Backflop

3:43 PM, 4/5/2010 .. 0 comments .. Link

It is with much dismay and sadness that I commence writing my first Federal politics blog. Although in recent times I had become severely disenchanted with the SA Branch of the ALP, the lingering hatred of John Howard had kept me clinging to the hope of a bright future under the Rudd Government. The last few weeks of “deck clearing” by Rudd and colleagues, however, has amounted to a fundamental breach of trust with the Australian people. In my opinion, the ETS backflop will be fatal to the Rudd’s leadership, but hopefully not the ALP Government as a whole.

In politics, backflips are not always harmful. In some instances, it can signal that a Government is listening to public sentiment and humble enough to acknowledge its’ mistakes. This ETS backflip, however, is a whole other kettle of fish. Normally a back flip results from wide spread public outrage in response to a given policy. With the ETS, the usual suspects (coal industry, business groups etc) were outraged and vocal in their opposition. The quiet remainder, however, was either confused as to the implications or accepting that action was needed on Climate Change. I assert that well over 50 per cent of the population would have been in favour of the ETS if it was explained in Keating English, not Rudd bureaucracisms and Wong legalese. What was the purpose of this back flip? Such action would never win over the sceptics, who prefer to support Abbott, who is one of their own. To the uninformed swinging voter, the only message they get from the whole debacle is that Rudd doesn’t follow through. To those passionate about climate change, however, every syllable from this day forward carefully uttered by Kevin Rudd will ring hollow.

The Government has various arguments which they can advance in defence of their back flip. They can point to the obstructionism of the Opposition and minor parties. Senate obstructionism is as old as the Federation itself, however. In order to govern in Australia, the Senate is an element of the system that must be dealt with. Usually this is through compromise, not wholesale abandonment of principles. They also had the choice of running an election campaign on action for climate change, a battle that I believe would have been won. Why then, did the PM opt for the path down which lies inevitable political ruin?

I cannot begin to fathom the reasoning behind the ETS back down, but I will endeavour to speculate. Clearly Rudd was frightened of the “great big tax on everything rhetoric”. He will find any opposition leader capable of over simplification or neat sound bites difficult to counter, as every public uttering he makes comes in three pillars, with numerous caveats. Perhaps the Government is relying on the culpability of the Opposition in stalling the legislation. Maybe they think that believing in Climate Change but not having the guts to do anything about it is better than not believing in it at all. I suspect that the ultimate motivation, however, was freeing up 2 billion dollars in cash to hurl at the electorate in the upcoming election campaign.

If the ETS backdown was designed to free up cash for pre-election spending spree, it is perhaps an unwise move. Any big spending Government programs will be faced with two major dilemmas; 1. Will this end up like your Government insulation scheme? 2. Are you going to back down from this after the election like with the ETS/Child care etc? In addition, the Liberal Opposition is already trying to paint the ALP Government with the traditional high spending/high taxing brush. A hefty pre-election spending program will play directly into their hands.

The ALP’s saving grace at this point in time is the unpalatable nature of the Opposition leader, Tony Abbott, and the unwillingness for many in the community to return to the days of Howardism. The ALP at both State and Federal levels is fast becoming the “lesser of two evils” party. They continue to govern not because of their merits, but because of the lack of merit in the alternative. This is an unfortunate position for the country to be in, and augers well for the emergence of a third force that is perhaps less extreme than the Greens. The most likely outcome in the coming election is the narrow re-election of a Rudd Government, followed by the swift guillotining of the PM, to be replaced by either Julia Gillard (ballooned by public sentiment) or whomever the fat Catholic power brokers decide. In any event, this election will force voters to decide; do you prefer someone who believes in things that are different to you over someone that believes nothing at all?