Malcolm Turnbull’s Political Misjudgment
The latest Newspoll putting the Coalition ahead of Labor on a two party-preferred basis for the first time since 2006 is further evidence against Malcolm Turnbull’s claim that opposition to the Rudd-Turnbull ETS would lead the Coalition to electoral oblivion. It is noteworthy that the Coalition now matches Labor on the question of who will ‘best handle the issue of climate change’, having previously trailed Labor on the issue by as much as 27 points. The poll results demonstrate that public opinion on a given issue is not independent of the stance taken by the opposition, a political understanding seemingly lost on Malcolm.
Michael Barone notes that social democrats are in trouble across the Anglo-American world. He attributes this to their abandonment of the market reformist tradition that previously informed social democratic parties, including Australian Labor. As former federal Labor minister Gary Johns has noted, Rudd has always been outside this market reformist tradition.
posted on 03 May 2010 by skirchner
in Opinion Polls, Politics
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The Coalition’s new climate change “policy” is hardly championing market mechanisms. Looks like policy on both sides will be reduced to opening “solar schools” and technology demonstration plants for the foreseeable future. Sad.
Oh well, at least Malcolm is sticking around, and he’s stuck to his principles, unlike Rudd.
God knows why you lot (read: nutty laissez faire extremists of the IPA) have it in for Malcolm. I would have thought he was a lot closer to you on most issues than Abbott, who’s just a capital-C Conservative on everything. Its the climate change thing that bugs you isn’t it? Malcolm accepts mainstream science and supports market mechanisms to address it. You guys pretend to accept the mainstream science—to maintain a veneer of public acceptability—but secretly hold views not dissimilar to Andrew Bolt.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/05 at 10:16 AM
“Malcolm accepts mainstream science and supports market mechanisms to address it.”
The CPRS would not ‘address’ anthropomorphic climate change if other countries don’t play ball. Even if they do, it may not be worth trying to stop it.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/05 at 12:15 PM
Er, that would be anthropogenic, and if the science is accurate, its most definitely worth trying to stop.
FYI: We are not living in an economy. We are living on a rock, orbiting a star, that through a long sequence of astonishing coincidences has given rise to intelligent life, and recently a stable climate.
There’s only one rock like this. If we continue with this experiment on the climate its our civilisation that’s screwed not the planet. A few hundred million years of evolution and humanity will be long forgotten.
The CPRS was a flawed mess, that would have done b*gger all to reduce Australia’s emissions. Abbott’s policy is considerably worse.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/05 at 09:04 PM
“Its the climate change thing that bugs you isn’t it?”
It’s the ETS and Malcolm’s unwillingness to argue against it.
Posted by skirchner on 05/05 at 11:22 PM
So you think Malcolm should be arguing for a nice clean carbon tax? Look I’m all for a carbon tax, but as soon as you say the T-word every nutjob denialist will be all over it.
I suppose if anyone’s going to have a crack at it, its Malcolm. Rudd is hardly a conviction politician. Needs to be simple though, something the punters can understand. You know, like carve up the proceeds and hand them back in equal shares to every man, woman and child. Call it the “carbon dividend” or something. It can’t be something that the banksters (and Big Carbon) can manipulate, avoid and cheat on, like the CPRS.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/06 at 12:40 AM
The Greens have the most sensible policy on climate change at the moment.
“suppose if anyone’s going to have a crack at it, its Malcolm.”
Malcolm’s strategy was to reach an accommodation with the government to make the issue go away. He was not interested in leading on the issue.
Posted by skirchner on 05/06 at 01:19 AM
Perhaps, but he has (or at least had) a party that largely disagrees with his position. Turnbull’s personal view is probably closer to the Greens than Rudd or Abbott.
I agree, he didn’t lead on the issue earlier when he should have. He tried to come to a compromise position with the Minchinites, but when it became clear there wasn’t going to be a compromise he sacrificed his leadership over it.
Perhaps he’ll be more courageous next time, lets hope so. I don’t doubt his conviction on this issue.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/06 at 01:34 AM