Today we hand over the soapbox to our outgoing editor-in-chief, Sophie Black. Sophie leaves Private Media today after 10 years, a big stint of which was as ed and deputy ed of Crikey, so we asked her to write a commemorative Crikey says. Go well, Blackie.
Carbon pricing doesn’t fit neatly into a sound bite, but Bill “Zinger” Shorten is giving it a red-hot go. “Let me say this to our opponents, in words of one syllable: an ETS is not a tax,” he said last week, before daring Tony Abbott to “bring it on” and call an early election.
And who can blame the Opposition Leader for becoming monosyllabic when the Prime Minister responds with gems like this?
“The ETS that Labor keeps talking about might as well be called an electricity tax scam because that’s what it is.”
In turn, the ALP has come back with what can only be described as the Joel Fitzgibbon fingers-in-ears method:
“Call it a tax if you like. It’s a price. I don’t care if people call it a tax. If they want to run a scare campaign, fine.”
You should care, Joel.
Because the thing is, this policy problem requires several syllables, some consonants, complete sentences, a bonus paragraph and even some maths: reducing emissions does cost someone, something. The onus is on our leaders to explain how and why it should. Given there’s not much chance of that, that means the media are next cab off the rank.
The challenge: find a more effective way to call politicians out on their fudged figures, incorrect terminology and flat-out wrong information. We don’t care how you do it. Long-form, listicle, Periscope, picture gallery, podcast, Snapchat, sky writing.
Just don’t do a 2011. Media, we’re better than that.*
Then, after accurately reporting the actual cost, to whom it goes to and how, please attempt to link it back to why the policy makers believe it is necessary. And that requires two words, and not much more than one syllable: climate change.
Go.
(*Well those of us who aren’t Alan Jones.)
Nicely put Sophie. Farewell and ta for all the fish. You’ll be missed on this side of the screen.
Now that we know that there is zero sustainable level of carbon emissions, no one should have a right to emit. Trading in such rights is cynical, and the rich nations buying off the rights of the poor nations is downright wicked.
We need a tax. It is revenue that does not have to come out of wages or salaries. And if it is to apply a price pressure, industry needs a noncarbon supply of baseload power to buy instead.
Both governments claim to be concerned for the greenhouse, yet both of them have retained the Federal law against nuclear electricity. Whether that is cynical obstruction or political cowardice, it is failure to govern.
No, most of it (media) isn’t (better than that) – if they were we’d have seen evidence of it.
Please, please make it so. I can’t bear going through another looooong lead up to the next election with the PM stating that the ETS is a scam. Bring all this nonsense to a head and make the pollies tell the truth to the electorate – why should we let them get away with spouting lies. And yes, please add the words Climate Change to the fray and explain just why this ETS is being considered. Hello – the rest of the world are doing just that. Good luck Sophie.
You nailed it Sophie, thank you. And thank you for everything.