Mark Latham has a piece in the Review section of today’s Fin, excoriating the policy convergence that has characterized the election campaign, and Australian politics more generally. The catchphrase that’s caught media attention is “a Seinfeld election, a show about nothing”.
I generally agree, though I’ll note that, to complete the case, Latham needs to do a bit of convergence of his own, arguing that the election doesn’t matter as regards climate change because the big powers will decide everything. I disagree. Howard’s status as Bush’s most reliable ally makes this one of the rare occasions when what Australia decides will make a difference.
John Quiggin 
Latho would be a shoo-in if they were recasting Frank Costanza.
Here in Victoria Labor is going to win a landslide simply because Rudd *isn’t* Latham.
Could someone somewhere please consider addressing Latham’s comments rather than the fact that it’s him saying it?
Haven’t seen it yet. Well apart from our host.
Personally I dont disagree with him. He’s saying the politically unacceptable.
Sadly, Australia’s Lizard Brains don’t really care about GWB, the Iraq War, or any other global issues. Latham got one thing spot on:
“The dominant ethos is greed, not generosity.”
Global Warming is different, because it hits home more obviously. We might have to pay for bloody water!
Nevertheless, Howard is right about one thing: economic management remains the core issue (again) in this election. But it’s just not working in his favour any more. Margo hits the nail on the head:
“Howard lied to win the 2004 election, as he lied to win the 2001 election. But in 2001, swingers didn’t care about lying over children overboard. And since they didn’t care, Howard didn’t care…
In 2004, the swingers did care about his lie that he’d keep interest rates low. It was the killer message for Latham. It won Howard the election.
So what is Howard to do?
On Wednesday, he said he was sorry…
But… he was directly responsible, the man in the middle, on interest rates. Unless, of course, he actually has no control over interest rates, in which case his 2004 promise was reprehensible, to say the least. And if that’s true, then neither does Kevin Rudd and Labor.
It’s a mess he can’t escape from.”
Possum’s graph tells the story. This election is all over, bar the shouting.
Latham is saying the bleeding obvious. His observations are commonplace in content, though ideosyncratically Lathamesque in form.
If Latham doesn’t like it and wants to change it he can do at least two things:
1. Rejoin the Labor Party and take it back to its days of apostolic purity. And precisely what version of the social democratic millennium might Latho have in mind? 1905? 1921? 1931? 1949? 1972? 1983? 1991? 2004 (chortle)?
2. He can start his own party.
On the other hand, if he just wants to whinge, he can write an op/ed for the Fin.
I concur with wilful. The reason there’s no reaction to the content of Latham’s piece is that Latham is pointing out that the Emperor is wearing no clothes. The notion that modern Australian politics is ideologically empty, emphasised in this campaign by the blatentness of the policy convergence, is life-threatening to the governing class and the media. I remember my of reading The Latham Diaries leaving me with a similar hollow feeling. Its a nice wake-up call in the middle of this marathon campaign.
‘Howard’s status as Bush’s most reliable ally makes this one of the rare occasions when what Australia decides will make a difference.’
Hmmmm … you’re conflating two things there John: Howard’s relationship with Bush and the Australian government’s actions on climate change. If the government in question is a Rudd Government, I suspect Latham’s observation is correct. Or are you assuming a Howard re-election?
Presumably we should choose Labor because of their prior stance on signing up to Kyoto, whereas the Govt has rejected that position so far, largely on the basis that without binding targets from big players like China and India, what’s the point? With Rudd and Garrett essentially joining that view now, we could say the Govt stance has been largely vindicated. Now the centrepiece of Kyoto has been cap and trade, which has demonstrably failed so far, yet despite that, both majors are talking of adopting cap and trade if the other big powers do likewise in future. If that’s not convergence and metoo, as well as allowing big powers to decide everything, then I don’t know what is.
That aside, the question then arises as to whether we should rubber stamp the big powers if they agree on some form of global cap and trade. For mine that’s asking the impossible, because of the likely treatment of different jurisdictions, largely due to existing per capita emissions. In an ideal world we need to cap total emissions for say India and China and set developed world targets on the basis of those per capita caps. That won’t happen for the obvious, so the only alternative is to give I&C much higher caps than their current emissions now. The result of doing that, will see a speedy march of CO2 emitting industries to I&C to redress that imbalance, thereby negating the whole purpose of the scheme. That leaves the obvious fallback position of a universally agreed carbon tax and a level playing field. If that can’t be agreed upon, how on earth will caps plus policing possibly be an option? JQ and others can try their hardest to differentiate the dumb tweedledee and tweedledum stances at present, but I’m having none of that. It’s delusional, as the call today by all the Australian carmakers to freeze tarriff cuts, amply demonstrates. How Kyoto fans figure they’ll impose cap and trade carbon costs on top of that, whilst Chinese carmakers carry on business as usual, is anyone’s guess. Ivory tower stuff really.
The OTHER reason there’s no reaction to the content of Latham’s piece is that both Rudd and Howard think his comments will be beneficial to their campaigns.
Howard thinks Latham is bashing Rudd. Rudd thinks this will help distance him even further from the Far Leftwing Unionists scare-campaign.
We all know Latham is batsh*t crazy anyway (coz that’s what the Meejah told us). Who else would have called GWB “the most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory.” Lucky we didn’t vote for such a nutcase! As the Meejah tell us, he would have been even worse than Gough Whitlam:
Crazy! I tells ya…
Yeah, yeah, I know. Industry policy like the NSW Govt’s 30 year emissions exemption for a new Onesteel steelmaking plant.
Mark Vaile has now reacted to Latham, saying it proves Rudd is me-too. From the comments at ABC Online:
“Who’s Mark Vaile?”
Also, a suggestion that Latham should run for Senate one day. Now that would be interesting…
Observa,
You say that “Now the centrepiece of Kyoto has been cap and trade, which has demonstrably failed so far…”
On what basis do you claim this?
I saw a good presentation the other day at the ARC Centre for Complex Systems on cap and trade, modelling of C02 reduction/pricing and so forth and the conclusion the presenter came to was that while the EU’s first period of allocation was a stuff up driven by over allocation, the system is working pretty well now/into the future.
Pr Q says:
Howard-hatred sighting. THere is no need to refer to some alleged Bush-Howard axis of evil to explain the LN/P’s climate policy. The LN/P would have supported Iraq-attack and backed off Kyoto whether or not Howard was PM or Bush was President.
The LN/P would have supported Iraq war for standard right-wing reasons: attraction to US alliance. Complementarily, they would have backed-off Kyoto for standard right-wing reasons: aversion to greenies. Howard is not taking orders from Bush, he is taking cover behind Bush.
Howard opposes Kyoto for domestic political reasons, because he relies on the votes of outer-suburban car-drivers and the donations of energy suppliers. This was proved when most of the cabinet backed Howard when Turnbull put his plan to sign on to Kyoto. They are catering to their electoral and industrial base.
MOre generally the mantra that Howard is Bush’s poodle is a delusion of the Howard-hating Left. Gun-controlling, Border-proteting, GST-levying Howard is about as different from Bush as you can imagine a right wing politician could be.
Observa, people consider the ‘vibe’ and sincerity of potential governments on issues as much as they do their specific policies. That’s a commonsense approach, because nobody realistically should expect total adherence to election policies, since things change and new problems emerge. For example, negotiating stance and approach to bali and then Copenhagen in 2009.
It’s pretty easy to see that a Labor Cabinet will be marginally more responsive to climate change issues than a Lib/Nat one. So while their black-and-white policies have little difference, their policies through one or two terms of government would be likely to be substantially different.
Hilarious ABC headline: “Howard Pounces On Latham Broadside“. Hardly a “pounce” after half a day, but I geuss you have to allow for his age…
I don’t think Howard even read Latham’s article, given that he completely misinterprets it:
“Peter Garrett had said we’d change it all when we get in, and Mark Latham says that we all expect, we all hope, that it will be a lot more, he uses the word ‘progressive’, I use the word ‘radical’, a lot more radical if the Labor Party gets in.”
Um, John? … Latham said a Rudd govt will be CONSERVATIVE!!!
Howard is just desperate now, drowning in his own excrement, desperately grabbing at whatever bits of flotsam he can see. Sad, innit?
And what IS this bit about: “he uses the word ‘progressive’, I use the word ‘radical’…”
Is it suddenly OK to just re-interpret people’s remarks by substituting your own words?
Sad. Sad. Sad.
🙂
This may explain Mr Howard’s lexicographical difficulties, Gandhi:
Prime Minister John Howard said today that Australians in general have never been better off, but admitted some individuals may be feeling cost of living pressures.
He also defended saying “sorry” to people affected by the interest rate rise – but refused to get into what he called a word game about whether it amounted to an apology.
“I am the Prime Minister, I am not an English teacher,” Mr Howard said.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/11/09/1194329455488.html
wilful: Rudd will substantially alter workchoices, removing much of it. He will also draw down forces in Iraq. The ALP will tend to spend more on infrastructure rather than just try and maintain a budget surplus. They are far less likely to increase funding to private schools and reduce funding to government schools. They will probably also increasing education spending.
In addition, they will react to circumstances differently to the Liberals. Their ideology is centre-left not centre-right.
These are real differences.
Latham’s rant may help, so it’s all good. The contrast between the bombastic and unbalanced Latham against the measured, thought out Rudd is shown strongly.
sien, don’t worry about me. I know where my 2PP vote will end up. And what the real differences are between the parties.
Latham’s telling us, for those that didn’t know, that we’re a pack of selfish, mealy-mouthed hypocrites. Both main parties.
Like, der fred.
re: Latham remarks
lets just remember that a good 60% of Australia think Latham’s a fruit cake, not too mention the 40% that think he’d make Mao look like a conservative. This could only be a positive for Rudd. Whilst he and Latham detest each other, Kev’ll be giving a hat tip to Latham for this one…
Yes Katz, that naughty boy Howard should have been more precise and said-‘According to the ABS, the average Australian household has never had it so good.’
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,22729994-31037,00.html
I totally agree with you that it’s always important to be a stickler for good grammar and the facts.
Sam you ask- ‘On what basis do you claim this?’ Essentially the overall results of Kyoto cap and trade to date in reducing emissions, discounting the easy low hanging fruit of reforming previous Eastern Bloc dirty industries. The latter could have been achieved by many methods, not least the spread of market based technological transfer which was probably the case. Still a surge could work if Rudd’s our new Petraeus, with some proven new approach to the problem at hand, but that’s where I have serious doubts. On that I’m supposed to trust in ‘vibe’, ‘tone’ or ‘flavour’, when it really all sounds like dumb, more of the same, metoo and providing of course the big powers agree first. Not too much room for an exemplary approach in that it seems to me. Basically I’m now facing a symphony of cap and trade equals carbon tax plus corporate welfare and bugger the little bloke. Between big biz, big union, big govt, they’ll no doubt stitch up emission rights like our forebears did with Murray Darling water rights and bugger the grandkids. If leftists are so enamoured of a utopian targetted dream, that they can’t see the wood for the trees, then so be it, but I’m not going down without pricking their inflated sense of self importance on this burning issue.
That’s the ‘vibe’ about GW really. You see if you’d asked any cross-sectional gathering of reasonable intelligence this question in the last decade or so, namely- If all the LDCs in the world were as successful as we in the MDCs are at utilisinging our natural environments for our physical wellbeing, would the world be a better place? To that you’d get an uncomfortable silence and a quick change of subject. Not so now. The silent have suddenly found their voice in the issue of GW and have donned their moral badges and are all in the streets chanting the new mantra. It’s all about fossil fuels and polar bears now and their new found heart suddenly rules their previously confused heads. That’s the real vibe now and perish those that want to say let’s all sit down and think this thing through for a moment.
Me, I’m a cynical old bastard and when big biz, big union, big govt are all playing the same symphony, I’ll check the price of the ticket despite the odd free comlimentary pass. However, I’m the eternal optimist and if like the discovery of electricity, by some miracle of nanotecnhology or harnessing fusion we gain access to an unlimited supply of clean energy, then all that cap and trade begone and all our problems are solvered eh?
Latham’s most interesting comments were about the need the politicians and media have to create a sense of crisis. The hospital system was one good example he used. Because of the tabloids going on about every mistake they can find, most Australians think the health/hospital system is in crisis and needs to be rebuilt. In fact the system is doing very well. It could do better but it doesn’t need a revolution to fix it. Does it matter that people have this false view of the hospital system? I think it does. It means politicians have incentives to do things to keep the tabloids off their
backs, but those actions are not necessarily those that are the most efficient and effective interventions. And health workers act in very defensive ways, which is not always in the best interests of patients.
It would be nice to explore ways of encouraging the media to act in a more constructive way with regard to health policy and administration, but avoiding a compliant media.
From the Weekend Oz-
‘Former anti-uranium campaigner Peter Garrett will be required to approve three major uranium mining projects in his first term as environment minister if Kevin Rudd is elected on Nov 24.
One of the first major decisions he would face next year as environment minimster is final approval of BHP Billiton’s proposed $7bill extension of its giant Olympic Dam mine in South Australia.
BHP president of uranium and Olympic Dam development, Graeme Hunt, said yesterday that uranium from the expanded mine-550km north of Adelaide-would yield enough carbon offsets to achieve the reductions set out in the Kyoto Protocal.
‘The potential of uranium out of Olympic Dam could easily meet the world’s Kyoto targets,’ he said yesterday at a symposium of business leaders in Adelaide.
Final ministerial sign-off on the Olympic Dam extension, as well as the Beverley uranium mine also in South Australia, are due during the next term of federal parliament as required by the Environment and Protection of Biodiversity(EPBC)Act.
Mr Garrett’s office did not respond yesterday to enquiries from the Weekend Australian as to whether he would have any concerns granting approval to these projects if they complied with the act, after earlier this year saying he would not support any proposal to expand uranium mining in Australia.’
And with that we can safely add to our list of Golden Rules like never come between a State Premier and a bucket of royalties, to never come between a non-inhaling oily environment minister and a bucket of uranium offsets. Welcome to the harmony of wall to wall Labor.
[…] But that’s the way the article has been parsed, both in the media and from a lot of commenters in the blogosphere. And then we have the audacious claims from John Howard and Peter Costello that Latham was letting […]
” BHP president of uranium and Olympic Dam development, Graeme Hunt, said yesterday that uranium from the expanded mine-550km north of Adelaide-would yield enough carbon offsets to achieve the reductions set out in the Kyoto Protocal.
‘The potential of uranium out of Olympic Dam could easily meet the world’s Kyoto targets,’ he said yesterday at a symposium of business leaders in Adelaide.”
I find BHP’s idea that exporting uranium could constitute an offset pretty funny for several reasons. Firstly, for something to constitute an offset, it has to satisfy tests of additionality, permanence, measurability and so on. Just because a certain amount of energy is generated with lower CO2 emissions than other energy sources doesn’t necessarily mean that that energy will be generated by a higher emission source otherwise. The CO2 emissions from the other source (whatever that may be) could be avoided by increased energy efficiency. There is a huge amount of “low hanging fruit” from energy efficiency savings because of the huge amount of market failures involved in avoiding energy efficiency.
Secondly, there is a very large amount of highly enriched uranium that can be mixed with natural or depleted uranium to produce fuel rods. The shortfall in world primary uranium productions (equivalent to about 20,000 tonnes of lightly enriched uranium) is almost entirely made up for in this way. Plutonium from decommissioned nuclear weapons or spent nuclear fuel can also be combined with thorium to produce nuclear fuel rods suitable for pressurised water reactors. The US and Russia still have plenty of nuclear weapons that they really don’t need. We would all be much better off without these weapons being around. Exporting more uranium does not mean that an equivalent amount of extra energy will be generated by nuclear power.
Finally, if we are going to try to measure the climate change impact of the uranium we export, we should also consider the climate change impact of the coal that we export. The emissions from the coal that Australia exports is greater than the Australia’s direct emissions. Neither Labor or Liberal are interested in looking seriously at this issue even though they seem quite concerned at any ‘carbon leakage’ that may occur if an aluminium smelter were to close, for example. I doubt that BHP would be interested in the emissions associated with our coal exports either.
No form of emissions trading that includes exporting uranium as an offset would ever be taken seriously.
ProfQ,
“In fact the [hospital] system is doing very well. It could do better but it doesn’t need a revolution to fix it.”
With resepct, I’m not sure you would be saying that if YOUR father had died due to a lack of beds, or if YOUR wife miscarried on the floor of the emergency room, etc, etc.
I don’t know if it needs a “revolution” but there are certainly major problems which need fixing – WITHOUT b.s. political grandstanding. Seems to me that funding is a major part of the problem and the State-Fed blame-game has gone on way too long.
OTOH I’m not holding my breath waiting for any real solutions at this stage of the election campaign. Maybe a Labor State-Fed whitewash will open the door to some proper improvements.
COCKROACHES crawled on operating tables during procedures!
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22743151-12377,00.html
“No form of emissions trading that includes exporting uranium as an offset would ever be taken seriously.”
It’s probably not meant to but more to sit snugly alongside cap and trade. Hey if exporting coal is a negative, why not uranium as a positive, or in China’s case solar panels or solar hot water system exports? The possibilities are endless in the world of the offset mind. Just ask Al Gore.