The ETS has been rejected, and the government has announced it will come back for a third try, adopting the failed deal with Malcolm Turnbull as its new policy. In short-run political terms, there are some obvious benefits here.
Clearly, a crucial consideration is that the government does not want to negotiate with the Greens and would much prefer a deal with the Liberals. But if they are looking at three or four terms in office (and they should be) they will have little choice but to make such deals.
I hope this bill is rejected once again, and that the government finally bites the bullet for a double dissolution.
John Quiggin 
In a DDE I won’t be voting Lib, Lab or Green. I can’t vote Liberal because they are insular and scientifically illiterate. Can’t vote ALP because they have mishandled the whole saga and will turn the ETS into an even bigger dog’s breakfast. Can’t vote Green because they like internet censorship and believe in techno-fantasies. That leaves ‘Independent’ and ‘Informal’. The I’s have it.
Oh, I must have missed the beginning of the Gillard, Wong, Combet interview, or misunderstood. I thought that they intended to introduce a new bill for the first time, on the first sitting day in Feb 2010. Afterall, post-Copenhagen a lot will have changed.
Hermit – the Greens like internet censorship? Can you please explain that comment?
If the government has significant numbers in a DD, I think we would end up with the same watered-down ETS that robs consumers to pay big business. Labor has shown zero appetite for being economically-, or environmentally- correct here but has moved plenty for lobbyists. If the Libs weren’t such a sinkhole of obdurate ideological denialism they could make quite a bit of political hay from this.
Considering the ETS alongside the recent decision on books and it looks as though the government has opened the door for all sorts of special pleading by vested interests. With a riven and jejune opposition, the trajectory of this government may end up scarily similar to that of state Labor in NSW.
Question: where are the Greens in all this? Their inability to play an effective part in the ETS either politically or though effective commentary reflects quite badly on them IMO.
I would keep a close eye on the elections this weekend (Bradfield exNelson, Higgins exCostello).
I expect the Greens will receive a fillip from both safe Liberal seats.
There may be a swing to independents generally.
Or there may be a swing to moderate Liberals…
An increase in Greens (say after a Double Dissolution when the quota is halved) will change the politics.
I say go straight to a DD and fight it on fear of workchoices.
Billions in nakedly corrupt bribes to the polluting industries, and refusing to deal with Greens, can turn these “enemies” into friends! And that is the ALP’s game plan – appropriate the Liberals’ Corpo-Right support base for themselves. The rest is just for show.
Labor Right has a website “The New City” or somesuch (I’m not about to google it) which pretty much proves that Labor Right is as bad as the Liberals on their worst day when it comes to climate.
I am profoundly lacking in optimism about the ETS legislation, simply because Labor wants to keep big business onside. Politically cunning, because everyone who benefited from the compromises will also be kept onside and the Libs will lose more of the centre right.
I believe the only person in Labor who should be sweating is Lindsay Tanner, who could lose his seat out of this. The greens came second in his electorate last election, obviously largely on Liberal preferences which flowed to the Greens candidate, rather than Green preferences flowing to him. A big move to the left or a big protest vote could have interesting consequences.
Abbott has ruled out the ETS and a direct carbon tax but says he will have a policy to cut carbon emissions. He says he won’t rule out nuclear being part of the mix. This sounds quite promising although I doubt they can sell nuclear to Australians that quickly. I hope they have a go anyway. I suppose he could also scrap spending earmarked for the NBN and use it to buy out the brown coal power plants in Victoria and maybe spend a bit on extra transmission interconnects between the states.
At least we will have a clear choice at the next election. Something the pollies usually work to avoid.
@Paul
Paul, Hermit’s comments most probably refer to the Greens’ choice of Clive Hamilton (one of the driving forces behind the government’s plans to filter the internet) to run in Higgins (I think – not sure which electorate).
Much has been made of this apparent conflict, given that the Greens of course oppose the filter, while Hamilton has been forced to tone down his support for the policy and his rampant moralism.
@2 tanners
I dont even care about the ETS now (sacrilege) . I care about keeping that b***** Abbott out of power. It needs to be fought, if there is a fight, on workchoices and people’s rights to a decemt working life. The ACTU needs to get up the scare campaign AGAIN and Rudd needs to put some money in to it (serious money). Sorry, but forget ETS for now. The objective is to keep the delusionists OUT of power and kill Abbott politically once and forever…so he dies with a knife in his back.
Let Rudd just get on with it.
@Hermit
I have no problem with some sort of filter on the net to help prevent minors accessing porn. Anyone with young male children will know that their access to internet porn is a problem. I haven’t seen anything in an article of Hamilton’s – like this one http://tinyurl.com/yke9376 – that strikes me as excessive. Of course whether such a filter is possible without side effects that are worse than the problem a filter seeks to address is still moot.
Special interest groups in IT are always very keen to promote ‘freedoms’ that shift money to IT -more web traffic = more money for IT
Dealing with the Greens won’t suit Labor because the Greens don’t support corporatism as the highest good.
I agree with Nanks.
Clive Hamilton’s concerns as written, as read, were related to the type of internet porn that frankly is indefensible on all grounds excepting freedom of expression.
We do need to come up with ways of blocking this material for people who inadvertently may stumble across it on the net who would have preferred to not have viewed it or even known of its existence, either on their own behalf as adults or on behalf of children in their care.
The ALP are little different to the Libs and any ALP deals or negotiations with the Greens on anything will only ever be motivated by furthering the interests of the ALP organisationally and strategically, not by ideal or progressive policy objectives per se.
Filtering the net will not stop child pornography, rape and snuff movies and the other super obscene stuff. Get your head around onion routers and SSL and it should be clear why. Filtering the Internet will however cause problems for innocent parties and overly empower executive government. The blacklist the government was working on using was leaked and was found to block political websites. That is a slippery slope we don’t need.
If you want to put a basic filter on your home Internet for the sake of the kids then use a free services such as the one offered by OpenDNS. I have three young kids and that’s what I use. It is also now integrated with most new D-Link home routers.
Government Internet filtering is a case of using a bazooka to crack a walnut. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Hamilton is a neo-socialist control freak.
@Alice
I can relate to your feelings on this Alice – I particularly dislike lying scumbags, and he is sailing close to the wind on this. One minute he thinks ETS is essential, blah blah blah; next he thinks the science is crap (his words not mine), and then the minute after that he’s saying, oh we’ll just delay the bill until after Copenhagen, then properly review it. Once leader of the opposition party he nixes the bill. Fluid adaptation to changing evidence? Or lying scumbag? I’ve made my bet.
I reserve my most ineffable invective for Nick “The Knife” Minchin. He’d make Macchiavelli envious.
I simply do not believe anything the Liberals have to say regarding nuclear power and climate change policy. On nuclear power they will obfuscate exactly as Howard did, pretending that it is to save the environment, all the while increasing both coal power and nuclear power. I simply won’t take that chance with them. Turnbull I probably would have trusted before the knifing – now, I know for certain the hardliners will always look to derail anything the moderates put up.
Now I simply refuse to both listening to the Liberals – as F-Troop’s indian chief said once, “White man speak with forked tongue.” How apt.
@Donald Oats
Lying scumbag Don.
Nothing else to say and at the moment annoyed to hear Plimer on TV getting airtime. Need a weapon – any weapon will do. Just told partner to shut the **** up ( idiot thinks he is conservative but votes what I tell him anyway in support of marital harmony). Fights coming.
Very grumpy. Even grumpier than before. Grumpy as….fight the damn thing onw orkchoices, Thats what the man in the street threw Howard out on – the greed and the selfishness and the beggar thy neighbour attitude of the LP. They need to fight it again!!! AGAIN (insane but they need to go there again)!! Remind people why they fought last time.
I find I can no longer believe in AGW. So many Liberal and National Party politicians can not be wrong. As they have been saying, climate changes all the time. I am now a convert to a new non-AGW explanation…
My new understanding is that, apparently, contrary to science, global warming was not caused by humans introducing increasing quantities of ‘greenhouse gases’ into the environment. The people who have been erroneously labelled ‘climate change deniers’ really have a valid alternative ‘scientific’ theory of what has been going on.
An intelligent being made everything happen (note: not necessarily God, but someone who highly resembles God and will, if called by the chosen, answer to the name of ‘God’, or ‘The Flying Spaghetti Monster’), anyway, this being made everything happen so that scientists would think that the laws of chemistry and physics and so on, meant that the global warming they observed was explained by science and the greenhouse gases humans had introduced into the environment (when it was really the intelligent being all along).
This alternative theory goes under the name “Intelligent Warming” [IW] (note: not to be confused with the decidedly unscientific “Creationist Warming” — which is the theological idea that God did it — or the apocalyptic “Satanic Warming”).
Tony Abbott, the new leader of the Liberal Party, set me right on this.
Apparently, the full name of this theory is ‘The Abbott-Minchin Intelligent Warming Theory’ and has been published in the prestigious journal “Punch Drunk Review”. This journal also contains their companion paper that explains “Intelligent Financial Crisis” theory, which, similarly, provides the explanation of that disaster where mainstream economists have failed.
In a forthcoming paper (same journal), Abbott and Minchin explain the intelligent being’s behaviour as motivated by rage at Australians, Americans and the British having rejected his anointed ‘Trinity’ — JW Howard, GW Bush and ACL Blair.
Given these real causes, that is, IW and IFC, there is nothing we can do — except get down on our knees and pray. And when the time comes, vote right and vote often.
God help me.
Howard bought back the weapons Alice. He didn’t trust you.
Freelander – the British people never had an opportunity to reject Blair.
You can include me in those opposing internet censorship. I find it astonishing that the Greens chose this wowser as their candidate in Higgins.
That said, the Greens were right to oppose passage of the CPRS and to leave the way open to a better scheme, or none at all if that were truly the best offer on the table. A bad scheme is not better than no scheme.
@Donald Oats
And Don – if I had my way Id marshall every woman in this country to tell your male half to go jump if necessary and its no sex no dinners till we get rid of the oppressors of women and our children and those oppressors are the LP and the likes of that ***** Abbott.
No doubt about it – ugly oppressors just extending JH’s oppression of women and children.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
Terje – dont speak too soon. Workchoices very fresh very raw. It hurts Terje…still out there. Im in the mood for a fight.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
“Filtering the net will not stop child pornography, rape and snuff movies and the other super obscene stuff. Get your head around onion routers and SSL and it should be clear why.”
Who was talking about this – not me not Hamilton. Why did you raise that terjeP – have you misunderstood the problem?
To spell it out, currently – and the tech may have changed recently – you cannot easily assign a unique identifier to each machine on the home network at the router such that each machine can have it’s own filter settings as per openDNS or via the routers site blocking system. (effectively fake a unique static IP for each machine) This means everyone has to have the same filter settings – clearly a problem when what is wanted is to restrict children’s (not adults) access to readily available pornographic material.
@Freelander
Yes God or Abbott help you indeed Freelander for you have cracked completely…
@nanks
Nanks – who gives a damn about internet porn?? – if Abbott or LP get up a lot of families wont be able to aford an internet connection. Lets get with whats really happening.
Wow. I didn’t realise Australian women were so cheap. Remove the oppressor and one guy gets sex with the lot of them. A very interesting deal indeed.
The government solution would be even less subtle so I’m not sure what your point is.
@Alice
I’m responding to those who think the Greens should not be supported due to their support of some draconian internet filter. In my view this is a false position as internet filtering can have many forms – some of which do not require any intrusive government oversight.
This issue was raised by others and as I think labor and the libs are similarly hopeless I am concerned to promote the Greens as – effectively – the only alternative.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
True, Blair didn’t wait for an election, or his party to do the deed. He had the benefit of rational expectations (or divinely inspired prophecy). And he was itching to come out of the closet – as a Catholic!
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
We arent cheap Terje…just watch us and you will eat your words. Note this date and this comment. Its got to be worth a $50 bet Terje??? Put your money where your mouth is. Australian women will see out Abbott (measured by a vote in the DD – agreed?). Fair is fair.
@nanks
I know what you are saying Nanks but I really think the fight is over work. That affects peoples hip pockets more than the ETS, more than internet porn. I want a DD and soon and I would like it fought on the same issues we voted to get rid of Howard. Abbot is even more insane if that is possible. We need the libs to implode properly and cannibalise people like Abbott until there are none of them left.
I always vote for the Greens No 1 and if I lived in Higgins I’d gladly vote for Hamilton.
I don’t give a rats if he abhors vile internet porn and calls for the screening of it. The current technical solution might be problematic and opaque but the sentiment is spot on. Besides, I don’t expect any political party to adhere 100% to what I support but the Greens come closest of any political party to what I do support on major issues.
I’d wager that’s how most potential or actual Greens voters usually see it them and this minor in the scheme of things issue.
Alice – what odds are you offering? The Liberals are after all the underdogs and I don’t
expect them to win.
And I didn’t imply woman were cheap. You did when you suggested that they should trade sex for voting behaviour. I never would have dared to propose such a bargain.
The bet is $50.
Are you trying to weasle out of it? $50 bets we, women and children, the oppressed by these arrogant filthy anti ETS, pro workchoices party (LP),
demolish the catholic oppressor at a DD?
If he gets eaten alive at a DD I win $50 from you Terje. If Abbott, the unreligious narcissistic aggressive selfish uncharitable catholic idiot wins you score $50 from me.
Fair bet? Are you in or not?
That is so typical of the latte left. They don’t give two figs about whether a policy will work or the negative consequences so long as they like the sentiment. We may as well be looking to ban sychronised swimming if sentiments are all that matters. Heck why not ban bad breath and death whilst we’re at it.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
I vote Australian women trade whatever it takes to get rid of female oppressors like Abbott. he is no good fpr women.
Whats wrong with that Terje? I dont give a damn about your moralistic views on what women have to trade.
No and no.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
my point is that you are misleading with respect to the greens and Hamilton – the Greens have not put forward the govt policy – why are you talking about the govt policy now, why have you raised this and changed the subject?
I have no moral objection to women buying votes with sex. Or men buying sex with votes. I simply made a comment regarding the price.
Nanks – I didn’t say that the Greens had the same policy as this government. I said that a government controlled Internet filtering was a really stupid idea.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
You did???? Any price Terje and most me like donestic harmony….Im suggesting women have more power than you think and they should use it…otherwise we get Abbott….enuff said. The price is different in every house…hey …its the only really free market you know Terje!! You should be proud of it!!
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
You did???? Any price Terje and most men like domestic harmony….Im suggesting women have more power than you think and they should use it…otherwise we get Abbott….enuff said. The price is different in every house…hey …its the only really free market you know Terje!! You should be proud of it!!
ooops double yoker
$50 too much eh Terje? Pretty cheap for a bet IMHO.
@Alice
Alice represents a huge voter block that Abbott has clumsily offended.
Alice – I have no problem with the amount. It is the odds I object to.
@Freelander
I like the sound of “intelligent warming”, it has a plenty of hooks and a nice ring to it – any thoughts on a jingle for the ad campaign? (I had some thoughts on those little tinkly bells that you see in budgie cages)
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
I knew it. Not willing to put his bet where his mouth is. Terje…you disappoint me. Well then ladies, if even a conservative libertarian isnt willing to place a$50 bet on Abbott, we will win using home stragies.
Seriously Terje ..this fool is a monumental backward step for women, children and equity …all round (its like electing an apartheid govt in in Australia – only its women who will be sidelined and segregated from all the benefits of production. Bully boy Abbott – deformed offspring bootlicker of bully boy Howard.).
We (women) are not silly.
@rog
You bet on it Rog. I do represent a huge voter block that Abbott would do nothing for.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
OK Terje – name estimate of the odds then.