The latest Newspoll has the ALP’s primary vote on 30% (down from 36 last time), with The Greens on 15% (+2) and the Coalition up 4 to 45%. Julia Gillard’s ratings have also gone into free fall.
The Prime Minister’s personal ratings are probably suffering because of the “broken promise” issue. The rather mischievous question leading to Kevin Rudd preferred to her as Labor leader might remind us that the disastrous reversal on the ETS in the first place continues to work its toxic way through the political landscape. Whether or not Julia Gillard now has a serious problem of trust (and that may be so – months and months of personal and trivialising attacks will have done their work), it would be insane for the Labor party to replace her with anyone else, and the rumours that KRudd is hoping for a comeback ought to be delusional.
Labor can surely no longer be faulted for “lack of courage”. There’s no alternative to staying the course on a carbon price. Failure to do so would probably see its parliamentary support crumble.
The difficulty, now, apart from the obvious scare campaign on a carbon price (and how it has been cleverly been built on the back of a lot of memes about “Labor waste” and tax and spend over the last few years), is that support for any actual course of action on climate change has now become highly partisan – as can be seen from both the recent Nielsen and Essential Research polls.
However, it may also be that support for Labor and The Greens is now a bedrock on which a forward strategy can be built. That is to say, we still have 45% of voters effectively backing the government, and presumably some of those who’ve peeled away to the Coalition on the basis of widespread misinformation about the carbon price can be won back.
We live in hope.
I wonder who of Combet, Swan, and Shorten gets along best with the independents? Because Labor is insane – Gillard’s deal with independents is all that’s going to save her if it turns out this poll was not an outlier. That or passing the carbon tax and moving on – leaving Abbott to froth in madness at a nothing event.
So, the Carbon tax, according to fans of LP, wasn’t going to cost the ALP any votes.
*Evil Laugh*
As Poll Bludger noted – this precipitous decline in her ratings is so disastrous ….she’s now level with Tony Abbott.
i.e. lots of this still of this round to play, folks.
It would be insane, I guess, to replace her with Kevin, though it appears that “Kevin Rudd leads her as best person to lead the ALP 44 per cent to 37 per cent:.
Still. Taking down a PM in their first term. That’d be nuts.
The carbon tax fiasco must be one of the worst own goals in political history. She could have stuck with the original 2013 review timeline. Now she is in death spiral territory.
Polls mean zilch 2.5 years from an election, Terje. I expect they’ll win this debate, and the next election. it wont be easy, but they’re odds on.
Why? Cos the Libs arguments really are arrant rubbish. They wont go the distance. Listen to this demented drivel from Robb, and tell me they’re on a winner in ’13: http://grogsgamut.blogspot.com/2011/03/abbott-re-writes-laws-of-economics.html
Is this a “market” I see before me, oh libertarian ones? Looks like government picking winners. What happens when the media and 5% of punters suddenly notice they arent making ANY sense?
Zilch you reckon. Well let’s just see about that.
Yep, ZILCH Terje. Howard was on 32% approval in June 1998. Won an election a few months later. Well, sort of.
In any case, the ALP was at far greater risk in the long run bumblin around doing stuff all. This is far better stuff.
If this continues, Australian politics might almost look like its about policies and ideas again.
It might be another couple of polls before Gillard’s low ratings become a story in themselves.
Also, its not like there aren’t plenty of news ‘circuit breakers’ around to focus media attention elsewhere: Libya, Egypt, NSW election, another natural disaster maybe even a Liberal/National party scandal.
This is the right time in the election cycle to be courageous. They’ll be even worse off if they backdown now…
LeftyE – maybe Kevin and Julia could job share
Incidentally, check it out folks: http://ghostwhovotes.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/newspoll-110308.pdf
1. JG is still slaying Abbott on preferred PM: 45-36. (LOL! That dude’s never going to Kirribilli.)
2. The price on CO2 question is a shocking piece of push polling. Add the words “for which low and middle income earners will be compensated” after “may become more expensive” and see how it flies. Thats the actual model being proposed.
3. The 2PP excluded all flood and cyclone affected areas. Such as QLD, where the ALP govt just pulled a major poll turnaround.
2 and a half years out and a pack of idiots with nothing as opposition.
What lefty E said.
In principle I agree, I just have less faith in Labor’s ability not to panic at such poll numbers. Who knows though, maybe the obvious dismalness of Shorten and Swan will for once come in handy by preventing Labor from replacing Gillard.
I think the ALP should take the view that keeping the Tories out for 6 years is a good baseline achievement. This goal will now *definitely* be achieved (one of the few certainties today is that the indies wouldn’t piss on Abbott if he was on fire).
Now the basics are satisfactorily ticked off – its time to achieve a whole lots of needed reform. Otherwise whats the point?
With that ‘tude, theyll lose the fear.
Lefty E – the primary vote for the coalition bottomed at 34% in 1998.
http://www.newspoll.com.au/cgi-bin/polling/display_poll_data.pl
That bottom was before the GST was announced. The GST improved the coalitions poll results.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/02/09/great-myths-in-australian-politics-gst-almost-cost-howard-98-election/
What just happened to the ALP is not like 1998.
The problem for Gillard is she has stuffed the announcement. Even if you agree with Lefty E’s arguments, why announce a tax just before the NSW election and why give the Greens so much prominence in its announcement.
The sooner Labor realises that it has to take the Greens on the better it will be for Labor and the country.
The only thing that can save Labor now is a new leader.
“Lefty E – the primary vote for the coalition bottomed at 34% in 1998. ”
Yeah I know. That what I just said.
This was in an election year. An election Howard won.
You see my point now, I assume. It means zilch.
Zilch you reckon. Well let’s just see about that.
I don’t think so Matt, just ask Kristina Keneally on 27 March.
If the federal ALP were to dump another leader, they’d be joining their NSW comrades with primary votes in the 20s in the polls.
I think this poll flatters the COALition only slightly.
I think the COALition will win the next election with a 2PP in the vicinity of 52 [COAL]:48 [ALP],the Greens on a primary slightly above the last election.
They [the COALition] will have seats to burn.
Who is leader of the Opp will be of slight relevance only with Abbott obviously being a drag on his party anyone else [Hockey, Turnbull, even Robb] will maybe push the COALition up an extra % or so. It matters little because the real leader of the Oppo is the media.
Sorry to be pessimistic but that’s how I see it,
We have confected media dis and mis information constantly barraging people daily and the ALP can do no right according to the media.
NBN, refugees, great big new carbon tax, any issue you can think of, will be a negative for the ALP and either neutral or positive for the COALition.
Dark times ahead.
Maybe, hannah’s Dad. Maybe not.
But all the more reason to pass the needed reforms now.
Incidentally, if passed, CO2 pricing will never be reversed. Like the GST.
I’ve been wondering what happens if (hopefully when) Labor wins a majority comparable to ’90. I see ’93 and ’98 are slightly larger govt majorities. Coalition supporters really lose their minds at that point, I suppose.
I just don’t see how Gillard is any worse off than those three PMs were in the runup to those polls. Her facing more hurdles than any of ‘em did when they were surviving tough election cycles, it doesn’t compute.
The long game favours her. That same long game is terrible for Abbott.
In an election held in the middle of 2013 Tone is either going to have to backflip and support the carbon tax that at that point will be a year old, or otherwise he must have kept the Turnbull/MacFarlane/Hunt tendency united behind him for a full year vis-a-vis repealing the extant carbon tax. Doesn’t work.
Hence the current frantic wingnut power fantasising going on now about stopping the tax, saving Australia, and forcing Labor to do the right thing and replace Gillard with Chris Bowen or whichever obscure minister is most capable of making Abbott look statesmanlike in comparision.
Ditto lots above…Senate majority in 115 days, a lower house majority everyone has conceded is solid, two years until an election.
Time to govern. Who cares about the next election cept those not in power.
@20 – the GST situation was completely different from the Carbon Tax situation.
Th GST removed a replaced a raft of state taxes and included a cut to personal income taxes. Rollback required replacing the revenue to the States and increasing personal income tax. An extremely messy event.
The Carbon Tax is not replacing anything – it is a new charge. The proposed compensation is there to cover the new charges. remove the new charge, hence lowering costs allows for the removal of the compensation (because it would no longer be required). It is a much cleaner process than a GST Rollback would ever have been.
The ALP have already tasted the blood of a serving first Term PM – thet won’t be nearly so squeamish now they’ve doen it once. My money is on the first week of June for the Guillotine to fall.
LE, you bang on about the preferred PM numbers too much. Incumbent parties can and do lose elections even when the leader is preferred PM.
Now that the carbon tax has been announced Labor obviously can’t ditch it again – 4 different mitigation poliies in two years would reduce their credibility even further – but I do wish that more of the detail had been worked through in advance and more thought given to how it could be sold to an electorate that up until recently had been told that Labor was opposed to a carbon tax (here I am not talking about what Julia said in the campaign but the rhetoric Labor deployed while it was selling the CPRS in 2009).
It seems pretty undeniable to me that Labor has a credibility problem. Now Gillard has hitched her star to the tax, regaining that credibility can only come from negotiating the details in effective way that brings at least some interest groups inside the tent and for those that it does not, developing an effective way to marginalise them politically.
Razor is both right and wrong. He is right that the GST and the carbon tax are not directly comparable, other than being major tax reforms. But he is wrong that rolling the carbon tax would be straightforward. It can be done of course but it would be very disruptive. The current uncertainty about government policy and carbon pricing is disasterous for energy investment in Australia. Ditching the tax will not help that and indeed could make things worse. Energy intensive plant and equipment has a long economic life and as such, investors planning horizon spans many election cycles. Abbott can only credibly commit to not price carbon for 3 years. If Labor pushes through the tax and then looks like losing the election to a party committed to rolling it back, new investment will slow and given the pace of growth in energy demand, domestic electricity prices will rise further.
Btw, I also agree with Matt C that is bad for Labor to be associated too closely with the Greens. Labor and Green interests are not perfectly or even that closely aligned and the close association makes it easier for the Coalition to pick off votes in the center. That equation only changes if whatever policy the Greens and Labor jointly support commands majority support in the electorate (or there is the prospect of that happening.
@25 – the investment uncertainty is created by the threat of emmissions taxes. This uncertainty can easily be removed by legislating for existing and proposed projects to be exempted from future emmissions based imposts.
Razor – how would any coalition legislation in that area be binding on future governments? Business isn’t dumb. Even if the coalition win they will know that there is a much greater than zero probability that carbon will be priced explicitly in the future. The threat of taxes on emissions (or an ETS of some type) will exist as long as the consensus among climate scientists is that AGW is occuring and that the problem will get worse without mitigation.
For goodness sake Gillard has only to come up to speed on the REAL precarious nature of the global situation and she will have the conviction of Moses to drive the Global Warming message home. The are TWO (2) catastophies ahead of usand a Carbon Price is more important to the second unmentioned catastrophy, Peak Oil. Here is a text I wrote elsewhere in answer
”
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0601/S00001.htm
You should also read up on Peak Oil, and its projected impacts on the global economies (plenty of information at The Oil Drum). Some back ground. Over the last 150 years we have extracted half of the worlds oil starting from a global population of under 1 billion to the present under 7 billion. In 1960 with the population at 3 billion global oil consumption was 21 million barrels of oil per day. For 2011 oil consumption is projected to be 87 million barrels per day and the stable oil price is $90 per barrel (106 at present). So with the global population project to overrun to 10 billion by 2050, there is a little graphing exercise for you to do to estimate the life of oil availability.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/aer/txt/ptb1105.html
you should also readup on PID control systems, read the “scoop” article and its conclusions, quantify and integrate those conclusions with worlds oil availability/price, then compare those results with you 1% GDP fantasy and the suggestion that global temperature rise of 2 to 3 degrees is advantageous. Then apply your new PID knowledge to determine the rate at which the global economies have to act to avert Climate Catastrophy.
My evaluation is that we have at best 20 more years of business as usual stable global economy. Beyond that we face a spiaralling decent into economic collapse if we have not replaced all of our energy infrastructures with solar renewable.
”
This carries forward the message that Brian has been driving. But the reality of Peak Oil gives an urgency demand to the power of 2. The oil price over the next 2.5 years heading up to an election will be interesting, and may very well decide the outcome of that election.
I doubt that Abbotts political life expectancy is greater tahn 1.5 years. It is very difficult to maintain a political frenzy on the basis of a lie (Abbott’s) for any great period. Gillard has taken the correct stategy in taking the political hit for a Carbon Price this far out from an election.
Better to die for something you believe in than to live a lie.
Ask Kim Beazley.
And this is why I was so worried about Tones being the opposition leader.
the Libs and the media made the ALP blink and depose Rudd. All they need to do now is get the Indy’s to blink and…well you thought Howard was bad?
I’m really not looking forward to Workchoices : Payback edition.
Sure Katz, die for something you believe in but at least prepare the ground properly, and well in advance and work out how to sell the damn thing. I am sick of ALP politicians running away from the implications of their own reform. It is cowardly and ultimately self-defeating.
tssk, Abbott is still 9 points behind Gillard as preferred PM. Go figure!?
*shrugs*
It hasn’t cost the ALP any votes. There hasn’t been an election.
You shouldn’t say “I told you so” until, you know, there’s something to say “I told you so” about.
It’s the timoroous character of the ALP that is Grist to the mill here. They don’t look as if they believe what they are saying and that can only enable the Murdochracy, Thier ABC and their LNP proteges and nutbag fringe.
The ALP has more than 2 years to get this done with a friendly senate. They need just to do so and look as if they actually can be trusted to do something.
Gillard has her timing just about right here.
Two years’ control of the Senate and up to two years until the next election give her an opportunity to bed down her reform.
At the very least, the next Coalition governments will find it difficult to undo the legislation, both politically and electorally.
Whitlam achieved the same outcome with Medibank. The Tories went ballistic and tried different ways to kill Medibank, but failed.
Medibank is now a permanent monument to Whitlam. Gillard can achieve something similar, which is the whole point of leading a reformist party.
The ALP might be inept enough to lose an election on the carbon tax (though ffs let’s not write them off 2 years out, not yet) but the great thing about that is they almost certainly wouldn’t have the balls to then meekly support an Abbott government in repealing the damn thing, not if they don’t want to entrench a handful of Green MHRs in the major cities. Not if they don’t want the Greens to start handing out double-sided HtVs at the next election.
So, the Coalition winning an election on a promise they can’t keep? What then, oh anti-carbon tax warriors? (I feel this is a theme I will return to over and over again. Thank you, senate electoral system.)
Lemme guess, in that scenario we get the usual suspects all telling us that when the Abbott government begins to contemplate unilaterally stopping collection of this revenue for the Commonwealth, Jack Lang style, that that’s what responsible government & sound economic management looks like. Our lying eyes will no doubt be deceiving us if we don’t believe Australia has returned to normalcy after the 6 wasted years of Labor.
Merc – PJK and the ALP were hammered in the 96 election despite PJK leading Howard in the preferred PM stakes quite convincingly. Also 12 percentage point increases in dissatisfaction with the PM aren’t exactly common. Indeed, as far as I can tell from the data it is the largest increase in PM dissatisfaction from one poll to another in the past 25 years. There is a lot of time before the next election but that poll won’t make anyone in the Labor party happy.
The ALP is merely repeating history here, although more rapidly and farcically than during the Accord years. When a Labor government to introduces a right-wing, pro-business policy measure (even if here it is dressed up as “doing something” about climate) it should be no wonder that it loses support.
This is not just about Abbott’s scare campaign — his approval rating also dipped marginally. The problem is that Gillard is openly selling pain for ordinary people while doing its best to reassure big business. I’d call it an own goal.
Meanwhile dozens of coal ships queue up off Newcastle and Gladstone…
We are a lazy nation now completely addicted to export income from coal and iron ore. Our carbon emissions have exploded since 2000 when they were supposed to have stabilised, but we persist with this fantasy that we will some day take the problem seriously. We won’t.
The world’s largest oil exporter lobbies strongly against global action on climate change, while the world’s largest coal exporter pretends its a world leader in climate change policy. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
At least the Saudis are honest.
Labor has to stay strong over the next two plus years, pass the legislation and they’ll be okay. Be resolute in the face of this.
Fine, do you really think it is just a matter of passing the legislation? Passing it without more convincingly explaining to the electorate the virtues of the policy won’t necessarily help Labor’s position IMHO.
From a slightly different perspective, it is Abbott who is holding the coalition back. So, if they dump him in favour of Turnbull/Hockey they will have a winning team.
Katz said:
Exactly. The point of winning government is not to get a second or a third or a fourth term. The point is to get things done that:
a) are worthwhile
AND
b) meet the expectations of the majority of people who voted for you or are sympathetic
If in doing that, you get tossed at the next election, then that’s regrettable but in the end, your party retains its credibility with its support base. It stands for some set of ideas and it can come back.
An ALP that stands for nothing not approved by the Murdochracy, the Liberals or the voters of Lindsay is simply not worth having.
The need to achieve rational policy in GHG abatement is, when you get right down to it, a struggle to protect humanity’s interest in something to which every human now and forever has a claim — ecosystem services. This is not something those of us who stand with working humanity can address with equanimity. If we lose now, we must win next time. And if we lose then too we must win the time after that. And before we grow too old to raise our hands and voices in protest we must pass the baton to those fit to carry it forward. We can surrender only at the point when we declare our own humanity to be worthless.
At no point need we or can we concern ourselves with the vicissitudes and machinations of the right-wing parties — because that is potentially a lethal waste of time for working humanity.
Regardless of the purely political implications of the poll, what disturbs me most is the extent to which the electorate is apparently receptive to the knuckledraggingly dumb negative campaign being prosecuted by the Opposition against the proposed carbon price.
Consensus about AGW will never be achieved in this country. Gillard’s government should stick to its guns and push the legislation through after 1 July – I think that voters quite appreciate a leader with resolve.
Newspoll does not provide a breakdown by State, but I reckon this result will be heavily influenced by the NSW State election.
Once that is out the way, and all of those obnoxious NSW Labor MPs consigned to history, things will start to improve.
I see the Australian was so delighted with the Newspoll it took leave of the English language:
Record Labor low on carbon fury: Newspoll
What’s that supposed to mean? I rather like the idea of “Carbon fury”, what next “iron angst”, “manganese melancholy”, “boron boredom”….?
Fair point calyptorhynchus
It’s methane madness, hydrocarbon high dudgeon, petrochemical puerility …
Abbott asininity goes viral … everything must go by midnight tonight in a giant bonfire of the inanities.
Thanks for the positive message Fine. I’m more inclined to the “we’re all so screwed” outlook.
There is a very simple reason that the people do not like the carbon tax and that is the fact that it will not under any circumstances make an Iota of difference to the climate.
While previous polling has shown that a lot of people are keen to see ‘something’ done about climate change they are less sanguine about the mad scramble to do somthing that will be totally ineffective.
Add to that Gillard’s backflip on the tax and you have a policy position that will be a persistently toxic impediment to the Labor government retaining office.
Finally those who think that Tony Abbott is under any sort of leadership threat from his Carbon tax position are “just dreamin” Even business in their desire for stability won’t turn their backs on the coalition because they know that their bottom line has to be better without this stupid tax.
@34 – this argument that Gillard has two years control of the Senate is misplaced and wrong-headed. Already within the last week we have seen the right of the ALP in the Senate object to an agenda (an agenda which i happen to think is absolutely unarguably positive – not just on the basis that the laws being proposed in Territory parliaments represent the views of their voters accurately but also on the basis that it is illogical to allow voters in a State to have different rights to those in a Territory vis a vis the relationship with the Commonwealth) being proposed in the Senate. I would expect that there will be even more angst between the right (and increasingly the left of labor) and the role of the greens in the upper house. I’m with LO on this – and I expect to see some pretty serious differentiation between the greens and the ALP in the Senate in the next 18 months or so
@35 – do not underestimate the chances of the Coalition gaining seats in the upper house in future elections. The coalition vote is strong and the core is solid. The labor vote is soft and fragmented and the level of disillusion with labor is very strong. The green vote has (I think) hit about its high water mark – the level of disillusionment with the ALP will cease feeding that beast soon as you get down to the core absolutely rusted on groups.
The green vote is not coming from the liberals all that much and it is entirely possible that independents will gain seats at the expense of labor across a range of States.
Some good points MH – sometimes people forget that powerful elements of the ALP right (that cannot be purged without a split) are implaccably opposed to much of the Greens agenda.
Let’s not forget that the voters in NSW (1/3 of the country) are about to take a giant dump all over the Labor Party. Of course the conventional wisdom is that voters separate state and federal issues and voting intentions, but when a party is so on the nose in one sphere it must spill over to some extent to the other.
The destruction that Labor is about to receive in NSW may – may – serve as a catharsis, after which the voters will blame Fatty O’Barrell for hospital waiting lists and late trains. Or at least they won’t blame the Labor Party. Or at least not as much.
@MH 48, it’s also not in the Greens’ interests to be seen to be too agreeable with the Labor Party. I think we’ll see them visibly disagree on many things after July 1, some of which will be confected, some genuine.
ps the difference between howard in 98 and keating in 93 and gillard in 2013 is the majority – and the size of the majorities in individual seats. There are very few seats labor holds currently which are not under some sort of threat. Many are marginal and had strong majorities in kevin 07 reduced to very small majorities in ’10. the inner city seats all require heavy on the ground lifting because of the presence of the greens.
Unless the boats stop and the carbon tax is introduced with the minimum of angst campaign messages need to be highly differentiated between the inner city and the outer suburbs which creates a party which feels as though it must fight on two grounds neither of which favour labor.
its even worse when you consider the disappearance of unpopular state governments may help the overall position of labor in a visual sense will cause problems on the ground with resources and presence. if the ALP gets wiped out in western sydney in the state election thats an awful lot of local on the ground support which federal labor loses in their federal election
Further this government just does not fill you with confidence that the carbon tax will be effectively sold. it is difficult to think of a single policy other than the holding back of the gfc which labor really succeeded with in the first term and even that they failed to sell.
Sam @51
I think that it will take a long time before the coalition is blamed for the woes of NSW and the ALP will be out of power there for at least three terms.
Actually, LO: I think PPM figures are just about worthless.
I merely bang on about them to demonstrate the the true picture: Australia has two major party leaders vying for the “least convincing national figure” stakes. A contest Abbott is doing worse in, incidentally.
Personally, I suspect Gillard has just pulled ahead of ‘No’ man by standing for something. Once the Fed ALP is rid of the losers in the NSW govt – along with Bitar – theyll get more clear air. Watch this space.
Major question mark is who on the front bench can sell policies. So far no one looks too good at it. Maybe Combet.
@49, you’re not seriously suggesting that the ALP will split over this are you?
There may be a RW attempted coup against Gillard, but the Labor Right is so much on the nose and their NSW fortress is about to crumble, that their power and credibility are dwindling away.
So long as there is no split and so long as Gillard avoids being rolled, I see no reason why Gillard will decide not to attempt to crash through on this one.
IH 54, The voters of NSW may well decide to cut the state Liberals some slack, but they will probably not hate Labor as much.
My prediction is that the coalition have no chance of winning the next election with the mad monk at the helm. The number men within the party know this, and I reckon with fat hockey or turnbull they’ll fly over the line. I just hope the Greens increase their numbers too.
Where are the Labor politicians with a bit of aggression, a bit of fire, maybe even some passion?
I know it’s difficult with a hostile media, but they barely sound as though they believe in a carbon price themselves, let alone have the ability to explain it to a sceptical electorate.
About the only thing that Labor has going for it at the moment is Abbott. Watching Hockey on Q&A last night (Q- why isn’t Mike Carlton on TV more often?) brought home the reality that a Turnbull/Hockey led opposition would trounce Labor as far as communication skills are concerned.
@56 No not that the right will roll Gillard (after all she votes with them remember). But rather that this will only be one issue which emerges in the next 30 months, and on many of the other issues – especially those involving “social issues” the right will fight (particularly what remains of the catholic right) the greens to the death. I also think there are large parts of the ALP left who have also reached the point where they think there is no point seeking accommodations with the greens any more and would prefer to take them on.
i think that you will find that the senate will get bogged down into all of the usual committees and point scoring that it achieves so effectively. Therefore to say that gillard has a senate majority other than for a carbon tax to me misses the point. She should win that one and and introduce a carbon tax.
Fingers cross that they then communicate what they are doing well enough..
Iain Hall #48
You have very nicely illustrated a vicious argument. “We shouldn’t do anything because nothing we do will make a difference”.
The important thing to do is the correct thing regardless of whether anyone else is doing it. It doesn’t matter how much you think you will be hurt economically (your fears are fears only), what matters is to take the correct path.
I thought you conservatives were big on morality?
Sam @57
after their inevitable rout at the NSW state election Labor will have to find a new leader there and they will have to rebuild trust with the electorate, I just can’t see the NSW people trusting Labor again any time soon and as they have set the bar so low with their incompetence the incoming government does not have to be that much better than they are to earn continuing support of the people.
They will hate and distrust Labor for at least as long as they have kept them in power and remember that having got them to jump to voting for the coalition once they will be more inclined to do it again
The irony is that the carbon tax is lousy policy. Gillard would have been a lot smarter to left discussion till after the 2013 election, had a hard think about what she could do to actually reduce emissions and/or get signed contracts in place and get on with it.
A carbon tax is not only poor policy it is lousy politics, particularly near the start of the clean up process. For example, at the point where a carbon tax has driven a 10% reduction in emissions at least 90% of any price increase will be due to the tax and less that 10% to any higher cost of producing the clean alternative.
The voters dont trust the government o “return every cent of the tax to taxpayers” so they are going to be focused on price increases. A carbon tax is a gift that keeps on giving to the likes of Abbott.
calyptorhynchus @61
As a conservative I am a big believer in doing the right thing that will be effective and achieve your desired result. Now can you honestly say that this carbon tax will be effective in changing the climate?
I may be a conservative you likes to act on principle but above all I am a practical man who thinks that futile gestures are .. err just futile. Frankly lots of Labor voters are even less keen that I am about this stupid and pointless tax.
ON top of that they really don’t like the idea that the Green’s tail is so obviously wagging the Labor dog. A more secure leader may be able get away with introducing an unpopular policy but there is just no way that Gillard has enough fat in her grip on power that will allow her to pull this off without destroying brand Labor in the process.
Yes Mhammer, there may well be other causes of friction within the ALP over the relationship between the ALP and Greens.
But the question is, how hard do they want to push any conflict? And, as you say, if Gillard perceives that some Green social policy or other is electoral poison, then any change can be bogged down in the Senate.
But the central point is that Gillard really has nothing to lose in going hard on the Carbon Tax. And you do appear to agree with me that she has a good chance to ram this one through Parliament, which was my major point back @36.
John D – I think you’re merely highlighting the need for complementary measures, which many would agree with. OTOH, I dont think there’s much doubt a price will be more effective than the ETS that replaces it (which risks just create of overseas offsets bubble, changing nothing here).
I say we keep it once its in.
As for price rises – the ALP needs to do some work to pin current power price rises on uncertainty (since there a million quotes from business leaders saying same, despite what Razor might lie to think about the “certainty of no”): then Abbott’s hand weakens.
Iain Hall,
“Even business in their desire for stability won’t turn their backs on the coalition because they know that their bottom line has to be better without this stupid tax.”
That is not true for all businesses. In particular, domestic businesses that have lower carbon intensity than their competitors will benefit from the tax, as the overall price increase that follows the tax will more than compensate them for their carbon costs.
John D @62,
Surely you should be welcoming this poll, as Abbott’s climate change policy is basically what you are proposing. Maybe you will get to see it implemented in 2013.
The bottom line is the ALP needs to stand for something. Thuis is the point of govenrment: governing.
Not engaging in some 24/7 headline chasing like Oppo leaders.
As LO points out “Abbott can only credibly commit to not price carbon for 3 years.” And probably not even that , really, his chance of controlling senate in future is quite slim, and I cant see him going a DD over a negative issue.
The fact is is crash through or crash time: doing nothing, changing leaders, or any of the other silly nonsense the ALP has engaged in lately simply means they will DEFINITELY lose in 2013. This should focus the mind and instill courage – they literally have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
Here’s a key fact about the Australian electorate: they oppose a change till its in, then huge chunks of it immediately accepts it and moves on.
Get this in and running, and by 2013 Abbott will we railing against a fait accomplit.
This is more like it, from Combet:
RNBREAKFAST |
Combet on Abbott: “It’s garbage, this guy is really nothing more than a mobile scare campaign”
http://bit.ly/atPyhQ
A number of comments here have doubted that an incoming Coalition government could “unscramble the egg” of a carbon tax, either because of the Left majority in the Senate or because it’s just too hard from a practical viewpoint.
I think the simplest way for the Coalition to address the problem would be to announce that, in office, by administrative fiat, it would decline to collect the tax.
It would concentrate remarkably the minds of anyone who found themselves paying it in the meantime, supposing Labor actually manages to legislate the new tax.
I&U @66 – Is there really someone seriously advocating the coalition’s policy? I think that’d even suprise Abbott.
Let’s learn from history.
Newspoll December 2008.
Rudd 66%, Turnbull 19%. (preferred prime minister)
Labor 59%, Coalition 41% (two party preferred)
How on earth did Rudd give away a lead like that?
He sat on his hands. Did nothing, for fear of upsetting someone.
@69 That may be true Christopher and it would have the potential to concentrate minds but that is a pretty risky strategy as it could create a complete meltdown in business as no-one would be willing to invest in a situation where there was no guarantees as to the direction of government policy.
If (and I think likely) that Abbott gets up and there has already been a range of businesses invest in different technologies with a view to profit maximising behaviour it would be difficult to then unscramble the egg administratively let alone legislatively.
I&U – there is plenty of evidence that making decisions makes a leader strong, decisive but equally plenty that say that won’t win you an election unless other things are headed in the right direction (see Brumby keating kennett as examples of decision makers and Carr, Bracks, et al as those who maintained power making somewhat fewer decisions)
notwithstanding the above I myself would prefer to see the government out there doing things because the margin of defeat is so close that a small target strategy is likely to still lead to a loss with no legacy to remember and defend.
“…it would decline to collect the tax. ”
Christopher, thats ridiculous. This is a state governed by rule of law, not a Tea Party protest – it would take one citizen or organisation with standing to challenge that stance in the High Court and would be all over in five minutes, with the govt left looking like amateurs.
Its amend the law or nothing, Im afraid.
I & U said:
Precisely …
Brutus, Act IV Scene 3 in Julius Caesar said it best …
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Lefty E @74, I think “mandamus” is the legal term for such a challenge. Such a case could be very interesting in its implications for a raft of government policies at all three levels which are on the books but not implemented.
@68
2 weeks ago Combet is saying we need to change our lifestyle.
2 weeks later when Abbot reinforces what Combet has said it is a scare campaign.
Who thinks the Voters are mugs??
@72 and 74
The Coalition would obviously claim, if it won, a popular mandate not to proceed with the tax. Abbott and shadow cabinet have already committed to repeal the tax in government, so no business could later complain that their investment decisions had been made uncertain by an incoming government.
The High Court has no self-evident power to compel a newly elected government to break faith with the electorate and continue to collect a tax it opposed in opposition.
@80 – Your argument, Christopher, takes the form of a statement that the Coalition can break the law if it asserts that its position when in opposition justifies so doing.
I don’t think so.
“The Coalition would obviously claim, if it won, a popular mandate not to proceed with the tax. ”
Would its mandate not to proceed with the compensation be quite as popular?
The “old statutes on books” issue is not the same as core federal tax policy guys.
They either change it, or the ATO routinely collects it. There’s simply no other way.
The High Court cant compel *the govt* to collect a tax – but youll find a federal court can compel the ATO to do so.
In any case, youll also find the ATO will comply with the existing tax law.
This strategy is going nowhere Im afraid!
That’s true which is why the tactic is, as we speak, an attempt to attach a sovereign risk cost to those inclined to take advantage of government policy. Abbott is attempting in effect to run industry policy from opposition.
This does set an unhealthy precedent but it is not inevitably unethical.
Just like WorkChoices. Oh wait…
More precisely Rudd gave away that lead because he and his advisors were too busy reading The Australian, listening to talkback radio and watching the ABC, so they got spooked by an incessant media campaign that has only increased in its ferocity since.
Some goon from RN was telling listeners that the carbon tax was a classic example of how not to sell a policy, that Gillard should have prepared the electorate for the possibility before announcing it etc etc. Of course the same goons would then condemn her for being all talk and no action.
Ignore the lot of them!
“Just like WorkChoices. Oh wait…”
Hmm, there’s a special case: a lesson in not shoving BS down people’s throats every ad break for an eternity, and making them pay for the privilege.
Eventually they get off the couch and thump ya.
Just like WorkChoices. Oh wait…
CraigMC: people lived with the consequences of Workchoices, and it was easy to slate it solely to John Howard. With Peak Oil and various Arab uprising, it will be a little harder to link increased prices to Julia Gillard; there are too many factors at work.
Workchoices turned many bosses from appalling to insufferable – generating many bitchy, nasty after-hour conversations at the bar. The carbon tax will probably be good for a few grumbles at the petrol station.
Fran,
I’m afraid to say that that would in no way set a precedent. From Gillard’s “No carbon tax” through Howard’s “No new taxes” through Hawke’s “No CGT or FBT” and on and on and on.
The one consistent thing that has occurred through out history is that promises on tax have been broken after elections.
When a tax is introduced it is almost invariably permanent – with the sole exception of small taxes that are removed to clear the way for a larger one.
The Federal income tax was introduced in Australia as an emergency war measure to help fight Japan. In the UK it was introduced as a temporary measure to fight Napoleon.
Chances of a carbon tax being removed by an incoming Liberal government? About the same as the GST being “rolled back” any time soon.
@81 and 82
I think that if you look for Australian precedents, you’ll find examples of taxes on the statute books that have become dead letter law as a result of the policy of incoming governments and that the executive has a fair amount of discretion in waiving taxes.
Lefty E might like to turn his mind to a real-world scenario. Suppose a Coalition govt announces that it will in due course repeal a carbon tax, but that in the interim it will instruct the ATO not to collect it.We know what the greens would do but it’s by no means clear what Labor’s position might be, especially faced with the imminent possibility of a double dissolution. Even in the event of a mandamus order being issued in the federal court ( where, admittedly, anything is possible) can he seriously imagine such a ruling being sustained by the High Court?
Andrew @88,
The coalition would probably have to keep the carbon tax in order to pay for all of its “direct action” carbon commitments.
Exactly I&U, plus the $120m+cpi ad campaign to unchain our heart. Is Joe Cocker still available?
Christopher – even if possible, I think you’d agree its a pretty bloody messy solution.
Be clear that what this proposal means is selective enforcement of the Taxation Act, on executive order, without parliamentary approval. Its inconsistent with the rule of law – one of the fundaments of our parliamnentary system.
Its the same as the King levying a tax without the approval of parliament. Remember what happened when executives last tried this sort of thing?
And in any case the legislation is slated to transition into a trading scheme. I imagine that statutory limits will be imposed on the number of available permits. There is no way the Tories will be able to do an undemocratic, unconstitutional, illegal run around those.
Shucks, the Tories will have to learn how to cope with the rule of law.
These News Polls are making the story and we will get the government we deserve because we keeping reading NEWS Corp tripe.
10 days ago at a service station I watched a TV reporter try to manufacture outrage at the petrolpump that the carbon tax would raise fuel proces 6 cents because of the perfidious Greens. Fuel prices have risen 20 cents because of supermarket discounting and Libya.
Am disgusted to see Baillieu has dusted off Kennett’s plans to build exclusive tourist resorts inside our National Parks. Won’t the Liberals admit that Victoria has the highest percentage of land in private ownership without encroaching on our limited common space. Its like back to the future without a DeLorian.
I’m sure the $120M ad campaign is on its way, and will be just as effective.
The last one convinced you didn’t it CraigMc?
As Christopher Pearson suggest there is no reason that a government has to collect a tax just because a law allowing it to do so is on the books. There are lots of examples of a government doing precisely this sort of thing with regard to other laws, the laws against sodomy were on the books and unused for many years until they were eventually repealed and the sky did no fall in as a consequence. In fact I’m willing to bet that a law that has long been unused is easier to repeal than on that has been in regular use.
“I think the simplest way for the Coalition to address the problem would be to announce that, in office, by administrative fiat, it would decline to collect the tax.”
Or, Christopher, companies could just follow the precedent of Newscorp and just not pay tax. It might have some consequences, though.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/murdoch-in-77m-pay-out-to-capital/2077343.aspx
Katz and Lefty E,
Nonetheless, I think CP is onto something here. Let’s dispense with all this messing around with legislation and the Senate and all that stuff. Incoming governments should simply declare that all of their promises become effective the day after the election.
What court would dare interfere with governments asserting their mandates in this way?
Iain Hall #64
Your argument would be more respectable if you proposed a course of action on climate change that, in your view, would deal with the global warming.
Otherwise you just sound unprincipled.
What about Hockey on Q&A last night declaring that he was for affirmative action in the board room? You don’t think he’s trying to differentiate himself do you? If you’re a LNP person it’s not too hard to come to the conclusion that it’s the supporting players who are carrying the star. Oh yes, Abbott has been sanctified by some for losing the last election but how many of those are true adherents and how many are johnny -come-latelys. We’ll see when the LNP finally realise that falling into power isn’t an option and that they’ll have to contest an election … with Abbott at the helm … again. Why take the chance?
I beleive Tony Abbott calls it “Guided Democracy”, I&U!
I take this silliness about not enforcing the Australian Federal Taxation Act to be a backhanded acknowledgement that: yes, a CO2 price will be hard to repeal.
Christopher: isn’t the onus on you to provide precedents? Anyway, there’s a whole difference between waiving subclauses 87 B. i. a. 1-3 of Tax Code 2004 and waiving a whole bloody bill of parliament.
As for this:
Don’t you really mean “hypothetical”? It can’t be a real-world scenario – it hasn’t happened yet.
Andrew Reynolds said:
That’s a comforting thought I suppose, but of course unlike other taxes, as the economy decarbonises, the tax collections fall and when an ETS steps into the breach they become largely moot. In an economy which was emitting 5% of what we did in 1990 it would be utterly trivial. The cost of permits would be tiny.
NB: DisclaimerI used the term “tax” here without implying acceptance of the fixed price period or carbon prices more generally as a tax. It is, as I’ve argued already, a fee or charge for an ecosystem service, but it’s cumbersome to have to persistently repeat this point.
calyptorhynchus @100
My response is entirely principled; the principle in operation here is that no government should act to increase the burden of taxation upon its citizens under false pretences. If the rationale for this new tax burden is that it will affect the climate then those who advocate it should explain how it will do so I take it that you are not capable of raising to the challenge?
My point highlights the reason that Gillard is plummeting in the polls, quite simply no one believes that the carbon tax will do anything about the climate.
I am rather unconvinced by the whole AGW argument to be honest and I think that so too are most of the Australian people.
If the Gillard government really believed in it themselves (which I doubt) then why are they not just using regulation to require industry to emit less CO2? Perhaps they don’t because regulation does not allow their backers in the “financial services industry” would not have such an opportunity to make a quid from an Emissions trading scheme?
How come almost every Iain Hall post is being wholly highlighted blue? It can’t be to do with anything bright he has to say either here or elsewhere.
No matter how this sentence might end, Christopher, and take this from someone from New South Wales, this is a really really bad way for public policymaking to go.
I don’t know what the detail of the scheme is going to be, but it is also worth considering that a scheme that acts like a tax is not necesarrily a tax.
Even if we grant that the Executive may be able to waive by executive order the collection of a tax, it may not be so simple if a system of property rights in emissions trading has already been created. In that case I suspect that the Executive would not be able to just declare these emissions rights to be worthless by administrative fiat.
The mandate argument is of course as silly as it ever is. If a Coalition government was elected without control of the Senate then people like the Greens would be just as entititled to say that the “will of the people” was that the ALP government be removed but emissions trading kept.
Let’s say you’re a renewable energy company – hydro, solar, wind, or geothermal – it doesn’t matter. You’ve modeled the profits and losses based on a carbon tax, and you bring in the auditors to make sure. These figures show greater profits with a tax in place, because it’s cheaper for you to provide energy to customer than coal fired stations.
Then the Coalition government comes in and says its won’t enforce the carbon tax. Couldn’t you sue the government for loss of income?
“In that case I suspect that the Executive would not be able to just declare these emissions rights to be worthless by administrative fiat.”
Parliament could, but in either case it would give rise to a constitutional claim for fair compensation.
Gillard is slipping in the polls, but why? Is it because she has agreed to a carbon tax, as the Libs would have it, or because she has not committed firmly enough to a carbon tax, as the Greens would have it? What explanation do Gillard supporters themselves think is the reason?
Martin B @111
this is surely a moot point because by the time that the next election happens there will be not be trading only the tax?
@joe2, for some reason Iain’s posts are coming up as if he is a logged on user. Since he doesn’t have a user account, that seems very odd indeed.
I don’t know, it depends on the details about which we don’t yet know. Under the old system, the fixed price period still entailed an acquisition of permits.
As I noted, opponents of the government’s position may be in danger of believing their own rhetoric. A trading system with a fixed price and unlimited numbers of permits is like a tax but it is not actually a tax.
Test Comment for logged-out admin-user.
“Since he doesn’t have a user account…”
Count me very reassured, Ms Tog.
@112 – nope – can’t sue governments for policy changes.
(Disclaimer – not a lawyer and I’m sure you could pay a QC to give you an opposing opinion)
Logged back in again. The system certainly doesn’t pick me up as a user-account when I’m not logged in. Am now getting very curious as to why it’s recognising Iain.
@Iain, are you currently logged on to another site on ozblogistan, perhaps? Do any of the other sites require commentors to register?
Thats true Razor – you can’t sue a government over policy changes just because they reduce income.
However, commonwealth expropriation of property – though perfectly lawful – will give rise to a claim for fair compensation, based in our constitution.
Down and Out @104,
“Don’t you really mean “hypothetical”? It can’t be a real-world scenario – it hasn’t happened yet.”
I think by “real-world” CP means “like the world I live in”: ie in some parallel universe somewhere.
Tigtog
I am logged into my own blog now hosted at Ozbogistan which probably explains the highlighting of my comemnts
Silkworm asked:
I’d say the general belief is that the government doesn’t really believe in anything it says and is just pandering to the Greens. That creates a space for those who acknowledge that “something must be done” but are lookming for an excuse to cop out to pretend their rationale for copping out is about “lying” or political skullduggery.
That brings in the rolling of Rudd and the legitimacy of the regime and then the whole gish gallop.
Interestingly, if you hang around Twitter, Catallaxy and other rightwing parts of cyberspace, much of the argumentation is wrapped up in hatred of Julia Gillard’s appearance. Over at Catallaxy she gets persistently called “duck bum” by a couple of commenters without anyone even doing a pro-forma “hang about!” and on Twitter this and the size of her nose (along with pinocchio references) are a common place. There’s also a focus on her nasalised vowels and register.
It’s hard to know whether this playground style abuse is a cause of animus or simply how animus located in some other cause for complaint manifests, but either way, it does say something about the character of right-wing politics. I can’t but wonder how they’d respond if Stephen Smith were PM because he’s one of those people whose voice, face and manner are utterly forgettable — and he has a name to match.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that misogyny is a predisposing factor here. While there was always a bit of banter about Howard as a bit of a dork, I don’t recall him copping very much in that vein from those he upset. Amanda Vanstone on the other hand, copped quite a bit IIRC.
That aside though much of this is about the perceived weakness of the government and the idea that it is the mere plaything of forces it doesn’t understand and can’t control. As a teacher, the moment students perceive you as unable to extract compliance, deliver on what you say or as having lost the confidence of your peers, classroom management becomes a nightmare because the hard core arc up and everyone else sits on the sidelines shaking their heads in disgust and hoping a real teacher with real authority comes in to sort it all out.
The success of the “Rolex Revolutionaries” last year demanding and getting the head of a sitting Prime Minister who was leading in the polls was a devastating blow, not only to Rudd obviously, but to the entire ALP machine, which had looked impregnable just six months earlier. From that point on every bit of tittle tattle or grumbling — real or confected from any quarter looked a chance of becoming the latest crisis in governance and the Murdochracy, smelling blood, went for the regime and touted Abbott as a kind of Liberal Moses. Gillard, panic-stricken, ran from one silly idea to another — real Julia, fake Julia, climate assembly, cash for clunkers, East Timor solution, hatred for welfare queue jumpers and love for Lindsay, embrace of the foetid NSW ALP and the nearly as hated QLD regime, and then finally her bizarre concession on a “carbon tax”.
Gillard is yet to recover from any of that. Her only hope now is to make this policy stick. If she does she may well win yet, but whether she does or doesn’t she has to play the card because the alternative is not merely defeat, but ignominy and two to three terms out of power.
@Iain,
Hm. Methinks I shall have to amend the stylesheet.
Doesn’t Iain Hall have his own site? Is it perhaps an ozblogistan site?
Assuming the worst case scenario, it would be fascinating to see a showdown between an Abbot Government and a Greens controlled Senate. We may then see just how mad (or pragmatic) the monk actually is.
Fran Barlow
)
I have had a blog of my own for years but I recently moved it to Ozblogistan : http://iainhall.ozblogistan.com.au/
drop by any time
Yes, although my point above – which you agreed with – is that this would require legislative action, not just administrative action.
I don’t pretend to be a lawyer on this or other matters, and again I know nothing about the detail of the policy, but it seems to me that the possibility of success for the CP “who needs a Senate anymore?” approach may turn on the question of whether private property rights in emissions trading have already been created.
I’d pretty much agree with all of Fran’s analysis @126.
Fran says:
Yes, and the problem is that the belief and the perception are not a million miles removed from the reality.
Yep, the hypocrisy says it almost all, really.
Apart from the advanced conniving of the likes of Pearson and co who would put their sinister little minds to thinking up ways the will of a properly elected parliament might might be stymied because they are very sore losers.
I hope they enjoy this moment well because the people will surely wake up to their clear disdain for the democratic process and their wish to impose a fully franked murdochracy.
Fran #126
I really don’t think that she can win with this policy to be honest but now that she has come out with a big announcement she can’t back down either which means that she has effectively wedged herself on climate change. All the coalition has to do is stare her down on this silly and ineffective policy and she will be a total lame duck…
“@Iain,
Hm. Methinks I shall have to amend the stylesheet.”
Maybe Iain could just be polite enough to log out of his blog while posting here, because he can see what he is doing, rather than have other people tidy up for him on International Women’s Day.
joe;
A change to the theme code should render that unnecessary. I’ll have a look at it when I get home, in the meantime I’ve passed on my hunches to tigtog.
O.K., Jacques, I will be quiet now.
The other consideration here is that the numbers are so tight in the house that a by-election in a winnable seat held while the regime is travelling poorly in the polls could upset the whole scheme and cause the government to fall. Really the government cannot afford to drag this out in order to get a better pay off for polluting industry.
They just need to get it done passed and start spruiking the benefits ASAP. They can change the debate to “how best can we ensure that polluters, rather than households, bear the cost of cleaning up the environment? How much better off should households be as a result of these arrangements?
Make Abbott argue over that.
Great analysis @ 126, Fran. And why can’t they at least sound as though they know what they’re talking about and actually believe it!
Fran, I think you underestimate Gillard if you imagine she does not know this. They have brought the baby out with no clothes on with a couple of months to go before the Senate change. The details will come out, on the drip, as they are agreed – negotiation is her forte.
Time for people to slowly see through Abbott pollution and have it all bedded down before the election. There really is nothing much she can do about the wildcard of a by-election.
The best thing going for them, though, is Tony Abbott’s Great Big New Tax – Direct Action Plan!
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2011/03/07/Tony-Abbott’s-Great-Big-New-Tax.aspx
@80
“compel a newly elected government to break faith with the electorate”
Exactly what standing does “faith with the electorate” have at law? You’re not getting advise from Skeptic “2ndary boycott” Lawyer are you?
Tony Abbott and the New Pollution: EP in stores Monday.
Features all da hitz, incl. ‘Boatstopper!’, ‘Direkt Aktion (Baby I want your)’, ‘This lil Piggy went to Govt Tendah’, ‘When I said I loved you – I didnt write it down, biaatch’.
Distributed by GBNT (Gross Bodily Nude Togs).
@97,
Er … the govt doesn’t charge people with sodomy. If the police sought to charge someone there would have been no legal barrier, it was, as you say, a part of the criminal code. Discretion is not an option once you charge someone. So all in all a fairly poor analogy.
EU experience suggests people will “see little impact on their cost of living under the scheme.” http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/08/3158186.htm
Indeed, Lefty E, but the punters would notice the effect of the cut in services that Tony will need to bomb, to pay for his ‘actively pay the polluters plan’.
This is one hell of a black hole that cannot be concealed because the election is just two weeks away.
Does anybody imagine Combet and Gillard will not ask the question of what will be cut, even if the “journalists” do not bother?
I’m coming late to this, but I’d just like take up LO’s point:
If by that you mean “buy off Big Carbon” that was real popular with the electorate last time around…
Martin B @131,
“the CP approach may turn on the question of whether private property rights in emissions trading have already been created.”
Yes, Gillard needs to make sure the atmosphere is privatised asap.
Hey, it worked for Howard with Telstra.
Abbott’s “direct action” scam:
Clearly Abbott’s dad never advised Abbott never to pay good money today for something that doesn’t even exist yet.
Abbott’s scam, funded by the public purse is an open invitation for every tout, conman and scamster to sell moonshine to the Australian taxpayer.
And the taxpayers’ agent? A pack of Tory spivs who are interested in pretending only to combat AGW and to pretend that you can have business as usual if someone plants a few trees.
It’s ludicrous.
I&U @ 147 & 131. Another hypothetical although this will probably come up. Say a green energy producer, Solar, Wind, Geothermal, lighting farts seeks to raise capital via a prospectus through the ASX. Forecasts and the business case can be laid out based on providing a competitive price through not having to pay for carbon emissions like their competitors. However, I imagine they will also have to list as a significant risk that in the event of the coalition winning a federal election the prospect of regulation change wiping out the business. Could make raising money for these companies very problematical. This is why Gail Kelly and other business leaders want certainty.
Tony doesnt mind trashing the business community I guess because he figures they are locked in anyway. But I would not be surprised if pressure doesn’t start to mount on him over this.
Fran, the only abuse and amusement on Catallaxy are your inane ridiculous comments.
She’s going – how good is that. She apparently has the support of Swan, Arbib and Howse. She must be very relaxed about her future with those retards standing behind her while she deals with caucus and the loony greens. They will make a comedy show out of this one day.
By the way there is very little on conservative websites about her appearance or the way she sounds. 99% of it is about how dishonest she is. If you are going to report back to the comrades please try and be honest
PatrickB @141
Save the disdain for the more impressionable of your acquaintances. You wonder what legal standing forcing an incoming govt. to break faith with the electorate has at law. But the High Court is a very politically savvy bench and would by no means be unmindful of the dangers to its own prestige of being seen to do so, especially when the executive was trying to waive a highly unpopular tax.
If their is going to be industry rebates and low to middle income earners are going to be compensated – who is actually going to be paying?
How much?
Is this fair?
What happens when their is less carbon dioxide emmissions to be taxed/paid for but the compensation bill is still needed to be paid?
“Highly unpopular tax”? In that case the government would have no trouble getting legislation through the Senate, which is the appropriate forum for political arguments to be made.
More realistically the election will see very close to 50% (one way or the other) of the electorate voting for parties supporting the tax, so characterizations of it as “highly unpopular” will be entirely rhetorical.
Fran B @106
I don’t think that follows at all, Fran. As the goods (emissions permits) become more scarce their price will rise. There are plenty of sources of emissions where alternatives simply aren’t available (e.g. steel making). No doubt offsets will also become more heavily audited as decarbonisation continues, and also less readily available. In order to achieve a 95% emissions reduction I’d reckon the price would need to be an order of magnitude greater than the $26 allegedly in contemplation. At any event, hopefully we’ll both live to see the day.
Trevor @149,
Yes, the uncertainty is likely to kill all potential investment in carbon reduction until after the election, except where the investment is funded through another mechanism (eg MRET).
I&U It really does highlight the absurdity of the coalition’s position. Private investment will be blocked because of the threat of public money being used to subsidise inefficient industries.
This is the policy of the free market party? I think I need to join Alice down that bunny hole.
Ha! That’s what the Japanese said about Uma Thurman!
…
Hal9000 @ 154
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/06/16/steel-yourself-a-clear-role-for-hydrogen/
Lefty E@66: When I say
I am not just talking about the need for complementary polices. The comment applies equally to the all important cleaning up of electricity generation. So think about what the statement means in terms of tax per tonne CO2 abatement and price increases assuming that the tax will need to start at around $30/tonne CO2 if it is to have much effect:
$30/tonne tax will push up the price of dirty electricity by about 3 cents/kWh. At the 10% mark the tax accounts for at least 2.7 cents/kWh with less that 0.3 cents/kWh resulting from the higher cost of clean electricity.
By contrast, alternatives that don’t have to carry the 90% tax price burden would have only risen by only 0.3 cents/kWh buy the time we were roughly halfway to the current MRET target of 20% renewables. (The MRET is one example of an alternative that does not depend on the carbon price and there are other alternatives that are better still.)
Abbott is having a ball because the the carbon tax will lead to increases in the price of electricity that are large enough to upset voters. By contrast, he would be laughed out of school if he wanted to campaign on a policy that would ramp the price up by 0.3 cents/kWh – to be reached in several years time. Ditto the screaming of big polluters seeking compensation.
Joe @135
as much as I don’t want to be a problem for anyone else when I comment here I really don’t see what doing as you suggest would achieve, the “problem” is not of my making and will have to be fixed by someone else (JC.
In firefox I see only a grey background to my comments and frankly its not a big deal.
@153
Re highly unpopular tax, the point is more than a rhetorical one. Most of us, most of the time, are resigned to paying taxes. The carbon tax will be unusually contentious and resented because I expect at least 50% of voters will think it a pointless expropriation which we were promised would not be applied until a broad and deep consensus prevailed and, in any event, not in this term.
Christopher, you crack me up.
Your mob has thrown everything but the kitchen sink at this and even with one of the most dodgy of questions, from your organizations own polling offshoot, you could barely pull a majority and you come up with rubbish like this.
And it aint a “tax” either, propaganda merchant.
Hal9000 said:
Why would they become scarce? While we would want to keep reducing the cap to keep the pressure up to continue decarbonising by the time we reached 5% of 1990 (or 5% of even 2010 for that matter because the difference would be fairly minimal) we would probably be looking at other approaches to reductions than trading because we’d probably be down to a situation where it might make most sense for some sort of state intervention with the accrued funds to underpin that last push.
At that point the value of the permits would collapse since hardly anyone would need them and there would be a glut.
Christopher said::
If the bulk of the voters are compensated fully, in what way is it an “expropriation”. Whose property (and what) is being taken, exactly?
I suppose you could say that the equitable interest polluters have in free dumping of waste into the common property of all humanity is being prejudiced but of course the flipside of that is that the equitable interest humanity has in that is being augmented by the payment of a fee and a reduction in harm. Humanity is being “re-appropriated”. The quality of a non-excludable vital service is being augmented.
One may call the current system of waste management “living systems sequestration” since the waste is dumped into and stored in living systems and often living tissue. Why you think that ought to be a matter of indifference to humanity is something only you can answer.
Fran@163
I used it, nostalically I suppose, with reference to Marxist notions of “expropriating the expropriators”, of which Prof. John Anderson was so fond in his earlier years at Sydney.
Expropriation means taking something, which can include earned income, away from someone and applies even in the event that compensation is paid. When whole classes are not “fully” compensated, the expropriation is even more plain.
JohnD – I cant really respond until you explain – where do you derive that 90%/10% split figure from?
More generally, I’m for straight regulation of some things – particularly low hanging fruit. Just make certain types of emission unlawful beyond certain levels, like we used to do with other types of pollution. Im also for R&D and renewable industry assistance. I dont see why we should put all eggs in one basket, but pricing CO2 helps remove one essential disincentive to invest in renewables (viz, non-renewable electricity is simply not as cheap as it looks, and future taxpayers have to pick up the bill for it).
….that is, it doesnt factor in the price of the damage it causes, which is passed as a sunken cost to future taxpayers.
In a sense, the price today (on polluters) is an anti-tax for tomorrow’s taxpayers.
On another note, did someone slip me an LSD Mickey Finn – or did I just hear Abbott warn about a taxpayer funded advertising campaign, cos “thats what the ALP always does”.
LOL!! Does he really think Australians are that stupid?
Tell ya what numbnuts, how about the govt promises to only spend 25% of what your govt spent on Workchoices. Hows that for a deal?
(Cue two ads per hour.)
It’s not the drugs. He went, shamelessly, further, LeftyE.
“I’m running a truth campaign against the carbon tax, because the truth campaign appears to be having an impact,” he said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/08/3158617.htm?section=justin
Christopher said:
Old-fashioned marxists used the term to mean seizure of property without compensation … but anyway …
I’m still wondering what property you assert is being removed, by whom, and in whose favour?
I’m not sure why anyone should be compensated for loss of equity other than in circumstances where one accepts that their equity was obtained through some just and equitable process. One must, as the aphorism goes, enter equity with clean hands.
A receiver of stolen goods whose booty is stolen doesn’t have an action against the last thief and and if he insisted in court that his victim pay him compensation for recovery of the stolen assets, I suspect the courts would think him offensive.
I would warrant that Christopher, here, is one of Tony’s, delegated, truth campaigning squad. His presence, blessing to all of us.
We have the answer at last!
It is not a carbon tax it is a carbon “expropriation”.
Which, apparently, is even worse than a tax.
2+ years is a long way away in an unstable global economic and political climate.
Gillard needs a fight to establish herself. And this is, after all is said an done, a “good” fight.
Disagree with LaborOusider (and some in the MSM), dropping this bomb on the political landscape was a good move. The Libs have just about had their say on this and 2 years is a long time to try and maintain the rage.
Abbot and Hockey couldn’t even organise a chook-raffle going on their financial performance in the 2010 election.
Abbot stands for:
1. Monarchy
2. Reduce Abortion
3. stop genetic science
4. sanctity of marriage
5. some other things which everyone has forgotten
(NSW is going to hate the State Libs by 2013, although that is tbh not important atm.)
I’m glad to see the back of Rudd.
Fran Barlow @ 170
I’m flattered by such a display of argumentative ingenuity.
Still, the households the government says most deserve compensation will have been deprived of money, via higher charges passed on. Something will have been taken away. Marxists used also cheerfully to allow the possibility that the compensation offered even to the most needy might be less than bourgeois equity courts would award.
In the case of the middle classes, stricto sensu,there’s no doubt they generally earn regular income and pay tax accordingly. It seems they’ll get partial compensation, even if they have minimal carbon footprints and enter equity with very clean hands.
I hope you’ll excuse me if I leave it there. It’s Shrove Tuesday and I’m invited to pancakes.
You are full of it, Christopher, and it is completely obvious to everyone but yourself. Sadly, for your sake, I doubt you will ever wake up from the coma.
Christopher,
what a load of crap.
Yeah sure, we’re all Marxists on this board. We put on our Karl Marx beards for a bit of a laugh when you RWDB come a-calling.
Sorry mate, but it’s 2011. You keep mooning about the cold war, ol’ chap, while the rest of us ask to be compensated for the use of our air and our resources.
“Let’s learn from history.
Newspoll December 2008.
Rudd 66%, Turnbull 19%. (preferred prime minister)
Labor 59%, Coalition 41% (two party preferred)
How on earth did Rudd give away a lead like that?
He sat on his hands. Did nothing, for fear of upsetting someone.”
I think this is a convenient myth to support an emotional position. It is of course nonsense.
Rudd Labor was as successful as most first term governments and had the added bonus of confronting the GFC successfully.
There is a Hitchcok irony in this for Gillard in that she was instrumental in having Rudd shelve the ETS (something he did reluctantly, apparently)and now is being skewered by a similar genre policy. And she has more than likely bought this policy out to change her political fortunes. And change her fortunes it has.
Gillard is in personal trouble for the reason noted earlier. She is struggling badly in the leadership stakes against a poor opponent. The advent of a Hockey or Turnbull will see Labor smashed at the next election. And it is likely one of these will make a challenge at some stage, especially Turnbull who won’t want to bide his time for an extra three years.
Labor if it makes a change will need to do it soon enough to sell the new boy (Combet).
Labor destroyed itself when Gillard knifed Rudd and it has been down hill from that moment. It seems that Gillard Labor is a poisoned well.
Christopher said:
How can that be, if the ALP pledges to reimburse 100% or more? Surely they will in net terms, be no worse off and perhaps better off?
Just curious ….. has anyone, ever, had a newsletter from their local federal ALP MP that had a good go at persuading their constituents why the government has to do something about climate change?
My local MP apparently spends half her time pretending to be the state MP for Fremantle, since they lost that seat to the Greens, and otherwise is involved in very, very small photo opportunities that relate to safe, feel-good issues. Selling this carbon tax policy should be one of their top priorities and they need to be told to get on with it. It isn’t just Julia Gillard who is responsible for low polling figures.
O M F G: At comment 35 I raise the possibility of a hypothetical Abbott govt deciding to just not collect the carbon tax, and lo and behold at 71 a certain gentleman whom I’m certain was in T. Abbott’s ‘kitchen cabinet’ on the Liberal maternity leave policy (a Tax-related policy) chimes in and endorses this as a potential course of action.
I doff me lids to you, Christopher Pearson. At least you’re not one of these idiots (on either side) who believe the Coalition can win a senate majority at the next poll.
Constitutional crisis here we come?
Actually, no. But this could most certainly be the thing that brings down the current leader of the Opposition.
No way Abbott doesn’t piss off either Hockey or Turnbull with talk of the Liberals adopting a platform for extra-legal govt action.
@ 178 – Russell – you would expect more given the special relationship between the Member for Fremantle and the Minister for Climate Change.
LE @166: I hope the following explains the 90/10 split:
Assume initially that the price of clean will be equal to the price of dirty when the carbon tax is applied.
When 10% of dirty has been replaced by clean:
Reduction in dirty sales=10%
Therefore reduction in tax=10% of initial tax
Therefore tax=100-10=90% of initial tax=contribution to price increase due to tax
Sales of clean=10% of initial dirty sales
Therefore contribution to price increase due to increased cost of clean=10% of initial tax
Hence 90/10 split
NOTE: For a carbon price to work the price of clean cannot be greater than dirty plus tax. Otherwise it will cost less to buy dirty.
“NOTE: For a carbon price to work the price of clean cannot be greater than dirty plus tax. Otherwise it will cost less to buy dirty.”
Well, in part, John D (presuming production process ‘x’ in which the only way to pay less tax is to buy clean energy inputs). But its not just that – a price also offers a general competitive advantage to firms who innovate their production processes to produce less CO2 in any way at all: x, y or z. This is an advantage that accrues to them whether or not they reduce CO2 by buying clean inputs.
@151
I really do think you need to look at what you write once you have written it. You’ll find it patent nonsense.
“You wonder what legal standing forcing an incoming govt. to break faith with the electorate has at law.”
I didn’t wonder that at all. I wondered where you got the idea that a court would entertain an action based on the “faith [of the] electorate”. As I said, I see an Eagle on your shoulder, or is it a parrot?
Lets clear this up once and for all: the only place executives “waive” major pieces of tax law are:
1. authoritarian regimes
2. Political systems which have things called “decree laws”
3. Political systems which have a executive/legislative separation (eg Presidential systems) and offer the President such powers (probably not waiving tax law, but still)
4. Tinpot semi-democracies, quaintly known in the trade as “electoral” rather than “liberal” democracies.
Which are we again? Thats correct: none of the above.
Frankly, Phoney could probably need to declare a state of emergency to do it.
“Millions win in carbon tax plan: Labor”
http://www.theage.com.au/national/millions-win-in-carbon-tax-plan-labor-20110226-1b9b2.html
Does anyone read The Australian?:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/02/11/news-ltd-the-biggest-loser-in-paper-circ-figures/
Chris Mitchell? Where have I heard that name before…
http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/06/05/and-the-wankley-goes-to-mitchells-climate-change-award/
Just sayin.
Robert further up thread, that is not what I meant. “Big Carbon” is only one of the key stakeholders in climate change mitigation. For example, you could split the big polluters from other business groups by trading off compensation for the big polluters for a significant cut in the corporate tax rate. Indeed, that was one of Garnaut’s suggestions in the orignal report, though his motivation was also the complexity of designing an fair and efficient compensation mechansim.
My main point, and I have made it many times in threads over the past two years is that the political economy of mitigation is complicated enough without giving the impression you have announced the policy on the run and haven’t worked out any of the detail yet. This is a major reform and one that does damage to the commercial interests of many large and well resourced companies. I just don’t think it was a good idea to announce a policy, with almost no detail, at a time where the government’s credibility was already weakened, without lining any third parties up well in advance to endorse the approach.
Since 2004 beginning with the state governments, there have been 4 separate consultation exercises over climate mitigation – the National Emissions Task Force (the States), the Prime Minister’s (Howard) Task Group, the Garnaut Review and then the Rudd Green Paper. Despite all the work that went into those reports to try and build a consensus in favour of some sort of ETS, we now have a new policy, a carbon tax, that was rejected in each of those reports (as well as by numerous Labor ministers in recent years) and was not, until recently, anticipated by many interest groups. To boot, the new policy comes with none of the detail of the previous ones – we don’t know the price, we don’t know the target that the price is being calibrated to, we don’t know the compensation mechanism for households and different types of firms. The government have created a vaccuum which is now being filled by all sorts of nutty scare stories about the potential impact.
It has been poorly handled. Period.
So the news this morning is that of “there might be a disgraceful advertising campaign using taxpayers money to explain the carbon tax, politicising the issuue and smearing the innocent opposition.”
So that’ sit then. The ALP cannot win here. It either explains the issue publicly and risk the above criticism or it sits and lets the opposition call the debate.
I do look forward to the media not unfairly smacking the government around and I know it will happen sometime this month when Abbott takes over.
Quite frankly I’m starting to wonder if the triumphalism from them might be better than the constant whining of the oppositon and the uselessness of the ALP.
Oh and top points to the media for managing to come out with another story by Rudds “friends” who warned he was power mad and hadn’t learned a thing. Thus sidelining a good bit of ALP talent.
This is a spectacular own goal. Labor was starting to do well in the polls. They should have left this to 2013.
At least, we can tell the greens to shut up. Labor will lose government in 2013, and the greens will lose most of their power.
They could have had a scheme with Kevin Rudd, but they stuck to ideological purity rather than pragmatically passing something and incrementally improving it.
LO @187,
An important benefit of a fixed carbon price is that, well, you do know the price – once it has been decided.
An ETS is always going to be subject to scare stories about how high the price could be, even when all the details of the scheme are known.
Christopher Pearson
@165 and 174 – your definition of expropriation would mean that all government taxation is expropriation. This is a philosophical position held by a number of people, but is not very helpful as a way of looking for practical policy solutions to real world problems.
The principle of compensation for an ETS or a carbon tax is exactly the same as compensation for the GST. You have a tax change that changes the prices of different goods and services differentially, and you offset the price change by a combination of changes in other taxes, mainly income taxes and by increasing social security benefits.
As with the GST, the main complication in the principle of compensation relates to people who don’t pay enough income taxes to be fully compensated, but you can deal with this in the same way as the Howard Government dealt with it when they introduced the GST – by changing benefit withdrawal rates and by introducing special payments for the groups affected.
Alternatively, you can do what Canada did when it introduced a GST, which is to set up refundable tax credits. The UK introduced a compensation package when it increased the VAT on fuel and power in the 1990s. When the USA joined NAFTA it set up special compensation measures for workers adversely affected. At a more modest level it is what the Keating government did when it increased pharmaceutical charges for pensioners, but fully compensated them through the introduction of the Pharmaceutical Allowance.
So there are lots of examples of governments following this general approach in Australia and throughout the world.
The main complication is practical: that is accurately calculating the price effects of the tax change – and their distribution – so that you can work out the appropriate compensation package. But this involves exactly the same sort of issues as designing the compensation package for the GST – although there were critic at the time who argued that the Howard government undercompensated some low income groups (and over-compensated others).
In passing, even if you fully compensate or even over-compensate many lower income households, the standard theory of consumer behaviour implies that changes in relative prices will induce households to substitute towards lower taxed goods and services.
PW – your last point is v important. Every time I hear someone say that compensation that offsets the income effect of carbon pricing defeats the purpose of putting a price on carbon I want to slit my wrists! And the same mistake is made on the production side. Substitution effects can be quite powerful when households and firms believe that a change in (and trend in) relative prices will be permanent.
I&U. I wasn’t suggesting there are no arguments in favour of a carbon tax. Advocates of such an approach can quite rightly feel aggrieved that none of those reports I mentioned fairly addressed the issue. My point was that it doesn’t do a lot of credibility for government when the approach that the official sector had argued would not and should not be implemented suddenly becomes public policy. Listening to Swan try and argue why the tax wasn’t really a tax was excruciating.
The ABC reported that Tony Windsor was was talking a lot more sense than either major party on the carbon tax.
On the proposed advertising campaign:
Windsor has not committed to supporting the carbon tax.
All of this compensation talk assumes that if the government proposes to increase someone’s electricity bill by $100 and then give them $100 cash in hand, they’ll be happy to take the deal.
Unfortunately, that appears to be not true. Is this rational? Maybe not. 100 bucks is a 100 bucks, right? But maybe people just don’t trust the government to deliver on the compensation.
Whether people would take the $100 cash in hand and spend only a bit of it on electricity, but still end up sitting in the cold and dark because the price of electricity has gone up, while spending the rest on other stuff (bananas, hookers, what have you) – which means, you beauty, lower GHG emissions – is all very interesting, but we won’t get to test “the standard theory of consumer behaviour” unless the government can convince people to take the deal.
LO @ 192, me too. Combet is very clear that they are seeking behavioural change on the part of producers of emissions. Compensation of consumers means that they won’t have their hands in everyone’s pocket as claimed by Tony Abbott, whi is the real ruthless liar in this whole deal.
John D @ 193, I think the government would be insane to indulge in advertising before a scheme is through parliament, installed and working.
Sure, badly handled, own goal, no figures provided, a reversal on pre-election position, hasn’t been sold yet at all yet etc etc (I agree with ‘badly handled’, btw) – and STILL 46% 2PP of punters are on board with it.
It couldn’t have been done worse, and now the task before the govt is a Herculean one of ….converting 4% of the population to their scheme.
All of whom voted or preferenced the ALP in 2007 or 2010.
Keep a bit of perspective guys.
LE @182: You are right to say that some individuals and organizations will pay extra for clean alternatives. This can be driven by idealism as well as commercial advantages in terms of image, modernity etc. However, the effect of this behaviour on total emissions is marginal. If we want serious change we have to use things that do have some grunt like setting up contracts for the supply of clean electricity.
It is interesting to note that the LNP dominated Brisbane City Council has been using competitive tendering to set up a contract for the supply of clean electricity. The contract will include the construction of a clean electricity generator somewhere in Qld. The BCC already uses 100% green power for street lighting and all its other power requirements. Having an engineer as lord mayor is not all bad.
UK govt released their low Carbon plan yesterday: http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/what_we_do/lc_uk/carbon_plan/carbon_plan.aspx
I referred to the standard theory of consumer behaviour deliberately. Basically if you reject this, you reject microeconomics – which of course some people do.
However, this is much more than some abstract theory – substitution towards lower priced goods and services is one of the things for which the weight of statistical evidence is close to overwhelming. It happens every day of the week – increases in petrol prices reduce petrol consumption, increases in banana prices reduce banana consumption. When people go into the supermarket one week and beans are $12.99 a kilo and broccoli is $7.99 a kilo they buy broccoli. Next month when beans are $7.99 a kilo and broccoli is $8.99 a kilo they buy beans. Not everybody does this to the same degree, since some people will never eat broccoli, but as I said the statistical evidence for it happening overall is stronger than just about any other economic theory.
That may be true, JohnD, but its not what I said at 182.
Sam @194,
I agree. What’s worse is that it is not “cash in hand” but payment via the tax and benefit system. That makes it very hard for individuals to ascertain how much “cash” they are actually getting back.
I think there is much to be said for paying some compensation through the electricity bill itself, with a fixed monthly $ rebate. The rebate would/could not be targeted – it would be the same for everyone – although extra rebates could be paid to concession card holders through existing State schemes.
Incurius and Unread and Sam,
c’mon you two kids, you’ll be wanting help wiping your bum’s soon. People who have a problem budgeting for electrical bills and the like will no doubt have a problem after this change as well.
The sole substantive task is to persuade an extra 4% of the electorate that the Labor program is superior to Abbott’s gift to unscrupulous spivs.
With intelligent education, that should not be difficult.
Australian voters have already been down that path in rejecting Abbott’s extraordinary parental leave bribe, a program that horrified the big end of town. The big end of town should also be horrified at Abbott’s $10b giveaway, a program that will surely cause huge and uneconomic distortions in Australia’s investment environment.
“The sole substantive task is to persuade an extra 4% of the electorate that the Labor program is superior to Abbott’s gift to unscrupulous spivs.”
This is a bit misleading on 2 counts.
No polling has been done, as far as I know, about the popularity or otherwise of the Coalition proposal- the ‘don’t know’ would be huge, I imagine- and secondly, the Newspoll question does not fairly represent the governments plan.
This is the way the poms are selling their carbon pricing scheme:
Why is it beyond anyone in the current ALP to sound as remotely as convincing, succinct and visionary as this? What is the matter with these people????
“The sole substantive task is to persuade an extra 4% of the electorate that the Labor program is superior to Abbott’s gift to unscrupulous spivs.”
That’s assuming Labor’s position doesn’t worsen.
Bobalot said:
Doing well in the polls is not one of the significant objectives of any non-corrupt regime. One only want to stay ahead in the polls so that one can get important stuff done. If the only way you can stay ahead in the polls is to avoid doing important stuff, then you are a failure as a government, even if you keep winning. You’d be better off stepping aside for someone who fancied their chances of improving on your effort.
We’ve done this one to death here. It was stupid the first time it was claimed and reduxing it (along with the “ideological purity” trope) just makes it sound trolling.
Adrian@205 I will be surprised if the British carbon plan will receive much attention, here, by our media, even though it is important ammunition for the government plan.
Which kind of answers your question in a way. Fine words and good intentions are just drowned out. In fact, I would not be surprised if Gillard or Combet have said something similar but it has not seen the light of day because Julia has a boyfriend who is not doing much on o/s trip or something.
Indeed, I am surprised you even asked.
Yes joe2, I understand the media’s role is to misrepresent, distort and dramatise just about everything to Labor’s disadvantage, but they have got to develop a way of overcoming this.
Hearing Greg Combet’s heavily edited snippett of ABC balance this morning left me despairing of their ability to cut through the media fog.
Why? What’s wrong with incremental improvement rather than a hard to sallow scheme to fix something that many Australians don’t even believe in.
It looks like in 2013, Labor will be swept aside in a landslide along with the Carbon Tax.
I say this as a lifelong Labor supporter. I truly hope that things get turn around, but I doubt it.
Intelligent education is impossible from this bunch of losers in the government. Not one can lucidly cut through the motherhood statements which are a waste of time.
Bashing the coalitions stupid plan is just as hopeless as being unable to explain your own.
If this is as good as the government has got, then they are gone. If they have better, then why haven’t we heard it. Please leave the Swanster at home so he can drain the water off his brain. He can’t work out what is a tax and what isn’t.
Was it just me, or did Leigh Sales roll her eyes ever so slightly after Toolman’s “political report” tonight on 730?
Lateline reported tonight on CATA (Consumers and Taxpayers Association) which is co-ordinating an anti-carbon tax rally on the lawns of Parliament House on Wednesday 23rd March 2011 at High Noon.
There is provision on CATA’s website to send a message to the PM. So far they have not removed supportive messages. So why not send a positive message and also support the Government in the various Polls on the site.
http://www.nocarbontaxrally.com/cata.html
@ 211 Puzzled Cat the PM explained the Government’s policy very ably in Question Time last week. Here is the Hansard record:
Ms GILLARD–Let me explain in detail our mechanism for pricing carbon. The first proposition is an incredibly simple one. At the moment carbon pollution can be released into the atmosphere for free. There is no disincentive for doing that. We will put a price on carbon, a price on every unit of carbon pollution. It will be paid for by businesses and as a result, because our business community is smart and adaptable and innovative, they will work out ways of pursuing their business and generating less carbon pollution. They will work out ways of making sure they pay less of a price when carbon is priced.
Then they will enter into contracts, they will make investments on the basis of understanding the rules and understanding that carbon will be priced. And as they go about making those transitions, innovating, making the new investments of the future, we will work with those businesses in transition to a clean economy.
Having priced carbon and seen that innovation, yes, there will be pricing impacts; that is absolutely right. That is the whole point: to make goods that are generated with more carbon pollution relatively more expensive than goods that are generated with less carbon pollution. But because we are a Labor government this will be done in a fair way. We will assist households as we transition with this new carbon price.
What that means is that people will walk into a shop with money in their pocket, the government having provided them with assistance. They will see the price signals on the shelves in front of them—things with less pollution, less expensive; things with more pollution, more expensive—and they too will adapt and change. They will choose the lower pollution products, which is exactly what we want them to do. Between the business investment and innovation, between households who have been assisted in a fair way by a Labor government responding to price signals, we will see a transition to a cleaner economy, to a low-pollution economy.
Sorry Tosca, that is akin to motherhood statements. About as useful as moving forwards or big new tax. Neither party has a clue. However Gilard has only herself to blame for the problem she now faces.
Gillard said:
“We will put a price on carbon, a price on every unit of carbon pollution. It will be paid for by businesses and as a result, because our business community is smart and adaptable and innovative, they will work out ways of pursuing their business and generating less carbon pollution.”
So EVERY unit of carbon pollution will be taxed and paid for by business?
Do any of you take this government seriously at all? Gillard breathes out CO2 so business will pay for it?
Termites release CO2 when they breakdown wood so business will pay for it?
Or are we saying that only CO2 released from money making activities is polluting and CO2 from everything else is harmless? How do you identify the dangerous CO2 from the harmless CO2?
Reductio ad absurdum!!!
BTW the polls just got worse for the government. Is it any wonder when this sot of rubbish comes from the PM’s mouth?
Popcorn futures are going through the roof.
amortiser,
Congratulations on the most ridiculous blog post in the history of mankind.
amortiser, since you evidently have a memory like a sieve, here is Fran answering the very same questions from you a week ago.
I notice you neglected to respond.
The election is 2½ years away and by that time the carbon tax/price will have been quietly chuntering away for at least 12 months or more.
As with the GST, consumer outrage will largely be a non event. Very few people will be checking their old power bills and comparing them with their new ones.
And once such a tax is implemented, ranting and raving ala Abbott becomes background noise.
It seems to me that all the current sound and fury from the opposition is aimed at an attempt to force an election and gain power to wreak havoc before the Senate changes composition.
Once that deadline is passed, they’ll run out of steam until a few months before the next election. And by then I don’t think the current confected carbon outrage will have the legs it has now.
To be sure they’ll try the old broken promise schtick, but that’ll be so 2½ ago; and in NSW the reality of a coalition government will have hit home.