After yesterday, the prime minister and her team might be wondering whether it would have been better to have spent the week debating the carbon pricing scheme in parliament, rather than venturing out into shopping malls.
The House of Representatives is a far more controlled environment, and there’s not much evidence the opposition would’ve been able to ask any particularly acute questions, both because of its seeming lack of policy grasp, and because, inevitably, at least two question times would have been curtailed by censure motions. Sometimes — as Kevin Rudd showed in his health debate last year — it’s a good idea to give Tony Abbott exactly what he asks for.
The woman who tripped up the prime minister yesterday was Julia Gillard’s nightmare brought to life — a voter uninterested in actually hearing what the prime minister had to say, and simply concerned to tell the Prime Minister she was a liar.
If Abbott trying to talk down the economy by warning of economic catastrophe following the carbon price is a reflection of his political skills, the prime minister’s problem with her credibility is the other component of his campaign against the carbon tax. But it’s one solely of the government’s making.
The prime minister has had five months to find the right response to the question about her pre- and post-election positions on carbon pricing, and she’s yet to do so. Her preferred response is a complex mishmash of explanations about changed circumstances and always wanting a carbon price, and merely serves to reinforce perceptions that she has no credibility and isn’t sure what she believes in.
The only thing she’s now got going for her is the Iron Lady stuff, designed to remedy the latter problem by showing voters she’s prepared to persevere with policies she believes in even if it damages her politically. It’s a long-term strategy — necessarily, because it has to reverse current voter attitudes, whereas everything Abbott says is designed to reinforce voter attitudes.
That’s not to say it can’t work. Margaret Thatcher had plenty of run-ins with truculent voters herself, but it didn’t do much harm. And Bob Hawke didn’t just trip over cables in shopping centres — in 1987 he shocked commentators by going on television to tell Australians he’d rather lose office than give up his government’s economic reform program. But it strengthened his credibility with voters in the run-up to an election against John Howard, who was trying to woo the electorate with a massive tax cut bribe.
But there isn’t much evidence so far that the Labor brains trust has lifted its game sufficiently to reverse the comprehensive collapse of the prime minister’s credibility with voters. And conducting an election-style campaign that automatically elevates her opponent and focuses more attention on personalities than policies isn’t helping.
Still, at least she’s wrecking herself in the cause of a worthwhile, if not brilliant, policy. Kevin Rudd wrecked his prime ministership over the CPRS, and that was a dog.
It’s mostly in the reporting & framing. There’s nothing TV “news” likes more than to get footage of some dingbat accosting a pollie, but from there it becomes a matter of framing & Gillard reliably gets the rough treatment. What coverage of Declan Stephenson today?
>>Still, at least she’s wrecking herself in the cause of a worthwhile, if not brilliant, policy. Kevin Rudd wrecked his prime ministership over the CPRS, and that was a dog.<<
Actually in an article about credibility and the politics of climate change it's Bernard Keane who has none. He waged non stop slag and bag against Penny Wong and the CPRS – the Greens then voted it down and now we have a policy that on most measures is the same or worse.
The parts relating to green energy funding are mostly opposed by Bernard Keane – unless he's weather vane on this issue – and had nothing to do with the CPRS nor the Carbon Tax as they can be added on at any time.
Bernard Keane has no choice but to continue his slag and bag campaign against the CPRS as he so much personal credibility invested in opposing it.
Politically, carbon reform is dead in this country for a decade. Labor, the Greens and Indies will vote it through, and when Abbott is elected PM in the depths of the 2013 winter he will have no choice but to kill it. Otherwise he will suffer the same fate as Gillard and have zero credibility left.
He will offer a grab bag of alternate policies including a large scale reforestation program that will be directly link to indigenous employment that will be relatively cheap and highly effective across a whole range of environmental and social measures. He'll probably buy out the Hazelwood power station and offer special loans to build a new gas plant to replace it, and a few other measures that will be rolled out over time and win broad public and media support.
He'll also offer a new Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) tax that will replace both the carbon tax and mining tax and be sold as an investment for the future.
An Abbott LNP government will largely repeat the Howard/Costello program of deep cuts in the first year heading to a balanced budget by the 2nd/3rd year when he'll take the SWF tax to an election that unlike the GST will be a tax on big business (including the banks) and the people will lap it up like no tomorrow. From a possibly narrow victory only in 2013 – he'll be returned in 2015/16 (depending on the election cycle) and will win in a landslide.
The Greens will become hasbeens and Labor will go into a deep funk – just like last time. By late decade – global warming will be either dangerously real and visible all around us or morphed into an obscure science issue that the biotechnology boffins are fast on track to solving.
But throughout all this time Bernard Keane will remained wedded to the idea that the CPRS was a dog and that the Greens did the right thing in November 2009 voting down a policy that would have by now been fully bedded down and the next phase of our response to climate change an important but not central issue in an era of progressive government – after a decade of the worst right wing government since the early 1950s.
Mr Keane – like Senator Brown – you have much to answer for – but I don't expect we will ever hear a word of contrition from you ever on this issue. So keep up the Slag and Bag – Chris Pyne must think you a master of it that he can only dream of achieving.
Hmmm. Let me know what supermarkets Rabbott will be attending, and I’ll gladly front him and call him a self-confessed liar.
Simon – quite right about the CPRS debate and a plausible image of the future. Why take 70 per cent of what was needed (ie. the CPRS) when you can settle, in the longer term, for less than zero.
Crap!