many of these plants did not have a single drop of moisture left in them and would crumble in your hand. Like a tree that had been dead for some time, but these plants had been very alive just a few days before. These trees became perfect fire Material. I’ve spoken to many people who’ve lived their entire lives in Melbourne and have never seen heat damage on this scale ever.
 
These extraordinary days also had a terrible effect on the wildlife. Ringtail possums were falling dead out of the trees. Koalas entered backyards desperately seeking water – koalas rarely drink water receiving most of their moisture from the eucalyptus leaves they eat. Koalas also usually steer clear of humans – as far as I know this behaviour is unprecedented.
 
Very low humidity coupled with very dry forests and gale force winds created a perfect firestorm.
All these events proved to me that global warming is a fact. Anyone who denies it is either a liar or an idiot and should be ignored. If only a few degrees can help create the worst firestorms Australia has ever seen, what would a few extra do? The extra heat would kill entire forests. When trees die and rot they release carbon dioxide that causes the world’s temperature to increase killing more trees. It is a snowball effect that could have terrible consequences.

If climate change is making such a huge difference I think it is way too late to think about trying to reduce our ‘carbon footprint.’ It will be too little too late. More extreme measures need to be taken. The earth is sick. It is time for it to take its medicine. I think Geo engineering is the only way to fix this without having more catastrophic consequences. Just like an obese person takes cholesterol-lowering medication so they can keep living while they eat healthily, exercise and eventually lose the weight.

Geo engineering is the process of using technology to diminish the amount of heat entering Earth’s atmosphere. One idea is to pump sulphur dioxide into the upper atmosphere mimicking the way a large volcanic eruption reduces the global temperature. The best thing about this method is something very similar already happens naturally and it is proven to work.

Some environmentalists and those on the far right who believe in global cooling really hate this proposal, but I do not think we have a lot of choice.

There are several problems with geo engineering:
1.) Who controls Earth’s thermostat? Invariably an international organisation would need to be set up to organise geo engineering efforts and to prevent countries and other organisations going it alone.
2.) It may be used as an excuse to keep releasing carbon dioxide.
3.) There will be side-effects.
4.) Geo engineering would do nothing about other problems caused by a high atmospheric carbon dioxide level such as ocean acidification that causes coral bleaching and the death of marine micro-organisms.

I believe the problems of geo engineering will not be as bad as doing nothing or solely relying on greenhouse gas reduction. Diets take time to time we don’t have. Geo engineering efforts must be coupled with other efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions or remove it from the atmosphere. It is purely a stop gap measure. Geo engineering would reduce global temperatures and hopefully prevent the death of forests that could cause a runaway greenhouse effect. It would also prevent the melting of ice caps and prevent the altering of ocean currents.

Black Saturday is a taste of what the future may hold if we do not make a greater effort to reduce global temperature.

Biofuel made from food has always been a controversial idea in some circles. When I first heard of the idea I thought it sounded good – I was a supporter. But now there are several things that seriously tarnish the idea.

Ethanol is usually made from a feedstock consisting of corn, sugarcane or wheat. In many countries it is now mandated that motorists should be able to choose a fuel blend made up of 10% ethanol. Out of concern for the environment many motorists opt for this alternative. As more petrol is used throughout the world the price of oil goes up and so does ethanol. The feedstock that makes up this ethanol also rises in price. This means that people are hit by a double whammy. Food costs more to transport because fuel is more expensive, the food is also more expensive because it is also used to make the fuel.

Others say that making ethanol from food was always a bad idea. Agriculture is an industry that uses a lot of fuel. The question is: does the amount of fuel made from the crop outweigh the amount of fuel used to grow the crop? Some people say yes others no. Biofuel made from food will never be a solution that can replace oil. There is simply not enough arable land available. Sure we need liquid fuels, but the world also needs to eat.

The Biofuel industry is also being blamed for deforestation. In Indonesia some forests are being cut down to grow palm plantations. A large percentage of this palm oil is used to make biofuel.

All these problems could be fixed if another, more efficient to grow, biofuel feedstock could be found. I recently learnt that such a feedstock does exist. It is that often-derided green single celled organism, algae.

Companies such as Virgin Airlines and Airbus Industries are looking into algal fuels as a replacement for increasingly expensive jet fuel. Algal fuels are still an emerging technology, but there is a company in the United States, Greenfuel Technologies Corporation, already producing Biofuel from algae.

As this movie shows GreenFuel technologies have created a system that turns carbon dioxide from power plants into biofuel. The carbon dioxide is fed into a bio reactor that contains algae – photosynthesis does the rest. The algae can harvested regularly, processed and turned into bio diesel or ethanol.

The great thing about this system is it actually turns the carbon dioxide emitted from power plants into a valuable resource. The way the algae is grown does not require arable land so there is no competition with food crops.

Maybe this technology could solve many of the world’s problems, from lack of food to a viable alternative to oil.

I feel lied to and betrayed by the Labor government’s contempt for the environment and voters. During the election campaign Rudd kept telling us that Labor would improve Australia’s record on the environment. He told us how bad the Coalition was mistreating the environment with not signing Kyoto. Every second Labor press release took place in front of a bank of solar panels. What did this say to voters? Maybe that Labor would indeed be a party for the environment.

Now we have this budget. Means testing of the $8,000 solar panel rebate – those lying scum. What these Labor Party morons don’t understand is that this rebate was designed to help the environment not help rich people or poor people or ‘working families’. Another thing is, I don’t know anyone who earns under $100,000 who is contemplating installing solar panels. With rising fuel and grocery prices and higher interest rates, anyone who earns less than that just doesn’t have the spare cash to even think about solar panels. The $8,000 rebate made all the difference for so-called rich people to actually get solar panels installed.

Add to this the $57,000 luxury car tax – fuel-efficient vehicles are not exempt. This means the next generation of hybrid SUVs and vans will be slapped with a 25% tax. If Labor was really concerned about the environment they would tax cars on the amount of fuel they consume and maybe, heaven forbid, give us a subsidy for fuel-efficient vehicles.

And what does Peter Garrett have to say about this? That bald headed freak has finally flushed what was left of his credibility down the toilet. He has betrayed anything related to his previous life and is now every bit the filthy politician.

The Labor Party holds us voters in contempt – even more so than the previous government. Lied to us and betrayed us. A large percentage of people would have switched their vote over to Labor purely out of concern for the environment. The Labor Party’s ‘green’ actions and words during the election campaign and the adoption of Peter Garrett as their environment Minister lured many Australians into voting Labor. Now they spit in our face.