Thursday 28th of March 2024

gregly humbled by the accolade of best minister in the world... the first greg joke ever!

 

gregly

Poor Greg Hunt. No one deserves this. Least of all Greg.

The Best Minister in the World?

Imagine his return to the Cabinet room.

Striving for a suitably appropriate air of modesty, he arrives just as Christopher Pyne is regaling the colleagues with an old joke about John Lennon being asked whether Ringo is the best drummer in the world.

"He's not even the best drummer in The Beatles," screams Christopher in a marvellous attempt at a Liverpool accent.

Cabinet members fall off their chairs slapping their thighs and guffawing before registering the slight figure of Hunt sidling to his chair, blushing and festooned with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, traditional among the wise judges of Dubai or thereabouts.

"Greg, congratulations, such an honour," his colleagues gush through gritted teeth, regaining their chairs and a measure of equilibrium.

"We're on a roll," cries prime minister Turnbull. "First we make Phillip Ruddock our Human Rights Envoy and now this!

"Greg Hunt: Best Minister in the World. The international community is agog."

"It certainly is," says Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. There is the merest hint of her famous Death Stare, understandable for a minister who has to go out into the world and explain these things to ministers in countries everywhere who have, unaccountably, been overlooked.

Young Hunt squirms happily in his chair and, ever bashful, suggests the Cabinet simply proceed with the weighty tasks thrust upon it, as if the greatest politician known to exist was barely in the room, or at least, was not much more than a man among equals.

The first agenda item, of course, would have to be the environment. In his honour.

Hunt is known in environmental circles as The Man for All Seasons, which befits the Best Minister in the World.

Having gained his Masters in 1990 with a thesis that argued very coherently for a carbon tax long before Julia Gillard stole it, causing him to disavow the thing and to berate her for using a hopelessly flawed proposition, young Greg embraced Tony Abbott's quaintly brilliant idea of reducing carbon emissions by Direct Action so successfully that it remains the policy of the Turnbull government.

Observers have long been in admiration of his ability to argue for Direct Action without ever being able to explain how it might work.

He launches into a recollection of the heat in Dubai, which he hastens to assure everyone is nothing to do with climate change. It's just hot, because it's the Arabian Desert, he explains, adding they've licked it with a nifty form of Direct Action: air-conditioning. It was terrific, all that cooling air, because when he was named Best Minister in the World, he broke into hot flushes.

"All I could think of was a dip in the ocean, somewhere around my beloved Great Barrier Reef, which as everyone knows, I'm saving," he muses, contentedly.

"What were you saying about Ringo when I came in, Christopher? Greatest drummer in the world? I've been thinking of taking up drumming, you know."


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/greg-hunt-the-greatest-minister-in-the-world-accepts-his-colleagues-acclaim-20160209-gmpqj9.html#ixzz3zhvsX8Xd 
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... and the future of cash...

Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt has won the inaugural Best Minister in the World award at a summit in Dubai.

Internal link to external link about Greg Hunt's tweet about renewable investment

The World Government Summit is hosted by the United Arab Emirates and featured a keynote address from American President Barack Obama.

Mr Hunt was in Dubai to receive his award overnight, with the conference leaders saying he had played a crucial role in reducing carbon emissions.

His award was judged on criteria that included innovation, leadership, impact and reputation.

The World Government Summit is dedicated to shaping the future of government through innovation and technology.

World leaders, scientists and media experts are attending the summit which features forums on the future of renewable energy, zombie apocalypse preparedness and the future of money.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-10/greg-hunt-best-minister-in-the-world-government-summit/7154244

 

GUS BELIEVES THAT GREG USED HIS 1990 THESIS ON THE NECESSITY FOR A CARBON TAX TO GET PASS THE FIRST SELECTION COMMITTEE. Thereafter he fudged the interviewing panel with how HE saved the Greg barrier Reef from Greg Hunt himself. The world is a joke. We knew that.

the selection committee was impressed with coal mines...

 

In 2014, Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions dropped 1.4% in the second full year of the carbon tax, the largest recorded annual decrease in a decade. The tax was abolished by Hunt under the Abbott government.

An Australian government report released in December revealed Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions increased in the year to the end of June 2015 by 0.8% and by 1.3% when land use and deforestation were taken into account. Australia generated 549.3 mega-tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2014-15, the report shows.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said of Hunt’s win: “I’d like to see what competition he was up against.”

Asked by reporters in Canberra what he thought led to Hunt receiving the award, Shorten said: “Well, goodness only knows what the entrance requirement was into that competition."

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/10/greg-hunt-wins-best-minister-in-the-world-for-efforts-to-reduce-carbon-emissions

 

Main competitors were Count Dracula, The Koch Brothers and the Blues Brothers. None had experience in mining coal so far. For the requirements, read article above.

 

why greg hunt isn't the best minister on the planet...


1. He approved the country’s biggest coalmine, ignoring his own department’s advice

From the perspective of endangered reptiles in Queensland – or the climate – Hunt may not be the best minister in the world.


2. Carbon emissions in Australia are going up

While many Australians were preparing their Christmas feasts, the government quietly dropped a report showing Australia’s emissions rose in the year to July 2015. Fresh from their trip to Paris where Hunt and the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, agreed to limit global warming to 2C, or maybe even 1.5C, the timing of the release raised eyebrows.


3. The Great Barrier Reef is in bad shape

After intense lobbying, Hunt was successful in keeping the reef off Unesco’s world heritage in-danger list, although it was clearly on the brink and Australia will have to report back to Unesco in December.


4. He was instrumental in dismantling the carbon tax, despite writing a thesis backing it

Hunt and Tony Abbott came to government and put a bulldozer through many Labor government initiatives, chief among them the dreaded carbon tax, which was later linked to the biggest drop in emissions in a decade.


5. He is trying to shut-up annoying greenies

Environmentalists seem to be an annoyance to Hunt. So, in several ways, he and his colleagues are trying to minimise their impact.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/10/five-reasons-greg-hunt-may-not-be-the-best-minister-in-the-world

 

I think that Greg Hunt should go and die of shame... I mean politically speaking... But this won't happen, considering the government is hell-bent in destroying the science of global warming at the CSIRO, mostly because this unit will be the bearer of increasing bad news ...

 

the selection committee...

 

So here is a list of the companies involved in their 'Energy, Mining and Utilities' section. The black writing below each company is my labeling taken from the description on the Abraaj website.

Source: http://www.abraaj.com/portfolio/category/energy-mining-utilities

One company, Auro Mira Energy is focussed on renewables; they pursue hydro and biomass power generation in India.

However, the rest is largely fossil fuels.

Note well: the list is two pages long, and went I clicked to the second page, there is only one company there, Viking, from Turkey, and what do they do?

Viking are involved in:

‘... unconventional resource plays in Turkey, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Kurdistan and other key Eastern European and Middle Eastern countries.'

Which sounds remarkably like CSG and fracking to me.

So there you have it mystery solved, Greg Hunt’s award was sponsored in large part by the energy industry, most prominently oil.

Once I found this out, it kind of made Hunt’s award make sense.

International Society for Filth, Greed and Evil declares Greg Hunt “World’s Best Minister”.

— We Rate Hippos (@Hippopeteamus) February 9, 2016
Read more: https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/mystery-explained-hunts-award-handed-out-by-the-oil-industry,8672

 

show me the money...

 

Australia’s big four banks are continuing to finance fossil fuel projects despite embracing a 2C or better global warming target, according to figures from financial activists Market Forces.

The Commonwealth, Westpac, ANZ and National Australia Bank signed off on loans totalling $5.5bn to coal, oil, gas and liquefied natural gas projects in 2015, a figure that is higher than three of the preceding eight years.

Among the deals were eight loans for coal projects signed in Australia in 2015, with a total value of $4bn, including for struggling Whitehaven Coal, operator of the controversial Maules Creek mine. All of the projects had some financing from the big four banks, with their contributions totalling $995m.


“It’s pretty much business as usual for the big four,” said Julien Vincent from Market Forces.

It comes amid a series of dire warnings for the future of coal, with consumption declining in major economies such as the US and China. Last week, Goldman Sachs forecast that coal may be in terminal decline, with the fall in demand possibly being irreversible.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/26/australias-biggest-banks-pump-billions-into-fossil-fuels-despite-climate-pledges

 

Meanwhile there is a link between this and that. Global warming is an act of vandalism inflicted by human burning fossil fuels, on the planet:

 

 

Instead the rising background of climate change combined with a huge El Niño to create conditions in which peat bogs were dry enough to burn for the first time in perhaps a thousand years. Tasmania’s rainfall has been decreasing since the 1970s, accompanied by a rise in annual average temperature of half a degree. Last week research confirmed that even with an El Niño in effect, the occurrence of Australia’s three hottest-recorded springs in the past three years was “almost certainly” caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Climate scientists have also predicted that lightning strikes will happen 12% more frequently with every degree of warming.

“It’s a historically significant event,” Bowman says.

Deep in the valley, a tiny grove of pines is still green. From afar the trees (which look to be about 500 years old – young by pencil pine standards) appear to have been protected from the fire by a rocky slope. But closer inspection reveals that the peat burned right up to their bases. Licking flames singed the bark at the bottom of their trunks. Then, inexplicably, the fire turned away. Perhaps this was the moment the rain came to douse the flames. The chubby needles of the pines remain soft and lively. But if these trees are going to ride luck like this their end cannot be far away.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/26/tasmanias-bushfires-a-human-made-calamity-on-par-with-the-razing-of-palmyras-temples

 

See also: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/27758

fool's gold...

Apparently, in an article that smells of satire, by Annabel Crabb, our environmental destructionist in Chief, Greg Hunt, World Champion Minister of meaningless protection guidelines, talked to someone called Tom on radio, about his humble first place in the world championship of ministerial sponsorships by big oil and hot coal:

 

"And you know, it's one of those things, I don't think anybody can live up to a title like that, and my wife put me in my place very quickly and told me that I still have to put out the bins. But hopefully it's of value to Australia."

 

Here, we can only value Crabb's soaring sarcasm:

 

What a setup! What lithe deployment of casual detail! What brilliant mention of domestic waste-disposal responsibilities! And what a dismount!

It's gold, gold, GOLD for Australia.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/pupa-claiming-the-limelight-in-olympic-fashion-20160226-gn4hkr.html#ixzz41P4ilenK
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But what Annabel fails to do is push the gag to the limit and see that our glorious little Hunt bins himself with the garbage as he should. Out, out, OUT for Australia.

 

greg is doing a sterling job, keeping you safe from working...

In many ways Australia will be a different place on the other side of this pandemic, but some things it seems will never change.

NRL players will still cause troublehistory wars over Captain Cook will continue and Australian billionaires will go to great lengths to stay in China's good books.

Andrew Forrest and Kerry Stokes have both made extraordinary contributions to Australia, while at the same time making extraordinary sums of money doing business in China.

When Chinese Ambassador Jingye Cheng issued his alarming public threat about a consumer boycott of Australia for simply suggesting an inquiry into the origins of this global pandemic, some played it down. 

Attorney-General Christian Porter described the diplomat's most undiplomatic spray as an "emotional", "short-lived" response. The sort of threat one might yell in anger, without really meaning it.

The two West Australian billionaires, however, took it seriously. Very seriously. Perhaps they understand better than most how China operates; that it is absolutely prepared to use its economic muscle to punish those with the temerity to question how this virus took off.


Platforms and connections

Stokes used the front page of his own newspaper, the West Australian, to urge the Morrison Government to back off. 

In doing so, he perhaps inadvertently underscored the very point the Chinese Ambassador had made. "If Beijing's anger is not quelled it could have catastrophic consequences for the economy," Stokes said.

Consider that comment for a moment. According to one of Australia's most influential media proprietors, Australia must "quell" China's anger to avoid "catastrophic consequences".

Forrest, meanwhile, openly urged the Government to shelve the inquiry on the grounds it doesn't really matter how this once-in-a-century pandemic emerged: "I don't know if this virus started in China or somewhere else and frankly I don't care". Those who've lost loved ones and livelihoods may take a different view.

To his credit, Forrest used his connections in China to secure a much-needed shipment of 10 million coronavirus test kits for Australia, for which he will be fully reimbursed by the taxpayer. China is going to great lengths to donate and sell test kits and other medical equipment to Africa, the Pacific and Europe.

With each shipment, it's trying to extract some sort of diplomatic benefit. It would much rather be regarded as the world's saviour, than the cause of this global crisis.

In the case of this shipment of test kits, the pay-off was a platform alongside Australia's Health Minister Greg Hunt to spruik China's line. "The Chinese government has released information related to COVID-19 in an open, transparent and responsible manner", Consul-General to Victoria Long Zhou declared, after Forrest ambushed Hunt and invited the Chinese diplomat to speak.

A sign of the PM's challenge

The attempt by these two billionaires and indeed other business leaders to force a foreign policy course correction from the Morrison Government may not be entirely surprising, but it is nonetheless a sign of the difficulty that lies ahead for the Prime Minister.

Stokes and Forrest are hardly alone among business leaders wanting to make peace with Beijing. 

Self-interest may be at play here, but the uncomfortable truth for many Coalition backbenchers fuming at these business leaders is that Australia will need China in its economic recovery. 

Scott Morrison points out it's a mutually beneficial relationship. China needs high quality iron ore and coal as much as Australia needs the revenue.

The problem on the Australian side is the over-reliance on one big trading partner. And for all the talk of Australia becoming more self-sufficient and diversifying its trade relationships, it's much easier said than done.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-03/coronavirus-australia-china-difficult-times/12206730

 

 

Methinks, that the government's beef with the billionaires was actually a set up designed to show China that Australia is still open for business, but the Scomo government is trying to please the Yanks and its own domestic ideological market. Read from top.