Post by Chips on Jun 12, 2008 13:13:23 GMT 9.5
Running on empty: our leaders can't handle the truth
Can someone give Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan, Brendan Nelson and anyone else in Canberra who is interested, Ross Gittins's article ("Too gutless to give us the bad oil", June 11).
There is only so much oil in the world, the price is going to continue to go up, we need to be thinking of ways to accommodate the new reality - how to live with less oil. Doesn't sound like rocket science to me.
Talking about 3 cents off here or 4 cents off there is treating the public as if they are morons who can be bought for a saving of $2 a tank of petrol.
Shirley Carroll Padstow
Did the Rudd Government's $64 million budget cut for the CSIRO free up the $35 million for the profitable foreign multinational company's research into hybrid cars, which it already produces?
Philip Dowling Turramurra
Malcolm Turnbull's fuel policy doesn't compute. If the global oil price rise is producing the necessary emission-reducing efficiencies he claims, why on earth is the Coalition promising to support inefficiency by making petrol 5 cents a litre cheaper?
Mira Toglin Penrith South
I would like to see Kevin Rudd insist that Toyota and any other car makers receiving a green grant make use of the cutting-edge battery and biofuel technology developed by the CSIRO. That way Australians will get more for their money.
Philip Cooney Wentworth Falls
Mr Rudd has given $35 million to a multinational company which contributes to greenhouse gases and last year made almost $15 billion but he is strangling the photovoltaic rebate program which actually reduces greenhouse gases.
This money could have subsidised 8750 solar installations, making a reduction of up to 12,250 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year. Worse still, a car like the Hyundai i30 diesel produces less greenhouse gas than a Toyota Prius at nearly half the price.
Dugald Gilbert Minto
Mr Gittins, give Kevin Rudd and his mates a break. How would you like to be the PM to tell the voters that there is a lot less oil left then anyone had imagined and it will run out sooner then anyone would believe?
As we have based our entire civilisation on oil without ever bothering to look to alternatives, we are going to face a catastrophic economic depression bringing us back to a 19th-century living standard if we're lucky. Try to sell that to the voters when the Opposition will claim it's all rubbish and that the oil will last forever - particularly if it gets voted in.
Uno Grevberg Hillsdale
I think Ross Gittins has forgotten the last time a politician was silly enough to tell us the unvarnished truth about basic economics - Keating's "recession we had to have" has been used as a stick to beat the Labor Party ever since, despite being a statement of the economic bleeding obvious. I doubt Mr Rudd is likely to have missed that lesson.
John Littler Kirribilli
To all members of the Government and the Coalition: Say after me, "Peak". Now say, "Oil". Now say, "Peak Oil". Now that wasn't too hard, was it!
Tony Doherty Cundletown
Can someone give Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan, Brendan Nelson and anyone else in Canberra who is interested, Ross Gittins's article ("Too gutless to give us the bad oil", June 11).
There is only so much oil in the world, the price is going to continue to go up, we need to be thinking of ways to accommodate the new reality - how to live with less oil. Doesn't sound like rocket science to me.
Talking about 3 cents off here or 4 cents off there is treating the public as if they are morons who can be bought for a saving of $2 a tank of petrol.
Shirley Carroll Padstow
Did the Rudd Government's $64 million budget cut for the CSIRO free up the $35 million for the profitable foreign multinational company's research into hybrid cars, which it already produces?
Philip Dowling Turramurra
Malcolm Turnbull's fuel policy doesn't compute. If the global oil price rise is producing the necessary emission-reducing efficiencies he claims, why on earth is the Coalition promising to support inefficiency by making petrol 5 cents a litre cheaper?
Mira Toglin Penrith South
I would like to see Kevin Rudd insist that Toyota and any other car makers receiving a green grant make use of the cutting-edge battery and biofuel technology developed by the CSIRO. That way Australians will get more for their money.
Philip Cooney Wentworth Falls
Mr Rudd has given $35 million to a multinational company which contributes to greenhouse gases and last year made almost $15 billion but he is strangling the photovoltaic rebate program which actually reduces greenhouse gases.
This money could have subsidised 8750 solar installations, making a reduction of up to 12,250 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year. Worse still, a car like the Hyundai i30 diesel produces less greenhouse gas than a Toyota Prius at nearly half the price.
Dugald Gilbert Minto
Mr Gittins, give Kevin Rudd and his mates a break. How would you like to be the PM to tell the voters that there is a lot less oil left then anyone had imagined and it will run out sooner then anyone would believe?
As we have based our entire civilisation on oil without ever bothering to look to alternatives, we are going to face a catastrophic economic depression bringing us back to a 19th-century living standard if we're lucky. Try to sell that to the voters when the Opposition will claim it's all rubbish and that the oil will last forever - particularly if it gets voted in.
Uno Grevberg Hillsdale
I think Ross Gittins has forgotten the last time a politician was silly enough to tell us the unvarnished truth about basic economics - Keating's "recession we had to have" has been used as a stick to beat the Labor Party ever since, despite being a statement of the economic bleeding obvious. I doubt Mr Rudd is likely to have missed that lesson.
John Littler Kirribilli
To all members of the Government and the Coalition: Say after me, "Peak". Now say, "Oil". Now say, "Peak Oil". Now that wasn't too hard, was it!
Tony Doherty Cundletown