Economy
Carbon Breakdown
SMH political satirist Annabel Crabb coined the phrase “Ruddslide” to describe Kev07’s election win. Maybe it’s fair to say that his dismissal was a Ruddbath?
Either way, at least there has been less of Tony Abbott on radio and in print. Wingnut has popped up wherever possible to claim credit for Kevin Rudd’s downfall, but sadly the credit for that horribly sad end must go for the most part to Kevin himself, and us, the hypocritical public.
Rudd got it wrong because he promised so much that he couldn’t really deliver – particularly on climate change. He would have needed to essentially conscript all the major economies of the world to credible restructuring of their societies and industries at a time of global recession for us to feel satisfied. And at the same time as Barack Obama only had motivation and mandate to sign a climate memo at Copenhagen, about 70 per cent of Australians wanted climate action at the same time as about 70 per cent of Australians couldn’t really deal with increasing cost pressures from rate rises, the GFC, plasma TVs, Hummers, iPhones, etc.
So we feel good about demanding action on climate change, but we feel better contributing to it, and there’s no way in hell that we should be the ones to pay extra to reduce it.
But when Kev, with a contrary Senate and a whingeing public, pragmatically said we weren’t ready for an ETS – even one with piddlingly weak targets – we were disappointed, fatally so, because he’d promised an outcome.
Julia Gillard has qualified her commitment to imposing a price on carbon, by saying that her government will need “a lasting and deep community consensus to do it”. Defining “lasting” and “deep” is best left to the analyst willing to estimate the length of the proverbial piece of string.
Best of all, however, is “consensus” – a realistically unachievable state of democratic nirvana best deployed by sewing circles at their AGM.
But Abbott has already taken the bait, dismissing her aspirational “community consensus” as “Orwellian Newspeak”, even within the same passage in The Australian as he proclaimed that he too was committed to act on carbon as soon as there was “international consensus”. Irony much, Wingnut?
First week of the new leadership and already Phoney Tony’s back to outing his own flagrant seepage of weasel words.
Should be interesting; let’s also hope it’s eco-friendly. That means us too.
New PM’s shift on population at odds with data
PETER MARTIN AND DAVID ROOD
June 28, 2010
JULIA Gillard’s attempt to distance herself from predecessor Kevin Rudd on the question of population growth sits uneasily with the latest population statistics.
Released on Thursday as Ms Gillard took the prime ministership, the Bureau of Statistics figures show population growth slowing sharply during 2009, with the growth rate slipping from 2.16 to 1.99 per cent.
The December quarter increase of just 0.41 per cent is lower than at any time during the financial crisis.
The change reflects a lower birth rate as a mini baby boom eased and also lower immigration in the financial crisis. Recent changes to the rules on foreign students and working visas suggest the lower immigration rate might be here to stay.
The bureau’s central projection has Australia’s population climbing from 22 million to 34 million by 2051, somewhat less than the 36 million projected in the intergenerational report greeted by Mr Rudd with the observation that he welcomed a ”big Australia”.
Ms Gillard said yesterday population minister Tony Burke would be known as the ”minister for sustainable population” and said she did not believe in a big Australia.
”I am a migrant,” she told the Nine Network. ”My parents came here at a time that the country was saying to the world we’ve got a population of around about 11 million, we want to build it up. The big focus then was on populate or perish.”
New PM restores ALP vote
JULIA Gillard’s replacement of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister has restored Labor’s lost vote and given it a chance of winning an election within months.
As the new Prime Minister moved quickly to nullify the most immediate threats to Labor support — the arrival of illegal boatpeople, the super-profits mining tax and fears about over-population — the first Newspoll survey since her ascension shows the Labor government has returned to the levels of support it had before Mr Rudd’s popularity crashed in April.
According to the latest Newspoll survey, conducted exclusively for The Australian between Friday and Sunday, the first full three days of Ms Gillard’s leadership, Labor’s primary vote leapt seven percentage points from 35 per cent the weekend before Mr Rudd was removed to 42 per cent.
The Coalition’s primary vote support was unchanged on 40 per cent but the Greens’ vote crashed back five points to 10 per cent.
On a two-party-preferred basis, based on a calculation of preference flows at the 2007 election, Labor is now on an election-winning lead of 53 per cent to the Coalition’s 47 per cent, exactly as it was at the 2007 election and about where it was in April before Mr Rudd’s personal support crashed.
Ms Gillard started her rule with a strong lead over the Liberal leader as the preferred prime minister, 53 per cent to Mr Abbott’s 29 per cent.
The weekend before the Labor coup removed a tearful Kevin Rudd, the Leader of the Opposition had closed the gap on preferred prime minister to nine points with Mr Rudd on 46 per cent compared with Mr Abbott’s 37 per cent.
While voters appear to have moved out of the “parking lot” with the Greens on primary vote after Ms Gillard became leader, more people think she will be “about the same” as prime minister.
Full story in The Australian HERE
Meanwhile, today in Tasmania …
**MEDIA ALERT**
Monday 28 June 2010
The Leader of the Opposition is in Tasmania and has the following media engagement:
10.40am Visit Grange Resources with Senators Colbeck, Parry and Barnett and Mr Garry Carpenter, Liberal Candidate for Braddon.
Venue: Bass Highway,
PORT LATTA.
Mark: The Black Widow