When Bill Shorten couldn’t put an exact figure on how much Labor’s climate policies would cost 11 years out from the deadline of 2030, Scottyfrommarketing and our work experience Treasurer, ably abetted by a compliant media, excoriated him.
It was a ridiculous question to ask in the first place to which Shorten gave the best answer possible – the costs of not acting far outweigh any mitigation costs. We do not have a choice and the longer we leave it, the more it will cost when we finally admit that we are cooking the planet.
Yet when asked if the surplus they had supposedly already delivered – “we are back in black” – was threatened by the bushfire crisis, Frydenberg answered, “I’m not in a position to give a firm answer to that question because the full economic impact is still uncertain.”
So if the economic impact of something that has already happened is hard to assess, how could they possibly expect Labor to have an exact costing of what the next 11 years would look like?
“When you are responsible economic managers, you have the financial flexibility to respond to crises and economic shocks whenever they may occur,” Mr Frydenberg said.
Oh you mean like when Labor steered us through the Global Financial Crisis emerging as the strongest economy in the world?
“This is a time when the Australian people know that their government is there to spend on the things that they need most,” says Frydenberg whose projected surplus came from a huge underspend on the NDIS and whose government has overseen blowouts in the waiting time for home care packages for the elderly. Many people have died whilst waiting years for the paperwork to be processed.
Even now, Scotty is sticking to the same theme to criticise a target of zero net emissions by 2050 – a target he promised to “look at” when under heavy criticism at the Pacific nation’s forum last year –saying that he doesn’t know the cost it would have on the economy.
“What troubles me is that there are plenty of people at the moment who will go out and make a glib promise about that and they can’t look Australians in the eye and tell them what it will mean for their electricity prices, what it will mean for their jobs,” Mr Morrison told reporters in Canberra.
I seem to remember the Coalition telling me that my electricity bills would go down by $550 a year when they axed the price on carbon. Instead, they have skyrocketed.
So if Scotty can’t work out the cost and effects of what he is doing right now, how on earth does he expect anyone to predict what will happen in 2050?
This bullshit focus group marketing crap has to stop, Scotty. As does the statistical manipulation to try and hide your woefully inadequate management of the existential threat facing our country.
We need leadership and action, not political posturing and buck-passing.
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