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July 24, 2008
On Tuesday, Julie Bishop's "blog" in The Age complained that scientists with doubts about AGW are being intimidated into silence. She took the familiar culture wars approach of reframing the debate as a matter of opinion and free speech rather than one of science.
Rather than denigrate those with opposing views, it is vital that we encourage debate and respect dissenting opinions.
While there is unlikely to be consensus on many major issues, we must defend the right of people to hold their opinions and allow free and open debate on the merits of those opinions.
If comments are any indication, she didn't have much luck with it.
On Wednesday, Andrew Bolt predicted a showdown between Brendan Nelson heading the Liberal deniers, and Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt representing the supporters. Apparently it's pencilled in for next week.
Nelson now realises he made a mistake by caving in on Friday to demands by Turnbull and Hunt that he stick to the old policy - that the Liberals, like Labor, would bring in an ETS whatever the rest of the world did. He plans now to fight for the position he put, and yesterday promised in interviews only to “move towards” an ETS.
In the shadow cabinet meeting next Tuesday and in the party room meeting on Wednesday he plans to ask his colleagues to now back him: no ETS unless gassy giants China and India commit to cuts, too.
In other words, do nothing.
Today, Kevin Andrews has confirmed the gossip, although unlike Bishop he's calling it for the internal split it really is. Michelle Grattan writes:
Opposition hardliners want Coalition leader Brendan Nelson to repudiate the present policy that he has reluctantly endorsed and which shadow treasurer Malcolm Turnbull and environment spokesman Greg Hunt have enthusiastically promoted. This says an Australian scheme should start by 2012, regardless of other countries.
The ALP's line, "I can't comment on the Opposition's climate change policy because, like them, I'm not sure what it is" seems pretty safe at this rate. Everyone with a microphone will ask whether it's a backflip, and everyone with a camera will zoom in on Turnbull's visible discomfort if he ends up having to toe the party line. Turnbull would be the ideal opponent in poker, poor sod.
Tim Watts is appalled by Nelson's weakness, while Mark Bahnisch notes another little wobble from Nelson trying to turn a showdown into 'negotiations' while slouching towards denialism.
The Liberals are once again looking like a clueless rabble, and they may well find that getting fulsome praise from Andrew Bolt is no substitute for adopting a responsible stance, or a plausible imitation thereof, in the court of public opinion.
That's generously assuming that the public is paying that much attention. It's true we're suckers for novelty, but a policy cycle of sometimes less than 24 hours is stretching the notion of novelty a little far.
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Lyn,
It is sad to see Julie Bishop reduced to uttering nonsense in order to defend the conservative position of the WA liberals. Her silencing of reasonable debate "argument" is a string of assertions that make little sense. The pinciple --we must defend the right of people to hold their opinions and allow free and open debate on the merits of those opinions---is fine. It is classic liberalism. But she does not show that the principle is being repudiated in the public debate on emissions trading.
Bishop says:
The Australian gives the sceptics/deniers a lot of space to air their opinions. Secondly, the silencing makes little sense at all, especially when the media columns are full of the public relations from the Greenhouse mafia. Thirdly, Bishop is even able to "blog" in The Age ---the enemy newspaper as it were, but she doesn't see that in doing so she has refuted her own claim. Bad mistake.
There is no argument here. How do you go from the factual statement that Treasury modelling is not ready to the conclusion that this is an extraordinary attempt to silence reasoned debate?
You can only do so through some additional premises doing the work, eg:
1. Rudd has postponed the Treasury modelling for political reasons.
2. you cannot have a reasoned debate without Treasury modelling.
3. there will be no Treasury modelling until it is too late.
Therefore,
Even including these won't do the job required, as Bishop's main point about silencing of the debate is about the science of climate change not Treasury modelling.
It's junk. Sad to see the destruction of an intelligent woman who was a competent Minister with a sharp political edge.