Adding to her woes. The report in the Australian Financial Review this morning on Julia Gillard’s attempts when Kevin Rudd’s deputy prime minister to scrap plans to price carbon emissions will further feed the puzzlement over who the “real” Julia is and what she actually believes in. The cabinet paper that the paper publishes — there is a version of the story on its website — suggests that at the very least she was a late convert to the need of a carbon pricing.
The cabinet paper, written by Gillard and entitled The Bipartisan Solution was apparently handed out to her cabinet colleagues. It proposed a bipartisan deal on a 5% reduction in carbon pollution, to be achieved without a carbon tax or an ETS, arguing that there was little chance of the Coalition agreeing to an emissions trading scheme (ETS) while Tony Abbott was Opposition Leader. Deputy Labor leader Gillard urged the government to adopt a fallback position that was likely to get bipartisan support.
Her cabinet colleagues rejected the idea but as PM Gillard followed it to a large extent with the pronouncement of a no carbon tax in a government led by her election promise.
What today’s publication of this little bit of history will do is give new strength to the Abbott assertions that the Prime Minister was forced by the Greens to ignore the political wisdom of her own advice. At least some of her declining popularity can be put down to a belief by many voters that she is a politician who stands for nothing but keeping the Prime Minister’s job.
A sensible opinion poll coverage. A minor reference on page one with the details well inside on page four is an appropriate way to treat an opinion poll when an election is a couple of years away. The numbers are largely irrelevant and their importance should not be overstated. So a commendation to The Australian for its handling of this latest Newspoll. We can but hope that a future poll showing things getting worse for the government rather than better is treated in a similarly sensible fashion.
Down rather than up. The Crikey Interest Rate Indicator shows that a fall in interest rates is the more likely outcome of next week’s Reserve Bank Board meeting than a rise. It’s been a long time since the indicator has pointed in that direction!
Not that anyone with a mortgage should get too excited. By far the most likely outcome is that there will be no change in either direction — an 84.5% probability.
Richard, Sadly, given the media we have, I think you are correct to say that the article in today’s Financial Review will add to Julia Gillard’s woes. However this does not mean the media should be promoting cause for woe. The article itself makes it very clear that the Gillard paper was about developing a strategy to deal with climate change for the period Abbott was in opposition. It was not about Julia Gillard not believing in putting a price on carbon as the best means to reduce carbon pollution. The reasons behind her concern have come to pass but I think the media will try to sell her paper as a lack of commitment and principle. If this is the case, shame on you media!
Richard, please. When did Australians insist on such high standards of consistency on the part of their politicians? Gillard may well have sought a bipartisan deal on climate change, with the intention of trying to neutralize what she may have already concluded was an issue loaded against the proposer; even Abbott had that much figured out. And then, elected into an uneasy alliance with the Greens and independents, she loses that option anyway, and opts for a carbon tax. Did she want it? Probably not. So what? She knew from the beginning that this would be tough to win, but resolved to do it anyway. For this she has endured a media and political campaign of a crudity and viciousness for which I cannot recall a reasonable comparison in Australia’s political history. If you want a more relevant measure of character than pointless reviews of how we got here, then look at her courage and resilience under this unprecedented campaign. Maybe she should have seen it coming; what more would you expect of the poisonous Abbott, or the even more lethal Murdoch for that matter? Certainly she could have done a better job of communicating with the public. But in any event, she is still there, and Abbott looks less and less in charge of his agenda, and himself, than ever.
I did not vote for Gillard last time around, precisely because I had doubts about her on character and morality on some important issues (on the refugee issue, I still do). I did not vote for the Greens, nor for the Coalition (at the time I would have given that some thought had Turnbull survived in the leadership) . But on the carbon issue, I suggest she has taken a courageous and unpopular decision, she has prosecuted the case with some skill and considerable effort, and she deserves credit for this. Women, in particular, should consider this, because if they think that the treatment being meted out to Gillard by the scumbag element of the media and talk show morons would be happening if she were male, then they are living in a dream world. Where Julia goes with the cabal of loudmouth mates who run this country, so go other women.
If I hear another lame journalist suggest that this is all about Australians’ perception of Gillard as a liar, then I will have to update my passport: how could that make any sense with Abbott – a serial liar with a consistency record worthy of a second rate racecourse tout as leader? There is more than that going on here, and it does not bode well for politics in this country.
Onya Chunky. I’ve largely stopped paying attention to domestic political reporting in the ‘mainstream media’ because of the poll obsession. There’s only one poll that counts and it isn’t for two years yet. If only those developing policy would remeber this we might get something that looked a bit beyond next weekend.