Julia Gillard has staked the future of her government on winning the political battle over a carbon tax.
She claims to be standing on principle, strong in the belief that “carbon pollution is a threat to our country and our future”. And she accuses Tony Abbott of being opportunistic and irresponsible in opposing her two-step proposal for an emissions trading system.
It is strange to recall that just 10 months ago Gillard was demanding that then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd shelve plans for an ETS.
So strident was she on the issue that Rudd, according to a source close to him at the time, worried that she might actually “leave the show”.
Rudd gave in to the pressure from Gillard, Treasurer Wayne Swan, and factional heavies freaked out by focus group findings—and effectively destroyed his prime ministership in the process.
It is Gillard’s role back then, as much as the broken election promise Abbott points to now, that creates a massive credibility problem for the PM as she seeks to adopt the new persona of climate change warrior.
Trust matters in politics. It matters particularly when you are trying to sell something as complex and contentious as a carbon pricing plan.
Voters will be harder to convince that Gillard has a principled commitment on climate change because of her record as a cut-and-run advocate just a short time ago.
And that pledge she made before the election was about as clear-cut as they come. “There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.”
Voters see clips of it on the TV news, and then hear the PM trying to dismiss the broken promise allegation as nothing more than “semantics” and “word games”.
It undermines her credibility even further.
The truth is that Gillard made the promise—and repeated it—in a desperate bid to get over the line in the election. It was a cynical con.
All that being said, however, Gillard—the leader accused so often of standing for nothing—now has something to fight for. A cause.
Taking on the fight for the GST gave John Howard a sense of purpose at a time when his government was drifting. Labor hopes the carbon tax will do the same for Gillard.
Announcement of the decision to impose a carbon tax from the middle of next year saw punters putting more money on Abbott to win the next election.
But Gillard was looking and sounding more confident than at any time since she knifed Rudd and took his job last June.
It was Gillard, not her media advisers, who decided she should face two of the country’s toughest talkback hosts—Alan Jones in Sydney and Neil Mitchell in Melbourne—yesterday morning.
She acquitted herself well, particularly in the toe-to-toe with Jones who increasingly acts as the Liberal Party’s Godfather.
Suddenly Gillard looks like a leader with a plan and she’s firing on all cylinders. Her performance in parliament after Thursday’s announcement was devastatingly effective.
But then, so was Abbott’s. He, too, had one of his best days in the chamber as he lashed Gillard over the broken promise and reactivated the scare campaign that so panicked the government a year ago.
The Liberal leaks and divisions that had dominated politics for a fortnight were forgotten. The troops rallied around Abbot enthusiastically.
Rudd failed to carry the fight to the coalition on climate change, letting the “big new tax” argument take hold.
Gillard is not going to make that mistake. When it is all over, no matter who wins, Abbott the bruiser will know he has been in a brawl.
Part of the Gillard strategy is to try to deal with the “trust” problem by being open about the consequences of her plan.
“We are not hiding behind spin,” is the Labor message.
The opposition, expecting her to argue that a carbon price is not really a tax, were surprised when she conceded from the start that it would operate for the first three to five years “effectively like a tax”.
And, instead of denying cost-of-living effects, Gillard told parliament: “Pricing carbon will have price impacts and I want to be very upfront about that with the Australian people.
“Indeed, the reason you price carbon is to have price impacts, so that high-pollution commodities cost more and low-pollution commodities cost less.”
The NSW Labor Government, already facing an election wipe-out next month so bad that it should make the The Guinness Book Of Records, would not have been pleased to hear that—especially since utility bills are a major campaign issue.
One of Gillard’s key aims, of course, is to win back voters lost to the Greens.
But Greens leader Bob Brown looked powerful and commanding—one might even say prime ministerial—when he marched out beside Gillard to make the announcement.
And Brown’s deputy, Christine Milne, boasted: “It’s happening because we have shared power in Australia.”
If that is the way the electorate sees it, Gillard runs the risk of bolstering the Greens’ vote rather than restoring Labor’s.
The theory, though, is that she needs to notch up some major achievements to restore the government’s standing with voters.
Getting a carbon tax on the books would be the biggie — especially if it’s in time to show that Abbott’s threats about the sky falling in are hollow.
Laurie Oakes is Channel 9’s political editor and writes a regular column for the Herald Sun.
More Kudelka cartoons at www.kudelka.com.au
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