In the wake of his avowal of climate change denialism on Four Corners, Nick Minchin has spent the second last week of the Parliamentary year stoking the fires of Coalition opposition to the CPRS. Tony Abbott, previously a ’skeptic’ who argued that the opposition should nevertheless support the legislation to remove a political headache for the Liberals, has now turned tail, claiming “the politics have changed”.
In some quarters of the Coalition, the news that Copenhagen is unlikely to see a legally binding deal agreed has been seized on to claim that there is less political risk in voting against the legislation. Key here are the amendments Ian Macfarlane is negotiating with Penny Wong. If the shadow cabinet recommends acceptance of an amended bill, the legislation will likely pass despite masses of Liberal Senators and all the Nationals voting against it. So the Liberal right has been raising the bar for the negotiation process to ‘all or nothing’ – a position the government is hardly likely to adopt.
The open rumblings have now been spun to imply that opposition unity needs to be secured at all costs, and that it would be disastrous if the Nationals walked away from the Coalition entirely over the CPRS. (But would it?)
What are the implications of all this?
The first is that it would effectively make Nick Minchin the de facto leader of the Liberal Party. Turnbull would probably survive, but greatly weakened, and boxed in to advocacy of a series of electorally unpopular positions (above and beyond climate change). Abbott’s spruiking “differentiation”. Whether Turnbull, in good conscience, could take a hard right line to the election – and almost certainly lose anyway – is an interesting question.
It may not be evident to all Liberals that this is their plight. The media circus over asylum seekers has probably convinced them that there is political traction in reviving the whole box and dice of Howard era rhetoric and policy, xenophobia included.
But, as Rob implies in reporting on Possum’s analysis of the CPRS polling, all they would be achieving would be shoring up a base which is a small and declining portion of the electorate. Minchin, Abbott and co. seem to forget that Howard also had a strategy for reaching out to the centre ground – until the right wing dogs of war were loosed with WorkChoices and other craziness in his last term.
The shenanigans about CPRS amendments also vitiate the one half decent line Turnbull had to run with on emissions trading. (The business about Copenhagen reflects a lot more about the Liberals’ own past obsessions and divisions than anything significant in the public mind.) He’ll be unable to claim, if shadow cabinet does not support amendments which have emerged from the negotiations, that the Libs are about protecting jobs.
Ironically, that’s the line of attack which – had it been consistently prosecuted – might have cut through. The government has not really made its case on ‘Green jobs’, having been diverted by the politics of industry greed, and reluctant to fight in any case on the ground of employment. But, in America and elsewhere, many Green jobs which have replaced Brown ones are the typical jobs of new industries – less well paid and more insecure. That’s not inevitable, to be sure, but in the absence of an explicit counter policy, it’s almost the default outcome in Australia too.
So what will the Liberals be left with?
A fight over their own soul – “standing for something”, the mantra of the Liberal right, is actually code for more power within the carcass of the opposition ranks. Standing for the sorts of things Nick Minchin and Tony Abbott want the Liberals to will bring electoral disaster, but will enhance their own position – and future prospects in the next term. None of this has much to do with any sensible politics rather than the contest over the spoils of opposition and the nature of the Liberal party. It’s got nothing much to do, either, with good public policy or climate change.
Well, its hard to see where Minchin can take this politically. He railing dementedly like its the restoration of Communism – but then you’ve got no less than Howard himself saying the CPRS nothing different to the one he proposed. How long till this all falls apart? About 10 minutes.
I think Washer’s right, and Minchin’s actually done his dash on this stuff. The nats will get away with it – but no one whoaxctually seeks gvot can be this paleo on the issue.
What happens when the US comes out with a target and we’re all alone? There’s Minchin – nude, nowhere to go but resignation.
Minchin has probably realised that, at his age, he will never be a minister again. So he might as well get all principled in the time that he has left in politics.
Will I find the thought of the Libs painting themselves into an electoral corner delightful, it still leaves us with the problem that we don’t have an effective opposition.
Minchin? Principled? Sam, you’ve just covered my monitor with half-chewed salad.
Nick knows Copenhagen is going to bring us a communist world government because Janet Albrechtson said so.
This is always the problem when a party is cleaned out at one election – you are left with the safe seaters (and there’s few safer seats than being number 1 or 2 on the Senate ticket) who have nothing to lose.
Being in Government or not being in government makes little difference to them (this applies particularly, of course, to backbenchers).
Previously, they were at least matched in numbers in the party room by marginal seat holders who could read their electorates and could raise a dissenting voice or two.
If you think things are bad now, think of the Liberal party after the next election, without the dissenting voices of people such as Georgiou et al.
Especially if the electoral wipeout predicted comes to pass – we’ll be left with a Liberal party almost entirely comprised of the likes of Sharman Stone, Sussan Ley, Nick Minchin, Tony Abbott, Bronwyn Bishop – just look at the electoral pendulum and the safest top 30 or so Lib seats and it’ll give you an idea of the likely make up of the Libs after the apocalypse.
Not good.
Turnbull is a dead duck.
The interesting thing to me is how Minchin and Bernardi’s “the science is wrong” schtick is going down in Adelaide now that they’ve had four “once in a century” (or worse) heatwaves in one year. Saying “the CPRS won’t help” could fly, particularly since its true, but telling people that it really isn’t getting hotter could be an unpopular career move in the city of churches.
You expect the Libs to be troglodytes. They’re incapable of anything else. What really perturbs me is the way the ALP is selling out to the big polluters – coal gas oil- with their permits to pollute etc. And, because the Libs have enabled Labor to bypass the Greens nothing is being done at all about how utterly inadequate Labor’s scheme actually. Having a scheme, Kev, is not enough. It has to be one that will actually quickly reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere. The CPRS fails abysmally.
Like Bernard says over at Krikey (the Kommunist rag)
Quite good for Bernard…
The Libs haven’t really enabled Labor to bypass the Greens, Paul. The current makeup of the Senate makes it all but impossible for Labor to get any climate change legislation through without the Libs. That is likely to change after the next election. With any luck, the change will lead to better policy.
Yep, Labor would never have been able to frame a bill which appealed to The Greens *and* Xenophon *and* Fielding. Particularly since we now know Fielding is a wingnut on this issue (which is hardly a surprise). The only alternative path would have been to negotiate something with The Greens which would have been defeated twice, but that then wouldn’t have given them as much cover for a double dissolution, and they needed some sort of biz/industry support to give the thing a chance of actually being entrenched long term.
Having said all that, I wish they’d gone for a much simpler model (even if a carbon tax wouldn’t work because of the international negotiations) and one that actually did much more to reduce ommissions.
However, pretty much the only realistic political position at the moment is to give the CPRS (highly) critical support, and continue to campaign for its transformation into something much more meaningful.
I also wouldn’t just assume that The Greens will hold the sole balance of power after the next election. There are a lot of variables in the Senate (not least whether it’s a double dissolution or a half-Senate election).
Actually, Tim @ 11, I think they have.
The two likeliest outcomes in the current sitting are:
1. The CPRS, made even worse by pandering to the Libs, is passed by just enough Lib senators. Greens bypassed.
2. The CPRS is not passed by the Senate, Rudd gets DD election, presents deeply flawed CPRS to a joint sitting of both houses, who pass it. Greens bypassed.
Yeah, sure, David, but what avenues were there for not “bypassing” The Greens? See my comment @12.
I agree, Mark. With Fielding and Xenephon in the mix, there was no way of doing any better. I just think Tim @ 11 is being a bit optimistic about a different-looking Senate allowing a better outcome.
Once the existing CPRS becomes law, it’s going to be almost impossible to change it. I can hear the rent-seekers and coin-clippers squealing already.
Paul Burns, it is quite difficult for the Rudd Government to draft legislation that will actually reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere as Australian legislation has little or no effect in places like China or the United States.
What we can do is reduce the carbon that we are responsible for emitting.
I see your point, David. You’re saying that, by making a deal with Labor that excludes the Greens, the Libs are allowing a poorly designed scheme to go through. However, it still remains to be seen whether a deal will actually be made.
But you’re right, I am a little more optimistic than you about the future prospects for improving the CPRS assuming it does go through. The view that it will be ‘impossible’ to change seems to me to depend on the view that the political conditions will not exist to support strengthening the scheme after the next election. Given that climate change isn’t going to go away, I can’t really see how that will be the case. Furthermore, if the assumption is correct that the political conditions for strengthening the scheme won’t exist, I can’t see how those conditions will be amenable to the introduction of a different, better scheme.
Yes, I think its a crying shame the CPRS hasnt been negotiated with a BOP Greens – it might be of some bleeding use to the environment then.
And while its true it no certainty, there’s an excellent chance Greens will hold sole BOP within within 4 years. Fielding wont be back, and QLD has come within a whisker of a Greens Senator in last two digs.
Tim, I think that conditions will only permit the govt to improve an existing CPRS over the screams of rage and dissapointment form the coal lobby and the coin-clippers in the carbon trading market when we’ve already got catastrophic climate change obviously locked in. When there are tidal surges in the leafy streets of Pott’s Point, it’ll focus people’s attention.
Governments should lead at times like this, and unfortunately Rudd seems as poll-driven, and as willing to play petty politics, as Howard was.
Let’s assume this dog of a CPRS gets through, then what are the prospects for “changing it later”, when we are going to need to pay for homeland defence against raging bushfires, coastal erosion, disease control, etc, rather than paying billions in compensation to Big Coal? There are surely many cunning ways that governments can cripple these filthy rent-seekers and make them fall over, if push comes to shove. I live in hope that taxpayers will know how to get really nasty when the time comes..
David @13 – I’d also add that it’s very far from certain that Labor would go for a DD election if the Libs reject the CPRS. Anthony Green’s analysis of a few months ago showed that it’s not necessarily in Labor’s interest to do so.
The possibility of the CPRS not being passed, and a less intractable Senate emerging after the next election, is a real one.
Were I in charge, I’d withdraw the CPRS legislation so that it could be re-written with far more ambitious targets and ubiquitous provisions and the legislation would not be predicated on what others did. We would act and challenge others to match us and if no better arrangement could be entered into, impose spoiling tariffs on goods from places not meeting our standards of CO2 mitigation.
The mere prospect that that might happen would put the frighteners on the backers of the opposition to action.
The truth of this matter is that all sides of the Liberals fear electoral annihilation, and the longer this rift persists, the worse their electoral prospects become. A loss of 1966 proportions with colours reversed would mean a lot of Liberals (some of them Senators) and some Nationals would be out looking for private sector jobs in a harsh market and with the ability to run senate committees lost their traction would fall to zero.
So Rudd holds all the key cards here. In the end, they need a deal a lot more than does Rudd, who could, if he wanted, go to Copenhagen empty-handed and, playing on the world stage without local legislation to restrain him, offer massive cuts and swingeing application, promising to fight the next election on it sometime well into the summer heat wave. Saturday, December 11 2010 looks a nice date for that.
Would the Liberals have the stomach for 12 months more pain on this? I doubt it. And if Rudd twisted the knife, imposing harsher terms on the schysters backing the Minchin-Tuckey faction than they could have had now, their ignominy and failure on December 12 2010 would be complete.
I’d love to see that.
Well guys, if you didn’t already know, there has been a hack at the Hadley Centre GRU site which might put a few doubts in the minds of the AGW advocates.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/
Now it could be an elaborate hoax or…..
It’s entertaining reading nonetheless.
I just tried googling that Hadley Centre hack and reviewed the reporting at a number of denialist sites. It doesn’t seem to be possible to get to the original information – just second-hand reporting. If it is a hoax, it’s a very subtle one – none of the leaked emails seem particularly incriminating – all they unambiguously show is that the Hadley Centre climate scientists don’t really like denialists. That suggests to me that the emails are real – I would have thought a hoaxer would try to make them juicier, with really damning statements rather than ambiguous ones.
Possibly Tim but the pattern with the denialist camp has been to create uncertainty first. I have a piss poor network connection atm so my browsing is like watching paint dry and I’ve already visited Bolt once today which is more than I consider healthy.
I’m impressed by the optimism that seems to say that Labor would like to do more but politically can’t and might do more after the next election. You would have to hope so but I think their is another problem for Labor and its not the Libs. If they fail to act decisively on AGW then the Greens benefit. Lets face it AGW has got no votes for Nats or the Libs since its denied as a legitimate issue in their universe. But a weak Labor response just drives more people into the Green camp. The problem for Labor after an DD election or even a standard one is that it is far more likely the Greens will end up with the BOP in their own right and they will be wanting a whole lot more than the current piss poor CPRS.
I agree with Fran that Libs are scared of annihilation, but its hard to see how they will avoid it, they are a completely disorganised rabble atm and until they come up with some ideas they are only going to get worse.
Sam @ 2: probably more than true! These blokes can’t bring the public with them and will be struggling to find relevancy until they can find a positive action to support rather than the next obfuscation to cling on to in hope that the infected fear will persuade people to vote for them! What an empty heart you must have to vote for these scammers of the future!
david @ 25
I doubt that there’s anyone in the ALP who doubts that the Greens will hold the BOP after the next election and I don’t think there’d be many who’d be afraid of that. It’s pretty much a given.
The ‘weak Labor response’ doesn’t seem to be driving anyone towards the Greens – their polling rose soon after the election (it remains to be seen if this rise is real; newspoll admits to changing its methodology and it can be argued that this change has favoured the Green vote) and hasn’t budged since. Moreover, repeated polling shows that more than half Green voters want Labor’s CPRS passed. (This figure has been dropping, but it doesn’t seem to have affected voting intentions).
Labor’s CPRS is being attacked from both sides, again with little effect on polling, which suggests that the majority of the population accept it. Being attacked from the Right and the Left means you’re in the middle, and that also probably means you’re right.
It seems that the global warming juggernaut just hit the rocks.
The University of East Anglia has confirmed that the leaked or hacked documents indicating scientific fraud in relation to the fundamental science supporting the global warming theory are genuine. It seems the sceptics were right all along.
This changes everything, the greens are now out of business entirely and those that backed the lie are in trouble, and that includes the entire government front bench.
Yeah and the docs (which I just donloaded btw, but I’m not opening the file on this puter) will in all likely point to discussions about message control not any falsification or anything like that.
Given that AGW has been taken seriously by the mainstream for about 5 minutes, I can understand why people might be more concerned about the message than the info itself.
Its obviously not good science, but science has been agenda driven for years and not just re AGW.
I bet AJG still believes that Saddam really was buying yellowcake off Niger to build a bomb to give to Osama.
God some people are fools.
Actually DD, I don”t really care what what Saddam was doing. in case you hadn’t realised, he’s dead, killed by the good citizens of of Iraq for his habit of slaughtering Iraq’s citizens.
If you still want to believe that a tiny trace gas is the biggest determinant of our climate, go for your life. You belief system is becoming more discredited by the hour. In the next couple of hours, climate change alarmism will reach the level of credulity of socialism, but I’m sure you believe that too.
Its the reverse vampires who did it, AJG. And I should know, I was part of the conspiracy from the start.
Bad news for you is we’re about to fool most government into the second international agreement on reducing emissions (suckers!), so Im afraid you lost, and this new dawn of consciousness arrived too late.
If only you’d discovered the truth earlier, you could have prevented teh world government from instituting deep green socialism. Its certainly no accident we’re planning our next strike in Copenhagen.
AJG I suspect you’re a troll but I’m glad you bought up the matter of
because any honest assessment would include the those Iraqis killed by their most generous liberator, the US.
Of course the fundamental science underpinning global warming is a fraud because that’s what science does best, it lies. It’s all just smoke and mirrors, magic even. One suspects you are right though, I am sure the world will shout this lie from every rooftop. In fact I can see the headlines in every Murdoch rag across the globe…
Great post, Mark, but could you please elaborate this?
Heaven knows why the people of Kiribati are making up these stories about rising sea levels;, when Bolter has very carefully explained that it isn’t happening.
@34 – thanks, dk.
I simply meant that I don’t see that the ETS we have is the most elegant way of achieving its stated goals by a long shot.
LE, it’s as flat as a lizard drinking!
CSIRO – those barrow-pushing, non-hard science (or something) commies! I’ll wait for a credible, independent source, thanks Brian, like a Herald-Sun journo.
mehitabel @ 27, “Being attacked from the Right and the Left means you’re in the middle, and that also probably means you’re right” is probably a fairly sensible way of dealing with something like a labour dispute, but it just doesn’t cut it when the government is negotiating with the planet.
Some good news: coal power never to expand further in Australia. http://www.theage.com.au/national/era-of-coal-power-passing-20091120-iqyv.html
Now we just have shut down the existing ones.
Where do we start? Serious.
Of course there’s no assuming with elections, especially not with Senate elections (with ticket voting ATL).
However it is by far the most likely outcome. The 6th Senate spots in Qld and Vic, won by Joyce and Fielding respectively last time are almost certain to return to the ALP. And that is all t takes to give sole BoP to the Greens.
Doesn’t matter whether the 6th Qld Senator is Green or ALP. As long as is not a LNP (or other conservative).
Very true Martin. Btw, have I mentioned my views on ATL voting?
“Where do we start? Serious.”
Set up a coal burning demonstration plant. In the city sq. Outside Bunnings next to the s. sizzle. In your front yard.
If Co2 is a harmless even vital element of God’s creation – then your neighbours will come over and shake you hand that you are helping to create more of it.
If otoh – umbrage occurs – then gov laws will have to start prescribing where and when coal can be burnt. The coal burners will start to become known as a filthy caste.
I’ll chip in for your first tonne of brown.
I think you can retro-fit coal power stations for natural gas, Grace. Someone who knows more about the technical side could probably comment more usefully on conversion – but in any case, converting from coal to gas is certainly how Britain achieved 16% cuts in CO2 over the life of Kyoto. There’s a start.
No, no I don’t believe you have. Do tell…
But as I keep trying to stress, it is the ticket voting that is the issue, not the ATLness of the vote.
I am a member of a political party and vote below the line.
It would be easier if people could rank parties above the line, but it wouldn’t change things for me, because I’ll be damned before I put a National above a Liberal.
Be nice.
True Martin – its the ticketvoting-osity that I object to – though most folks would understand it as “ATL”.
Serious – try explaining to someone from another democratic nation that we have a very good system that means we dont need run-off elections (transferable vote), which we then like to TURN INTO A COMPLETE F’N JOKE by then allowing unelected hacks to transfer it for us, all in the name of “convenience”.
Optional preferential is just as convenient, if not more so, and means NO HACKS OWN YOUR VOTE!