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Labor Needs To Come Clean On Emissions Target But Liberals Can Go On Being Dirty!

One of the consistent narratives over the past few years has been the Liberals’ demand that Labor tell us what their policies will cost. Sometimes asking about cost is entirely reasonable; other times it’s a little ridiculous.

To use a household budget – one of the Liberals’ favourite analogies – Mr and Mrs Smith are at the hospital waiting for news about their middle child when the doctor comes out to tell them that she needs their permission for an emergency operation. Does anyone think that the Smiths will say, “Hang on a minute, how much will this cost?” before telling the doctor that they’ve already worked out that the budget for his food and school fees threatens their surplus in the coming financial year, and well, this operation will put them into deficit?

Ok, that’s a silly analogy. How could parents be worried about cost when the lives of their child is at stake? No, it’s only when the lives of all children throughout the world are at stake that we want to know what the zero emission policy will cost.

Climate alarmism, eh? Yes, it’s a load of nonsense. A few years ago we were told that we’d have unusually severe weather events and look at what happened. There’s nothing unusual about them at all, we have severe weather events all the time now. There’s nothing unusual about having “once in a hundred years” rainfall several times in the space of a decade.

I guess the main thing that concerns me is that nobody in the media seems to be going: “Ah cost, that’s something we should consider, Mr Morrison what is the cost of your climate change policies?”

Ok, we all know how that would play out: Scottiie rejects the premise of the question. Quite right of him, too. The Liberals have no  policies about from a general idea that they’re against too much climate change and that some action is needed so long as that action doesn’t result in any change to anything whatsoever.

As I’ve previously pointed out the hashtag “Scottyfrommarketing” is appropriate. (Although not as appropriate as #Scottysackedfrommarketing”!) Morrison seems to think that once he’s managed the spin at the press conference then the job’s over. Getting flack about this, then announce that. Getting flack because that didn’t happen, tell everyone you’re disappointed and you’ll look into it. That still not happening, tell everyone you’re very, very angry and you’ve appointed someone to have an inquiry which will report to you personally and you’ll let us know how it showed you weren’t at fault in any way.

And this is how he deals with urgent matters, so 2050 is someone else’s problem. All that matters is making sure that neither Labor nor The Greens sound like they have any decent ideas about anything. If a press conference goes in the wrong direction, you bring it back on track by telling the reporter that you weren’t aware of any report that said anything or that his premise is faulty or that it’s just gossip and people outside the Canberra bubble don’t care about large scale corruption.

Yes, just like in the election campaign where Shorten was asked for specific details about all his policies while Morrison was asked which of his baseball caps was his favourite, there seems no equivalency in the focus of the media’s attention. We need to know the precise cost of a net zero emissions policy by 2050 but rather than being compared with the cost of the Coalition’s emissions reduction policy the nearest we get is, “What’s the cost of doing nothing?”

Which, I’m sure many would argue, IS the Coalition’s policy.

However, it would be nice if that could be made explicit rather than forcing us all to infer it from the fact that we have Coalition spokespeople like Matt Canavan telling us that zero emissions = zero jobs and Prue McSween telling us that 2050 is only twenty years away and how could we swap to renewables in a mere twenty years. (Perhaps somebody should tell Prue that twenty years ago we didn’t have YouTube, Facebook, smartphones and Google was but a glint in the eyes of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, so there can be a lot of change in a short time!).

At least then we can start saying that the choice is between a Labor Party who isn’t doing enough to fight climate change and a Coalition who seem to think that thoughts and prayers are enough for everything.

 

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16 comments

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  1. Phil Pryor

    How could such a failed inferior loudmouth from the profession of lying for a living get into conservative politics and get up to Head Moron? Ugly in and out of the skull, anus faced Morrison has never told the truth and does not understand the concept. He lives in a fantasy world of lying and fraud superstitious invention, that never existed and will not guide any mind to truth and decency. The slippery falsehood fabrications of centuries guide such self drenched fools and they manipulate anything in the service of dominating, convincing, overbearing, coercing, winning. They have awarded themselves saved, blessed, appointed status. They will claim to be exclusive, supreme, infallible. They will abuse any truth for the story, the thrust of will, the demand for a winning argument. This is gross SHIT.

  2. Pagnol

    As we witness the acceleration of the long predicted effects of climate change I think of the Coalition Government and it’s denier supporters, and their response to the crisis as everything unravels-
    1 it’s not happening/ it’s always been like this
    2 well in the unlikely event it is happening as predicted, it’s nothing to worry about/ it’s always been like this
    3 oh shit….. who can we blame

  3. Andrew Smith

    Agree, wrote yesterday the importance for Labor to sort out their policy, cost estimates and strategisation of communication of climate policy, and others.

    It’s frustrating to watch Labor MPs appear like rabbits in the spotlight bumbling round as though they had never expected the LNP nor media to ask and challenge about ‘costs’ on any climate or other policy (let alone using international examples to support their case which are plentiful).

    While majority of Australians lack basic financial literacy (hence our expensive property market and record private debt levels) and would be bamboozled by any citing of ‘costs’ and estimates, that does not excuse supposedly educated Labor MPs being wedged on ‘costs’ (and seemingly incapable of articulating any relevant counter to the LNP’s inaction).

    Any estimates on costs and savings into the future do not need to be exact as such factors in finance always change.

  4. Andy56

    Well its not exactly impossible to determine the costs going forward. The cost of the current drought is known, the cost to the economy of the recent fires is known, the cost to individuals who lost homes is known, the cost of the fires to the environment is known, the cost of lost tourism is known. The costs to our health from breathing in smoke can be calculated. The cost of subsidies to the fossil fuel industry has been calculated at $29b/ year. So yea, we know the financial costs and we are starting to understand the environment we will be living in although some people still refuse to join the dots. If coal currently returns us $69b, thats another cost to the bottom line if the world suddenly gets serious and stops buying.

    But we can work on power as a start, exaggerate the costs of doing nothing, the other side has no qualms about exageration. Assume 3%growth on cost and extrapolate 30yrs down the road. Use the dirty tricks to give them payback.

  5. Michael Taylor

    I must admit that I’m disappointed that the Greens are bashing Labor over their policy announcement. They should focus on bashing the do-nothing government.

    Just sayin’.

  6. guest

    Right wing politics and news media are telling us that the debate is over because the 2019 election on Climate Change endorsed the Coalition’s policy. What that policy is or was is not clear – something like business-as-usual, especially fossil fuels extraction. It is about jobs, jobs, jobs!

    Well, no. Renewables are creating jobs and in some parts of the world are overtaking fossil fuels as energy source. Some industrial countries are setting dates for stopping the use of coal, black or brown. They are aiming for zero emissions by 2050.

    Right wing entities know this, but their claim is that these zero emission countries do not have a plan to achieve this goal. And neither does our Coalition, whose plan takes us using fossil fuels as far as 2070 at least. It is as if the climate experts do not know what they are doing and the Coalition says that they know Climate Change is real but they do not know how real.

    Paul Kelly, writing in the WE Australian today, says that the summer fires might have had some impact on national thinking about Climate Change, but it is unlikely to be permanent, he says.

    And why is that? Because all Morrison has to do is ask Labor how much will zero emissions cost and what is the plan. Easy. The Coalition won the last election with its non-policy platform. No problem.

    What Kelly cannot see is that the Murdoch view is being demolished day by day. The scribblers have no idea what Climate Change is about.

  7. New England Cocky

    Karen Middleton of The Saturday Paper 200220 p1 has an interesting observation about the $5 BILLION SPEND by the Smirkie Sacked from Marketing Liarbral Nazianal$ misgovernment.

    https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2020/02/22/government-spends-unlawful-billions/15822900009418

    The obvious solution to having no policies is to SPEND, SPEND, SPEND so that the Federal Treasury becomes a junk bond liability to allow the World Bank or other international carpet-baggers to take over Australia’s natural resources for the benefit of foreign based shareholders.

    I doubt that any press release from the misgovernment could be taken with any less than a salt mine over each shoulder for information.

  8. Pingback: Labor Needs To Come Clean On Emissions Target But Liberals Can Go Being Dirty! #newsoz.org #auspol - News Oz

  9. Geoff Andrews

    I would have thought that, following the recent precedent, all Labor has to do next election on this matter is to commission a report on the cost/benefits of the policy, quote figures from it (“the report clearly, and absolutely proves that there is a 2 to 1 cost benefit advantage, going forward”) but then refuse to release the report because of commercial in confidence matters or it is an internal Labor document or any other flim flam excuse.

  10. Ken Fabian

    If the public perception is that Labor will only do insignificantly more than the LNP’s insignificant then voters will make their choice based on some other issue. Given that the thought of droughts and heatwaves and bushfires with 3 or 4 or 5 degrees of warming is absolutely terrifying, the failure of mainstream politics – the absolute dominance of LibNatLab that owns Australia’s politics – to face the problem head on is dismaying.

    I know that empty gestures are the staple for climate politics but, whilst I think the ALP approving a zero emissions by 2050 is empty gesture I am not convinced Labor’s continued support for coal is an empty gesture at all. Like blaming The Greens for every problem with policy climate and energy related, the LibNatLab support for coal is one of the few things with absolute tri-partisan agreement within the LibNatLab coalition.

  11. ajogrady

    The Greens, through their constant attacks on Labor and not on the COALition, are giving strong indicators that they are angling to replace Pauline Hanson as the L/NP’s go to party for rubber stamping L/NP policy in the Senate.

  12. DrakeN

    Greens bashing the ALP, Michael? ajogrady?
    Kettle meet Mr. Pot.
    And here we are criticising the Greens for wanting an effective opposition; one which will hold the current barel of self serving monkeys to account.
    Wimpish popularisms are not going to affect that critical minority of voters who actually make the difference when it comes to which Party gets to hold the reins of government.
    I am non Partisan, just like I am no footy team barracker, but the difference is that I don’t have any interest in professional sport but I do have an intense interst in the welfare of the planet and its flora and fauna – and I classify humans as fauna.
    If you rusted-on ALP supporters could just see how the ALP is seen as weak and disorganised, rightly or wrongly, then you would see that Greens bashing is seen as deflection and impotence.
    Get the ALP members and supporters to present a unified front, to crowd-fund the necessary blitz on a fragile Coalition at the next election: Show some collective determination and explain to the voters just how much they are being dudded by the Right-wing of politics.
    Show them, one by one, how it is that their material and social difficulties are a direct consequence of the efforts of the commercial, political and religionious institutions to maintain their wealth and priviledge at the expense of each and every ordinary citizen.As I mentioned elsewhere, the Spanish civil war was lost by a failure of unity within the Republican movements, – including some of their leadership focussing more on their own advancement at a cost to the rank and file.
    Sorry people, but “How canst thou remove the mote that is within thy brother’s eye without first that thou remove the beam that is within thine own?”
    Get your own bloody house in order.
    Please.

  13. king1394

    When the Lib/Nats ask about how much will the ALP policies to manage Climate Change cost, and state that it is unaffordable, they try also to tell us that the Coalition policy costs nothing. But their plan is to externalise the costs to the individuals who are hurt. (Thinking of my friend who now lives in a half burnt house in a nearby village, and the people on the north coast who have just seen landslides caused by massive flooding on the bare, burnt land demolishing fences, roads and homes.)

  14. wam

    Slow day day rossleigh? The democrats would have a ball with trump’s tax records and albo could stir with questions of the $400+m hidden in a kangaroo island beach shack and in a Gold Coast gang of 4 luxury flat? (He could throw in a question like who got the spotters fees? Or ‘ show me the money’?
    After Leigh got smacked for ‘have you read the report’ the ABC standard question was:
    For labor – have you stopped beating your wife
    For lnp – would you like me to nod my head whilst you talk.
    On the morning shows the questions:
    For labor will you outline the theory of relativity
    For lnp tell me where labor always goes wrong or even if a question is asked give the same answer regardless.
    There must be an answer to albo’s woes but he and labor has honesty as. Its millstone they will needs to do some stirring on the morning shows or do a billy and sit and wait for 6 years but this time make no policies and deny the bobbins air.
    ps
    Come on boys lay off the loonies you are making me jealous and wish I could have seen something untoward about the loonies even Corvus will have to cover his eyes to avoid the challenge to boobby’s thrall.

  15. John Higgins

    Prue McSween? Duh … someone hand that dyed Coalition dolly a calculator … 2050 is NOT 20 years away. Obviously learnt her math from Smoking Joe

  16. Paul Davis

    Because i live in queensland with no daylight saving i get to watch Insiders at 8am and again at 9am local time. First viewing i found so insufferable i spend most of the hour in kitchen cooking and eating a full and hearty breakfast between peeks at the teev… Anyway, manned up somwhat at 9am with carafe of espresso laced with Kaluah and remote control in drawer and watched the complete farce. David Speers is in my probably of no value opinion a spineless craven suckup of the retard right and he was abley supported by his panel of so called journos in their oh so deadpan serious damning of Labor and Albanese over climate change policy etc. Six plus years of ATM led LNP corruption villainy ineptitude incompetence mendacity and chicanery without being seriously held to account by almost all of the spivs of the fourth estate. The ABC was the last chance for journalism and truth telling nationally and it has been systematically whiteanted and corrupted. Insiders is now a sham. There is no genuinely unbiased national political current affairs program in the country. The Drum and 7.30 Report submerged into the swamp ages back. Media Watch and Mad As Hell are on borrowed time and when Porter and Dutton take over 4Corners will go. Fascism is arriving fast. Straya embracing the new feudalism and loving it.

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