Friday, July 24, 2009

Tony Abbott, Climate Change, a debating society coalition and Pontius Pilot as a role model


(Above: Tony Abbott, cycling not to save the environment or help with big city pollution or as a role model for combating climate change, but to show how bringing back fault provisions in divorce proceedings will bring harmony to marriage and the world).

It seems only right, proper, true and just to celebrate the start of Loon Pond under its new call sign with a column by Tony Abbott entitled Turnbull is right, the Coalition can't win this fight.

In it, the half baked member for Warringah manages to display all the incoherent ineptness currently expected from the Liberal opposition on the matter of climate change, the problem being that the coalition ranges on the issue from believers to hard core deniers and naysayers.

So what can you make of a line like this in a discussion of policy?

Grapes grew in Britain in Roman times, crops grew in Greenland during the Middle Ages and the River Thames regularly froze in the 1600s, so climate change certainly takes place. The problem, at least for politicians who prefer rational debate to following fads, is the public's perception that climate change is uniquely dangerous and particularly associated with man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

Well yes and dinosaurs once roamed the earth in lush rain forests, but what's that got to do with politicians preferring rational debate to following fads?

Well of course it's dog whistling, and in the pages of The Australian, where the dogs bark long and loud about climate change, you'd expect nothing less from Abbott. Forget the science, forget the rational debate, somehow it's all to do with the public perception of the issue.

The slight cooling that seems to have taken place during the past decade despite large increases in emissions associated with the rapid growth of China and India does not seem to have shaken these beliefs. Similarly, mankind's ability to live well in cities as climatically different as Ottawa and Singapore and to produce an abundance of food in countries as environmentally diverse as Australia and Canada has not persuaded people that adapting to climate change may be more sensible than trying to create a largely carbon-free economy.

Oh yes, forget the science, let's mention the slight cooling that seems to have taken place in the last decade, let's mention that really it's all India and China's fault (no, we just ship the coal there because they ask for it nicely), and imagine a future where we could all sensibly adapt to climate change and live happily ever after while burning coal until there's none of it left in the ground - not even brown coal or the coal under the Liverpool plains.

Well yes, I've always wanted a beach side home, and after careful scientific calculations we think the new sea shore might well be near our local supermarket, so bring it on.

The trouble with this kind of idle rhetoric and dumb dog whistling is that it gets in the road of Abbott's further points about the dangers of the government's current emissions trading scheme, and the issue of whether a carbon tax might be simpler and less open to the kind of rorting by Macquarie Bank and others have done to similar kinds of 'market place' schemes embarked on by hapless governments.

But first of course, to start talking about a carbon tax, any kind of tax, you'd have to be a brave politician and you'd have to agree that climate change was an issue, and - if it was - that Australia should do its bit. 

This of course is a problem for the Wilson Tuckeys of the world, die hard believers in the usefulness of iron bars in dealing with recalcitrants, and also with the likes of Malcolm Turnbull, who while in government assisted as environment minister in devising and approving the very kind of scheme now being implemented by the government, and which the Liberal party took to the last election as policy.

Which is why Abbott's correct to call the current opposition nothing better than a debating society. The trouble is, they're debating with themselves, rather than with the public or with the government.

Last week, Peter Garrett was in trouble for approving a uranium mine against his personal better judgment. This week, Malcolm Turnbull is in trouble over responding to a version of the emissions trading scheme that he supported when he was in government. The deeper issue is how much consistency should be demanded of politicians, and when politicians and parties should be expected to stand up for principle or respond to public clamour.

Well I would have thought coherence might be handy, if not consistency. For example, a clear statement by Abbott as to whether he believes in the reality of climate change, and the likelihood that people are part of the problem and need to be part of the solution. But clarity isn't the answer for the half baked member for Warringah:

"It depends" is the only answer to this conundrum; it depends on the depth of their personal conviction, the strength of their party's view and a political judgment of the public's likely response to dying for a good cause v living to fight another day. Turnbull's dilemma is the harder one because, as party leader, he is expected to speak for himself as well as to speak for all his colleagues even on the most contentious issues. Despite this being a near-impossible challenge, he is managing it rather well.

He's managing it rather well? Since Wilson Tuckey delivered his head kicking email, Malcolm Turnbull has disappeared from the middle of the debate, to some point in Antarctica to watch the penguins frolic. It's not surprising he'd duck the iron bar, but it's a measure of how precarious a situation he's in that he can't take out the iron bar, a dinosaur who should have become extinct the last time Liberal pre-selectors did their thing (proving they are way more ineffective than asteroids at their task of keep the party sharp and on the move).

As for Abbott's "it depends", the next time some one berates you for cynical post modernist relativism, sit them down and explain Tony Abbott's theory of politics. Believe in nothing but power, and never die for a good cause and always live to fight another day.

There is as much disagreement on climate change and how to deal with it inside the government as there is inside the opposition. The difference is that government ministers can't endlessly debate policy because they have demanding portfolios to run. Governments have to make decisions and stick with them. Opposition, by contrast, tends to be a permanent debating society because even the most final decisions can sometimes be revisited in office.

This allows new ideas into the polity, so it is not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes party management more important and much harder in opposition than in government.


New ideas into the polity? What, from Wilson Tuckey? The man hasn't had a new idea since he joined federal politics.

So what's Abbott's idea? Well apart from flirting with the notion of a carbon tax - a very brief flirtation - he decides to do a Pontius Pilot. Bring me a bowl of water and a towel, it's all your fault you wretched people, for voting us out and bringing in the other mob, when likely we could have controlled the senate and brought in the very plan the government is currently proposing and taken care of our mates at the big end of town at the same time. 

And for the love of the lord, don't mention a double dissolution that might bring us within range of a double dissolution:

As a general rule, oppositions should welcome elections, but this would make it even harder to keep the focus on the Rudd government's addiction to borrowing and spending. While people are thinking about the possible dangers of climate change, they are unlikely to be worrying about the real dangers of economic change. Oppositions, after all, can't save the country from the wrong side of the parliament and can't be expected to protect people from the consequences of changing the government.

Yep, you're all doomed and see if I care. Ah that was a nice hand washing, now bring me the nail clippers.

Far from being an arrogant assertion of his own views, Turnbull's assessment that the government's emissions trading scheme should ultimately be allowed to pass is his attempt to save the Coalition from a fight it can't win. He knows that voters are unlikely to be argued into changing their minds. It will be the cost and complexity of emissions trading and the absence of anything much out of the ordinary about climate that will slowly engender second thoughts.

The absence of anything much of the ordinary about climate? So Abbott doesn't think the science is accurate? Well well, his new book should be a real help to Malcolm in the middle.

Kind of like an iron bar across the forehead.

Poor Malcolm. Caught between Iron Bar Tuckey and Tony Abbott, and being told he's doing "rather well". 

Every time Tony Abbott attempts to help, you have to wonder if in Basil Fawlty style, he's not dreaming the impossible dream of running the show. Well he'd certainly know how to blame the customers turning up in the hotel, in the same way as he blames the public for voting for the wrong government, preferring the wrong policy options, and failing to recognize how disinterested are the insights he offers up to them.

Basil Fawlty: This is typical. Absolutely typical... of the kind of... ARSE I have to put up with from you people. You ponce in here expecting to be waited on hand and foot, while I'm trying to run a hotel here. Have you any idea of how much there is to do? Do you ever think of that? Of course not, you're all too busy sticking your noses into every corner, poking around for things to complain about, aren't you? Well let me tell you something - this is exactly how Nazi Germany started. A lot of layabouts with nothing better to do than to cause trouble. Well I've had fifteen years of pandering to the likes of you, and I've had enough. I've had it. Come on, pack your bags and get out.

If only he would.

(Below: Basil helping Manuel understand the politics of climate change).

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