The Oil Drum: Canada

I wasn't particularly impressed with the Rudd/Swan budget but temporary opposition leader Brendan Nelson managed to come up with an even worse alternative, pandering to teenage drinkers and myopic petrol consumers alike.

Crikey has a fairly thorough savaging of Dr Nelson's strange imitation of McCain and Hillary's "gas tax holiday" proposals, noting that one day we will start running short of oil, and that the appropriate policy response isn't to encourage more consumption. Nor is it fiscally responsible for that matter. There is a great cartoon summing up these policies at the link.

The SMH was just as critical, declaring "Nelson's populist petrol gambit is a foolish gimmick".

Now everyone has digested the budget fully there are a few late pieces of commentary I thought worth highlighting.

First off is Kenneth Davidson in The Age, who rightfully notes that in an era of soaring oil prices, encouraging people to drive around (a lot) in a company car isn't a wise use of tax dollars.

In an era of peak oil, when oil prices have broken through the $120-a-barrel barrier and are heading for $200, it is crazy to encourage car dependence through tax concessions on company car use, costing $1.5 billion this year. Given the extent of the problem, the statement on the environment and water is pathetic. The new money allocated this financial year - just over $100 million, rising to $200 million next financial year - amounts to a flea bite compared to the more than $2 billion allocated to the highly profitable fossil fuel industry; and it dwarfs the assistance to renewable energy.

The long term "Water for the Future Fund" seems designed mainly to subsidise state desalination plants even though they will be an economic and environmental disaster and could be made redundant with serious commitment to recycling, stormwater harvesting and dams.

There was more to the Budget than I caught in last nights post, so here is a follow up.

While the reaction to means testing solar panel rebates has been understandably negative (how many people on below average incomes can afford solar panels ?), the good news is that one fossil fuel subsidy has been removed - an excise exemption for condensate being abolished, much to the chagrin of the north west shelf joint venturers.

ABC - We weren't consulted on Budget changes: petroleum industry

The petroleum industry says the scrapping of a tax exemption on crude oil derived from gas will create uncertainty for Australia's largest resource project. The North West Shelf will be the hardest hit by the Budget announcement, which will add $2.5 billion to government coffers over the next four years.

The Rudd Government's first budget contained a number of green initiatives - subsidies for solar hot water and PV, incentives for landlords to insulate homes and more encouragement for rainwater tanks.

They also kept Howard's $500 million handout to our largest and most profitable industry, the coal industry, which might explain why Bob Brown said the "budget had nothing for renewable energy but was a boon for the coal industry". The Clean Energy Council was more enthusiastic, saying "Australia heads towards a clean energy future one budget at a time".

The budget also expects a surge in farm production and continuing growth in mineral exports.

Searching for survivors of Spanish flu

The project is specifically targeting British Columbians, though the researchers would hope to hear from survivors from further afield as well, Dr. Skowronski said.

She believes that as well as safeguarding a piece of history, the project could help people contemplating future pandemics to understand how people cope when systems are overwhelmed and survival comes down to individuals helping individuals.

"I think it's really hard for people to appreciate -- and governments in particular -- to appreciate the potential enormity of a pandemic," she said.

"But the basic human capacity to cope, to draw on each other for support -- that hasn't really changed [since 1918]. And so we can really learn, I think, from people and what they have to describe about that."

There's a perception that NYC acts as a leech on the rest of the country and state. I'm not sure where this perception comes from. Maybe they think that we just provide too many expensive social services to an enormous load of welfare cases. I'm not sure why people believe this, but it is simply wrong. In fact it is NYC that provides an enormous surplus to both Albany ($13 Billion) and Washington ($11 Billion) (Gotham Gazette). And that's not including the money that we send to the state and Federal Governments or authorities like the MTA or Port Authority that ends up getting spent on projects that do not align with our local priorities because they are approved without much local input.

If we do try to relocalize our energy, food, transportation, democracy, etc in NYC we will need to rectify these imbalances to make sure that the urban core does not continue to subsidize the suburban and exurban lifestyle.