Few political announcements in recent years have received across-the-board coverage to match the federal government’s carbon tax unveiled by Prime Minister Julia Gillard yesterday. Blanket coverage across TV, radio, online and, of course, print.
The front pages of the nation’s newspaper are as good a barometer as any to test the reaction of the nation’s citizens (or the nation’s editors at least) to the most significant economic reform we’ve seen in years.
From emotive keywords such as “gamble”, “crusade”, “sting” and “crunch”, to the playful Gold Coast Bulletin‘s description as the initiative as a “fun tax”, the fabric of Australia’s print media were woven with a similar message.
That is, unless you’re the Cairns Post, who chose to run a pictorial story of two sun-bathing crocodiles above the carbon tax announcement. Or the Northern Territory News, who went with a wayward barge instead…
And we wonder why the people in this country are so frigging dumb.
The Gold Coast Bulletin one is interesting. Describing tax as “fun” is not an adjective one normally sees, and why this tax should lead to more topless bathing by same sex couples remains unclear.
Fran
As I read it, the GC Bulletin is using fun as a noun, because the sub-heading appears to say “Carbon scheme to bring more pain to the coast.” The implication (bizarre I know) is that the price on carbon is going to wreck the fun that people have in that questionable paradise.
Any one of those newspapers could have run a headline that read ‘THE LUNATICS ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM’.
Such political insanity has never been perpetrated by any Australian Government better than the madness that is the Gillard Government.
Australia is in one hell of a mess!
I was doing a bit of tongue-in-cheek Peter … hmmm … sometimes satire is filtered by the internet …