Discuss, especially regarding what Helen described on LP as the “sheer vintage wingnuttery” full of “howling and baying and misogyny and homophobia” in comments to one the usual tabloid suspects’ description of this as a “dark, dark day” (will NOT link to P**rs Ak****n).
Official tigtog position on this legislation: it’s a nice start, should have happened ages ago (would have too if the ALP hadn’t bungled it first time around under Rudd and then bungled the PR under Gillard), now bring on the MRRT.
Categories: culture wars, environment, media, parties and factions
Media Circus: RIP Gough Whitlam Edition 
ObBloodOath post: entering Buffoon Central 
Dear Tony Abbott 
Hoyden About Town 
NB:
The article goes on to say that uncertainty about the carbon pricing has throttled this market for most of this year, and that now everybody will be able to move on.
One of the things a lot of folks haven’t really noticed about this government is that, despite being a minority government, they really haven’t received much of a check in their legislative timetable. Just about everything they’ve put forward has passed, both in the House and the Senate, and it’s largely, I suspect, been because Labor under Ms Gillard’s leadership has been willing to make the changes and do the wheeling and dealing necessary to get things out there onto the House floor which will be agreeable to the majority of parliamentarians.
This contrasts rather starkly with the behaviour of the Liberals. I’ve often said that Tony Abbott and his ilk tend to remind me of a bunch of toddlers in dire need of their afternoon nap, with their tantrums, and their parliamentary performance art, and their complete lack of viable alternatives to Labor policy, as well as their apparent unwillingness to step down from their high horse and actually join in the negotiation process. Instead, they’ve concentrated pretty much on re-running the 2010 election campaign (key points: “We Wuz Robbed”) and trying to get the result they wanted from that.
Labor, while being (as bluemilk pointed out earlier today) risk-averse to an extreme which is starting to appear more than a little paranoid, are at least willing to negotiate. They’re willing to talk with the various independent senators and members, and find out whether there’s something they’d like proposed (such as the pokie restrictions which are also causing such a storm in the media teacup) and make a valid attempt to get this put before the parliament in a form which is likely to pass muster in both houses (which is probably why it’s causing such a storm – because the forces opposing it know the ALP actually put some work in on this, and as such it’s more likely to pass than not).
I’m relieved and I’m glad, and I’m hoping this is a start of a big process to make this country a greener one. Barnaby Joyce’s theatrics after the event were quite something to behold. It was a shame he didn’t have a dummy to spit and chuck across the room.
I loved that the rain and thunder couldn’t dampen Bob and the Greens’ spirits.
Personally, I don’t think the Greens had an entirely brilliant record the first time around with the carbon tax under Rudd either. They held out for some important things this time, but were also way more pragmatic with Gillard.
While congratulating someone in Combet’s office I asked them how it felt to have finally got the carbon tax through and they said “feels quite surreal”.
AHAHAHAHA. Sorry, just read the not-linked article. OH GOD. That’ll tickle me for a while, that will. *giggle-snort*
Megpie, the negotiation required as part and parcel of being in a minority government allegedly historically tends to lead to legislation that passes once it’s put to the House, which is a pattern I find rather interesting. I’m sure you’re right that it’s one of the factors pushing the Opposition to such ranting and frothing extremes.
I’d just like to see Gillard et al have a tighter media strategy than they’ve shown. They should never have ever once given ground on conceding that “tax” was a valid word to use with respect to the proposed carbon pricing mechanisms, because it just isn’t (and this is an important Economics-101 difference, not just an airy-fairy pedantic detail), and then the whole JuLIAR trope would never have happened – because in that very same video clip with the soundbite that the Gillard-haters love to repeat ad-nauseum, she goes on to say that she will be working on a carbon price.
That thing about letting it be called a tax at all has been peeving me right off all along. Talk about allowing your enemy to frame the terms of the debate. That bit of nonsense worked so well they’ve even started trying to do the same with the pokie legislation, trying to call it a pokie tax. Absurdity!
I’m still baffled by the brochure the government (so much printing and transport!) sent me trying to sell me on it. All it did was make me confused about why they’re giving out all this money to combat the increased cost of living. Why not just implement environmental programs that aren’t going to have such an impact on the cost of living? Doesn’t that strike anyone else as an exceptionally large game of robbing peter to pay paul?
I think in the not too distant future we will realise that a carbon price/emissions trading scheme is not making a big enough dent in our climate change problem and we’ll have to take more drastic action anyway. At least now the realisation that we need to do something – nay, anything! – is at the front of a lot more people’s minds than it was a few years ago.
Also that tele article was great for a laugh!
Eva – the whole thing is about trying to have an impact on the cost of living (though politicians skirt around the language of that fact). This is so that people/companies will change their behaviour. It is trying to factor something damaging (ie. carbon emissions) into the marketplace so that the cost will be included in the cost of the activity that causes the damage. Where you don’t pay for the damage you see no reason to stop causing the damage. Putting a price on carbon leads to new decisions and efficiencies for firms in the way they produce goods and services. It makes less destructive forms of production more economically viable, too.
But in introducing a price for carbon into the economy we don’t want to hurt people who are genuinely going to be struggling with that cost of living increase, and who aren’t in the same position that a company might be to respond to that price signal. For instance, initially many people/consumers will lack real options. So, we compensate people at the same time as we implement a cost for carbon emissions.
If the emissions price isn’t sufficient to change behaviour then you have the option in such a scheme to lift the price of carbon until it does have the required effect – and over time this is exactly what will happen in order to reach more environmenally sound targets.
The emissions trading scheme is also about preparing our firms for the wider coverage of trading schemes internationally in the future, it is about realising those efficiencies now and having a competitive advantage down the track.
I understand the reasoning behind the implementation of the tax, I’m more baffled about why so much effort is being poured into something that – in my meagre understanding – is not going to have a dramatic impact on climate change. Instead of investing in the research and development of non carbon emitting technology, instead of taking on a challenge to be global leaders in the development of clean energy, we’re implementing a system that will slowly and marginally reduce our carbon emissions, not cut them drastically. It in no ways addresses our issue of fossil fuel dependency, it just makes that dependency pricier.
I think you’re missing something. The revenue raised by the carbon price on the largest polluters is going to directly fund clean energy research and solutions. That’s how the government is going to do the things you want.
But that is the fascinating thing Eva, it’s not going to do much but the whinging and moaning coming from some shock jocks, some industry leaders, CEOs etc is just astounding. Can you imagine what it would be like if we tried to cut carbon emissions drastically? The myth that we are the only ones doing anything about climate change is already well entrenched. People protest against wind farms, clean coal is a pipe dream at the moment – despite the large amounts of $$ being thrown at it and so on. It might only be a tiny step but at least it gets us on the road to somewhere. Small doses of change might get us there where a big attempt fails.
I suspect the logic is as follows:
1) Drastically cutting our carbon emissions would require all of the sectors of our economy to co-operate thoroughly with the government on the project from go to whoa, most especially the mining and resources, transport, and agricultural sectors. Since none of these sectors are pre-disposed to be even vaguely helpful in the first place, it would require an act of several different deities at once to achieve. That’s fine if you happen to have a miracle up your sleeve – at present, I don’t.
2) The research and development of low-carbon and no-carbon technologies at the moment is largely blue-sky stuff – a lot of it is about theory, and some bits of it (like, for example, fusion power) require some very complex theoretical breakthroughs to occur before they’re going to be theoretically feasible (much less practically feasible; less still economically feasible). Getting the Australian economic powers-that-be to agree to throwing a lot of money in the direction of theoretical research is another thing which would require an act of several different deities to achieve. Again, I for one am a little low on miracles at present.
3) To be deadly honest, it doesn’t really matter what we do at this stage, because NOTHING is going to have a dramatic impact on climate change at this stage – we could globally give up using petrochemicals and carbon emitting technologies completely and utterly, and return to hunter-gatherer tribalism (with the massive loss of life this would entail), and climate change would still continue for at least a century or so. Climate change isn’t something which can be switched on or off – it’s a cumulative process in response to levels of carbon pollution which have been accumulating in our atmosphere and biosphere since approximately the 1700s. It’s probably going to take at least a century or two before things actually settle down one way or another (always providing climatic epicycles don’t interfere) and another few centuries after that before things start to return to earlier levels (always providing this is possible).
To put it another way: the avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote. Climate change is an avalanche – it’s triggered by things which have already happened, it isn’t going to alter, and nothing we pebbles do now is going to stop it – all we can do is hold on, and hope to come out of the other end of things with a biosphere which will still support fauna of our size.
4) If the current Federal government is nothing else, they’re practical. Instead of focussing on finding the One Perfect Solution To Everything, they’re focussing on doing something small now. Making our dependency on fossil fuels pricier is a way of altering our dependency on fossil fuels – or at least making us ask “is there another, cheaper, way of doing X?” before we go and spend the money.
It’s worth remembering that our over-dependency on fossil fuels and similar is something which is comparatively recent. Widespread electrical grid power isn’t even a century old. Alternative technologies do exist (for example, there’s still things like treadle sewing machines, which use mechanical power instead of electrical to run themselves; there are coolers like the old Coolgardie safe which use evaporative cooling rather than mechanical gas-exchange cooling) and they’re out there. It’s just that at present it’s easier and cheaper to run things on grid power. In the same way, the idea of everyone owning an affordable individual vehicle isn’t quite a century old either – mass transit has always been present alongside individual transit.