Killing the ETS was a team effort
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And then there was one. Malcolm Turnbull — ostensibly still leaving, but hopefully announcing this week that he’ll remain — is now the only senior politician in federal parliament who wants to take effective action on climate change. Turnbull’s successor in the coalition leadership doesn’t, mainly because he thinks climate change is “crap”. Liberal moderates are too cowed or too self-interested to say otherwise. Greg Hunt, he of the thesis on emissions trading and the oft-proclaimed commitment to climate change action, cut and ran last December to save his shadow ministry, signing up to a “direct action” policy that he is smart enough to know is utter bollocks. The government is no longer interested, pushing an ETS off into the never-never, into a sort of timeframe that should be called Nelsonia, after the hapless Brendan who lost his job for suggesting similar timing. Who in the government ever really believed in the cause of taking effective action on climate change? Peter Garrett, most assuredly. Who else? Not, it appears, Kevin Rudd or his Teflon-coated Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, who seems to have escaped responsibility for presiding over a complete debacle. The Prime Minister rightly copped it last week for letting Greg Combet and Kate Ellis — Kate bloody Ellis — announce some bad news. Yesterday Rudd did the dirty work himself (assuming he would have done so had not Lenore Taylor pushed him into it), but Wong needs to bear considerable responsibility. I said ages ago that if Julia Gillard had been running this issue — because, as we all know, she has a lot of spare capacity — we might have had a very different outcome. Hell, even Nicola Roxon has been able to secure passage through the Senate of controversial Bills. But as much as Rudd and Wong are the stand-out performers here — played strong, done fine — it was a team effort. Reading the savage commentary from the press gallery this morning, I was reminded that my dear colleagues in the press have had a not-insubstantial role in this. I speak not merely of that malignant tumour on the face of Australian policy debate, The Australian, but of the many other outlets that did so much to corrupt debate over the ETS and, ultimately, over climate change itself. Every journalist and editor who ran a piece on dodgy polluter-commissioned modelling from economics consultancies, with their patented Rubbish-In-Rubbish-Out Job-Loss-O-Meters, demonstrating that vast swathes of industry would close because of a 1% or 2% increase in costs — you too can hold your heads high. Every editor who gave climate denialists and their wingnut theories coverage — you too can claim some credit. And our friends at the national broadcaster should not be forgotten — the ABC’s sterling commitment to “balancing” climate science with the ravings of conspiracy theorists (“balance” in some cases meaning ignoring the former and giving generous coverage to the latter) earns them a nod as well. So, all those swingeing, outraged attacks on Rudd today from the press? Let he who is without sin, etc. In the early days of the Rudd government I thought the question would be whether it would be a major reforming governments in the Hawke-Keating-Howard tradition, or a risk-averse, Bob Carr-style government that achieved incremental reform, spun big but let long-term problems pile up. That question has now largely been answered: Kevin Rudd is much closer to Carr than to Hawke and Keating. History suggests governments’ second terms are better than their first, but also that they run out of reform puff after two terms. The Rudd government is nearing halfway through what history suggests will be its most reforming years and what has it got to show for it? It’s been fine at valuable small and medium-level reforms (like the over-hyped health package, or Chris Bowen’s excellent financial services reforms), but what about the big-picture stuff? With an economy set to resume a resources boom and big questions around infrastructure, housing, the banking sector and skill shortages, there’s no lack of reform opportunities. Its two excuses don’t wash. The coalition’s reflexive opposition to pretty much everything needn’t be a barrier. Labor routinely tried to stymie John Howard’s most significant reforms, but he negotiated many of them through the Senate, figuring the benefits of reform were worth doing deals with clowns such as Mal Colston, Brian Harradine and Meg Lees. And yes the GFC has stripped the Budget bare of surpluses that could have been used to fund reform, but the Hawke, Keating and Howard governments all had poor fiscal circumstances to deal with — and it made them even hungrier for reform. This Sunday’s Henry Review could be the last chance for the government to set itself a real economic reform goal. Like the health system, our tax system is routinely bagged but actually works well compared to internationally. Nevertheless, there’s considerable room to improve efficiency — not to mention fixing the problem John Howard (not Peter Costello) bequeathed us of an over-reliance on corporate tax. Instead, there’s the sense that anything that might cost Labor support is off the agenda for Rudd. And you can’t take on real reform without risking support. Which leads to a question for Rudd: what exactly does he want to achieve as Prime Minister? Because that’s not clear any more. |
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59 Comments
What does Rudd want to achieve as Prime Minister, Bernard?
BEING THERE.
Savage analysis and merited on much information readily to hand. But do not underestimate the PM’s capacity to come in from a new direction — and hard.
Well said Bernard.
Perhaps it’s time the Labour ministry and backbenchers began to grow some spine.
Being bashed around the ears by a sanctimonious, micro-managing, hyper-manic ex- bureaucrat must be wearing a little thin.
I personally thought the CPRS was an utter dog of a bill.
But for Rudd to now front up to the country and basically say.
“We couldn’t get what we wanted, so we’re going to do nothing for another three years”……
It just seems like political stupidity of the first order.
What does Rudd want to do in government? One thing and one thing only: hold onto power. Power is the end that the major parties will do anything to gain and hold onto. And now we are seeing it with Rudd. It use to be a means to an end. But it has become THE end in itself.
Rudd’s Climate change package was weak and would have (to quote one of our Senators) “locked in failure”. But to abandon it altogether for another 3 years? … What the?… Can Rudd negotiate with the climate? Can he persuade the laws of physics to hold off for a few years?
The other day I welcomed a grandson into the world. I held this beautiful little baby and looked at his innocent face and I wondered: what on earth will he say about our generation? What sort of hisotry books will be written about out time? I suspect it will be the time of the lost opportunity: the time of neglect and self-interest. The time of manipulation by the rich and vested interests. The time when nothing was done to address the huge issues of our world. We use to say that of Howard’s 11 years. The pattern has not changed under Labor.
I hope my grandson and his peers will do better with the world that my generation has done. What a shameful disgrace we are.
No mention of Brendan Nelson, the honest politician that the godforsaken Canberra press gallery persecuted out of leadership. Apparentlythe Australian public’s appetite for insanity was considerably less than Bernard Keane’s and the Leftist Central aka the Canberra Press Gallery (including The Oz’s reps therein).
The trouble is half the clowns who are public representatives listen to Leftist Central instead of the people they actually represent.
The journos do have a lot to be blamed for but not the reason that Keane would like to believe.
Ha ha.
Once again you Lefties are played for suckers by Rudd. Just like you were on asylum seekers.
Where are you Venise? Where are you Marilyn?
I haven’t laughed at this much disillusionment since I first read “The God That Failed”.
“I speak not merely of that malignant tumour on the face of Australian policy debate, The Australian”
Jesus Keane, perhaps you should go look in the mirror sometimes.
Crikey is almost a mirror image of The Australian, they have a right bias, Crikey has a left bias. If I had to find a true point of difference it would be that they have a smattering of Left comment to at least present some semblance of an alternative viewpoint, something which Crikey seems to fiind beneath them.
As for blaming the ABC for presenting a level of time to voices opposing Government policy, you might want to remember that the next time they give time to people opposing the Government’s policies on refugees. Or do you only agree on balance when it is on issues you favour?
You can’t have it both ways, either they provide balance on all areas, or none.
Given the general hysterical tone of this piece, you come across as a bitterly disappointed supporter of the policy, rather than a clear-eyed observer reporting the facts, but then, that’s something you have never been, is it Bernard?
I’m torn on this issue. No quibble with the article though; Wong and Rudd botched this very badly. But, I’m not convinced they made the situation any worse.
The proposed scheme had been diluted to buggery to try and get the climate change deniers on side; there is no hope negotiating with the Greens, because they just didn’t have the numbers. Thus, the only hope was to dilute the scheme to make it more palatable to those who don’t really believe in it anyway.
Now that the first few options on my ‘hope for an ETS’ list have been crossed out, I move on to the next Blue Sky; maybe he’s holding it off until the Greens CAN help pass the bill, and they’ll ram through a proper scheme, much to the enormous chagrin of the irrelevant opposition.
Peter Phelps, you’re deluded if you think proper lefties voted for Rudd. They will continue to vote Green.
1. The 20% renewal energy bill is law so the investment in wind, solar and thermal will not stop.
2. The media, opposition and don’t forget the Greens, Xenophon and Fielding who voted with Abbott in a sign of utter bastardry have been utterly woeful on this and treated it like a game.
3. Turn off your frigging appliances, stop driving everywhere and so on.
And gag Peter Phelps, he is as much use in a debate as tits on a bull and one of the problems in this country.
I love the way all media though are taking cheap shots about the GFC without remembering that the consequences are still being felt all over the world one way or the other while we are still nothing more than a quarry for China.
Did anyone notice the major pension reform that happened? Nope, bet they didn’t.
It is also disgusting that Bernard seeks to brutalise Kate bloody Ellis, who is an excellent and intelligent woman who takes her job very seriously.
You all whine when Rudd is a control freak not letting his ministers work, the whine when he does.
Time to all take you hands of the weenies.
Peter phelps one of the problems in this country. Come on Marilyn he’s about as problematic as a gadfly is to cow in a paddock.
Shepherdmarilyn: the Greens voted against Rudd’s proposal because it is so piss-weak. They were not agreeing with the Coalition or playing politics. They really do want something done about climate change.
It is easy to say “they voted with the Liberals” but sometimes people vote the same way for radically different reasons. One wants nothing done, and the other wants even more done… they both reject a weak as water piece of legislation, but they are not the same.
The Greens want to negotiate with Labor about a real climate change package. Mabye after the next election, they will finally have the numbers in their own right to assist Labor. As it was, Labor and the Greens still needed two more votes in the Senate, and one of them was Family First senator Fielding. … Say no more… Labor was forced to work with the coalition.
But after the next election… well: then we will see if Rudd cares or not wont we?
Michael James - The Australian isn’t ‘right-leaning’; it’s a clearing house for Liberal propaganda. That’s the problem Keane has with it. There are plenty of right wingers who are intellectually honest, but none of them write for the Australian, instead, people like Greg Sheridan do.
Jim the Greens wanted an instant cut in greenhouse gases by 40%. Want to shut down all those coal fired power stations today and see what the f…..k happens to the country?
I was working for a democrats senator when the CFC debate was on. Boycotting the products that kept using them worked better than waiting for stupid pollies to do the job for us.
Why on earth you prats whine about the guv’mint not doing anything is beyond me. Do they use all the power in your houses? Do they force you to drive your cars?
Talk about a pathetic little bunch of nanny clingers.
It’s fair enough for political spectators to encourage the fallen gladiator to make a comeback, especially in an election year—but there’s a big problem with the idea that Malcolm Turnbull is ‘the only senior politician in federal parliament who wants to take effective action on climate change’: he sacrificed his leadership over something totally different — a completely ineffective plan of action. He backed a scheme that promised to cap greenhouse pollution in Australia but would have allowed it to increase; that promised to make the polluter pay but would have paid the worst polluters with over 4 in every 5 emission permits for free; that promised economic transformation here at home but would have allowed 100% of Australia’s post-Kyoto emission reduction obligations to be outsourced through the purchase of carbon credits abroad; and, thanks largely to Turnbull’s efforts, a scheme that would have paved the way for soil carbon credits to swamp the carbon trade and in doing so enable Australia to avoid emission cuts at the smokestack and tailpipe for many years to come. Turnbull’s enthusiasm for the revised CPRS, and his promotion of the idea that cheap soil carbon credits could offset Australia’s emissions cheaply for decades (see: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=61516374094 ), were two sides of the same coin. Just like Rudd’s hollow rhetoric about ‘the great moral challenge’, it wasn’t about urgent action, it was about urgent acting. Yes, Turnbull deserves credit for staking his leadership on something—it’s only a shame that it wasn’t something worthwhile. Guy Pearse – Research Fellow, Global Change Institute – University of Queensland.
CRAP It is isn’t it. Tone is right. More than ever Tone is right. It is crap. I don’t know now what to tell my children. The environment is like Kurds. No body wants them, know what to do with them, will have them in there home so just let some ignoble bastard bomb the crap out of them. Climate change or not our energy makes pollution and 99% comes out of a hole in the ground. It will run out and then kill the air. What do I tell my children, my generation was proud of its tokenistic ideology so much so that it dumped it for politics. We will all become Climate change Kurds. I hate coal mines and miners more than I ever thought.
I am now more disillusioned than ever. A labor Voter since 1982. No more. Abbott has a snow flakes chance in a dust storm. I shall tell my children that I never could do anything. I guess we will all go to hell in the same hand cart.
Spineless spineless disillusioned crap. God I hope they don’t ring me to kick the tin in the next election. I will be happy to pay my $50 fine for no show than to put my mark on their history. A pox on all their houses.
Sherherdmarilyn:
One disagreement and then one agreement….
The Greens do not want to shut down all at once, right now, all power stations fueled by coal … we actually want to replace them over time. We DO want to start working on it, and stop subsidizing the polluting industries. But we have never advocated just turning off the power all at once!
But you are right in the other point you make: you and I (and hundreds of thousands of other Aussies) should be doing what we can, ourselves, to cut down on power use and other polluting behaviour. And boycotting products and producers who are part of the problem. I think this is actually where hope lies first and foremost. (My second hope for the future is that more and more people will vote Green.)
Gee ShepherdMarailyn, you know how to get people on your side don’t you?
“Why on earth you prats whine about the guv’mint not doing anything is beyond me. Do they use all the power in your houses? Do they force you to drive your cars?”
We whine about it because what you propose might slice 1% of Australia’s emissions. There are already 1m voluntary customers of GreenPower. And what difference does it make? None. Because the big energy users keep buying cheap coal power.
Please tell me what control I have over Alcoa’s energy source and how I can change that? Change this big needs to come from the top.
Stop buying alfoil. ALCOA are making a massive rort in the first place and a quick search or watch of Foreign Correspondent last year would have shown that they send most of their raw aluminium to places like Iceland to be processed in hydro-electric power stations.
Not that the MSM would know.
And I do know Greens policy, I don’t get why they would vote for a glass totally empty when they could have had a glass half full.
The Australian, not only being the mouthpiece of the Liberal Party, comparing their blogs and Crikey is like comparing Abbott with Oscar Wilde. At least Crikey does not vet contributors, apart from a few edits, from time to time, whereas The Australian just doesn’t print complete blogs if the topic doesn’t suit the particular writers angle. Not all, but certainly heavily moderated. So those of all political persuasions get a decent fair go here at Crikey.
Incidently, good article BK. While I am not happy with the new Kevin Rudd, there is no way Labor would move to change leaders at this late stage of the term. The Coalition continues to harp on a couple of topics, but overall the Govt is looking ok with the majority of the electorate happy with their progress generally. We haven’t seen any electoral big guns being fired at Abbott and his mates yet, when it happens, and it shouldn’t be long, then it will be interesting to see how Abbott, Abetz, and the other Opposition front bench whingers look when the smoke clears. Lets not forget Workchoices either.
The Greens would not have called it “half full” to significantly subsidize polluters, and not achieve worthwhile reductions in emissions. That was “locking in failure” and allowing complaceny to become entrenched.
I accept that there is an argument for incremental achievements. Indeed, a lot of politics is about that. But I am not sure that that logic can be applied to something as non-negotiable as climate. You just cant sit down at the table and ask climate change to slow down for a while until we get more seats in Parliament….
Okay SM, I’ve stopped buying aluminium, I ride to work everyday, grow my own veges and buy 150% greenpower to offset my other personal emissions. Still not making a difference. What next?
Kerry Stokes investing in WA Mining, and you wonder why people have grown to be more ignorant on the issue.
Labour didn’t bother to educate the public, and the public reflected that ignorance, no surprises.
@SHEPHERDMARILYN
There was no “half full glass” on offer. Upon analysis the CPRS would have seen an actual increase of Australia’s fossil fuel derived emissions (the intention was to mainly offset these overseas) and billions of dollars transfered into the hands of the polluters.
I think that the Rudd government must have misread the principle of polluter pays as paying the polluter.
The timing of this announcement so close to the budget such that the expenditure the CPRS would have generated is pushed outside of even the forward estimates is also interesting.
I still remember krudd saying ‘We all must do our bit’. That soon changed to ‘some may be in a position to do more than others’ and finally we found out that many would be 20% better off funded by the ones who actually work.
Holy crap, that’s quite an ETS. Maybe Marilyn was going to be one of the lucky ones.
Bernard, I half agree, and then half disagree with your assessment here. You seem to be bending over backwards to appear less biased, and in so doing giving the MSM exactly what they want i.e responding to the issue as they want (just as Uhlmann, for instance, is doing at the ABC right now if last night’s piece is anything to go by).
Of course the opposition in the senate is a barrier — why put forward legislation you don’t really want and don’t think will be effective just so you can get it passed? That is what the level of compromise the other parties asked for, and from diametrically opposed stands at that!
Saying Howard negotiated his way into compromise is a bit of a stretch — at times compromise just doesn’t do it — ask the greens, they refused to compromise in any way shape or form, until they KNEW that the ETS bill would not pass. (and that is a political move — even if it is couched in principle — I know, I emailed the Greens direct and begged for them to make some compromise, and all I got is “forget it, there’ll be no compromise unless there is a 40% cut — go and read our policy”).
I disagree that the govt. has pushed the ETS off into the never never … it simply faced the fact that as long as a hostile senate stayed hostile (and in some cases quite insane) the ETS will never pass. Vested interest and ‘holier than thou’ principles simply make it impossible.
The major issue with the CPRS is that none of the vested interests want to lose — therefore compromise really hasn’t worked (otherwise the Coalition wouldn’t have imploded over it!) Meanwhile, the govt is quietly working in the background, doing other climate change related things that, while not as explosive and interesting as an ETS debate, nonetheless will be making progress. Now all they have to do is retrain everyone to be less consumptive, or understand that they must pay for their excesses.
I do quite agree that the press (and others of vested interest) are largely responsible for this DELAY in ETS action. And whoever said the Murdoch press are a clearing house for Liberal propaganda — how right you are (as in correct).
For all you right-wing commenters here — it is interesting that you neither want the policy, but you also attack Rudd for not following through. A case of having a cake and eating it perhaps? The amount of effort that went into trying to get it to work speaks for itself. But in the end Rudd and co are realists. They know when to back off and reframe the argument for greater effect.
I just can’t wait for the election — if good ole Tone loses more seats, and the senatorial supremacy we might just get some of the positive long term agenda happening. (I had to laugh this morning at Steve Ciobo on Agenda … he said this govt. is merely looking for short term political gain. If that were the case, none of the infrastructure spending would be going ahead, there’d be simple band-aid cash injections into the heath system instead of major change, and they would do Tone’s parlour trick type of giving would-be parents $75,000 per year to ghave their well healed babies!)
greatest moral challenge?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Wtw0lPNno
With the current Senate numbers, even Labor + Greens + Xenophon was not enough to pass a CPRS without the support of Fielding or the Libs. In that regard, blaming the Greens is misguided.
Let’s not forget that Rudd did negotiate and make a deal with the Liberals to pass the bill, and the Libs reneged.
I am torn because I thought the CPRS was a dog (I want a cap-and-trade system without so many payoffs to industry) and I am sorry to see Rudd pushing the issue off until 2013.
Perhaps if the Greens get the balance of power in the Senate, then they can negotiate with the ALP for a half-decent policy.
If the Greens had decided to support the hopelessly compromised CPRS, and the government had been able to get Xenophon on side, the bill would still have relied on climate denier and Senate village idiot Steve Fielding to get through (fat chance…), or a member of the Opposition to cross the floor (try that with Abbott as leader).
That said I’m appalled that the government has taken it off the table completely. Nearly as appalled as I am at the Opposition’s climate change deniers regarding the issue as a useful political football rather than a serious threat to the biosphere.
Australia is not alone in finding the politics of climate change too difficult. Copenhagen showed that. Rudd and Wong clearly misjudged the global politics, and now they’re in damage control mode.
But Bernard’s right to point out the role of the media - particularly The Australian and its echo-chamber at the ABC - in peddling paid-for propaganda from the carbon polluters as fact.
And he’s right to point out the obstructionist role the Opposition has taken on this and other issues. Like the Republicans in the US, the Liberals’ only tactic now is to oppose for opposition’s sake.
You saw it in the US in their poisonous healthcare debate. You’re seeing it now on the well-overdue attempts to reform Wall Street’s reckless practices (filibustered in the Senate).
Politics has become dysfunctional and attempts to forge good policy are stymied by an irresponsible media, with a broken business model, that portrays hysterical opinion as straight reportage.
It is now wonder that the population is so cynical and no wonder that Rudd is afraid of reform.
Congratulations Bernard Keane. An excellent article but surely Kevin Rudd is clearly avoiding controversy in all he does so he gets re-elected. He has seen what the Liberals and Nats do to labour people and the climate change deniers have already made the public anti doing anything about climate change. All the time in the media including our so called independent ABC I read or hear denial stories and puff disputing the science of climate change without any science. In the face of this why wouldn’t Rudd cut and run. After all he has seen what the conservative parties in Australia have manged to do to previous labour goverments. So have a little pity for the man. The villians are elsewhere. But for God’s Sake do not let us have a Tony Abbot led next govenment. Elleven years of Howard was dreadful, please let us have no more from the mob.
I warned you. Putting a rock star and a labour lawyer in charge of climate change was a big mistake. Plenty of froth and bubble, and worse still lots of negotiation with the Big End of town, something that labour lawyers love. With people like Wong and Rudd the outcome isn’t important it’s the journey.
If you want something done put Combet and Gillard in charge of climate change. Combet can do the engineering and sort out the charf from the wheat on the science and technology, Gillard can do the politics, which basically means standing up to Rudd, the rent seakers and that dreadful conservative swill the “Liberal” party.
Ha! Keith … if Tony Abbott became our next PM we can look back to life in the sixties.
We’d have a renewed version of the “White Australia Policy”
Climate change will never be addressed.
He’d insist on ‘Christian’ studies in all schools (and probably all schools to become same sex — just in case kids are tempted to experiment).
The only welfare would be middle class (pensions and carers benefits will be basically frozen).
Australia would never become a republic.
‘Work No Choices’ will return under another label and gender inequity in the workplace would be even worse.
Workers would down tools in schools (and any other infrastructure) and any infrastructure reform would wither and die.
Health reform would wither and die.
Aboriginal Australia would be held completely to ransom as the intervention extends to everyone who has Aboriginal blood. Any thought of bridging ‘gaps’ will be shelved.
Universities would again go backward ….
I’m sure I can think of heaps more but I am sure everyone here knows these things already. After all, with a front bench basically bereft of forward-looking policy ideas (and therefore intelligence) it will be hard for it to come up with progressive or reformist policy.
How I love to see the Left in complete disarray as it dawns on them that this PM is really PM ” Blah Blah”.
And Bernard, I love that ” let him who is without sin..” biblical reference. Mate, what will your friends say? It’ll be lost on them. They think “sin” is a brand of ice cream.
When you start writing articles lauding Malcolm Turnbull, almost certainly the worst Liberal leader since Bill Snedden, time to take a break.
(not the other MICHAEL JAMES at 2:28 pm).
I agree with Guy Pearse that too much of a golden halo has been given to Turnbull on this. The Greens have been the most consistent and serious, with a workable plan for an EST. It is true that Senator Fielding was the real block not the Greens but equally, as Keane points out, Gillard and Roxon have got bills through the Senate. With the Greens and Xenophon on side only one extra vote was required.
With his statement yesterday, deferring any consideration to 2012, Kevin Rudd has also signalled that he plans to continue as usual. The Greens will control the Senate after the next election and could guarantee the passing of an effective ETS, but Rudd is obviously unwilling to give the Greens a “victory” even when he and Wong surely knows it would be a better and more effective bill. Sadly this appears to remove all doubt: Rudd is not fundamentally interested in the reality of climate change or even the potentially great green-industrial revolution that Australia could be a participant if not a leader. But, in turn, with their control of the Senate, will the Greens seize the day and play hardball with other legislation Rudd wants, to get their version of an ETS?
@ROBERT GARNETT at 5:34 pm. Combet and Gillard are both trained. disciplined lawyers who can take a brief and competently implement it. But Garrett (though trained as a lawyer never was tainted by practice) has passion and integrity and clearly works mostly for Australia rather than just political power for its own sake, proven over many decades now — in my opinion his standing has only increased, reinforced by the very fact that he is still there. His burning at the stake over the insulation mess is a travesty (and the fact that he has not been sacked is a tacit admission by Rudd about who is actually culpable). Rudd will never allow it but I would rather see Garrett take back responsibility for the ETS (and maybe water which Wong is also making a mess of) and work a deal with the Greens. It is certainly not too late. (This also shows the folly of the Labour party ceding all ministry appointments to the sole discretion of the leader.)
Oh, and while we can complain about Rudd’s timidity and utter obsequience to every passing whim of the voter, it shows that “crash or crash through” is a valid — and sometimes the only — way to get things done. This eternal delaying of the CPRS shows us not to expect anything better or more bold from Kevin Rudd in his second term.
Do you ever make comment on how MUCH MORE sensibly the stimulous should have been spent - what a disgusting waste of our, the taxpayes, hard earned this has been.
Penelope
You are right the Australian is not right leaning it is propaganda for the libs but more relevant is that they (the libs) match up better with the vested interests. If the Australian had any consistency or integrity it would support the ets and support let the market do the work approach of turnbull, labour, xenophone and the greens rather than the rubbish policy abbott has presented on global warming
Rudd had been disappointing me but this takes the cake, this is sickening and even more so that it has so much support. A large number of Australians are basically saying that we don’t think we should do anything about climate change, fuck the world I’m looking after no.1. To me now Rudd appears no better than Abbott. Australia’s foreign policy on asylum seekers and now climate change make us look like childish ferrels.
Gee I suppose if Rudd was so timid we could be Greece, Iceland, Ireland, England, the US, Portugal and numbers of other countries with large recessions, depressions, bankruptcies and so on.
for christ’s sake get over it.
One would almost think that Bernard believes that climate change is changing.
Penny Wong Penny Wong
Where has little Penny gone
They seek her here
They seek her there
Is she hiding in polluted air?
“Delay is Denial!”, The Great Helmsman said it.
Was he just Garnauting false carbon credit?
Who is he, this Eco- Hero?
who cares more about marginals like Eden-Monaro
The Great Challenge now is hospital beds
Sitting on them while they paparazzi his head
He’d make a good patient, all medicines he’ll swallow
It comes so easy when you are completely hollow
Penny Wong Penny Wong
Where has little Penny gone?
They seek her here
They seek her there
Perhaps Little Gracie
Can find out where.
Zimmy @7:40pm
Penny Wong is being interviewed by Kerry O’Brien right at this very moment.
But this viewer glazed over after the second or third or so repetition of her talking point (in response to KO’Bs asking why they wouldn’t call a double dissolution) which was something like “Kevin Rudd has made it clear what the position on the CPRS legislation is. And that the Australian people expect their governments to serve their full term.”
ha ha….i flushed her out!
Erratic policy making, illogical and irrational thought rule the lodge in 2010. That is of course when the PM is actually there, while the rest of the world was laughing at us as KRudd jumped the Copenhagen gun and shot his mouth off with his insane ETS . Now he has done a double back flip with a twist and put the whole evil thing on hold until 2013, now there’s something to look forward too. So the Greens wish to fight the forthcoming election on Climate Change, according to the Greens ever since the invention of the wheel, first use of a plough and the discovery of fire everything humans have achieved since is a crime against Gaia. This tax would have been a crime against every single Australian, it was wrong last year, it is wrong now and will be wrong in 2013.
Wong’s a dud. Second to worst minister in the govt. Whereas P. Garrett at least tried to fulfill his ministerial responsibilities, and indeed came through with an insulation scheme that was crucified by idiots, Wong has just f*cked Australia. She’ll be protected and Garrett wasn’t…
And the only opposition is run by an even bigger idiot than Wong…
Jeez…
And yes. Abbott is a dirty reneging rat who should be exiled.
“And our friends at the national broadcaster should not be forgotten — the ABC’s sterling commitment to “balancing” climate science with the ravings of conspiracy theorists…earns them a nod as well.”
As I’ve pointed out many times, the BBC and ABC either totally ignored AGW sceptics/deniers or (occasionally) lampooned them. They gave voluminous, absolute and uncritical space to AGW proponents. Until a mere 6 months ago.
The entire media/intellectual establishment was an AGW monopoly. Fear of ridicule silenced many. Only the Murdoch Right permitted Keane’s “climate crazies” any oxygen. This merely reduced the credibility of anti-AGW propagandists with the Australian establishment.
How ironic that an online site like Crikey isn’t aware that the internet destroyed the climate cult, not evil Rupert. Rupert has the mentality of a shark. Hardly has an abstract thought in his head. Don’t you realise he was recently converted to AGW by his family? And apparently he’s now lapsed- a lightweight blown by the sudden winds of change.
Forget untrustworthy ABC journos, geriatric “newspapermen” and “gullible” citizens. What shits me is the damage done to the Left and the environment movement by the AGW cult.
I was going to vote greens with preferences going to labor but the ETS vote changed that notion. It didn,t matter if the greens thought the labor ETS was dog of a plan at least it was a beginning. Instead we have nothing and putting it up again was going to have the same result. Bob Brown getting to say his bit and Abbott expressing whatever was the present liberal position and the vote going the same way. Why bother wasting time while giving others the opportunity to blow their horns ? With the family first clown always siding with the liberals even with if greens accepted something is better than nothing the ETS still gets voted down.
and @geomac - you’re right. Fielding is an even bigger idiot than the reneging rat.
Goemac: the ETS absolutely was a dog of a plan and it would have committed us to rewarding polluters, and aiming low on emissions, for years to come. It was a really really bad plan. It is good it got blocked.
I initially thought exactly the same as you have expressed here: I thought that it “would at least have been a start” and could have been fine tuned as they went. But NOT SO. Legal advice on the legislation stated that any change to the fine print (or rewarding polluters, etc) would have been financially penalised and the costs would have been so large, that it would deter any government from changing the details.
Still vote Green. They knew what they were doing in blocking a stupid piece of legislation. Hopefully if they get the balance of power in the Senate after the election, they will negotiate a real climate change package with Rudd.
shepherdmarilyn said:
Not even The Greens were expecting an overnight shutdown of coal-fired power. They might like the idea (I certainly do), but implement it? Not a chance. At least Bob had the guts to front up to miners a year or two ago and explain The Greens position.
And exempting Agriculture from the ETS? What a joke. Ag is responsible for a third of emissions!
THE ETS as crafted was an absolute dog. At least deferring it might mean it’ll come back right the second time around. It couldn’t be much worse even if they’d made a new direct tax to subsidise the big polluters!
Good grief, what a parochial, childish little pissant of a place this is.
We are whining about this on this blog for 24 hours and 30,000 kids under 5 died of hunger while we did it.
Excuse me if I think the money for a frigging turbine would be better off feeding kids.
Building a medical centre or three in Afghanistan so that 75,000 women don’t die in childbirth every year.
Sending food to the 1 billion who went hungry while we bickered.
The world collapsed, countries are broke all over the world and we are still whining about this pissant stuff.
@ Jim Reiher “I hope my grandson and his peers will do better with the world that my generation has done. What a shameful disgrace we are.”
Absolutely - My gave birth to our first child, a daughter into my arms at home 3 months ago and we wonder the same thing. We are doing the best we can to reduce our footprint on the world (vegan, solar, homegrown food, small car, cyclists etc) to leave it a better place for our little girl and the generations to follow.
Rudd and the ALP are not really much different then Abbot and the Libs, both parties of big business, both with fingers deep in the diamond lined pockets of the coal, mining, forestry, agro business etc industries. They all harp on about jobs but it’s spelt P-R-O-F-I-T-S. The switch to a renewable energy focussed & sustainable economy is about political will, about goign up against the corporations and taking a stand. The Greens have shown this but get as a little coverage as possible in the dud pile of dog doodoo we call the australian mainstream media. Geez all you have to do is name off some of the crackpots -Bolt, Sheridan Akermann, Albrechtsen, Devine etc and do you have any wonder why people are more concerned over the Melbourne Storm then the real shit storm coming our way?!
Rudd got in on a BIG green vote - the same vote that is going to kick his John Howard like arse later in the year…
@ Me - MY WIFE gave birth! Ooops!
Such a weird narrow view Shepherd.
A lot of us, myself included, want to see a price on carbon to start to address this imbalance. A price on carbon in Australia would have meant huge amounts of aid money pouring into South-East asia as we pay to protect their forests.
Also, the Copenhagen agreement, the start of all this, is one of the biggest aid packages ever put together. $100b per annum from developed to developing countries.
Talk about piss ant. Instead of encouraging this deal, from now on I’ll buy Fair Trade coffee and boycott palm oil instead. I’m sure that will make as big a difference.
shepherdmarilyn:
You’re just plain rude.
Carrying on to all and sundry with ill-mannered, self-righteous disdain like that isn’t assisting your argument one bit. As for the actual substance of that argument, let’s see … I wouldn’t call a thoughtful debate over what a meaningful climate policy should look like “whining” over “pissant stuff”. You wave your little green flag for the useless Rudd/Wong policy, and as soon as a few people come on here and agree that it was indeed “locking in failure”, you start swearing at them. You won’t even engage seriously with anyone who dares to suggest that simply telling/trusting the entire population to use less energy and boycott heavy polluters won’t work. You just sneer and spit.
Classy.
And I’ll remind you that you too are spending a fair bit of time on this “childish little pissant of a place”, bitch-slapping anyone who disagrees with you. So if you’re going to take a swing at everyone for sitting at a computer while women and children in other lands starve (and other red herrings) … then you’re going to knock yourself out as well.
Thanks for playing.
Response to @ROBERT GARNETT at 5:34 pm 28Apr10
Garrett was engaged (if not tainted) as an employed solicitor by Christie & Co Solicitors of Sydney in the early 8os. One of the firm’s major clients was the coalminer Austen & Butta Ltd - perhaps that was sufficient contact with the real world of the law!!
ShepherdM -
Yes: there are a lot of terrible issues in the world - but guess what? There is enough money and resources to fight those very issues you listed, AND do something about climate change as well. It is not an either/or debate. It can be both/and.
I remember over the last couple of decades how the world bank and the G20 type groups in the world, would say things like: “we cant let the poorest of the poor nations off their debt completely - we cant afford such a cost”. And little was done. Occasionally the absolutely most desparate nation or two might get some welcome relief. But nothing on a major scale.
And then… there was the global financial crisis… and the rich west found trillions of dollars to bail out its own financial institutions (us included to the tune of billions not trillions).
When their is determination, and commitment, we find the money. Tragically it usually only happens when the bad things are happening to the likes of us and other similar rich western peoples.
PS- and fighting climate change is in fact helping the poorest of the poor as well. They are the people and countries who have the least resources to fight the effects of climate change. They are often positioned in the most dangerous spots around the world, eg the millions of Bangladesh folk living in flood plains; the whole people groups of the Kiribus or Tavalu Islands etc.
Scrapping the CPRS isn’t Rudd’s fault, the Senate wouldn’t let him have that nor the ETS. Fair such of the sav, guys.