|
October 11, 2011
Today we have plenty of deniers who are busy in the public sphere claiming that addressing the issues of climate change will increase inflation, cost jobs, destroy households, send companies bankrupt and ruin the country. It's doom and gloom all round as they paint a picture of the need for Fortress Australia to batten down the hatches for a prolonged storm. No carbon tax now!
These naysayers are not just opposed to the Gillard Labor Government. They are trying to delay both the arrival of the new industries and new jobs associated with a shift to a low carbon future and a smart grid smart city future. The conservative movement's rhetoric and war against modern radicalism has been very successful.
In Business Spectator Alan Kohler says that in 2011 in Australia we have:
a deeply unpopular minority government engaged in a frenzy of reform and an Opposition that says that it’s all bad and it will undo it all as soon as it’s elected, as it certainly will be.This morning’s Newspoll in The Australian has the ALP on a primary vote of 26 per cent [sic: it's 29 per cent] and the Coalition on 48 per cent [sic: it's 49]. Labor is behind on every issue, just about everywhere, so unless there is a miracle the next election will be a landslide and Prime Minister Tony Abbott will have a mandate to do whatever he likes. In fact, of course, he’ll be locked into promises to repeal or change most of what the Labor government is currently doing.
We have a history of deep seated opposition to reform whose standard rhetoric is one of doom and gloom. It pays to recall the opposition to the emergence of an information society and the internet several years ago.
In 2006 Richard Alston, the Australian Minister for Communications in the then Howard Government, declared that Australia did not need broadband as it was only good for pornography and gambling. Telstra and AT&T (and several other incumbent telecoms companies) proclaimed that the internet would result in a total meltdown of the national telecoms network, and that the government would need to regulate others using the internet.
That opposition looks quaint now doesn't it? We smile at the Richard Alston's of the world and wonder what sort of Kool Aid he was taking at the time. The internet is transforming the way we live our lives and companies like Apple, Google and Facebook are riding the digital wave.
The current blockers of the shift to a low carbon economy will look similarly quaint in a few years time as more people install photovoltaic (PV) systems, use smart-grids for more efficient and effective energy management, and become integrated into off-grid-distributed energy systems.
|
"unless there is a miracle the next election will be a landslide and Prime Minister Tony Abbott will have a mandate to do whatever he likes."
One immediate problem faced by the Gillard Govt is the fate of its Migration Legislation Amendment (Offshore Processing and Other Measures) Bill 2011.It appears that the fate of the legislation may come down to the vote of WA National MP Tony Crook on amendments to the bill and on his final vote on the bill.
The media is saying that if the bill is defeated, it will be the first time a government has lost a crucial House vote on legislation in more than 80 years. The implication is that Abbott will then be able to force Gillard to resign and take what is duly his. Or, alternatively, it only brings forward the Rudd coup against Gillard and the general election date. The media--the Canberra Gallery--- are convinced that the plotting of Labor's factional powerbrokers to find alternatives to Gillard is well under way.
However, if the defeat of the Migration Amendment Bill does happen (it may be pulled), it is unlikely that the Gillard Government will abandon its legislative reform agenda and call an early election. There is nothing the Opposition can do to force the Government to resign. That leaves the Rudd option.
News Ltd is beating this up for its worth. Dissent is rife within Labor etc etc.