Brief Australian Politics ...
Feb. 25th, 2011 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blamebramptonSome of you may remember that Australia was once led by Harry Potter, aka Kevin Rudd. He was one of the most popular Australian Prime Ministers for a goodly period of his leadership. He won power with a promise for a Carbon Tax as a major part of his platform. Three times he tried to get an Emissions Trading Scheme through parliament, three times it was knocked back by a hostile Senate controlled by the conservative Opposition.
Kevin gave up and declared that his government would not try to institute any sort of Carbon Tax again until 2013.
His popularity plummeted and people expressed extreme disappointment with him as a leader. For all that the mining companies then spent $22 million to get him out of office a few months later, this was the moment that the general populace expressed as a breaking of faith.
As many of you will recall, shortly after, the mining companies mounted a scare campaign and the NSW Labor Party and their Victorian Mates acted like weasels and knifed poor old Kev in the back, replacing him with Julia.
After another short period of time, Julia took her team to an election. The Opposition said 'Don't vote for them! They will impose Great Big New Taxes!' (Note that this was despite both the current Opposition Leader and the previous one both having espoused Carbon Tax as an effective mechanism of reining in Australia's appalling reliance on carbon-heavy technologies.)
In response, Julia promised there would be no new Carbon Tax under her government.
The Greens said: 'YOU PEOPLE ARE INSANE! DID YOU NOT NOTICE THAT VICTORIA BURNED DOWN IN A RECORD HEATWAVE LAST YEAR??!!'
Julia's party lost many votes. The Opposition gained a few.
The Greens gained a record number of votes.
Julia has just declared that her government will be imposing a Carbon Tax after all. The Opposition has declared that this is the most appalling thing ever in the history of Australian politics and that the Australian people will rise up in revolt because they did not vote for this!
Except, quite a lot of us did.
Kevin gave up and declared that his government would not try to institute any sort of Carbon Tax again until 2013.
His popularity plummeted and people expressed extreme disappointment with him as a leader. For all that the mining companies then spent $22 million to get him out of office a few months later, this was the moment that the general populace expressed as a breaking of faith.
As many of you will recall, shortly after, the mining companies mounted a scare campaign and the NSW Labor Party and their Victorian Mates acted like weasels and knifed poor old Kev in the back, replacing him with Julia.
After another short period of time, Julia took her team to an election. The Opposition said 'Don't vote for them! They will impose Great Big New Taxes!' (Note that this was despite both the current Opposition Leader and the previous one both having espoused Carbon Tax as an effective mechanism of reining in Australia's appalling reliance on carbon-heavy technologies.)
In response, Julia promised there would be no new Carbon Tax under her government.
The Greens said: 'YOU PEOPLE ARE INSANE! DID YOU NOT NOTICE THAT VICTORIA BURNED DOWN IN A RECORD HEATWAVE LAST YEAR??!!'
Julia's party lost many votes. The Opposition gained a few.
The Greens gained a record number of votes.
Julia has just declared that her government will be imposing a Carbon Tax after all. The Opposition has declared that this is the most appalling thing ever in the history of Australian politics and that the Australian people will rise up in revolt because they did not vote for this!
Except, quite a lot of us did.
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-25 11:07 pm (UTC)What I think is really amusing is that the Liberal Party has almost certainly delt themselves out of having any influence on this tax and with the balance of power held by the Greens and the independents it will almost certainly be a greener tax then it would have been if the Liberal Party had of actually negotiated the first time around.
Abbot is .... I just can't even say what Abbot is he makes me so angry. How dare he say that the Government has no mandate for this when he squashed the last time around when the Government had a clear mandate. He didn't care then but all of a sudden he wants a mandate now, screw that!
I agree that this tax is not the best way that we can go about this but it is a start and I think that is really important. If we can't actually make a start we won't move in the right direction at all. So even though I don't think this is the best start it is better than anything we have had so far.