I’ve been planning for a while to write a post arguing that the one thing Julia Gillard can do to (at least, potentially) salvage her place in the history books is to secure passage of the carbon price package (and preferably the other outstanding items left over from the Rudd era, such as the mining tax legislation and health reform), then step aside, and let the Labor party choose a new leader. I was going to wait until the package was passed, but for various reasons, I’ve decided it’s time to speak up on this.
I’ve been very critical of Gillard, but I’m probably less hostile to her at this point than the majority of Australians. On the other hand, her success in holding a fragile government together, and in securing agreement on some complex pieces of policy, suggest she is much more appealing in person than her public persona would imply. My limited contacts with people who’ve worked directly with her support this view, as does the clear belief of her supporters that, if only we could see the “real Julia” we would all like her.
Unfortunately, that’s no longer a relevant possibility. After more than a year in office, there seems very little likelihood that the negative view of Gillard, based on her public record, is going to change, no matter how many rebranding exercises she undertakes. Her last chance, a big bounce when the release of the carbon price package showed the spurious nature of Abbott’s scare campaign hasn’t come off. Moreover, despite her contribution to getting the package together, she can never get past her promise that there would be no carbon price under her government. Only with a change of leader can Labor sell the carbon price.
As regards the choice of alternative, my natural inclination is for Rudd, but it seems clear that his colleagues won’t go that way, and he is doing a good job as Foreign Minister. Wayne Swan has been a good Treasurer, but he is too closely tied to the coup against Rudd and the dumping of the CPRS. Greg Combet would be my preferred choice, but Stephen Smith would also be good.
Given a change of leader, and if they aren’t forced to an election early, I think Labor still has a good chance. Abbott is incredibly unpopular, considering the circumstances, and the hostility towards Labor is very much focused on Gillard personally. If the government can survive long enough to see the carbon price in place, Abbott’s scare campaigns will collapse completely.
John Quiggin 
Gillard’s personal presentation aside, I’ve been quite impressed with the government’s record of achievements (in this term). There’s been the NBN, pokies reform, cigarette plain packaging, a mining tax (not high enough but better than nothing), and -if all goes well- the carbon tax. It will be sad to see an actual progressive government go.
I do hope that when Labor next has a shot at an election they learn the lessons of the last few years. As far as I can see, there are three.
1) Don’t pretend to be Liberal light. The Liberals are better at it.
2) Don’t make stupid-sounding promises, even to win an election. It locks you in to either stupid policy (see rule 1) or breaking a promise, which makes people hate you. Its better to lose one election promising to be a grownup, than to win and have to trash your brand forever.
3) Don’t over-promise and under-deliver. The disillusionment may be a long time coming, but eventually it will rip the heart out of your base.
It’s hard not to feel sorry for Gillard, but that circumstances under which she took power are always going to dog her. A lot people, regardless of what they thought of Rudd just felt uncomfortable with Rudd being dumped. I think only coalition supporters and labor hacks where really surportive of the Rudd coup despite the fact that Rudd had some pretty obvisous flaws (which successfull politician doesn’t). If Julia did handover the leadership smoothly she might be able to stage a comeback at a future date. I think she still has potential if she can get some distance on last years events. Who knows Abbotts brand of politics probably won’t work next time round.
As far as Australian governments go this government has been more competent and successful at improving the lives of most Aussies and their environment than most of its predeccessors. To add to sam’s short list we can put attempting, and partly succeeding, to improve the Murray Darling Basin plus some other environmental improvements, considerable positive tax reforms for most Australians, better pensions [thats a biggy], and improvements in education and health, some progress in family matters eg child care and family law. Plus other stuff.
Surprised at the length and depth of the list of positives?
Between the achievements and the public perception there has been a vast unremitting noise.
The noise of an overtly biased media.
The government has literally been pushing shit uphill against a strong propaganda campaign that ‘keeps writing crap”.
NBN, AGW, boat people. BER, insulation, to give extreme examples.
Sure the government led by Rudd and now Gillard has achieved less than would be hoped, they have been diverted by the media onslaught and innate fear and conservatism and there are severe shortcomimgs eg refugees, population policy, NT intervention just to give a few issues.
But hey, what is the alternative?
Its not the Greens …yet [by a fair way] and surely we are dreading the coming nightmare of the COALition particularly if led by Abbott?
Cos the odds are that is what we will have soon.
And then the value of the present government both Mk.1 [Rudd] and Mk.2 [Gillard] will be stark in its contrast.
Personally, I supported the Rudd coup. He broke my rule 3. He seemed to believe that the proper business of government was doing a lot of paperwork, rather than getting any results. How many imperfect but workable processes did he scrap in the service of the next perfect plan? How many times did he put off any serious policy discussion until the release of some brilliant gamechanging report/study/review/negotiation? How many such things came and went, without any effect? I think more leaders should be sacked by their colleagues for underperformance, not less.
I agree with most of your analysis John, but have trouble with 2 issues.
Firstly I don’t see any prospect of Gillard stepping aside. Political leaders just don’t do that. There will need to be a tap on the shoulder at least.
Secondly, to displace Gillard with another leader smacks of the ‘NSW syndrome’ and is potentially disastrous and could just destroy another future leader.
Back to a wiser and chastened Rudd may well be the most viable option. He remains the governments best salesman and if he has accepted the need to not micro-manage his colleagues he is the leader best equipped to sell their positive achievements to the electorate.
the fee caps on pay day(loanshark?)lenders,the credit card rules to protect users,the rules for easily understood contracts, the proper taxing of hugely profitable 83% foreign owned mining companies, etc,etc.
then there is the inquiry into just how Australia came to pay in lives and money into the con that was Iraq,and maybe,just maybe ,as an aside ,find out the politics of the splintering of Australias’ single desk on the highly competitve world market for wheat and how it came about that the ownership of that market slipped(was snatched?) from local hands.
all is on the line.
there is a lovely long article by an oldish bloke starting on the lower back page of todays fin.
beautifully describing the idealism of the conservative mind set.
all the muck and malarkey currently shoved in our face is designed to bring into power a government that is 1000% behind these plucky conservative triers.
@sam
Sam I certainly agree with point 1 and while I think points 2-3 are how a political party should behave, I am not sure that failing these has as serious consequences as you suggest. Studies of voter behavior show that they are notoriously myopic. For example economic voter preference functions show that people really only care about economic performance in the 12 months prior to an election and even then, most of the impact is in the last quarter.
Or currently in the U.S. the Republican Party is in ascendance despite widespread acceptance across political lines that the Bush administration was an unmitigated disaster.
I think that over-promising and under-delivering may be an unfortunate but necessary strategy given current levels of voter apathy.
Somewhere in the list above this comment is one that is being moderated.
Dunno why.
Anyway it basically says that this government, whilst not as good as many progressives would wish, has achieved far more than it has been given credit for.
And a large part of public perception is based on deliberate misinformation from our not revered mass media.
I just finished listening to a 2-3 minute ABC Radio National newscast which cast aspersions, by allowing Abbott to be talk extensively, against Gillard re Thompson, but then showed, too late I suspect, that the matter was a complete beat up.
Meanwhile policy achievements are ignored.
I too have been quite critical of Julia Gillard, especially the circumstances leading up to the Rudderless office claims of “a government that has lost its way,” but the passage of both time and numerous big ticket bills suggests that she has what it takes to get the job of governing done—in extremely difficult circumstances. My belief is that if the current government survives and gets the carbon tax bedded down, along with their plans for health, aged care, and other welfare reform, then she may be a successful second term leader of a Labor government. It sounds unlikely, I know, but the public do appreciate governments that have vision and a good portfolio of accomplishments. If Julia Gillard and the ALP/Greens/Indeps alliance can hold on for just a bit longer, they will be in a position to paint a very positive picture going into the next election.
As a secondary concern, but nonetheless an important one, the Gillard-led government needs to get hard to work on the weak links of the opposition, and to be as merciless as the Abbott missionaries; the opposition started down the path of attacking people’s past secrets prior to parliamentary life, so as tacky as it is I think the ALP needs to punish like with like. If the ALP had a solid majority the situation would be different; Abbott and Pyne have led the way, however. The only alternative at this point is to be somehow above all that fray, but with parliamentarians like Craig Thommson—careless, confused, or complicit: who knows—exposing the government through no particular fault of Julia Gillard, I suspect the time for polite aloofness with respect to the opposition’s favoured grubby tactics is past and the government must take the bull by the horns while they still have the numbers.
There is still enough time between now and the next election—assuming no extraordinary circumstances a’la Thommo—for a Gillard-led government to prepare a successful election campaign based on positives. They just need the guts to stand firm; if they chuck another leader overboard before the campaign, I think it will be the ALP that takes the biggest bath on polling day.
If Gillard can tough it out she may be vindicated. One climate scientist has suggested the ocean currents and so forth may conspire to make 2013 the hottest year humans have ever known. If it pans out that way the deniers will look even more silly than they already are.
I was talking to some LNP supporters this morning and even they agree Abbott is not foreman material. It would be sad if Gillard has to fall on her sword. Otherwise she could have been held in the same regard as Menzies.
@NickR
I don’t know if Australians really have been myopic in the past few years. Voters seem to be still angry about the carbon tax promise made in 2010. At the time he was dumped, Rudd’s support levels were dropping because people were comparing promises made in 2007 with performance by 2010. Even if they don’t have any particular episodic memory of things going wrong, there was a general *feeling* of incompetent government. In my view that feeling was well placed, and actually a long time coming.
Rudd and Conroy’s negotiation with Telstra provides an interesting early case study. By the end of the Howard era it was clear that Trujillo’s Telstra was a bullying monopoly using a capital strike to play chicken with the regulator. Relations between them and the government had broken down, and Coonan had essentially been forced to set up an entirely new process (OPEL) to serve broadband to the bush. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have worked and would have bloodied Telstra’s nose a bit in the process.
When the Labor party came to power, they declared they were going to build some grand new FTTN network with Telstra, and scrapped OPEL just as it was about to start building. They then spent years trying to ask Trujillo nicely if he would please stop an evil corporate thug, and Trujillo spent years just saying no. Why did they think their negotiations would go any better than the coalition’s? After a very long time, they gave up and bypassed Telstra again, this time setting up a new, incredibly expensive program called the NBN.
The whole thing is just symptomatic of Rudd’s incompetence and hubris; The immediate abolition of predecessor’s work, grand promises, a too-clever-by-half quasi-market strategy, years of negotiations, lots of meetings, zero outcome. That sort of thing leaves a bitter after-taste in the voter’s mouth, and hurts politically.
Why does everyone think Abbott has poor poll numbers? Who cares about his personal satisfaction? Under his leadership the coalition is polling in the stratosphere. Relentless negativity and populist fearmongering works, and Abbott is very good at it.
“…she can never get past her promise that there would be no carbon price under her government”
My understanding was that the promise was “there would no carbon TAX under her government” – it was always understood that carbon pricing (via ETS) was a cornerstone of Gillard’s election campaign – definitely a promise not to be broken! The rage of conservatives is semantics, synthetic and hypocritical.
@FelixHolt
Hear! Hear! to that.
On the main point … putting aside that I find her politically disagreeable for reasons that most here won’t have to guess about, I disagree that she should step aside. This would simply aggravate the very serious mistake the ALP made when they dumped Rudd. Once again, the successor would have to spit on the very things the predecessor saw through and so once again, the game would be between two opposition leaders in 2013. Once again, it would concede that provided the opposition is willing to lie and slander, it can create enough ill-will to unseat a PM.
The ALP simply must force the LNP to admit publicly that their trolling has failed. Yesterday, it was pointed out that in the last year the government has passed 188 pieces of legislation, and in the last two weeks, during the so-called Thomson affair, 22 new laws have passed. If the government is to begin to be taken seriously, it can’t look like a revolving door is outside the PMs office or that every bunch of whiny reactionaries can make it nervous. Gillard was the product of the mining thugs campaign, so before she can resign, she has to contest and win at least one election where she has run on her record. That’s 2013.
That’s not to say that she doesn’t need to reinvent herself — it’s just that election campaigns are a poor place to do that. She needs to keep getting stuff done. I’d say she could profit by abandoning her opposition to gay marriage, allowing herself to be “persuaded” that “it is the right thing to do”. She really ought to back away from off-shore processing of asylum seekers. This is the thing that most connects her with the LNP. She gets carbon pricing through, LITO adjustments occur, she reforms the ABC, and takes on Murdoch’s empire. The disability legislation goes forward. She acts on mental health. She delivers on the pokie issue. The NBN is accelerated. When 2013 comes along, she says she wants to continue to see these things through, and invites people to wonder who is more likely to deliver on these things.
I think she’d probably win if she adopted this approach, but if she runs away, no ALP figure will look secure within a month of the transition. Speculation will be permanent.
The ALP made their bed in June last year. Now, for good or ill, they simply have to make it work and they have a senate that will back them. They need to make it count.
I think Labor’s biggest problem is it’s inability to sell itself. They should be gaining plenty of milage out of keeping Oz out of recession after the GFC; we’re in much better shape than elsewhere. Certainly if unemployment had gone to 10% they would be getting flogged; it didn’t, but they are still getting beaten.
Hopefully Abbott’s carping starts to wear thin. In 10 or 20 years all of the carry-on about a carbon tax will be just embarrassing.
This refusal to grant a pair (Margaret Olley’s memorial etc) really is desperado stuff isn’t it.
God help us….
Here’s a clue why there has been no “bounce” from thr Carbon price/tax/phedinkus…
I earn $500 a week and my compensation is $6.20 a week! The compensation is one off and yet the carpbon price or whatever has three rises already locked in before it ois handballed over to those community minded foilk in the derivatives markets. I’m already sleeping in my car ion Canberra three nights a week (try that in Winter!) so I can afford fuel to and from work.
And I am supposed to think this is good why exactly?
ALl I see from the carbon fugazi is working poor like myself being forced into yet a lower standard of living (this has been going on for a decade now) so that corporate Australia canb shift risk onton the household sector, yet again. That, and middle class numpties with fridges with food in them hectoring me about what is right and just.
As part of the generation that will be working until I die can I say that the policy slide in this once comfortable country is breaking our proverbials out here in the realk world. I know people who haven’t had a holiday (unless you call unemployment a holiday) for over five years. That’s what casualised retail work does! And people wonder why we’re cranky! We need a break down here, and a carbon prices going up proposition ain’t helping. The compensation package is crap.
Here’s a clue why there has been no “bounce” from the Carbon price/tax/phedinkus…
I earn $500 a week and my compensation is $6.20 a week! The compensation is one off and yet the carbon price or whatever has three rises already locked in before it ois handballed over to those community minded folk in the derivatives markets. I’m already sleeping in my car in Canberra three nights a week (try that in Winter!) so I can afford fuel to and from work.
And I am supposed to think this is good why exactly?
All I see from the carbon fugazi is working poor like myself being forced into yet a lower standard of living (this has been going on for a decade now) so that corporate Australia can shift risk onto the household sector, yet again. That, and middle class numpties with fridges with food in them hectoring me about what is right and just.
As part of the generation that will be working until I die can I say that the policy slide in this once comfortable country is breaking our proverbials out here in the real world. I know people who haven’t had a holiday (unless you call unemployment a holiday) for over five years. That’s what casualised retail work does! And people wonder why we’re cranky! We need a break down here, and a carbon prices going up proposition ain’t helping. The compensation package is crap.
Double post above for some reason?
Anyway, I replied to Frank Bongiorno’s ‘why are people not happy’ piece over at Inside Story, and it’s relevant to the above post because it explains both the decline of Rudd and the nonrise of Gillard:
“Breathtaking that this writer can write a recent history that posits itself so much around the 2007 election and mentions Work Choices (sic) in only the last par.
“WorkChoices and its doppleganger, the Your Rights At Work campaign, was the only game in town in November 2007. That campaign and that campaign alone was what shifted the votes that the ALP needed in marginal seats to win government. The ACTU targeted 26 marginal seats and won 21 of them. Forget climate change, forget asylum seekers, it was the Your Rights At Work campaign that swung votes. Even the Liberals campaign director Garry Loughnane (sp?) recognised this in his post-election report.
“What is it with this rewriting of history? Is it because journalists/writers/academics and the commentariat don’t work in casualised “service” sector jobs? Half of Australian income earners earn less than 36K a year according to the ABS – that’s a little over $500 a week take home. That’s the mean, not the average (averages are useless when measuring earnings as they are so heavily skewed to high income earners, who may as well live in another country).
“And the Rudd/Gillard response to this fortune? It was ominous from election night when Rudd didn’t even mention the Your Rights At Work campaign. Those of us on $500 a week and less thought “uh oh, here we go”. We weren’t disappointed – Gillard as minister maintained all the key ingredients of WorkChoices – the impediments to organising and bargaining – in the Orwellian named Fair Work Act.
“The end result is that working stiffs like me have seen our real wages go back, while the corporate sector has ended up with its greatest share of national income since data began to be measured in the early sixties. And people still talk about boom. Boom for whom?
“And then there’s the carbon tax. My compensation on $500 a week is $6.80. It is one off, while the carbon price will rise, and rise, before being handed over to those community minded folk at the derivatives markets. The carbon tax is merely shifting the risk for paying for climate change from the government and corporate sector to the household sector. And people wonder why we are pissed off!
“Managing debt on $500 a week is a skill, yet millions of Australians do it. They have to, without a credit card you can’t run a car, pay bond on a rental house (what? Buy a house? In this market? On $500 a week?) or meet any expense that arises over $100.
“When Australian business had its productivity boom in the nineties all the wealth generated went to the big end of town, who sold the benefits back to working people as easy credit. Now we are up to our proverbials in hock and looking down the barrel of working ’til we’re dead.
“And we’re supposed to celebrate this? Why?”
Well may we say god save Australia, because nothing will save the Labor Government at the next election – no matter what.
No one is bothering to think about it, it’s all over. Labor is not being listened to, will not be listened to and only negatives are being reinforced. If an auditor general report on the BER can show 97% satisfaction and it keeps getting used as an example of incompetence without quibble, then there is no hope – NONE.
@Phil Doyle
I’m very sorry to hear you’re sleeping in your car. That’s certainly not just in a rich country. On the other hand, I disagree with your compensation claim of $6.20 per week compensation. The government website (“clean energy future” google it, I don’t want to set off the moderators) says you should get $523 compensation, and have to pay only $207 more per year, so you should be better off. When the tax rate goes up, I agree you should get more.
# Sam
No, according to the clean energy website calculator my compensation is $325 a year. I don’t know how you got the $523 figure? Even if we accept the $207 figure – something I think is ‘interesting’ and I certainly would prefer to shop in their supermarkets – $523 minus $207 equals $316. $316 devided by 52 (weeks) equals $6.07.
$6.07 Sam. Whoop de doo. I can see that going a long way for those of us that live hand to mouth week to week, which is most people. A recent survey in the states showed that two thirds of US households couldn’t raise $1000 in an emergency. I believe the figure would be similar in Australia.
The big problem as far as I can see is that whgen they raised the tax threshold (yay!) they lifted the rate by almost 25 percent! (boo!) Why someone on $25K a year is paying tax anyway is ridiculous. We just aren’t part of society! All we do is survive from week to week.
Now if the compensation was $50 to $70 a week you might see some smiling faces out there, but as it stands, the compo is crap and, ergo, the carbon phedinkus is also crap. If I have to spend the next thirty to fourty years living like this then rising temperatures will be the least of my problems.
Dude. That is why it is called compensation. It is not supposed to make things hugely better. It is meant to *compensate* for the costs of the ETS, which it does.
“I think Labor’s biggest problem is it’s inability to sell itself.”
This is what Labor thinks, too. It has led to a pathological obsession with focus groups, marketing, and marginal seats. Labor’s biggest problem is its disconnection from its social base, manifested in the purposeless bureaucracy that created Rudd and the factional blocs that created Gillard.
You mean the median. The mean is the same thing as the average.
Sorry to hear you’re doing it tough, but I don’t really understand why you’re blaming it on the carbon tax. As others have pointed out, it won’t make you worse off. The fact that some people are doing it tough isn’t a reason to ignore big picture, long term problems.
@Phil Doyle
Yeah, now I see what you’re saying, I have much less sympathy for your position. It’s not that the compensation will be less than the extra expenses (in fact it will be more), just that the net increase in your effective income will be *only* $6 a week. Well OK, fine, but you’ll still be slightly better off. I mean, do you want the $6 a week or don’t you? You should only oppose the tax on equity grounds if it actually makes you worse off.
If you want to talk about redistributing income so there are less working poor in Australia, I’d be with you. I know most people on this blog would be too. We should certainly have a policy for that, but that’s not the purpose of this policy. This is a carbon tax, not a poverty reduction proposal. It’s only goal on the poverty front is to ensure no poor people are actually worse off. In this it succeeds.
RE. “Even if we accept the $207 figure – something I think is ‘interesting’ and I certainly would prefer to shop in their supermarkets ”
Well what alternative CO2 calculations have you done? I’d like to see your objections in detail to the government’s figures.
@Newy Stats
uhh, and my cost of living is only going to go up $6 a week? I don’t think this package is compensating anything given what we see at the checkout from week to week – confirmed by the ABS splitting its cost-of-living index off from measuring the CPI. This compensation will last about as long as a fly on a lizard’s tongue. And the compo is one off, don’t forget. How do we get ‘compensated’ for future price rises in carbon, which have been factored in. And how are we protected by volatility in the planned ETS?
Dude, I run my fridge on LPG gas, I eat food which has carbon inputs. I realise petrol is ‘exempted’, but given the intense competition in Australia’s retail petroleum sector I suspect – as do millions of other Australians – that somehow the price of fuel may be affected, due to unrelated factors of course!
Six. Bucks. A. Week? And I live half homeless as it is. You really think this package is compensating anything?
I don’t think the government figures take into account the profiteering that is par for the course, especially from big retail who can cost shift and deny that it is related to the carbon tax. Given our shared experience of the ACCC I doubt anything more than token gestures against low hanging fruit will be done to stop a rather larger increase in real prices than Treasury has modelled. No, I don’t have any carbon modelling, just thirty five years experience of shopping.
Of course I will be worse off. The working poor always are. Why should this experience be any different? Especially as the “compensation” is such a miserable amount.
I am also not so daft as to realise that there are a whole raft of other factors that will see things like CTP slips, electricity (which is already unaffordable for me), petrol;, bveer and other necessities of life rise.
And to top oit all off, I don’t see the carbon phedinkus achieving its stated policy objective. All I see is the middle class carrying on business as usual while we get ground down in the margins. If this far reachiung problem is so bad, why don’t we invest in large scale (dare I say baseload) publicly owned renewable energy in a nation-building exercise? IOt worked a treat for the post-war boom.
Sure, I am conflating two issues here – the carbon phedinkus and working poverty – but both are related to John’s poriginal post in that a) the Rudd/Gillard machine has done nothing to help us; and b) introducing the carbon phedinkus will, in the real world, make our living standards worse, regardless of the Treasury wishful thinking our experience of big retail points to an alternative outcome.
Of course the Greens and Abbot aren’t alternatives. Nothing that liberal democracy has on offer is. And that should be pause for thought for those who are worried about the future and what problems that should bring. In that context gross social disruprion in nthe future is just another hurdle that can be added to an already bleak outlook. Climate change isn’t as pressing a problem as staying warm and holding down a job in the here and now.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m on your side, I’m just not sure you are on mine.
Gillard’s strategy seems to be to try and win voters over on the basis of runs on the board over the longer term. The obvious problem is that the positive news cant penetrate the negative Abbot static. It would be good to see more of the offensive style of direct attack on the opposition evident in the last few days to puncture the vacuous Abbot bubble. The Thompson affair might provide the catalyst for this.
I agree with John. The long slide in the Labor Party seemed to be terminal, but Julia Gillard is doing some very interesting things. With the likes of Craig Thomson (and let me just add Mark Arbib and Bill Shorten for good measure) the whole shebang seemed doomed to leaking insincerity liking a fracking coal seam blow job, and with about the same toxicity.
But Ms Gillard has shown some mettle, and I think has earned some serious respect. A national insurance scheme. How long have we waited for that? A serious attempt to get the carbon ball rolling. Like a GST, but targeted for the environment!
She’s not going to tilt at neo-liberalism, because those who hold sway in Australia would not allow it. Such are the limits of politics.
Btw, I’m willing to back a losing Obama election next year, not because the other side win, but because ‘his side’ won’t vote for him.
@Phil Doyle
Well if you haven’t done any alternative carbon intensity analysis, I don’t see on what basis you can cast aspersions on Treasury’s figures. The ABS splitting its cost-of-living index off from measuring the CPI has nothing to do with anything. This is the government’s best attempt at measuring cost of living increases, not CPI. If you can find a genuine methodological flaw, fine. Until then, quit carping at nothing.
“And the compo is one off, don’t forget.”
Who, apart from Tony Abbot even says that? Has Gillard said it? Has anyone from the government said it?
“uhh, and my cost of living is only going to go up $6 a week? ”
For the last time, on your own calculations $6 a week is the amount extra you’ll have after you take into account increases in your cost of living. Given you run your fridge on tax-exempted fuel and you spend 3 nights a week not using mains electricity, the tax should have if anything less impact on you than on the average person at your income level.
Honestly, your whole argument seems to be “I’m poor, this proposal to deal with climate change will only help me financially a bit, so let’s not deal with climate change.”
My apologies for the double entendre. I meant leaking when inserted under pressure with a likelihood to pollute the groundwater. Using anti-freeze. The Labor Party as an organisation is a walking zombie. The pre-selection process failure is evidence enough (unless you actually want a inexperienced union official to speak for you in the national parliament). Is this what we happens when democracies run aground (oops, mixed metaphor, I meant underground, as in inserted, cracked, pumped and exhumed).
The fact that all this, and a hung parliament, may yet develop some of the most courageous legislation in recent times…
@sam
No Sam, my point is, what’s the point of pretending dealing with climate change when the truth is that this carbon phedinkus will do squat, and in the meantime increasing numbers of working Australians are dropping off into what promises to be a life of cold hard poverty until we are put in a grave. If the nect forty years of my life are just here to service the comfortable middle class I can’t really see the point of it.
And the bigger picture is answering why the ALP is so on the nose. The ALP is not helping, things just get worse. I don’t doubt that Abbott would be any different. Or Bobby Brown for that matter. What hope liberal democracy?
I think your biggest problem in the future may be less from the climate and more from a violent and unstable society. Exhibit A, Claymore. Exhibit B, Merrylands.
As W.B. Yeats said, this shall be no country for old men.
@sam
And people on my income aren’t average, we are extraordinarily talented!
Any fool can be wealthy, it takes guile, intelligence and a quick wit to be poor.
I never said people on your income were average. I only said that your emissions are probably lower than that of an average emitter on your income.
This is the nub of the matter. Gillard isn’t the problem. Arbib, Bitar and Shorten, they are the problem. We are seeing the last rites of the NSW Right, who have lost all touch with their base, and with reality. Thomson is only the most prominent symptom of the disease, it is so systemic that only a clean-out of the parliamentary wing will allow renewal.
The policies aren’t the problem, they are the correct policies. Labor has lost the ability to communicate with the public – not just communicating its own message, but hearing the public’s messages in response.
Mind you, the LNP needed renewal after Howard and they haven’t exactly got it, so they will run into their own problems if they win government re-enacting the Howard era. And it’s still an if. There are still two years to the next election.
@Phil Doyle
” the Rudd/Gillard machine has done nothing to help us.” This is understatement. Rudd/Gillard&Greens/Howard have actively worked to harm you by undermining your market power by increasing the supply of labour.
On poll numbers Labor is heading for a truly historic hiding at the next election. Dumping Gillard without dumping the policies that have harmed Labor would be absolutely daft. If they change leader they have to change direction otherwise what is the point?
I think you miss the point. The question of Gillard or Abbot is peripheral to the question of Liberal or Labor. While we, and the media continue to debate the cult of the “individuals”, we will have diffculty in seeing, concentrating on, and debating the real issues. Carbon Tax, Mining resources, NBN, Medical funding, Education funding.
The debate around the individuals are a diversion from the core actvities and the Liberals will do anything in their power to either distort, or divert attention away from, these issues. At the end of the day, I choose to concentrate on those issues, not the individuals driving them. I realise, as should we all, that each one of these will have a dramatic and profoundly positive impact on this Nation. While that remains the case, I will continue to vote Labor. If Labor loses AFTER these matters have been emplaced, then sobeit. To lose before this country has had the opportunity to realise the benefits, would be a travesty.
@Fran Barlow
Fran sadly I do not think the electorate at large give a continental how many bills have been or will be passed. The dye is cast I regret for Julia. She may be a lovely warm person behind the scenes, her problem is, the majority don’t see her that way and the Govt is where they are because of her. I am a supporter of the Party, always have been, however to turn this horror polling around, I really believe Julia must go. And Rudd is not the person to replace her. Smith, Combet, both popular and experieced, no dead wood to haul around…time the caucus looked at the long term.
At the moment Abbott is banking on Gillard hanging on, he wants it that way, she now becomes his open road to The Lodge. She goes, new PM, popular…he goes.
Hated writing that but its time to face reality.
@Paul
Yes Paul.
And whoever is the leader of the ALP will face the same negativity from the media.
Its so much easier for the media to attack a person than the policies, to trivialise politics, so that oh so conveniently, the issues get overshadowed.
In reality, by the standards of governments in Oz, this present government has done a good, albeit imperfect, job.
Its unpopularity is not related to its performance but to the success of media and reactionary propaganda.
And that is not going to go away.
I see on other forums that Gillard is labelled ‘Australia’s worst prime minister’. Geez they don’t want much given that I think on objective criteria this is a better place to live than almost every other country. Perhaps they want the streets paved with gold and rainbows constantly in the sky.
Gillard had the cojones to introduce carbon pricing, Rudd didn’t. It’s not perfect but it’s a start. If Abbott ascends to the top job I’d find it somewhat embarrassing to live in a country that elected a science denier. For some reason many people are choosing to amplify the negatives. What’s wrong with them?
Isn’t the point that we really are not going to like what happens if we fail to haul back emissions globally – and global efforts are the sum of the individual national efforts? The science is clear that failure in this leads to permanent losses of irreplaceable capital upon which agriculture and remaining natural ecosystems are dependent – ie it will be very expensive in ways that we get no ‘bounce back’ from – and that part of the message, which should be accepted all the way across mainstream politics, has been deliberately countered by fierce campaigning that has had the full approval and endorsement of the Coalition, (excepting Malcolm).
It’s a problem that only seems far off and overstated because the impacts of rising emissions build slowly over many decades to centuries – turn that thermostat up and nothing much appears to happen at first, which spins into ‘evidence’ of ‘extremists’ overstating the problem. Most of the turning up has occurred over the last couple of decades, and impacts are being strongly masked by aerosol pollution – to be spun, by the simple expedient of not mentioning it, into more ‘evidence’, to become in turn more ‘reason’ for delay over action. And, crucially, the unfortunate fact that this type of thermostat cannot be turned back down , that our contributions to the problem are irreversible is another for the ‘don’t mention’ category – or more correctly into the bamboozle category which deals with this with claims stopping emissions now won’t reduce global temperatures (true) or even halt temperature rise (true) to become in turn ‘proof’ that preventing further emissions is pointless (false).
The foundation of current opposition to carbon pricing in Australia is doubt and denial about the seriousness and urgency of the problem, insistence from too many leading voices that we must not act if actions impose any additional costs. And most importantly, it relies on dismissing and ignoring the real long term costs – the externalised ones built into the current cheap energy model – that continue to accumulate and are building up with compounding interest and with payments just starting to become due.
Understand what’s really at stake and $6 a week looks inconsequential – yet, despite that it may be enough to win government for Abbott. But without that understanding underpinning Coalition policy it will be stronger on delivering ‘good’ excuses for delay and failure on emissions and climate but will be unable to deliver good policy.
Not that I’m convinced that Labor really gets it either; very disappointingly, the only party which truly matches policy to actual climate science isn’t mainstream.
My personal contact with Julia leaves me impressed with her as the real deal, although she has ducked and weaved on a number of issues, including her time as shadow spokes person on immigration matters. One options is that the problem is not salvageable and she must go, which leaves the impression that the party is in total disarray ( not matter the reasons given for her demise) on the other hand, if she continues to hack away at the agenda the government has set itself and can employ some resources who can actually get their message across, then her stocks may again rise. The real issue is “Who would you put in place to replace her – given the sour note in the community about Labor generally and the combative, but effective head kicking style of an Abbott in opposition!
@Fran Barlow
Could not agree more Fran. But she needs more good performances like last Thursday too, to fight hard every day against Abbott and a reshuffle. People like Jason Claire who have performed well in parliament on a poltical leevel and can cut through with a message need to be promoted and a portfolio of Special Minister of State with a wide ranging special projects brief would help. He performs well and Labor needs more people who can cut through. Voters just are not listening!
Changing leaders will not make things better.
It is important for a government to be concerned about the next election, but that should not be their main game.
The main game any elected government has is to government for the term that it is elected for.
The government needs to do what the PM is doing. That is to get as much legalisation through that is necessary for the good of the country.
The government needs to continue as it is doing, in addressing matters that affect the country.
It is nice to get re-elected but surely we do not judge governments on how long they stay in power and how many times they are elected. Surely we judge them on the job they have done.
The PM might be in charge of a one time government, but may still be able to be proud of what she will achieve.
It is time this country ceased to be government by polls. The only poll that the public should place any faith in, is the general election that is held every three years.
Being unpopular does not necessary meant that they are doing a bad job. Popularity contests are just that and nothing more.
Mr. Whitlam became very unpopular in his less than three years and two elections. His defeat was massive. Much of what he introduced still stands. He changed this country more than any other PM. His record has stood the test of time.
What great reforms did Mr. Howard achieved after his first term or so. Not many that I can recall.
Mr. Menzies did very little considering he holds the record for length of tenure.
No, Labor has to keep focus on good governance and let the future look after itself. They have no other choice.
It might be very good for the country if we did change parties more often. It would force them to address the issues that matter, not be concern about winner take all, as today’s situation seems to be.
Both parties have something to offer. Neither party has all the answers.
@Hermit
Hermie old son, I’m sleepoing in my car in Canberra three nights a week and pulling down $5090 a week. Damn straight I want more./ I want to be warm at night and not get hassled by hoons and cops. Half of Australians of working age earn $35K or less a year, a little over $500 a week takje home. You nthink these people are living the life of nriley? Just because you’re comfortable doesn’t mean the rest of youyr countryfolk are. We’re also looking down the barel of working until we’re dead. Many of us live without nholidays and the sorty of basic comforts you take for granted. And Gillard, and nthe ALP, govern nfor the ASX top 500 and the wealthy elite. We have no representatives anywhere in the plitical system. We have no democracy. We are doisorganised and we are unhappy. Suck it up, we have to.
Notice the inconsistent use of the argument ‘too small to make a difference’. If Australia (world’s biggest coal exporter, OECD’s highest per capita emitter) is too small to make a difference to global emissions then we should apply that argument to voting. No point in another election as individual votes are too small to make a difference.
@Hermit
Hermie old son, I’m sleeping in my car in Canberra three nights a week and pulling down $500 a week. Damn straight I want more./ I want to be warm at night and not get hassled by hoons and cops. Half of Australians of working age earn $35K or less a year, a little over $500 a week takje home. You think these people are living the life of Riley? Just because you’re comfortable doesn’t mean the rest of youyr countryfolk are. We’re also looking down the barrel of working until we’re dead. Many of us live without holidays and the sort of basic comforts you take for granted. And Gillard, and the ALP, govern for the ASX top 500 and the wealthy elite. We have no representatives anywhere in the political system. We have no democracy. We are disorganised and we are unhappy. Big capital knows it and takes advantage of us with impunity. We arte treated as charity cases and with scorn. We have little dignity and such as what we do have is undermined by hand-wringing do-gooders. Suck it up, we have to.
Voting is a waste of time for the working poor. Petty crime would probably be more useful in alleviating our situation.