Jerk of the Week: Peter Garrett (aka PG)
PG takes out Jerk of the Week this time. This paragraph in this morning’s paper summed it all up for me:
Environment Minister Peter Garrett blamed the sudden move [ending the rebate on solar panels] on a cost blow-out, from an original estimate of $150 million to $750 million a year, due to its unexpected popularity.
Let’s take a moment to reflect shall we.
Why does one provide a rebate for Solar Panels installed on the roofs of houses? So that people take up the offer, therefore reducing the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.
The scheme works, thousands of solar panels are installed on the rooftops of suburban Australian reducing carbon pollution levels, and PG decides to pull the plug.
Once again, this government’s attitude towards all things climate related is proven to be little more than a lip service. Of all the things that you could spend a few extra dollars on (and we’re not talking super-bucks in the scheme of a federal budget) surely this would be high on the list.
So for that, you PG, are: Jerk of the Week.
Of course a special mention should go to (to borrow a phrase) Fucktard Fielding for his renewed skepticism surrounding human-educed climate change.
As yesterday’s Crikey noted:
Well the Heartland Institue is certainly doing its job. The right-wing American thinktank explicitly aims to influence politicians and, while they normally aim at state legislators in the US, doubtless they’d be chuffed that such an influential Australian political figure as Steve Fielding has been giving their climate change scepticism a detailed hearing.Heartland has extensive links with the tobacco industry and has previously received extensive financial support from Exxon Mobil. The Institute’s sloppy, biased approach to climate change is best summed up by an incident in 2007 when Heartland published on its website “500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares”.
Good one dickhead.
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I really don’t know how he sleeps at night.
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I know, this is the man that used to front Midnight Oil. He’s a poster boy for why I would never get involved in Parliamentary Politics (not that anyone would vote for me).
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I think I’m at the stage where I’d help a Lib, just to get him out. How fucked is that?
Fielding is really really stupid. He’s actually as stupid as he looks, which is an achievement. I mean it. I sat through a couple of submissions to the climate change inquiry, and every question he asked was naive or based on weak reasoning.
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George, thankfully we won’t see him for much longer. He’s up for re-election before the end of next year (and I’m predicting an early election – as early as the end of the year).
He got in with 1.4% (I think) of the primary vote because the ALP decided it would rather get that idiot into the Senate than have another Green Senator.
And remembering that only serves to add to my disillusionment with the ALP.
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[...] to say, there has been no shortage of ‘Jerk’ behavior since we last met. PG has approved a Uranum mine with little-to-no consultation with the traditional owners of the [...]