Just don't tell me the debate's over…
Union man…
Greg Combet has been handed the hospital pass of selling a price on carbon to an increasingly sceptical Australian public. A former union boss, he’s Labor through and through.
We wait with bated breath for the Com-bot’s first pronouncement on climate. My guess is that we won’t have to wait long, and it will be as nonsensical as all of Penny’s…
Imbecilic
Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, the two witless and gutless independents that handed power to Julia Gillard earlier this week, betrayed their electorates by siding with Labor, as John Styles explains in The Spectator:
When you enjoy the sound of your own voice as much as the giggling, grinning Rob Oakeshott apparently does, there is always a chance you will say more than you may have intended. So it was during the Independent/maybe-Labor minister’s media conference on Tuesday at which he and Tony Windsor delivered federal government to the Labor-Greens alliance.
‘We’ve just had to go through an incredibly unnatural decision to draw some conclusions about lining up with a party that fundamentally we don’t believe with [sic],’ he said, during a typically long, rambling response to a journalist’s question about how the pair of independents could make a decision that was so comprehensively out of step with the conservative nature of their electorates.
Here was Oakeshott admitting that he was giving crucial support to a party he didn’t believe in. He described his decision as ‘unnatural’. How about bizarre, weird, crazy? How about calling it just plain nuts?
So we had the representative of a demonstrably conservative constituency, a seat that overwhelmingly supported the Coalition in its Senate vote and expressed a decided preference for a Coalition government in post-election opinion polling, siding with the Labor party and radical Left Greens. More than that, the decision defied the clear preference of the nation as a whole. On 21 August, the Coalition won the primary vote, the two-party-preferred vote and won the most seats in the House of Representatives.
In Rob Oakeshott’s Lyne electorate, the ALP managed to attract only 13.5 per cent of the primary vote and the Greens just 4.3 per cent. In Tony Windsor’s seat, the Left fared even worse: Country Labor 8.1 per cent, the Greens 3.6 per cent.
Former Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger summed it up on Melbourne radio MTR 1377:
‘If [Oakeshott] had gone to that election saying that, if the opportunity arose, I am going to accept the position of a minister in a government led by a Socialist Left prime minister — let’s not forget, Julia Gillard has been in the Socialist Left faction of the Labor party for almost 30 years — I’m going to be a minister of a government which is supported by the extreme Left Greens, Andrew Wilkie from Tasmania and another former National, you know, people would have been aghast.
‘He wouldn’t have got close to being elected. And if he accepts a ministry in a Labor government supported by the Greens … the people in his electorate would have every right to be absolutely feral at him, and so they should be.’
Read it all – and weep.
I’m excluding Bob Katter, because, maverick that he is, he did at least support the Coalition (as his electorate would expect him to). The other two wet weekends were blinded by climate change and broadband, the two biggest non-issues of the election, and thereby hand power to Gillard. And did you hear Oakeshott’s self-indulgent speech? What a joke! Even the journos couldn’t stand it – they were groaning in the background. And it doesn’t take long for the real agenda to come out:
When asked by a journalist why he didn’t back the Coalition, Tony Windsor admitted with a grin, “because they’d be more likely to win if they did go back to the polls”.
When asked how he could back a government that’s less likely to win, Windsor stated that they’d “be more likely to be here a longer time if they can’t go to the polls and win in a hurry”, with Oakeshot interjecting, “They’ve got more to lose”.
In other words, Oakeshot and Windsor admit they are defying what the nation (including their own conservative electorates) and propping up one of the most incompetent and unstable governments in Australia’s history, which has been massively repudiated by voters, has suffered a savage swing – in seats, first and second preference votes and its legitimacy – in order to preserve their power for as long as possible. (source)
So, fellow Australians, we can look forward to a rag-bag coalition, the Greens on the levers of power, an NBN cock-up to rival or exceed the BER cock-up or the pink batts cock-up, importantly for this blog, an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax, a mining tax, and god alone knows what other disastrous policies for this country. Good luck, Australia.
BREAKING NEWS: Bob Katter has just announced his support for the Coalition. The other independents are due to announce their decision later this afternoon.
Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Sky is predicting the other two independents will be backing Labor, handing a minority government to Julia Gillard.
Follow updates on my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/australianclimatemadness
From the ABC
After two and a half weeks of doubt, it appears likely that the three independent MPs will announce, at a press conference this afternoon, their decision on who should form the next government. Sadly, my money is on Labor, as most of the chatter coming from the independents has been in that direction. But as Terry McCrann points out, only the Coalition can guarantee getting legislation through the Senate – at least until mid next year.
Updates to follow during the day.
The nightmare begins…
With Andrew Wilkie backing Labor [who didn’t see that coming? He’s a former Green himself, which we all know is hard Left in drag] it looks like Julia will cling on to the power she so desperately craves, but at a potentially huge price. Paul Kelly correctly argues that a deal with the anti-business, anti-mining, anti-capitalist, anti-everything-that-isn’t-the-environment Greens will alienate the cautious electorate of middle Australia:
How will people, notably voters in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia, react at hearing that Gillard’s response to losing her governing majority at the election is to strike an alliance with the Greens and move even further to the Left?
This is strategic folly. At the tactical level it remains unclear whether this move is a masterstroke or omen of doom. Its aim is to prove Gillard’s commitment to the new politics of the hung parliament. Without doubt, this re-stamps the Labor brand. It is an alliance, not a coalition, as Tony Abbott claimed.
But for the first time, Labor and the Greens are governing partners. Their tentative embrace has an enduring justification – to defeat the Coalition. As Abbott said yesterday, the Greens had not been serious about negotiations with the Coalition.
The entire world knows this deal has only one objective: to build momentum to sway the independents into duplicating such an agreement and vote Labor into office. (source)
With the Greens pulling the levers of power, as we know they will, we will inevitably have an ETS or a carbon tax within the next parliament. We can only hope that the Labor brand is so damaged by their grubby deal with the Greens and the resulting lurch to the Left, that middle Australia will desert Labor in droves in 2013.
Here begins the Green nightmare for Australia.
Rather busy at present so only a short post, but I have been watching, with increasing dismay, three obscure independent MPs turn into pocket despots as the balance of power goes to their heads in double quick time. Ludicrous demand follows quickly after equally ludicrous demand, each of which make little or no sense. The future of Australian government shouldn’t be in the hands of these three mavericks. Unlike Julia, who appears happy to give them whatever they want in order to cling on to power, Tony Abbott is right not to pander to their nonsensical rantings. If that means Labor ends up in government with a rickety coalition, so be it. It won’t last a year, and in that time, Tony can have an absolute field day.
Labor headquarters this afternoon
Didn’t take long for the recriminations and back-stabbing to begin. In fact, it began on election night thanks to Maxine McKew. A great advert for Julia’s plea to the independents for “stable government”, ain’t it? Andrew Bolt does the round-up:
It’s getting ugly in Labor, as scores get settled.
Defeated MP Maxine McKew on Labor’s faction chiefs and strategists:
Well, you cannot have a Labor leader removed within two months of an election for it not to have significant ramifications, so clearly that was a factor…
We kept the nation working – that’s an extraordinary achievement. But that was not the central message of our campaign – it should have been built more around jobs.
Former NSW Premier Morris Iemma on Labor campaign director Karl Bitar:
As the campaign director, Karl Bitar ought to have by now fallen on his sword and he just doesn’t have the principle to do it.
Iemma’s attacks on me have nothing 2 do with the fed campaign and all about his attempts to privatise electricity in NSW in 2008.
Iemma on Labor power broker and frontbencher Mark Arbib and others of the NSW Right:
They have debased the political process in NSW, they have taken their disease and infected the federal Labor Party.
There’s LOTS more. Read it here (it’s worth it). And if you haven’t seen it already, check out Wayne Swan getting whacked live on Channel 9 – priceless!
Parliament House, Canberra
It will be down to a bunch of independent MPs to determine whether Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott forms the next Australian government, with both the major parties unable to command an overall majority. Three of them are small-c conservative, and would prima facie favour the Coalition, one is left-wing, and they have vowed to act as a “block” – all plumping for one option or the other to ensure “stable government”. But their views on the climate issue are diverse, as The Sydney Morning Herald reports, and bear in mind of course when reading this that the SMH wants Labor back in office:
Two likelihoods arise from Saturday – that Labor will eventually concede that it has been punished in part for its dismal failure to live up to expectations on climate change, and that four of the five men likely to share the House of Representatives crossbench will want to see the next government do more.
The fifth, renegade former National Bob Katter, doubts that man-made climate change exists. Whoever forms government, finding common ground to get a climate change policy through the lower house is not going to be easy. But neither will it be impossible.
Rob Oakeshott, independent member for Lyne, yesterday said an emissions trading scheme would be a key issue in the next Parliament. He voted in favour of the ALP’s shelved scheme, having earlier proposed amendments to bring it more into line with the cleaner model proposed by former Labor climate adviser Ross Garnaut. Oakeshott also backed the Greens’ push for a feed-in tariff to develop renewable energy. During the campaign he warned the ”do nothing” approach on climate was a lose/lose approach that would lead to rapidly increasing electricity prices and loss of quality of life.
Tony Windsor is harder to read. In 2008, he introduced a private member’s bill that included a target of a 30 per cent cut in emissions below 1990 levels by 2020 – far beyond what the major parties are proposing.
But he voted against Labor’s emissions scheme and has signalled he would prefer measures to directly boost renewable energy to a carbon price. He has not indicated that climate change would be a major issue in deciding which party should form government.
Andrew Wilkie views climate change as a social justice issue [as all far-left wingers do] and has backed a carbon price as the best way to cut emissions.
Oakeshott and Wilkie might struggle to find common ground on climate with a Coalition government, which would make Australia one of only three G20 countries to be led by a vocal climate sceptic.
Read it here.
At the Four Seasons, Sydney
A stunning result for Tony Abbott. Back in November 2009, having won the leadership by just one vote, all the commentators were predicting a total “wipe-out” at the 2010 election, and just look what happens. Tony “wipes out” Labor’s majority, and may be in with a shot at a coalition government with the independents. A disastrous night for Joolya and Labor, and deservedly so.
Whatever happens, the Coalition are back in the game, thanks to Tony Abbott.
And Josh at Cartoons by Josh (see here) has created the following in response:
Australian Climate Madness 
Recent Comments