This ETS, so flawed it has critics from the right, the left and at its very heart now that it’s been so drastically amended, seems to be to have been designed to survive the worst its opponents in the Coalition could do to it as well as destroy them in their grappling with it. I accept Tim Flannery’s assessment of Rudd as sincerely wanting to achieve climate change action. “Brilliant” is not a description I’ve seen used by many climate activists about any politician. If he can be brilliant on the international stage we can be sure he has planned his ETS campaign at home with great care.

So ditto to everything BlackMage has said and let’s wait and see what happens next on climate change action – not wait and see as the sceptics would have it – but wait and see how much more effective our team can be at Copenhagen with even this minimalist legislated commitment to support our team lobbying there. The latest science says that even more urgent and stringent controls of emissions are required. Once this ETS legislation is through the Senate a new level of public acceptance of even more reform will be there enhanced by the theatre of international politics against the global and local backdrop of drought, fire and flood.

Climate change action alone will ultimately stand out as a major achievement for this government in its first term. And there’s so much else – the “apologies”, taking on the AMA, sorting out financial planners, collaborating with the RBA and Treasury to mitigate the GFC, getting rid of Work Choices, support for equal pay for women, superannuation reform etc. etc.

Why so few of us lining up to hand this sane and effective new government of ours the praise it deserves?

Smart guy: he will be there for ten years and I can almost guarantee that!

Metrosexual Australia, aka THE complete-&^%$#-w%$#@-class, can only cry into their collective crack-pipes and we have Rudd to thank for that!

*** Halle-&^%$-lujah! !!! ***

NB: Jack-the-insider seems to be acknowledging lately that the Libs are in some very deep doo-doo!

Perhaps it’s because my expectations were so low but I’ve really liked his government so far — it’s more competent than Whitlam, more radical than Hawke, more politically savvy than Keating and certainly head-and-shoulders over any conservative government in Australian history.

I honestly doubt whether Hawke, had he been in power in the current crisis, would have pursued the stimulus, so desperate was he to ensure that Labor was ‘taken seriously’ as a low-tax, low-ambition, low-RISK party. But Rudd isn’t crippled by the desperate inferiority complex (interalising his opponent’s critiques) that drove the Hawke government, nor by the sense of impending doom that seemed to drive Whitlam. He’s increased funding for schools and the role of the public sector, and seems eager to challenge accepted narratives about Australian government (the neoliberal experiment), even if it is just for political reasons.

Socially, he hasn’t been perfect, but he’s been a damn sight better than Howard. The apology, the package of superannuation and other reforms granting a greater measure of equality to gay couples, a more thoughtful (if still very flawed) approach to asylum seekers, and what seems far more willingness to accept multiculturalism as not merely a fact of life but something genuinely good in its own right.

On foreign policy, my only real complaints are of pace. Afghanistan remains a canker sore but his position isn’t VERY odious — at least, not yet. With Rudd, you do at least get the sense that if the war did degenerate he would give serious thought to pulling out, which is more than could be said for Howard. ‘Good intentions’ aren’t everything but their role is too frequently undeservedly scoffed at. It means a LOT to have a prime minister who seems to give genuine thought and good-faith consideration to foreign affairs, an impression Howard never gave.

So, on economics he’s been more progressive than Howard by any measure, on social policy he’s been flawed but his instincts are often decent, and on foreign policy he’s been very effective. I like the Rudd government, I really do, and I want it to last as long as possible.

His big achievement, I think, was in succeeding in doing what Howard promised, but failed, to do. I certainly feel much more relaxed and comfortable, and I think most other people do too.

That is pretty much my very point, this ETS with 5% reductions is such a joke that it shouldn’t be allowed to pass. No one is going to take a 5% reduction seriously. I understand what you mean about Minchin and his merry band of fools but they can happily sit back and block an ETS that is really just an economic hurt with no real environmental gains.

What do you think the situation may be like if Rudd came out with a 30% reduction and had the backing of the Greens? I think that 5% just makes our PM look like a joker who is once again looking to score some easy points.

I’m in a very strange position (as are many greenies I assume) that I’m actually hopeing denialist mob boss Minchin will block this ETS and we have a DD on the way. Krudd needs to get the public thinking serious about AGW if it ends up a election issue.

/ramble

I would have thought you would pay very little once the nashnal elf had kicked in.

That maybe there would sadly be a long waiting list but the charge would be taken up by the government for crucial medical care like this.

And that the medicos were trying to protect large incomes by fighting the governments attempt to reasonably draw back the fee for cateract surgery.