Carbon tax is fatal political poison
Tim Blair
The Daily Telegraph
March 28, 2011
AN oldtimer filmed at a recent rally in favour of a carbon tax made the standard appeal to emotion. "I'm concerned," she said, "about the kind of world we're going to leave my grandchildren."
Another rally granny at the Melbourne event organised "spontaneously" by the offered a similar view: "I've got a new grandchild, two weeks old, and I think it's really important that the world is made safe for him."
Well, tough luck, ladies. Last week Tim Flannery, Australia's Chief Climate Commissioner, told The Daily Telegraph's Andrew Bolt in a radio interview: "If we cut emissions today, global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years."
A thousand years.
And Flannery wasn't just talking about Australia's minuscule proposed emissions cuts. He was referring to cuts made across the globe. If Flannery keeps coming up with lines like this, he's worth every cent of the $720,000 we're paying him over the next four years to tell us why we'll be better off with a carbon tax.
Forget saving your grandchildren, eco-biddies. According to Flannery, the world won't be safer until your grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren are on the scene.
Julia Gillard can't be happy with the value she's getting from palaeontologist Flannery. Perhaps she should take up one online suggestion and revise his pay schedule; say, down to $720 per year until 3011. That way there would at least be some connection between reward and results. As it stands, Professor Dinosaur Bones is cashing in on a temperature drop we won't see until the next NSW Labor government.
Maybe by then we'll have a Greens representative in the Lower House. Two of them were expected to easily win seats on Saturday, but both Marrickville and Balmain are now likely to be decided on postal votes. There's still a chance Fiona Byrne and Jamie Parker could claim victory, but the anticipated Greensweep never materialised.
Labor voters went to the Liberals instead, even in Balmain, of all places, where Liberal James Falk found himself unexpectedly leading on primaries as counting ended on Saturday night. "Will have to move away from Balmain electorate in disgust," fumed one angry Greens voter on Twitter. "And I was so proud of us too, it was a sure thing."
There's only one sure thing in Australian politics, besides Bob Brown's election night speeches about the brilliant Greens result, and it was revealed again on the weekend.
Climate change might not stabilise until 40 generations from now, but it's already a consistent political killer.
It wouldn't have helped Labor at state level that Gillard launched her uncosted, undetailed, un-anything carbon tax plan during the NSW election campaign. Nor would the Greens already handicapped by two awesomely charmless candidates have been assisted by incoming premier Barry O'Farrell's campaign focus on the planned tax.
Two federal leaders, Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull, were removed within six months of each other because of popularity plunges associated with climate advocacy. Gillard would have joined them after last year's election if she'd told the truth about her carbon tax scheme. Now we've even got Balmain voting for a state party that opposes carbon pricing. Liberal staffers claim the issue was a "flashpoint" in many Labor electorates.
The message will sink in one day. Outside of certain small political and journalistic cultures, climate change is worse than a non-issue. It's an issue disputed and rejected.
Australians are now broadly aware that we only contribute 1.4 per cent of the planet's alleged warming gases and they don't see why we should have to sacrifice our wages to make a difference when no difference can be made.
Sooner or later, somewhere in the world a mainstream political party possibly from the left is going to say: "Hey, we went along with all of that global warming stuff for a few years. We were scared we'd lose votes if we didn't. But now we realise no policies we devise can make any significant impact. From now on, environmental spending will be limited to the the environment people live in. Here are all your taxes back. Sorry."
On current trends, such a policy would probably do rather well. They could even quote Tim Flannery "if we cut emissions today, global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years" in support of it.
Meanwhile, we have to put up with Gillard's apocalyptic fear campaign. As The Australian reports, Gillard has sent out scripted lines Labor MPs can use to spook people into backing the carbon tax. "If we don't act," runs the script, "then we will see more extreme weather events like bushfires and droughts. We will have more days of extreme heat and we will see our coastline flooded as sea levels rise."
The document continues: "Sea levels could rise by up to a metre and possibly even more by the end of the century. Up to 250,000 existing homes are at risk of inundation." And if you're not already incinerated or starved or drowned, there's also problems with skiing: "Climate change will see the average snow season contract by between 85 per cent and 96 per cent by 2050."
Imagine Labor candidates trying these lines in hard-working electorates. Picture a fellow playing with his four-year-old daughter when the doorbell rings. It's an earnest Laborite come to warn about climate change. By the time he's halfway through his pitch ... talking about all the pets catching fire, or grandma getting tsunamied the little girl is almost in tears.
Her father hasn't spoken for some time. He's listening to the man frightening his daughter.
Eventually he quietly tells the girl to go and see her mother. Daddy wants to talk to the scary man in private.
Picture what happens next. Hint: he doesn't volunteer to hand out Labor how-to-vote cards. Not in a thousand years.
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