Five Hundred Million

The Federal Government of Australia is broke.

Flat broke.

We know this because they keep telling us about it, loudly and insistently. And repetitively. Loudly, consistently, repetitively, vigorously and forcefully. There's no money available for nothin,' and they won't let you forget it. In In fact, it could be the only issue that Labor have communicated to us effectively over the last four and a bit years.

Whether the issue is something big, like the proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme, or something smaller, like thousands of public servants keeping their jobs instead of being sacked, the Government's response is usually the same.

GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN:

'Well yes of course we'd like to build that/pay for that/let those fucking weasels keep their jobs, but this Government is committed to a position of budget responsibility. And that means that any spending the Government does must be done responsibly, and with full knowledge of the Budget bottom line and our public commitment to keep it in surplus, regardless of how counter-productive/insignificant/produced by creative accounting.'


From the time this Government came to office they've been at it; razor gang-ing this or that into fiscal oblivion. And some of this was undoubtedly right.

Putting a means test on the Baby Bonus, for example, was definitely a good idea. As will be doing the same thing to the Private Health Insurance Rebate, assuming they summon the nerve to actually do that. You'd be hard pushed to find many people opposed to the idea of denying these payments to people earning more than $150 000 a year (outside of the people already earning that figure, that is).

And some of it was undoubtedly wrong. Letting the public service shrink, for example, is not such a great idea, particularly during an economic downturn when more people than ever are relying on Government services and benefits. Nor is allowing vitally important and neglected areas like mental health and dental care to continue to go unfunded a very smart idea, at least in the long run.

But the reasons given for these cutbacks, both good and bad, is generally the same. The Government might like these projects, they may even want to enact or keep some of them, but they just can't afford to. There's no money for any of it. They're just flat broke.

GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN:

'And we understand that that may make us unpopular. We understand that. But that doesn't mean we can change our position or that we will free up money just to earn a few brownie points. This government isn't about brownie points. Or any sort of biscuit points for that matter. We're a non biscuit government committed to a tough bottom line and fiscal responsibility and a budget surplus that you could take a date to the movies with and still afford the tram home afterwards.'


With this in mind, it may surprise you to hear that this same Government, your Government, the one with its pockets turned inside out and barely enough cash to keep the lights on, spends $500 million a year on consultants.

That's right, FIVE... HUNDRED... MILLION.

And by 'consultants,' we're talking about some of the worlds largest firms, companies like 'KPMG' and 'PriceWaterhouseCoopers.' Sprawling, multi national companies with fancy letterheads and those big tower blocks in the heart of whatever city you live in, the sort where security guards will chase you away if you hang around too long in the lobby.

These massive, very profitable, firms get FIVE... HUNDRED... MILLION... dollars of our taxes every year to provide the Government with... what exactly.

In a story on the topic in 'The Age' earlier this week, the journalists investigating were unable, really, to find out exactly what this money was for. In the publicly listed contracts where the fees and services were described, the payments were often listed as being for 'management services' or 'professional services.' In other words, no one has the faintest idea.

Unnamed public service sources indicated that the 'consultants' employed with this money were mostly used for policy development and implementation advice, a function that the public service itself had served, pretty tidily, for more than a hundred years. At a fraction of the cost. This reliance on consultants for this sort of work is something that has been building over a long period of time, and is now spiralling wildly out of control.

It probably doesn't need to be added, but I will, that Labor was elected in 2007 with a promise to slash spending by Government departments on outside consultants.

GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN

'Well, what I will say is this. Quite clearly, quite clearly, quite clearly, no, if you'd just let me finish. What we are looking at in this situation, is a particularly specific type of situation and one that needs to be examined with a full comprehension of this and all other situations. Further, can I just say that these remarks have been misquoted and taken out of context and that this press conference is over!'


Five hundred million dollars.

The figure itself is significant, and worth considering.

This is more money than the Government spends annually on the Bureau of Statistics, who employ 3400 full time staff.

It is also the same amount that Finance Minister Penny Wong announced, last year, that Government departments would need to cut from their spending for the year ahead. Most of these savings are expected to come from job losses.

I would wager that few would be lost at KPMG or PwC.

The Finger

The nurses of Victoria had been waiting a long time for a break. Finally, two days ago, they got one.



If you're not from Victoria, or are but are a kind of shut in with no television, internet or friends, that's a picture of the Premier's cousin, Marshall Baillieu, giving the finger to a handful of protesting nurses. The Baillieu's, Big Ted was inside as well but out of sight, were at the Baillieu library at the University of Melbourne, where the Premier was launching a biography of his late relative William Baillieu, millionaire businessman and 21 year veteran of Vicotrian State politics. The previous sentence indicating exactly how entrenched the Baillieu's are in public life in this state. A half dozen nurses showed up to heckle the Premier through a megaphone, as part of an ongoing campaign of industrial action relating to their new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement.

For 120-odd days now, the Australian Nurses Federation has been wrangling with the Liberal Government, trying to obtain a reasonable EBA for their members. The Government has offered only a 2.5% annual pay increase, less than the current rate of inflation and so effectively a pay cut, and has stated repeatedly that they will not budge from this without 'productivity offsets,' code for 'job losses.' Having recently offered teachers and, particularly, police much more generous deals, the Government has decided to play hardball with nurses and has stuck rigidly to this position. The ANF, for their part, want an 18% increase over three years, and a pledge that 'nurse-patient ratios' will stay the same, code for 'no job losses.' With the Government offering no compromises and the union unwilling to accept a plainly inadequate offer, the two sides have gone round in circles, no nearer to an agreement despite months of dialogue.

Big Ted was on ABC radio on Monday morning, summing up the Government's position. Sounding bored and distracted, like he often does, like he was watching something going on through the window, our Premier offhandedly gave us the contradiction that lies at the heart of the Government's offer. 'Everyone is all for the nurses,' Big Ted said, 'but we have a budgetary responsibility to make sure pay rises are affordable.'

In other words, 'We're frightened of the cops and I made some rash promises to the teachers so we're going to give you a kicking to pay for their pay rises. Now kindly go away.'

Enter Marshall Baillieu.



As a furore developed around images of a brummy, spoilt, toffy nosed old git insulting some of the states hardest working people, the wheels of the Government suddenly started to turn. David Davis, state Minister for Health, was immediately made available to meet with ANF secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick, who eagerly accepted the opportunity. Spruiking this meeting on Jon Faine's breakfast radio show on Wednesday, the host asked Davis why it had taken him four months to decide to pick up the phone, to which the minister couldn't provide an answer.

Which is to say, he offered many answers, none of which addressed the question:

FAINE: So why has it taken so long for you to arrange a meeting with the union?

DAVIS: Jon! Jon! Jon! Let me just say that this meeting is important and it is of
the utmost importance that it take place.

FAINE: Right... But why has it taken so long to arrange?

DAVIS: Jon! Jon! Jon! Ok, all right, let me just say that this meeting, this very
important meeting, has been scheduled and it is of the utmost importance that
it be achieved and scheduled and I am committed to making sure that it is
achieved. And scheduled.

FAINE: Right... But why did it take you so long to do it?

DAVIS: Jon, the Government has a very clear agenda in this case. We've always been
clear about our intentions, and our agenda is a matter of public record. Your
listeners should have no doubt about the clarity of our agenda.

FAINE: Yes, but I'm asking you why it took you so long to arrange this meeting?

DAVIS: We won't respond to ratbaggery Jon. The government won't be held to account by
lunatic fringe elements and people wearing hats. If I can impress on you one
point only then let it be this; the day of the lunatic hat wearer is over!

Which is not the real transcript, but the real one would probably make you want to smash something.

But the nurses have a break and a meeting with the Health Minister, and their chances of getting some sort of acceptable pay offer appear to be much higher than they were at the start of the week. Which is the good news.

Less good is the real lesson that we can draw from this. Which is; regardless of the justness of your cause and the integrity of your protest, to get any sort of action in Australian politics you really just need some old bugger to give you The Finger.

Australia's Worst Person

For years I thought this had to be John Howard.

The rat like cunning, the hatred of gay people, black folk and anyone not born in Australia who couldn't prove their links back to an Anglo Saxon origin. To say nothing of the mangling of the language, the GST, no apology, middle class welfare, Tampa, Cornelia Rau, Workchoices and the ridiculous veneration of his holy trinity of Bradman, Gallipoli and Menzies.

Really, when it came to considering Australia's worst, the bloke had form.

But... he got old and having been unceremoniously booted out of his seat in 2007, he retired from politics and public life, save for the odd occasion when he pops up as the guest of a right wing think tank, giving his views on contemporary society and reminding us all just how awful he was.

Post Howard, public life in Australia has been somewhat lacking for villains.

Kevin Rudd gave it a shot, at least among his colleagues, but he was so awful that they did away with him before he could really entrench himself in the position. And the woman who ousted him, Julia Gillard, just doesn't have enough elan, enough panache, to really cut it as a villain. She simply plods along, largely reviled and abused on all sides, nodding her head earnestly as people call her a witch and promising to do better next time. As for her opponent, Tony Abbott has the panache for villainy, but not enough substance to make people really care what's he up to, like a baddie in a 'Police Academy' movie.

Where then to turn, to try and find Australia's Worst Person, if we're not to find them in their traditional breeding ground; Federal politics? A reasonable back up option might be the business community, and so perhaps we should consider...

... Gina Rineheart.

Head of mining company 'Hancock Prospecting' (founded by her late father Lang Hancock) since 1992 and Australia's richest person, Rineheart has, until recent times, kept a low profile and herself out of the news. But in these recent times, Rineheart has lurched awkwardly into public life, exposing, at least on occasions, the dark heart that lies within and making a pretty fair case that she could be Australia's Worst Person.

Consider the evidence:

1. In 2010, the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd proposed a new tax on inflated profits in the mining industry. Fuelled largely by China, mining in Australia is enjoying a decade long boom, as our non renewable resources are dug up and shipped overseas at record prices. The companies that do this digging and shipping are, in most cases, largely owned by overseas interests, meaning that a good chunk of the revenue generated by this industry flows back out of the country. In other words, we are selling off a very valuable but finite resource and most of the money is going elsewhere. Hence Labor's 'Super Tax' policy, designed to claw back a bit of this cash so that the Government can use some of it to build things - roads, schools, hospitals - for the benefit of people that actually live here. Something that Ms Rinehart definitely did not want to see. The new tax threatened the gi-normous profits her company rakes in each year, and so we were treated to the grim spectacle of one of the world's wealthiest people taking to the back of a flat bed truck to demand that she be allowed to keep a disproportionate share of her income.



Rinehart, and her fellow wealthy CEO's from the industry, would spend $22 million on an advertising campaign against the tax, claiming (quite inaccurately) that's its introduction would mean the end of the mining industry in this country. But, it has to be said, that her approach was successful, as bad polling followed in the wake of the advertising, Labor would dump both Rudd and the policy.



2. Having bested her regulatory enemies and sent the Government away to whimper in the corner, Rinehart was free to do what she pleased with her mining interests. Free, for example, to sell a massive chunk of Western Australia to a Korean mining company, as she did earlier this year. South Korean steel company 'Posco' now own 15% of the Roy Hill iron ore mine in WA, which Rinehart sold to them for $1.5 billion. So she has a little walking around money, even if we don't, as the cash will flow to her pocket and bypass the tax system almost entirely. Thank goodness we got rid of that tax, eh?



3. With the above two events having generated some fairly negative media coverage, eventually, Rinehart then took some pin money, a lazy $200 million , and increased her stake in Fairfax media to 13% (up from 5%). While a long way short of a controlling interest, Rinehart's stake make her one of Fairfax's largest private shareholders. With the publisher of 'The Age' and 'The Sydney Morning Herald,' wobbling somewhat, as part of the general malaise in the newspaper industry, they could be ripe for someone with deep pockets, guess who, to take over in the near future. Rinehart also owns 10% of Channel 10, and sits on their board of directors, meaning that she is quickly turning into one of Australia's largest media owners. You don't need to have seen 'Citizen Kane' to know what happens when wealthy business people with no scruples get involved in running the media.




4. With her wealth skyrocketing and her grip on the nation's airwaves inexorably tightening, there is a rumour about that Rinehart may move into politics proper. If this proves to be true (and I honestly doubt it, since she can influence our elected officials so easily now, why bother with campaigning every three years?), you would probably want to be very concerned. At least, if an article Rinehart wrote last year is anything to go by. In it, Rinehart outlines some of her ideas as to what sort of country Australia should be; low taxing, small government, brutal on criminals, favourable to low paid guest workers, people like herself free to drive around the streets in Hummers running poor people over and doing pretty much anything else they feel like. It's such a chilling vision, she should perhaps consider moving to the States and running for President as a Republican.

So what do we think? Do we have a new champion? Australia's Worst Person?

I'll print the tee-shirts...

American Election 2012: Singalong Edition

As 2012 slowly shakes off 2011 and starts to evolve into it's own fully formed year, it's probably worth taking note of what will be one of this year's defining events: the 2012 US Presidential Election.

Well, you may as well take note of it, as it will be impossible to avoid it.

With the global obsession with American culture showing no signs of flagging, and poltiical candidates showing an ever greater reliance on social media and the internet, the US election is now something that goes far beyond battleground states like Ohio and Florida. It's now everywhere and anywhere, an enormously expensive, theatrical game of high stakes poker played out by power suited men and women who have decided that this is the year to chance their arm and try for the top job. It's a bit like the 'West Wing' really, although without all the robust policy debate, and a bit like a reality TV show, although without the really ace prizes.

And, as such, it's totally captivating. Certainly much more so than our locally produced version of the same thing, which seems to be composed entirely of two dour, thoroughly unlikeable gits telling an indifferent public how much they hate everything.

But the Yanks infuse their election cycle with a large degree of splash and showmanship, so as to try and keep people's attention. Which is probably needed, as their election campaign runs on much longer than you would think is necessary. It is now January, with the election set for November 7, and the Republican candidates have been at it, and each other, for about 3 months. Longer if you factor in the time they spend fund raising and organising before the politickin' actually begins.

But before we get down to any sort of serious analysis of how the US election may unfold this year, it's probably worth highlighting another prominent feature of politics in the states.

Nuttiness.

That's right, things always get a little nutty, a little fruity and a little weird on the campaign trail in America. This can come from the candidates themselves or the public, but the light hearted, high spirited, loopy fru fru spirit is never far from the surface in any Presidential campaign.

Two examples.

In the recently concluded Republican Primary in New Hampshire (won by front runner Mitt Romney), second place fell to veteran congressman Ron Paul, from Texas. Known as something of a maverick and an outsider, Paul has campaigned on a platform of aggressive individual rights and the fundamental destruction of the apparatus of modern American Government. His second placing was something of a surprise, considering the radical nature of his policies, but even more surprising was his choice of theme music at his celebratory after party:



Very few, if any, political candidates had thought to employ the Imperial Theme from Star Wars on their side before.

On the other side of the aisle, President Obama is set to face an uphill battle for re-election, with a struggling economy and high unemployment reflected in his lowly approval rating. With the figures as they are at this moment, no US President has been re-elected with such low poll numbers or with so many people out of work.

Nevertheless, Barack's formidable fund raising and campaigning skills mean he cannot be discounted. Doubly so while his opponents are flirting with nominating Darth Vader as their candidate. Also worth considering is the fervent personal following Obama inspires in people, which manifest itself in many different ways:



The bloke that posted this, 'barackdubs,' has got a million of these!

Roll on 2012!

A Horrible Cunt

Being a horrible cunt has its advantages.

Take Rupert Murdoch as an example of this.

The billionaire tyrant has taken his horrible cunt qualities - lack of empathy, sociopathic morals, veneration of profit over all other princiapls - and turned them into a multi billion dollar media empire that spans the globe and make the lives of countless people in the public eye thoroughly miserable. He is undoubtedly one of the world's richest and most influential people. Not bad for a bloke who started with one newspaper (left to him by his father) in the global backwater of Adelaide.

Or take me, as another example.

A keen follower of news and current events, I've taken my horrible cunt qualities - vindictiveness, callousness and a hefty serve of schadenfreude - and converted them into a relentless enjoyment of watching that horrible cunt Rupert Murdoch's media empire crumble (at least a little bit). I feel no shame or guilt about doing this, having harboured great fear and loathing towards the billionaire tyrant for as long as I can remember (fear, loathing and plagiarism being still more of my horrible cunt qualities).

It has to be said, though, that I am probably not the only one enjoying this.

There must be millions of us really, around the world, waiting breathlessly for each new revelation about the grotesque behaviour of journalists and editors employed at the newspapers of Mr Murdoch, each seemingly worse than the last. It's a story that could have come straight from one of Murdoch's own tabloids; powerful people abusing doe eyed victims, screaming headlines, shock and scandal, celebrity and money and a gaggle of frenetic journalists pumping the story like wild eyed junkies, racing each other to get the next scoop.

No wonder Murdoch's papers sold so well. His readership has been enjoying this sort of stuff for years!

And the fact that it is the mouldy old bastion of serious journalism and lefty-ism, England's 'The Guardian,' that is turning the screws on Murdoch only adds to the deliciousness of it all.

Things have moved so quickly and unraveled so fast for Murdoch that it is difficult to know exactly where it will all end. Just a few months ago he was so powerful and influential (and entrenched) in the fabric of British life that he was almost a bit like an aging, wizened sun; something everyone there paid attention to each day without ever really noticing. He owned not only the country's largest selling daily newspaper ('The Sun') but also the largest selling Sunday paper ('The News of the World') and the most prestigious (London's 'The Times') as well. In addition to this, approval of his takeover bid of satellite TV channel 'BSkyB' looked to be a mere formality, which would have made him England's foremost broadcaster as well as a newspaperman.

His influence in England, already enormous, looked set to reach new levels of dominance. The only thing left after the 'BSkyB' takeover would have been for Harry Potter to show up and battle him to the death.

And then it all went wrong, big time.

In 2006, it was uncovered that Clive Goodman, a reporter for the 'News of The World' ('NoTW'), had illegally accessed the mobile phone voice mail boxes of members of the royal family. He'd done this in collusion with a private investigator hired by the paper and, once this was uncovered, both men were sacked, prosecuted and jailed. While creating waves at the time, this incident was still viewed as fairly minor and was largely glossed over with the usual 'one rogue reporter not representative of our standards' comments from News Corps HQ.

The billionaire tyrant muttered something under his breath, his British newspaper staff went back to their then principal job of destroying Labor Prime Minister Gordon Brown and life went pretty much back to normal.

But this scandal was far from over. It continued to percolate away in the background, as other members of the media (chiefly 'The Guardian') dug away at it, slowly uncovering evidence and sources and garnering testimony from a growing number of disgruntled ex News Corp employees (who, what do you know, didn't have much love for Uncle Rupert). All of this background research and effort exploded spectacularly a few weeks ago.

First it was revealed that the phone hacking operations at the 'News of the World' had not been down to 'one rogue reporter' but had, in fact, been standard business practice. An expanding number of celebrities were revealed as having had their phone messages accessed by NoTW staff, several of them (inclusing the actress Sienna Miller) taking News Corp to court and suing for damages. Almost simultaneously, it was also revealed that NoTW had paid corrupt police officers, as well as private investigators, to help them with this hacking operation, sending shockwaves through the British police force.

And before the outrage over this had even died down, an even bigger scandal came to light. 'The Guardian' reported that in 2002 NoTW reporters had accessed the voice mail box of Milly Dowler, a 13 year old school girl who had gone missing at the time. Not only did the reporters hack into her message bank, but they then deleted messages from it, so as to create space for more. Police at the time thought that the girl herself was accessing her messages and so assumed she was still alive somewhere (she was subsequently found murdered).

The horrified public response to this incident is still reverberating in England.

A sweeping tide of disgust and revulsion spewed forth from other media outlets, members of the public, politicians and pundits. Advertisers immediately abandoned the newspaper and some departed News Corp publications altogether. A number of journalists and editors previously employed by the paper have been arrested and appear headed for jail (among them former editor Andy Coulson, until January this year the British Prime Ministers press secretary). The 168 year old paper itself has been closed and it's current staff made redundant.

Of course, Murdoch himself cannot be specifically blamed for any of these incidents. The time has long since passed where Rupert had any hand in the day-to-day running of his newspapers. But what is obvious is that he has created and cultivated a vile mentality within the arms of his corporation. One that rewards brazen success, regardless of how this is achieved, with no recourse to ethical behaviour or thought for the effect the companies reporting has on it's targets.

Once the NoTW scandals had come to light and become a serious problem, Murdoch did become personally involved in handling the crisis. But his efforts to 'fire break' the scandal by shutting the paper and distancing himself from what happened do not appear to be working. As he lops off one head of this snake, another appears in it's place.

This week, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave an interview where he accused both 'The Sun' and the 'The Times' of a relentless campaign of harassment while he was still in Government, including; the now expected phone hacking, spying on his friends and family, illegally accessing his son's medical records and hiring actors to impersonate him so as to gain access to his finance and personal records. It's not difficult to imagine Brown, never a favourite of Murdoch's and so someone who suffered obscenely distorted coverage from his papers, having a good laugh in private after airing his accusations and so adding to his old tormentors grief.

For grief is probably as good a word as any to sum up where Murdoch finds himself now (assuming it is proper to assign a human emotion like 'grief' to an inhuman entity like the billionaire tyrant). One of his best selling papers is closed and favoured associates under arrest or with their reputations in tatters. His remaining British papers are now both tainted and have an ugly smell emanating from them. His 'BSkyB' bid has been officially abandoned and would, in any case, have been held up for years by a now hostile Parliament. Indeed, his former friends at the top of Government now castigate his company daily in the press. There is talk of Murdoch selling his other papers and abandoning the UK altogether. Maybe retreating to America... where the FBI have already commenced an investigation into allegations that Murdoch's US newspapers hacked the phone records of victims of the 9-11 terrorist attack. I'll leave it to you to imagine what will happen to Rupert in America if that is proved to be true, but in my mind it involves burning torches and pitchforks:



'KILL THE MONSTER!'

Hell, I'm ready.

I guess being a horrible cunt has it's disdvantages too.

Burly Workers in Neon Vests

After one of the more protracted, drawn out, postponed and neverending gestation periods in Australian political history, our carbon tax policy has arrived.

And one of the first things to be thankful for is that the carbon tax has been called just that; 'The Carbon Tax.' For anyone who's thinking 'Well, what the fuck else would they call it?' just cast your mind back to Kevin Rudd's doomed Carbon Trading Scheme, officially called 'The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.' Anyone that wants to track the downhill trajectory of that policy need only start with the name, as horrendous as anything that the language mangling Ruddbot ever came up with.

Moving on from the name to the policy itself proves trickier, due to the complex nature of what has been put forth. Which is nothing short of an attempt to recombobulate and reform Australia's energy sector, manufacturing sector and tax system simultaneously (when a reform of any one of these areas on it's own would normally have been considered epochal).

A brief summary of what has been proposed:

THE TAX:

A carbon price of $23 per tonne of emissions.

HOW IT'LL WORK

Paid by the top 500 carbon producing companies, the tax will increase annually to a projected rated of $29 per tonne by 2015. From 2015, the Government plans to replace the tax with a market driven emissions trading system, where the carbon price will 'float' and be set by trade in carbon permits.

THE COSTS

Companies subject to the tax are expected to pass on their costs to consumers. As these companies come from a diverse range of industries - including mining, transport and manufacturing - costs of most goods and services are expected to increase. The average cost increase per household per week is predicted by Treasury to be $9.90 per week, while the tax is expected to raise about $17 billion worth of revenue in it's first year.

THE COMPENSATION

A broad suite of compensation to measures to offset these cost increases. These will be delivered through tax cuts, increases in welfare payments and a set of 'one off' bonus payments to help pensioners and low income households. Average compensation is projected at $10.10 per household per week, costing the Government about $21 billion in the first year of operation.

Now that last sentence is important. As it means that Treasury modelling of the Carbon Tax shows that on average people will be marginally - very marginally - ahead of where they are now.

This from a tax that has been widely posited as the end of civilisation as we know it. The last Revenge of the Green Nerds who - for reasons known only to the Tony Abbott and his supporters on the extreme right - want to destroy modern society.
We can see now that they want to do this by giving us a generous package of tax cuts and payments and hoping we all... spend ourselves to death? Which is, you know, devilishly clever (or something).

Which is not to say that there aren't losers from the carbon tax legislation. The compensation measures are on a sliding scale so those at the bottom end of the income scale will do much better than those at the other end. Anyone with kids and earning over $150 000 will be worse off by a few hundred dollars a year, as will single people with no kids on about half that amount (including myself in this last category).

But to speak of losers out of such a package as this one is to overlook a fairly crucial point. And that is: this is a tax that you can avoid, or minimise your exposure too. Even more pointedly, this is a tax the Government wants you to avoid, as much as possible.

For if the carbon tax is to serve any useful purpose at all, then it's primary function will be to alter the way people spend their money. By adding a carbon price to good and industries that are carbon intensive, the hope is that carbon free or reduced alternatives will become cheaper in comparison. And so savvy people who are willing to look for services in low carbon areas will receive not just the Government's compensation, but save themselves money by dodging the tax altogether.

Again, not exactly what you'd expect from a policy who's purported purpose was to return Australia to the Dark Ages.

Not that this could stop the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, from claiming that this was just what it was designed to do. The Action Man's response to the carbon policy was both predictable... and seemingly scripted out about a month before the details of the policy were released, as his comments mostly ignored the specifics of what the Government had just proposed.

The carbon price would 'drive up prices and threaten jobs,' the Opposition leader said. It would 'do nothing at all' to curb emissions while ensuring that 'millions of Australians are worse off.' It was nothing more than 'a tax increase pretending to be an environmental policy' and, as such, would be 'the first time since the 1980s that marginal tax rates have been increased.' He colourfully predicted that the the policy would prove so unpopular with the punters that the Government would suffer 'the death of a thousand cameos,' as regular folk stepped forward to complain about it. He further offered to provide all 1000 said cameos by noon of the following day.

In short, he had plenty of tightly scripted, vaguely general, acutely non specific lines that the waiting media hordes could sample and run as five second grabs as his response throughout the subsequent few days. Typically, for Abbott, he had much less to offer in the way of actual details; whether or not he'd reverse the tax if elected and whether he'd keep the more generous income tax arrangements that accompany it first among these points he was silent on.

And he had nothing whatsoever to say about his own plan to reduce carbon emissions.

Yes, that's right, that previous sentence is not a misprint. Mr No-Taxy Pants is a Global Warming believer himself. And he has his own little scheme to reduce Australia's carbon emissions which he made no reference to during his carbon tax response and which involves spending $3.5 billion dollars of public funds on... tree planting? Burying, er, stuff? No one, including Abbott himself, seems quite sure exactly what his 'Direct Action' plan will entail, nor how he intends to pay for it. It also seems to be fairly certain that we won't find out either of things, until about four minutes before the next election.

In the meantime, then, we are treated to a most unusual sight. Both Government and Opposition engaging in an election campaign with no election due for about two years. Julia Gillard has promised to 'wear out her shoes' while travelling the country to explain the policy (and she has conducted more than 100 interviews since it was released), while The Action Man is never likely to miss out on a chance to roll up his shirt sleeves in public and shout a lot.

This faux campaign will involve much claim and counter claim from both sides, and will suck up all the available political oxygen for the forseeable future. Julia Gillard's has staked her Prime Ministership on this policy and, not to be outdone, The Action Man has doubled down and bet the house too. Expect many colourful charts and ads as they seek to exaggerate the benefits of their respective ideas.

Not to mention many more photos of what is likely to be this debate's enduring image; burly workers in neon vests looking non plussed.

D-D-D-D-D-D-Disaster

This week marks 12 months since Julia Gillard replaced Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister.

To mark the occasion, the 'Herald Sun' in Melbourne had a flash application on their website, which enabled people to rate Julia's performance from A to D in 17 categories, covering aspects of her leadership and performance. A virtual report card of sorts. I went through the exercise, distributing mainly C's, with a few A's and D's thrown in. The results, showing my score and compared with the average of the 'Hun's' readership are shown below:



You may not be shocked to see that they don't rate her very highly. I mean, 'D' in every category!

Now I know this is an exercise conducted by a Newscorp publication and so, as such, should be treated with caution. And the sort of person likely to have done it - 'The biggest crock of shit in the universe' declared 'Megan' of the PM, in an attached article - also needs to be taken into consideration. I mean, for anyone living in Melbourne it would be easy enough to imagine Andrew Bolt sitting in his office, hitting 'D-D-D-D-D-D-D' as he filled in the scorecard twenty thousand times and so skewing the whole exercise to match his own warped view of the universe.

But nevertheless, you can still derive a point from it (and other recent, related, media coverage): Julia Gillard is sinking fast.

In another story on the same day, The Hun had her predecessor and potential successor, Kevin Rudd, pulling a 60% approval rating in a poll they conducted in 12 marginal seats across the country. And easily leading Tony Abbott in a two party preferred contest in those same seats. Julia's comparative performance? Too depressing too consider... unless you are 'Megan' or Andrew Bolt.

The only thing now appearing to stand between Heavy Kevvy and a second coming to the leadership, then, is the extreme loathing that nearly all of his Labor colleagues feel towards him. If any polling were done of the ALP caucus, the likely result would be that they'd rather follow 'The Simpsons' lead:



and install anyone... anything... as leader before they'd consider going back to him again.

Julia, meanwhile, soldiers laboriously on, with everything she touches seemingly turning into a combination nightmare/fist fight. On top of the neverending battle over the Carbon Tax and the NBN and developing stalemate over live cattle exports, she now finds herself under attack from promising to cut taxes and raise family benefits. Normally about as close to a rock solid popular vote winner in this lazy ass country as you can get.

The ALP has indicated that, as part of the Carbon Tax package, they would be offering fairly generous tax cuts and a raise in benefits to offset expected cost increases. Nothing very concrete has been put out in public about what these benefits would entail but a few details are slowly starting to leak out.

Which undoubtedly was what prompted Tony 'Action Man' Abbott to get on the front foot by stating this week that the Liberals would be offering their own generous tax cut package at the next election as well. It probably doesn't need to be said that the Opposition leader also promised that his package would be bigger, more generous and would not be attached to any revenue raising efforts, particularly none that would help save the environment at the same time. And so was much, much better. Save money and do nothing to help the environment? That's gold out in the suburbs!

He said all this, of course, without naming any specific details of his plan, nor indicating how he would pay for it. It is indicative of the current debate, and Julia's troubles, that Abbott's plan was praised while hers was lambasted.

Until she is able to turn the debate back to Abbott, and highlight both the short sightedness and lack of detail in any of his proposals, her troubles look likely to continue. And Kevvy's annoying smirk will only get larger.