Newspoll shows Labor maintaining its 55-45 two-party lead from last fortnight. Kevin Rudd has gained a point and Brendan Nelson lost one on the question of preferred leader, Rudd now leading 65 per cent to 14 per cent.
UPDATE: The Australian has not published a graphic this time, but you can read all about it at the Newspoll site. The paper also reports on an Essential Research survey on emissions trading, but we are told only that “58 per cent of Coalition voters believe Australia should take action even if other countries do not”, while “only 25 per cent of the 1700 voters polled believed Australia should act only when other major economies agreed to do so”. The West Australian has also published results on the subject from last week’s Westpoll survey of 400 respondents in WA, showing “two-thirds of the poll’s respondents agree that a carbon trading regime should be introduced according to the Prime Minister’s timetable”. However, 69 per cent believe the US, China and India “would need to adopt their own trading schemes if Kevin Rudd’s plan for an Australian ETS by 2010 was to be effective”, and “47 per cent of respondents were not prepared to pay more for petrol”.
UPDATE 2: Full report from Essential Research here. It includes a 59-41 result on federal voting intention based on two weeks of data, with a 3 per cent shift denoting that the week past was quite a lot better for the Coalition than a fortnight ago. There were also questions on the Catholic Church’s response to child abuse by priests and religious affiliation in general. Results were obtained from a targeted online panel of 1013 respondents.
844 Comments
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I think we have all become used to the way Rat policy was announced. Consultation was limited to Rat backers, if it happened at all.
If the Libs ever introduced an ETS it would have been after consulting the coal, aluminium and cement industries – then they would get Freehills to draft the legislation – then we would all be told that we are going to be better off.
I find it refreshing that we are having a debate about this 2 years before it comes into operation.
Progressive, Rudd may not be able to promote the details of a scheme based on a Green Paper, but he can promote that scheme’s goals.
A speech with the opening line, “Men and women of Australia, I have asked for national air time tonight to speak to you about the future of our nation and the fate of the planet of which Australia is an ever more important and influential part…” would be a good start.
This would at least set out the direction, the end goal of the exercise, of which the ETS will form a major means to that end. At the moment what we’re getting from Rudd is all “means” and no end. The ultimate ambition of reversing Global Warming is being forgotten, and in many cases pooh-poohed as unnecessary or, worse, impossible. People want to be reminded why we’re doing what we doing. At the moment all they’re getting is the cost and the downside, and that only grudgingly from Rudd. He seems afraid to speak the truth about what will befall us if we don’t act now. He seems reluctant to paint a picture of what we can achieve as a country. Instead we get unappetising predictions of “grim” times ahead. The classic bureaucratic arse-covering exercise.
For God’s sake, Kevin07, let’s have some positive waves for a change. Tell us where we’re going and we’ll follow. That’s why we elected you.
Centre
I was not advising you to do anything. You are free to do/say/buy as you chose, as am I. I happen to believe that that leaves me free to offer an opinion on an obvious impact of an economic issue, particularly as I analyse that subject for a living. I wasn’t talking about your property either – I was interested in an economic issue that will affect thousands of people, and hence have a political dimension.
I presume by telling me to grow up, you mean to say that you disagree with my opinion. However if you don’t ever want to encounter opinions different from your own, why do you post here?
Finally, I don’t even live in Sydney let alone own roperty there but I have analysed its transport system and land use planning.
BB
Sorry if I have got the wrong end of the stick – but you seem to be saying that Rudd should be warning us about the effects of CC?
This battle has been won, it is the view of every political party that CC is real. An overwhelming majority of Australians also believe this – the rest post on Bolt’s Blog.
The Fibs have already tied themselves in knots by saying things without a coherent strategy, they will only get worse.
But the ETS could be tougher, the public goodwill is there for it. And no free permits, or only to industries could move easily to India/China.
I think Rudd/Wong lacked guts there.
Poor jesus, the Cross was a bit too heavy to bear
their ABC poll
notice only 1 positive option and 4 negative
What do you think of the Government’s green paper on carbon trading?
Decisive and encouraging . 20%
Welcome but too timid. 28%
Half baked. Too many exemptions. 26%
Too radical and disruptive. 5%
Completely unnecessary. 21%
1324 votes counted
Hello Flipper Finnigans, been getting any fish lately?
Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull says the carbon emissions trading scheme will be comprehensive.
“It will cover 80 per cent of all emission outside agriculture and about 55 per cent of total emissions in Australia,” he said.
The scheme is set to be up and running by 2011.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/17/1980126.htm?section=justin
So almost a year ago to the day Rat Man announced an ETS. Now Talcum says his advice was that an ETS could not be established by 2012, so why did he say it would be up and running by 2011 – only 6 months later than Labor.
It is things like this that will bite Talcum Allbull on the bum.
607 Vera
And the poll still shows 74% support for! Like I said, we could and should have a better ETS, lack of policy courage
Vera, in the mood of our city at the moment, we only got 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. But the pilgrims are all well fed down at Barangaroo. it’s truly a flippin’ miracle. Yes, it is the greatest story (fiction) ever told.
JM
This is a cap and trade system – we have the details of the trade – we do not have details of the cap yet.
Until then we cannot say how “courageous” the system is.
Ruawake @ 604:
Yes, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick.
While a reminder that GW is real and needs to be combatted might be welcome, in the face of both the outright and indirect denialism that has the podium at the moment, an even better idea would be to turn the negative into a positive and to tell us what we can achieve in not only defeating GW, but in advancing our nation, technology and civilization in general as a collateral benefit of winning that battle.
Remember: Kennedy’s speech was not primarily about going to the Moon. It was about America regaining its pride in the face of then recent Russian gains in space and military technology. Kennedy’s speech showed that, in defeating the Russians, there would also be an huge technological upside which would enrich, first America, and ultimately the world.
And it did. Going to the Moon was a vehicle for American pride. Just as being first in line againsty Global Warmig can be a vehicle for Australia’s pride, and for its future.
Far more inspiring than “a few cents per litre” talk, or keeping the pensioners on economic parity, or making Bob Brown happy, or wedging Nelson and Turnbull. That will all happen, but it’s not why we should be doing what we are about to do.
“Rudd doesn’t have to be a Howard: lying and bribing his way out of trouble.”
On the issue I disagree. Going in full bore and taking no prisoners would be political folly. You can’t follow a plan through from opposition. Start slowly and strengthen the system. Boy, would the Libs love your approach.
“Just as being first in line againsty Global Warmig can be a vehicle for Australia’s pride, and for its future.”
BB, your point may have been relevant a decade ago – but we have missed the boat.
No, more than one real benefit from fighting global warming and moving away from fossil fuel: a lot less pollution!
This means less cancer of the mouth/trachea/lungs. It means less kids will get asthma (particulate emissions from diesel engines are bad in this regard. The amount of lead in the atmosphere will drop and that will be great!
Geez, what a cryin’ bunch of shell-shocked cynics you all are!
So let’s not try. Let’s just jump into the quicksand of tit-for-tat grubby politics, snipe at the Liberals and blame Howard for everything.
Rudd has to start governing sometime. He may as well doi it now and inspire the country. Blaming the past for everything wrong won’t get us anywhere. I’m not saying that we couldn’t have been a lot further along the track but for Howard’s backwardness on GW, but that is the past.
Christ, I’d hate to have some of you lot in government over me. Mean, defeatist and petty in spirit. All you can think of is the negative side. I mean, in this thread about 100 comments were wasted on an arcane argument over who did what to whom, and when, in some forgotten US Election thread. Talk about irrelevant navel gazing!
Grasp the future boys and girls. It’s coming to get us anyway. We should be setting our sites on more than wedging the Opposition and merely surviving the coming holocaust. Rudd should remind us that now’s our chance to make a better world and a better Australia.Otherwise he’ll just get bogged down in the quicksand that the Conservatives are preparing for him.
I’ve heard that tomorrow they are going to re-create the Spanish Inquisition.
“Rudd should remind us that now’s our chance to make a better world and a better Australia.”
BB we should be striving to make a better Australia – in my opinion Rudd is doing that in spades. But the effect we can have on the world is miniscule.
We are a net energy exporter – we export billions of dollars of fossil fuels each year and we will continue to do so. This is the unfortunate truth.
Bushfire,
I worked with an ALP candidate during the election and had many conversations where I took your line in basic opposition to the candidate’s ’softly softly catchee monkee’ line.
Lots of times I suggested that the ALP needed to take a firmer, more direct, educate the public if necessary, up front, plain bloody stronger approach to issues.
The candidate and the party counselled caution.
The ALP won government.
But I still have the same argument with the candidate.
BB, If you haven’t yet noticed, Australia is already heading in the right direction. This week I heard Rudd twice at the beginning of his speech, first mentioned
Australia’s indigenous people and how they were here first and we have encompassed their culture. This in front of the Pope.
To have an ETS we must first get it through Parliament. Feilding will not accept an ETS if it is going to cost families, so the people Rudd has to convince to vote for it is the fibs.
Even though most of us agree with most of your and some bloggers at LP’s argument, we must face reality.
By Rudd saying what he said in front of the Pope, it naturally means in front of the World.
Mayo to be ALP free
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/18/2308173.htm
Bushfire Bill@617,
My thoughts exactly. Rudd so much better than previous incumbent ,but feel he is still trying to court popularity.So unnecesary. If he makes the unpopular decisions now,he can then take the foot off the pedal and throw in some sweeteners towards the next election.
Really enjoy reading your posts.
“If he makes the unpopular decisions now,he can then take the foot off the pedal and throw in some sweeteners towards the next election”
megan
This is the Howard way of governing – If Rudd does do this then I will be disappointed.
Why is it the case with Rudd that everyone is in such a hurry for him to make decisions that will be unpopular?
I think what Megan meant was that it is doubtful that he could make decisions that everyone agrees with all the time.
For example, support for an apology to the stolen generations ran at about 50/50 in most polls, but after the apology was made responses to the question “Do you support the Prime Minister’s apology to the stolen generations?” received about 60 – 65% for the “YES” answer. So a tough decision based on principle actually helped change the minds of some people who for whatever reason were worried.
Sometimes it is the job of politicians to lead, and that sometimes includes making decisions that aren’t supported by a majority of voters. I agree with Mumble that occasionally making unpopular decisions it what builds credibility with a Government. Of course doing too much will ruin a Government, but avoiding unpopular decisions completely just makes it seem that a Government isn’t making tough decisions, and is too concerned with polls.
Good point ShowsOn.
But what’s a bet if he takes an unpopular decision most likley he will get criticised as having done it purely to build credibility!
I guess the problem is what constitutes a good unpopular decision? eg bringing in the means testing on solar panels – unpopular decision, but not sure if I would say it’s good – and also too small to constitute the “hard” decision that everyone seems eagre for him to make.
In reply to BB’s various chicken-with-head-cut-off posts, mate get a grip. Why are you listening to the right-wing media? Why are you listening to the BS being piled on by the disgruntled Liberals who are distraught at their messiah being knocked over by Rudd last election? I mean please, why are online polls of all things being listened to after their endless discrediting for the last year?
The right-MSM has been totally against the ALP for the last 3 months+. Reputable polls show that the masses are in support of action on climate change. Reputable polls show that the government has a 55-45 lead AT WORST. Reputable polls show that the people are not out there with their pitchforks and torches protesting against this. It is the right-wing media and their crying-into-beer followers who are just raising as much noise as possible after being humiliated on November 24th, 2007. Let the government do its work and stop behaving like a child that has lost its mother, just because of the drone from a few mouthpieces that are being ignored by those with more than 2 brain cells.
Well said Dario now, go and repeat that at the LP blog and replace “BB” with “Brian”
oops that should be “Mark” not “Brian”
My answer to this would be one that has good LONG TERM benefits, even though it may cause short term pain.
In my opinion this includes things like floating the dollar, shifting to enterprise bargaining, and getting rid of industry protectionism. Of course others may disagree, but I think those things improved our economy immensely in the long term, even if it meant some people had to find work in other industries.
Or maybe unionists shifting to oppose the White Australia policy. I imagine that some of their members would’ve worried that they would lose their jobs, but the union leadership took a stand for what was right.
Feel free to copy and paste on my behalf
I think I wrote this previously, either here or on another blog that successfully debates matters of moment:
The ideal solution is for the parliament to go onto a war footing much has been done previously in the face of foreign military aggression.
This warming of the environment has the potential to create more chaos than any war has ever done. Whether it is the direct result of human industrial activity or not, the studies have been done, repeated and repeated again to show clearly how a reduction in the production of carbon rich gases will reduce the atmospheric overload and of the warming blanket.
I beg you all pro and con, if you have not already done so, to read the detail in these studies and to base your opinions on them *not* on the say-so of someone or other who has not delved into the works and is therefore unqualified to voice opinions on the matter: Politicians, journalists and opinion columnists in particular.
If you are unable or unwilling to do that bit of personal study then, for all our sakes, please refrain from voicing your opinions.
There is such a huge divide in opinion on the Liberals side that I doubt you could get them to agree to work with the Government in any meaningful way.
With the utmost respect to Bushfire Bill – who is passionate, as well as being a terrific writer – you should put yourself forward as a speechwriter for Kev.
An earlier contribution noted that there is a need to see the nuts and bolts of an ETS before getting into full scale promotion. With the combination of the Libs plus Andrew B that seems enough nuts and bolts on the other side. Now we just need to get the pro side working smoothly.
ETS is disguised communism!
For 18 odd years since the IPCCC , big oil Exxon Mobil , the big coal comapanies , Ford Toyta , & the other big poluters who talk personaly to Presidents and wield ruthless great power & rarely lose , we now to believe they are to be slayed over the next dacade with Kyoto & a worldwide ETS , and they have done nothing to protect themselves & their mega trillions strategetically in the interim 18 years Maybe we will find , instead of a straightpath to a sure 1/2 prize & a promise of the other 1/2 , we end up in a circle back with big oil & coal My sense is the climatotoligists & scientists have supplied the warnings , but there roadmap has been cleverly hijacked presently , perhaps i’ve overrated the financial engineering
And Bushfire Bill
and there was one key point in one your posts is what big oil , big coal companies & polutters do not want to hear , let alone implemented
I have been reading you all. I am kind of desperate.The Green Paper does nothing to alleviate the water crisis at the Coorong. Looks like we, at the bottom end, are to wear it.
No water, no local food. All over.
You’re a disguised communist.
Crikey Whitey – I’m sorry, but what can anyone do?
Making it rain is the only solution.
There are suggestions that all water should be let out of storages but that potentially means – if the drought continues – that next summer there will be nothing, not only for the Coorong but the whole system.
Up this end, the start of the catchment, we’re not hiding the water away from the rest of the Murray. It’s not under anyone’s beds. We’re suffering too (just got another hay bill, at a time of the year when I traditionally don’t feed out). The storages are all at their lowest recorded levels, or close to it.
We’d send you more if we could.
It is raining up here, however, so there is hope – but to be responsible, the storages need to be refilled, so that if the rain goes away there’ll at least be some water left for next summer.
This whole question is extremely difficult for a government to address but easy for commentators to comment.
The bottom line is real people realising they will be financially pressed under any model that restricts CO2 emissions.
The power will exist with big companies who will realise their profit line will be reduced.
Any new system must support low income earners and simultaneously send the message to large companies they need to acknowledge a loss of earnings.
Small business however needs to be able to operate without an impost that screws them.
This is not an issue that can be defined easily. I hope the government can get it right.
I do not believe that the current government will be able to convince all those with an interest in how we reduce carbon emissions that a loss of income is acceptable.
I for one cannot accept I should have to pay more for energy. I think energy companies should absorb this cost.
Shareholders are the crucial people in this debate!
Dear Zoom
Southern States believe water is being held in places like Coby Station to grow crops unsuited to the environment. If this is the case that water should be released to the southern states.
The environmental impact of draining water storage areas is just now being recognised in southern states.
We know it is not raining but feel the greed of some users cannot be ignored.
Queensland and NSW governments ignore wastage and inefficient use.
The NSW Government in particular are environmental vandals.
Crikey
Sad to say I went to a lecture a few weeks ago at Adelaide Uni by a guy there looking at the Murray. I fear the Riverland is stuffed. The SA economy will survive thanks to the other projects, but I wouldn’t want to be trying to sell a house in Renmark now. It is a tragedy – they have done more work to efficiently use their water than many areas upstream that receive water allocations, and have better soil, so it makes more sense to farm there. But a disfunctional process for allocating a scarce resource across state boundaries has them stuffed IMO. Maybe a smart lawyer from Slater and Gordon can suggest a way for a class action for harmful actions on downstream farmers to be mounted against the perpetrators? I don’t know how though – I’m not a lawyer.
Before we get into a state vs state blame fest here I’d like, as a south Australian, to make it clear that I believe the overuse of water for the wrong crops in the wrong places occurs ALL over the WHOLE Murray Darling basin catchment area and until we change that the river is in deep strife.
It should not be a states vs states issue.
Cobby [sp?] station should not be allowed to swallow so much water, the open trenches around the Hay plains are a disgrace, growing perennial trees in SA’s Riverland and Vic’s Sunraysia is inefficient and so on.
We need a permanent immediate cap and decrease in irrigation allocations along the whole river so that the first priority is the river, the second the urban needs and wise irrigation gets what is left over.
Lets not chuck blame across borders.
I don’t know about the Coby Station situation (I’m Victorian) – it is, however, raised so often that I’m beginning to wonder if it’s a bit of a stalking horse. Issues to do with water are rarely as simple as “Get rid of Coby station”.
In Victoria, where water is allocated according to availability, downstream irrigators have exactly the same attitude as CW is expressing (and sorry, I realise I’m probably misrepresenting you, CW) – the water’s there somewhere, all that has to happen is for it to be released and things will be hunky dory.
It doesn’t matter at the moment whether irrigators are responsible water users or irresponsible, whether they’re drip feeders who nurture every drop or flood irrigators. It’s irrelevant, because the water isn’t there. (You can’t waste something you don’t have).
Certainly, there should be pressures on farmers to ensure that – when and if the water starts flowing again – they are using it efficiently. But there is a very real possibility the water will not come back (Hume Weir was drained in the late ’90s to enable strengthening of the wall; it has never recovered. Eildon was allowed to run down in the late ’90s through over allocation of the resource in dry times; it has never recovered. Stream inflows over the last couple of years have been the lowest in recorded history for local catchments, which provide nearly 40% of the water in the M-D system).
Human beings want to believe that they have control over everything. Thus, when things go pear shaped, it’s somebody’s fault. When we’re dealing with natural events – however influenced by climate change or other factors – we have to accept that any control we have is, at best, limited and often non existent.
There is nothing that I am aware of (just in case there’s someone out there who knows something I don’t) that can save the Coorong at the moment but rain.
Nothing any politician – or any other human – can do can save it.
It has to rain.
Crikey
Why would you expect a solution when profit is the bottom line.
Large companies take the profit while small people suffer.
The reality is large company profit is all important
Irrigators in SA are currently able to access 2% of their normal allocation. I am not aware of the allocations to other states but I see this allocation as equivalent to death to an industry.
Yes water inflows are needed but there is also water upstream that could be released.
The other serious issue has to deal with storage an even if there are significant inflows will any reach South Australia while we are waiting for the northern storage areas to fill?
The other significant point of course to remember is the Murray provides Adelaide with significant amounts of water for drinking and other house-hold use.
Perhaps some northern states irrigators may need to be sacrificed to maintain a city population.
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