A consensus has locked in over the past week behind the notion that the federal election will not be until May, with John Kehoe of the Financial Review reporting public servants have been told to cut short summer holiday plans to help prepare a pre-election budget in April. The government will then be able to “fight the poll on an expected economic bounce-back from COVID-19”.
Also:
• Liberal member John Alexander has announced he will not seek re-election in his Sydney seat of Bennelong, which he recovered for the Liberals in 2010 following John Howard’s historic defeat in 2007. The Sydney Morning Herald reports contenders for the preselection are likely to include Gisele Kapterian, a former chief-of-staff to Michaelia Cash and current executive at software company Salesforce, and City of Sydney councillor Craig Chung. Kapterian was mentioned as a possible challenger to Alexander’s preselection earlier in the year.
• The federal government seems to be struggling to get the numbers it will need to pass its voter identification bill through the Senate before the election. With One Nation for and Labor, the Greens and independent Senator Rex Patrick vehemently opposed, the swing votes in the Senate are Centre Alliance Senator Stirling Griff and independent Jacqui Lambie. While Griff supports the idea in principle, the Financial Review reports that Lambie and the Centre Alliance’s lower house member, Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie, has criticised the short time frame and the government’s prioritisation of the matter over issues including the establishment a federal integrity commission. Independent MP Bob Katter added to the momentum against the measure when he declared it “blatantly racist” due to its disproportionate impact on indigenous voters.
• In the period between his drink driving misadventure a fortnight ago and announcement at the start of this week that he would bow out at the next election, Tim Smith’s Victorian state seat of Kew was the subject of a comprehensive poll by Redbridge Group which had Liberal on 39%, Labor on 31% and the Greens on 12%, suggesting a close contest between Liberal and Labor at the final count to be determined by the unknown quantity of independent and small party preferences. However, the poll also recorded a 40.2% “very unfavourable” rating for state Labor, along with 44.9% for Smith and 49.5% for one of his backers, Tony Abbott. The poll was conducted November 4 to 7 from a sample of 920.
• The Liberals have confirmed candidates for two Hunter region seats that swung heavily against Labor in 2019. In Paterson, where the margin was cut from 10.7% to 5.0% in 2019, the candidate will be Brooke Vitnell, a family law solicitor and former ministerial staffer to Paul Fletcher and Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells. Shortland will again be contested by Nell McGill, a commercial litigator at Sparke Helmore Lawyers, who cut the margin from 9.9% to 4.4% in 2019.
• It has come to my attention that US pollster Morning Consult conducts a weekly tracking poll of approval and disapproval for 13 world leaders including Scott Morrison, who has lately fallen into net negative territory.
‘JM says:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 1:51 pm
We have similar geopolitical advantages to Switzerland and Sweden which have used this model to stay out of wars for around two centuries.
Plus we have a giant moat.’
————————–
Yep. The biggie is that we can make even a successful invasion extremely costly.
“To support this view, the Greens have recently confirmed that they did not find Wong helpful in negotiations over the Bill.”
***
Yeah I’m fairly sure Senator Wong did give the Greens a pretty cold shoulder during the time of the CPRS negotiations if memory serves me correctly. As Zoom said, it was a fair while ago now. Not sure if that was her decision or Rudd’s. I’m going to guess it was probably Kevin’s considering how he micromanaged pretty much everything his gov did, or so we are told by some.
I’m still troubled by those nooses yesterday. Has anyone seen any response by any government, or for that matter any media editorial?
Boerwar:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 1:30 pm
[‘Who knows?’]
I certainly don’t but on the balance of probabilities, I doubt that the US would risk war with China over Taiwan. I do anticipate, however, more, sometimes serious skirmishes in the South China Sea where China has laid claim to a number of places where it lacks a legitimate claim. But the threat of an all out nuclear war would I think be out of the question.
And yet you’re so sure of your position.
As for Chinese society becoming more open. you’ve obviously never been there.
Also, as I have repeatedly stated, don’t go by what the comrades say. Go by what they do. So, if you want to know how Xi’s brain works, then have a look at the difference between the promises that Xi made about not militarizing the South China Sea land grabs and the subsequent militarization of same.
Why does this have to be seen as aggressive, it could be, and it would fit fit much better with Chinese culture as a, defensive positioning.
——————————–
The particular issue you raised was whether I knew what was in Xi’s brain. I gave a couple of examples of Xi’s unpredictability. The obvious conclusion is that I neither claim to know what is in Xi’s brain nor claim to know how he will behave in the future.
As for your defending Xi’s lying about his intentions not to militarize South China Sea land grabs, that goes to a separate issue. We can’t go by what Xi says. We can only go by what Xi does.
‘Mavis says:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 1:56 pm
Boerwar:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 1:30 pm
[‘Who knows?’]
I certainly don’t but on the balance of probabilities, I doubt that the US would risk war with China over Taiwan. I do anticipate, however, more, sometimes serious skirmishes in the South China Sea where China has laid claim to a number of places where it lacks a legitimate claim. But the threat of an all out nuclear war would I think be out of the question.’
———————————–
I believe it is in question, at least notionally, because both sides have recently threatened the potential use of nuclear weapons. The likelihood is another matter.
One possible scenario is that China and the US/Australia become bogged down in a ruinous and unwinnable conventional war. One scenario is that one or the side decides to lob a nuclear warhead to indicate that it is either escalate time or time to stop. A rather neat scenario would be for China to lob a warhead at an Australian town to indicate willingness to escalate to all-out nuclear war. What would the US do?
History shows chicken hawks (like some on pb) are the first to collaborate.
Those who were most opposed to hitler in France were amongst the staunchest defenders of Vichy.
‘Late Riser says:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 1:56 pm
I’m still troubled by those nooses yesterday. Has anyone seen any response by any government, or for that matter any media editorial?’
———————————
Apparently Morrison reckons that three is an odd number.
Mavis @ #135 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 1:22 pm
‘At age 64 Rudd won’t be in his dotage when Labor’s returns to the Treasury Benches in the first half of next year.’
That’s a releif!
I thought it was going to take longer than that.
I’m so happy.
Can’t wait for Scotty’s concession speech.
He’s probably already written it.
LOL so long Scotty!!!!
Boerwar @ #705 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 10:58 am
But you attribute motive by jumping to one conclusion, discounting other possibilities.
If you were honest in your position you would explore these.
Unfortunately your analysis mainly consists of projecting your own cultural values on the situation with little appreciation or understanding of theirs.
A world of possibilities lost: Carbon pricing numbers
At an event last night to mark the 10th anniversary of the carbon price being legislated, Greens Leader Adam Bandt – whose victory in the seat of Melbourne led to the establishment of a Multi-Party Climate Change Committee that developed a world-leading suite of climate policies – has released modelling showing the carbon price was operating so effectively that had it not been repealed, the Liberals weak 2030 targets would have been met in 2020, a full decade early.
As another power-sharing minority Parliament looms, Mr Bandt said Labor should be proud of their cross-party achievement under Julia Gillard instead of continually trying to airbrush the period out of history, and should instead join the Greens in directing their criticisms at the real enemy – the Liberals – who tore down the only climate policy in this country that actually worked.
QUOTES FROM MR BANDT’S SPEECH
In just its first year of operations, the Clean Energy Act cut emissions by 10 million tonnes.
If the Liberals hadn’t torn up the carbon price, Australia would have stopped an additional 256 million tonnes of pollution going into the atmosphere.
Every tonne counts.
We’ve modelled it. If the price on pollution had not been murdered on the floor of the Parliament, we would have cut over a quarter of a billion tonnes extra of pollution over the last six years.
In 2020, pollution would be 464 million tonnes a year, compared with the 512 Mt we reached under the Liberals and the 529-585 Mt forecast under Kevin Rudd’s own poor first draft of a climate policy.
If we had kept the price on pollution, we would have met the Coalition’s weak 2030 targets in 2020.
https://greensmps.org.au/articles/world-possibilities-lost-carbon-pricing-numbers
From talking to Chinese people. They say this isn’t about President Xi or the CCP but Taiwan is Chinese and it will return to China. It is one thing to pick a fight with China but if the aim is to stop China’s rise then that boat has long sailed because while the west has focused on Taiwan the Chinese have been busy building its power base in Asia and the Pacific and Africa.
‘Barney in Tanjung Bunga says:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 2:12 pm
Boerwar @ #705 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 10:58 am
And yet you’re so sure of your position.
As for Chinese society becoming more open. you’ve obviously never been there.
Also, as I have repeatedly stated, don’t go by what the comrades say. Go by what they do. So, if you want to know how Xi’s brain works, then have a look at the difference between the promises that Xi made about not militarizing the South China Sea land grabs and the subsequent militarization of same.
Why does this have to be seen as aggressive, it could be, and it would fit fit much better with Chinese culture as a, defensive positioning.
——————————–
The particular issue you raised was whether I knew what was in Xi’s brain. I gave a couple of examples of Xi’s unpredictability. The obvious conclusion is that I neither claim to know what is in Xi’s brain nor claim to know how he will behave in the future.
As for your defending Xi’s lying about his intentions not to militarize South China Sea land grabs, that goes to a separate issue. We can’t go by what Xi says. We can only go by what Xi does.
But you attribute motive by jumping to one conclusion, discounting other possibilities.
If you were honest in your position you would explore these.
Unfortunately your analysis mainly consists of projecting your own cultural values on the situation with little appreciation or understanding of theirs.’
——————————————–
So know you are telling me I don’t know what’s on Xi’s mind!
In relation to the one specific issue raised here we all know that Xi lied when he undertook not to militarize the South China Sea island grabs.
That does not require a refined appreciation of motivation or of cultural sensitivity or of what was on Xi’s mind! A broken undertaking is a broken undertaken in anybody’s culture.
As stated previously, I go by what Xi does. Not what he says.
“At an event last night to mark the 10th anniversary of the carbon price being legislated”
An honest question: If the thing that you’re marking the beginning of no longer exists… is it still an anniversary?
Comment on the Jon Faine opinion piece in the Age. I thought it rather good.
The opposition, lets face it is not used to being in the political wilderness. It is not the Andrews govt that has a crash thru approach to legislation but an impoverished opposition that has now siding with extremists when the state is tipped to reach 90% vax very soon. I guess there will be the same outrage when kiddie vax comes in earlier next year? The truth we hear and posted in this masthead is that most of ICU admissions are from non vax people. This is also reported overseas in the Trump anti vax sthn. states where nurses sadly lament terminal covid patients begging for the vaccine only to be told it is too late and will do no good. The Andrews govt should be lauded for steering the state thru a perilous time both pre vaccine and soon to be post vaccine despite the massive pile on from newscorp, sky after dark and two senior fed ministers , Frydenberg and Hunt as well as failed court attempts and calls from powerful business lobbies to prematurely open up the state to business (pre vaccine)and risk jeopardizing health orders to protect the entire community. The real culprit to a seamless transition to post covid life is the opposition which will fail because after ALL the state has been thru voters want a bright future that is secure and a new beginning, not some loony toon zany side show of conspiracy theorists who place superstition above science.
Part of another comment on the Jon Faine piece.
The pressure and attacks on the CHO are similarly disgraceful. Protesters, egged on by certain right wing politicians, resulting in them needing a police escort, is shameful. Sutton is probably feeling nothing but relief that he’ll not have to take personal ownership of those decisions again.
The attack on him by sections of the media, was some of the worst abuse of press responsibility I’ve ever seen.
Firefox says:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 1:55 pm
“To support this view, the Greens have recently confirmed that they did not find Wong helpful in negotiations over the Bill.”
***
Yeah I’m fairly sure Senator Wong did give the Greens a pretty cold shoulder during the time of the CPRS negotiations if memory serves me correctly. As Zoom said, it was a fair while ago now. Not sure if that was her decision or Rudd’s. I’m going to guess it was probably Kevin’s considering how he micromanaged pretty much everything his gov did, or so we are told by some.
________________________________________________________
Without rehashing all the arguments about whether the Greens should have supported passage of the CPRS in 2010, the point is that Labor and the Greens combined did not have the numbers to pass legislation that only they agreed with.
There were 32 Labor senators and five Greens; just two short of the numbers required.
The two other Senate cross benchers, Family First’s Steve Fielding and the independent Nick Xenophon, were cool at best on climate action.
That’s why the Labor government was hoping the Coalition under Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership could be won over to supporting the CPRS. The government should have done more in this regard, instead of simultaneously wedging Turnbull by goading him over the climate denialists in the Coalition.
I also think Labor should have at least talked to the Greens, with the aim of getting their support should enough Liberal senators break ranks. (Two Liberal senators later did, but the Greens decided the CPRS wasn’t good enough, so that went nowhere.)
We can argue forever, and probably will, about how effective the CPRS might have been, but the Greens should not delude themselves that they held the power all to themselves.
Boerwar @ #713 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 11:24 am
I was always suggesting that you don’t have a clue about his mind.
That’s your problem, you refuse to consider other possibilities.
Laughtong
And all because its a Labor govt in VIC and the right wing looney media hate it and will do anything to bring Andrews and whoever associates with him down. If it was a Lib govt they would be heroes.
“We can argue forever, and probably will, about how effective the CPRS might have been, but the Greens should not delude themselves that they held the power all to themselves.”
***
We have never claimed that we did during the CPRS negotiations. This is just yet another reason why it’s so absurd for Labor to be blaming the Greens for it’s failure!
When the Greens did gain the balance of power soon after we used it to implement the ETS/Carbon Price.
BiTJ
was always suggesting that you don’t have a clue about his mind.
That’s your problem, you refuse to consider other possibilities.
======================
You actually stated that I thought I knew what was in Xi’s brain.
I have demonstrated that this was not so.
The only claim I HAVE made is that you can judge Xi by his actions: such as his breaking of the undertaking not to militarize the South China Sea island grabs. The beauty of Xi’s actions is that they are matters of fact. We don’t have to guess what is in Xi’s mind. We don’t need superior cultural knowledge. We don’t need guesswork. We don’t even need to consider ‘other possibilities’. In other words, all your deflections are a waste of space.
Xi did promise not to militarize the South China Sea island grabs.
Xi militarized them.
firefox
What convoy is Bandt going to do to help the Coalition in the next election? Have you guys sorted that out yet?
Sir Henry
Remember as well that this was the first recorded time since Federation that an Opposition did not support a policy position they themselves had taken to the last election.
No one anticipated that that would happen, and negotiating a bi partisan – and therefore lasting – solution was by far the most sensible option.
Boerwar @ #708 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 1:03 pm
Ha Ha. Thanks for lightening the mood, for a moment anyway.
If you trust twitter selfies there were more nooses on show yesterday than the now infamous three.
eg as reported by @MSMWatchdog2013
https://twitter.com/MSMWatchdog2013/status/1459688998922645507
I worry that yesterday’s idiots’ actions are a symptom of their becoming emboldened, much as happened in the US. With an impending election we’ve similar conditions. In the US it wasn’t just the Jan 6 insurrection, which is harder to translate into Australia, but other events that might be easier to see happening here.
@andrew_abcdef twitter rants are full of the same stuff directed at Dan Andrews.
BiTJ
If you really want to know what is in Xi’s brain you would have to ask A-E. He knows it all.
“firefox
What convoy is Bandt going to do to help the Coalition in the next election? Have you guys sorted that out yet?”
***
Times have changed, Comrade Boerski. Crossing the border into Queensland and the NT to get to Adani and Beetaloo is a little difficult at the moment. Don’t have an issue with that either BTW, it’s just the reality of “Covid normal” for now.
Late Riser
I recall that there was at least one noose waved at a climate scientists who was trying to speak climate science sense to a meeting.
My view is that waving a noose around should be criminalized as a death threat.
Kakuru @ #714 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 1:26 pm
IMO, yes. We can celebrate courageous failures by their lasting memory, and perhaps by the lessons that are drawn.
Firefox says:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 2:53 pm
“firefox
What convoy is Bandt going to do to help the Coalition in the next election? Have you guys sorted that out yet?”
***
Times have changed, Comrade Boerski. Crossing the border into Queensland and the NT to get to Adani and Beetaloo is a little difficult at the moment. Don’t have an issue with that either BTW, it’s just the reality of “Covid normal” for now.
===============================
I was not fishing for lame excuses. Have you guys organized your convoy to support the Coalition this election? Given the threat of the Duttonator to automatically join the US in any war over Taiwan perhaps you could have a peace train carrying bows and arrows and multiple copies of the Greens peace studies?
Late Riser says:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 2:56 pm
Kakuru @ #714 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 1:26 pm
“At an event last night to mark the 10th anniversary of the carbon price being legislated”
An honest question: If the thing that you’re marking the beginning of no longer exists… is it still an anniversary?
————————
If we can celebrate losing at Gallipoli we can celebrate anything at all.
Boerwar @ #727 Sunday, November 14th, 2021 – 1:55 pm
Agreed. From memory, the guy that was sentenced for threatening the Qld Premier and Qld CHO merely did so on Facebook. Perhaps those laws already exist.
Boerwar:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 2:02 pm
[‘I believe it is in question, at least notionally, because both sides have recently threatened the potential use of nuclear weapons. The likelihood is another matter.
One possible scenario is that China and the US/Australia become bogged down in a ruinous and unwinnable conventional war. One scenario is that one or the side decides to lob a nuclear warhead to indicate that it is either escalate time or time to stop. A rather neat scenario would be for China to lob a warhead at an Australian town to indicate willingness to escalate to all-out nuclear war. What would the US do?’]
It’s possible that any of those scenarios could come to fruition, the least likely, in my view, the nuclear option. But let’s say China did fire a nuclear warhead at an Australian city. What would be America’s position? Reference thereof is made to the ANZUS Treaty, Articles III & IV:
‘The parties will consult together whenever in the opinion of any of them the territorial, political independence or security of them is threatened in the Pacific.’ – Article III.
It can be seen that there is no guarantee that the US would come to our aid if China attacked us. All the parties to the Treaty need to do is to “consult” and it goes without saying that US strategic,
geopolitical imperatives would take precedence over ours.
Article IV requires the parties ‘to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes.’ In March ’51 the then US Secretary of State (Dulles) wrote to General MacArthur in the following terms:
‘ While it [Article IV] commits each party to take action…the United States can discharge its obligations by action against the common enemy in any way and any area it sees fit.’
It can be seen again that there are no iron-clad guarantees in the Treaty that mandate US involvement if we had a conflict with China. The Treaty is very much in America’s favour.
Mavis @.301
Nailed it, IMO.
Late Riser says:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 3:00 pm
Agreed. From memory, the guy that was sentenced for threatening the Qld Premier and Qld CHO merely did so on Facebook. Perhaps those laws already exist.
________
A noose is a pretty vague threat though. I know it is illegal to display them in some U.S states, due to the history of lynching. I doubt we have precedent here in Victoria, not having seen many nooses hanging around. It may or may not come under the Victorian hate speech act that recently banned Nazi symbols.
Firefox says:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 2:37 pm
“We can argue forever, and probably will, about how effective the CPRS might have been, but the Greens should not delude themselves that they held the power all to themselves.”
***
We have never claimed that we did during the CPRS negotiations. This is just yet another reason why it’s so absurd for Labor to be blaming the Greens for it’s failure!
When the Greens did gain the balance of power soon after we used it to implement the ETS/Carbon Price.
___________________________________________________________
Yes, that happened, and it would be nice if the latter carbon price was still with us. Unfortunately it was labelled a “carbon tax” and was therefore politically toxic from the day it was introduced.
That was not entirely the Greens’ fault; Gillard bears a large portion of blame for agreeing to call it a “tax”. She admits this herself. The so-called “carbon tax” also became a symbol of Gillard’s alleged lying.
It was therefore easy for the Abbott government to abolish the carbon price. Perhaps Abbott would have also won if the CPRS had been passed and he might have abolished that too. But the CPRS did not have the ideological baggage the Greens-Gillard carbon price had, even if the latter was better.
Alas we’ll never know.
I think we should look to the future. Labor and Greens supporters, particularly the latter, seem to only want to believe the other party was solely to blame for the carbon pricing debacle.
Mistakes were made and frankly a little opportunism got in the way too.
Let’s hope a soon-to-be-elected Labor government can work constructively with Greens and other progressive senators to get real climate action done at last.
Greens plan to clamp down on multinational tax avoidance estimated to net $4.5 billion
Today Greens leader Adam Bandt will address the final Greens National Conference of the year announcing a major pillar of the Greens’ Tax the Billionaires election campaign: the plan to End Multinational Tax Avoidance by clamping down on tax exploits and improving the transparency of company and ATO reporting.
The Parliamentary Budget Office has indicated the policy would claw back around $4.5 billion for the public purse.
The Greens say this policy will work in concert with the previously announced ‘Tycoon Tax’, on corporate super-profits, which itself would prevent certain types of tax minimisation practices. When added to the revenue generated by the already-announced Tycoon Tax (which includes a corporate super-profits tax and a mining super profits tax) and the Billionaires Tax, it brings the revenue raised by Greens’ policies to make big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of tax to $391b over the decade. The Greens will announce further components applying to oil and gas corporations and ending fossil fuel handouts over coming months.
Recent polls point to a power-sharing Parliament as the most likely outcome of the coming election and in the balance of power, the Greens will push for billionaires and big corporations to pay their fair share of tax to get dental and mental health fully into Medicare and build affordable housing.
https://greensmps.org.au/articles/greens-plan-clamp-down-multinational-tax-avoidance-estimated-net-45-billion
Mundo 2.10pm
It will probably begin with ” I have never believed in miracles “
Well the protesters didn’t just swing the nooses around.
According to an article in SMH protesters were calling for certain MPs to be hung.
They also had arrived on MPMeddicks doorstep when he wasnt home & threatened his wife & son.
They should be hunted down & prosecuted.
Albo & Co need to pin Morrison down on this. Kelly was cheering the action on. This, from the dickhead given a glowing character reference from Morrison.
Sir Henry Parkes says:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 3:09 pm
….
Let’s hope a soon-to-be-elected Labor government can work constructively with Greens and other progressive senators to get real climate action done at last.
I think recent history in Victoria has shown things go better if there isn’t a block whose only real policy is to damage Labor doesn’t have the balance pf power.
Lets hope that P1’s campaign to elect independents in seats held by the right of the Liberal party has some success.
Late Riser:
‘Hang Dan Andrews’ was one of the chants I heard in the raw footage of the protests yesterday (along with ‘sack Dan Andrews’ and ‘jail Dan Andrews’ – jailing your opponent seems to be the go with these Trumpian types). Quite chilling when combined with nooses.
If you are in the Hunter stay away from this smoke:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-14/kurri-kurri-factory-blaze-smoke-fuelled-by-hand-sanitiser/100619528
steve davissays:
Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 2:34 pm
Laughtong
And all because its a Labor govt in VIC and the right wing looney media hate it and will do anything to bring Andrews and whoever associates with him down. If it was a Lib govt they would be heroes.
_____________________
Why are they doing such a shithouse job in selling and explaining the new pandemic legislation ?
If it is a good reform it shouldn’t be that bloody hard.
Labor seem to have lost the ability to sell. Everything has to be under handed and kept secret from public.
Boerwar
“If we can celebrate losing at Gallipoli we can celebrate anything at all.”
I take your point. But if I remember my history, Australia eventually won that war.
Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the ETS…. I dunno, it’s a bit like celebrating your 10th wedding anniversary, when you’ve been divorced for the last 7 years.
We’ll have to disagree. It’s quite clear to me what holding up a noose to someone means.
K
haha.
My maths makes that celebrating your seventh anniversary.
“I think we should look to the future. Labor and Greens supporters, particularly the latter, seem to only want to believe the other party was solely to blame for the carbon pricing debacle.”
***
Not in my experience. I’ve seen countless Labor attacks on the Greens over the years blaming us for the failure of the CPRS.
We Greens on the other hand proudly celebrate the ETS and wish Labor would join us in doing that instead of focusing on a dud policy that never made it through the Parliament.
The Coalition are the ones to blame for the repeal of the ETS, not the Greens or Labor. They’re the ones who have set Australia back decades. Labor should be proud of what they achieved together with the Greens. It was working and was the right thing to do.
I have seen a suicide hanging by a noose.
There is no doubt in my mind what a noose means.
ABC TV News last night said straight off the bat that this was a “peaceful protest”. The ABC went out of their way to emphasize the carnival atmosphere, as if it was a street party or Mardi Gras.
No mention made of death threats or nooses.
I suppose if no-one ended up getting lynched it might be said to be “peaceful”, but it’s a strange kind of peace.
Firefox
I have a suggestion for the Greens next convoy to help the Coalition win the next election: a ganja convoy!
Yes, that happened, and it would be nice if the latter carbon price was still with us. Unfortunately it was labelled a “carbon tax” and was therefore politically toxic from the day it was introduced.
That was not entirely the Greens’ fault; Gillard bears a large portion of blame for agreeing to call it a “tax”. She admits this herself. The so-called “carbon tax” also became a symbol of Gillard’s alleged lying.
This so true. Forget the Labor/Greens sniping for a moment. The execution where it was some how labelled a ‘carbon tax’ was awful.
When you are marketing a policy it has to be to the common person including people in the outer suburbs and the regions. It can’t just targeted to people who have an interest and support the policy.
Carbon sounds so scientific, so distant, and so cold. Why it couldn’t have been labelled with ‘anti-pollution’ in the name?
I’m not sure if it was the government or the media that ended up labelling it a ‘carbon tax’. Whoever was responsible completely fudge it.