Greens

Why have the major parties totally ignored the issue of poverty?

2.3 million Australians now live below the official poverty line.

"In a wealthy country like Australia, it is not acceptable for more than 2.3 million people, nearly 600,000 of whom are children, live below the poverty line," Senator Rachel Siewert, Australian Greens spokesperson for families and community services said today.

By Patrick O’Connor, SEP candidate for Melbourne: 6 July 2012 Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s carbon tax finally came into effect on July 1. The Labor government and its de facto coalition partner, the Greens, marked the occasion by again boasting of the measure’s environmental and social credentials.

Below is a very interesting article that Tim Anderson, an academic from Sydney Uni published on his Facebook page. It includes in my opinion a very cogent critique of the embrace by the Greens and the environment movement of "market solutions" to Climate Change such as the Carbon Tax and Cap and Trade schemes. He highlights the foolishness of believeing that anything other than direct investment in renewables, regulation and removal of subsidies to fossil fuel will bring our emmissions down.

Green Illusions and the Carbon Tax: By Tim Anderson

Australia is to get a carbon tax from 1 July 2012 as one cornerstone policy for tackling the challenges of climate change, announced Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Greens leader Senator Bob Brown, and Independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor in Canberra yesterday. The interim carbon tax is proposed to run for 3-5 years, rising by a set amount each year, to be followed by a full cap and trade emissions trading scheme linked to international markets. There would be no international offsets allowed for the interim mechanism and agricultural emissions would initially be excluded from the tax.

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