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Climate change continues to wreak havoc for Rudd

Peter Lewis

by Peter Lewis

04 May 05:45am

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Filed under: Climate Change, Election 2010, Ets, Kevin Rudd

25 comments

Global warming has struck again, with the heat now on our Prime Minister whose approval ratings have dipped below 50 per cent for the first time in the wake of his decision to delay the ETS.

Rudd's climate knockout: Warren Brown in The Daily Telegraph.

For those who believe that climate change is a real threat (to our politicians), the figures will provide further vindication. Rudd joins Turnbull, Nelson and poor old Pete Garrett with bloody noses after getting too close to the heat.

For the deniers, this is more a case of a politician hoisting on his own petard, being punished for walking away from an issue which he had described as ‘the great moral challenge of our time.”

We at the Punch prefer to put our trust in science – or at least accurately-weighted political polling – to assist us in passing judgment, and so we turn to this week’s Essential Report for guidance.

Exhibit One: The ETS Stinks - The ETS has become increasingly unpopular. Watching approval for the ETS fall over the past 12 months has been like watching the glaciers melt. Mid-way through last year things were stable with support for an ETS at 41-29, then ‘Don’t Knows’ began raising questions until support totally collapsed to the point that Tony Abbott’s policy of inaction was the most popular position.

Exhibit Two: Labor Voters Go Green – Labor’s primary vote has dropped two per cent in the week since Rudd announced his decision to delay the ETS. All those votes have gone straight to the Greens, who wanted an ETS but blocked it in the Senate in the hope of getting a better one. So a good number of true believers are registering a protest of the realpolitick of the issue.

Exhibit Three: Personal Approval Heads South – Of more concern than the 2PP trends is the fact that Rudd has taken a seven-point hit in personal approval. His approval rating is 46 per cent, the first time he has been under 50 per cent, and down 25 points from 71 per cent support just over 12 months ago.

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Kevin Rudd is doing as PM?

This is the third big hit over the 12 months – the first occurred around last year’s budget when Labor failed to sell debt as a natural consequence of stimulus; the second hit came when Rudd attempted to run a ‘compassionate tough’ line on refugees. And now the third hit over climate change. If there is a pattern, it seems that approval drops each time Rudd attempts to manage an issue from the centre rather than confront it head-on.

Exhibit Four: Who Do You Trust? Another damning figure for Labor this week is that a majority of voters now rate his government at worse than keeping election promises than previous governments. This is another clear impact of climate change that was a central plank of Rudd’s election platform in 2007. The damage from ditching the ETS has affected Labor’s overall credibility – with 42 per cent rating their promises as less credible than the Howard Government’s non-core promises or the Keating Government’s LAW tax cuts,

Exhibit Five: And the killer .. For all this pain, at least you would expect support for getting rid of the unpopular ETS. But no, the punters cry – we disapprove of the decision to scrap it 41-38.

So here’s my take: Rudd has moved on an unpopular policy but he’s not been rewarded because in doing so, he has walked away from a principled position. Like so much about climate change, the consequences are often unforeseen. You can take a stand and get stabbed in the back. You can ignore the issue and you get punished for that too. And you can listen to the people and find out you didn’t get the right message after all.

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25 comments

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    • WKH says:

      05:53am | 04/05/10

      So to summarize…Rudds a Dudd….I smell a change blowin in the wind…This government is on the nose.

      Reply

    • Christian Real says:

      07:23am | 04/05/10

      WHK
      The government is not to blame, and once more Rudd did not walk away from climate change as the Liberals,their supporters and the news media twist and construe the truth by claiming otherwise.
      Tony(Mr Block all policies) Abbott, and his Opposition Liberal team blocked this policy in the Senate, as they blocked many others from passing through the Senate.
      Rudd, did not fail the people, Tony Abbott did by blocking policies, and by not coming up with a sensible, alternative policy.
      Like with the Health debate, Mr(No policies)Abbott, was out of his depth, out of his league and didn’t have a clue or a Health policy to even take to the debate with him.

      Reply

    • Mark says:

      08:37am | 04/05/10

      Spare us Christian. The Rudd government was elected on a bunch of promises that in the harsh light of reality they were never going to be able to deliver. If your illustrious leader had the balls he would have called a DD election and let the voter decide on the ETS. Instead he ran like a little girl. He promised an opt-in filter, that once he was in power quickly became mandatory with little information of how it was to be managed. His health reform has suddenly materialised (due to it being an election year) and somehow he is going to take a lot of money from the states, and magically turn it into a huge amount of money for the states. Lets not forget the huge success that was the insulation scheme, the schools projects, fuelwatch and grocery watch. Mr Rudd took a huge budget surplus and turned it into a deficit which unless bought under control has to capacity to reach 1 trillion dollars. Rudd has failed the people including yourself.

    • Aitch B says:

      08:41am | 04/05/10

      @Christian

      Um… it takes more than the Opposition to bloock legislation. Add the Greens and an independent or two and you have it. You conveniently and constantly bag Abbott and the Liberals for blocking legislation but never the Greens and independents. And why should Abbott release alternative policies now? As far as I’m aware we aren’t in election mode yet!

    • Ben in Canberra says:

      08:51am | 04/05/10

      Christian,

      This policy was blocked in the senate by the Liberal Party, National Party and the Greens. The reason? As a nation, we emit 1.4% of global emissions, yet the Rudd government wanted to introduce a tax that would cripple Australian industry, obliterate our competitiveness and allow the rest of the world to gain the march on us at a time when our economy is stronger per capita than any other industrialized nation. To further compound this false reasoning, the industrialized nations of the world could not agree on targets for emissions in Copenhagen, not because of a lack of resolve, but because common sense prevailed and the realization of the folly of not including China, India and other developing nations in any agreement loomed large.

      Further, to suggest that the Coalition should have revealed all of their policies prior to an election campaign being formally commenced shows a lack of understanding of the election process. Of course they haven’t revealed their policies, it would be political suicide to give the incumbent government a major heads up and telegraph all of their policies.

      Time will show the Rudd government for what it is; big on ideas, small on substance, conviction and action.

    • Steve A says:

      08:52am | 04/05/10

      Good Grief Christian,,,,

      One little issue, the Liberals do not have a majority in the Senate.
      There are 2 independents and Greens there as well and their vote would have gotten the ETS and any other legislation over the line. The problem is KRudd and Penny (got it) Wong refused to even talk to them. All they wanted to do was bully everyone via the media.
      Fancy not being able to sell a green policy to the green party

      Many Governments have had to negotiate a hostile senate. Keating called them unrepresentative swill, Gough went to a double dissolution over them, and Howard got the GST through a hostile senate. Obama got his Health Policy up by negotiation because he believed in it.
      Now Rudd and Wong do not believe in Their Own policy and they came back to what Abbot and Nelson said before Hopenhagen.
      Funny that
      All the ETS is, is cash cow for a Govt to print money (Carbon Certificates)
      As Abbot said If labour presented acceptable policy the Libs would vote for it
      Stop winging

    • Andrew says:

      09:24am | 04/05/10

      Yes yes Christian, those silly voters just don’t get it. Rudd is the messiah and Abbott is the devil. Fools all of them.

      Just keep shuffling the deckchairs Christian. What iceberg?

    • stevie says:

      07:43am | 04/05/10

      “We trained hard…..but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be re-organised….
      I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by re-organising,
      and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.”

      Petronius, AD65

      And you wonder why this Government and Rudd are on the nose?

      Reply

    • steve says:

      07:51am | 04/05/10

      Roman Warming where the Romans grew grapes where London is today, Cold Dark ages, Medieval Warm Period where the Danes grew grain in Greenland, Little Ice Age where the Thames and the Danube rivers froze over then we warmed up again.
      Obviously this planet did not read the IPCC report or follow the co2 levels or care what politician is in favour or read the polls, it just turns around the sun as it has for 3-4 billion years

      What a dumb planet

      Reply

    • Sherlock says:

      08:16am | 04/05/10

      This is just another sign that the war on junk science has been won by the sceptics. I for one have no sympathy for the alarmist who peddled their fear with one outrageous apocalyptic prediction after another. As their computer models collapsed around them and their predictions failed to materialize, the alarmists started to look like those who constantly preach that the world is going to end on Thursday and just keep changing the date as the previous one passes without incident.

      While the alarmists constantly played the man the sceptics played the ball. The alarmists attempted to kill the messenger while the sceptics attacked the science. It became more and more obvious to the casual observer that the alarmists scientific argument was weak as they went out of their way to do anything but debate it.

      The sceptics have won the war and those who profess a belief in climate change are now starting to get the same condescending treatment we give those who still believe that the Y2K bug was a genuine threat.

      Realists have been saying for years that it made no sense for Australia to establish and ETS on it’s own. Australians may be prepared to pay something to help the environment but as more and more of the electorate became aware that the ETS was going to increase the cost of basically everything yet have absolutely no effect on the global warming problem the policy became more and more on the nose.

      I have asked hundreds of people who stated they were in favour of the ETS why they would support a policy that’s going to be a tax on everything yet do nothing to counter any effect of global warming and not one person has been able to supply me with a coherent answer.

      Rudd know that as the election came closer and closer the flawed ETS would be exposed for the dud it was. As always he did the politically advantageous thing.

      Reply

    • Charles says:

      08:53am | 04/05/10

      Hear Hear, Sherlock

    • Dingo says:

      03:15pm | 04/05/10

      Well said Sherlock.

    • Craig Lambie says:

      08:19am | 04/05/10

      Great article, good to see the Polls are showing that society actually does give a sh*t about the ETS, just that they want the Govt to go the Green way not the Liberal way (and still have them back down)
      I think @Chirstopher Scanlon has a real point in his article on the punch today, pollies have removed politics from their profession and have lost all ability to make a stand.
      Rudd…. Big Australia, turnaround.  ETS- Great Moral Debate, but we can have it another time.  Refugees/immigration - get another cabinet member to deal with that to join Penny Wong…..
      Where are we going as a Country when we have a spinless leader, and the opposition is not any better, in fact I think he is less spinless.
      The only way forward is to go the way they have in Tasmania, have a nice Green representation in the lower house, a good representation in the Upper house and then we might have our views as a nation represented in parliament instead of just 3-5 opinions we have now .... the two major parties, the greens and a couple of independent, who I have to say rarely represent the countries best interests.

      Reply

    • Castro says:

      08:46am | 04/05/10

      Unfortunately Craig that would doom us to Labor governments in perpetuity.  Until Green voters responsibly allocate their preferences and Green politicians have an open mind about dealing with both main parties, a vote for Green will effectively remain a vote for Labor.

      Tasmania is the ultimate proof of this; more Tasweigens voted for the Coalition than any other party yet Labor remain in power.  That is not democracy.

    • Sherlock says:

      09:31am | 04/05/10

      I have yet to meet a sceptic (or a Liberal for that matter) who thinks that Australia wouldn’t be a part of an ETS agreement among pacific nations.

      Going alone on an ETS makes absolutely no sense at all. Having an international agreement with our major trading partners including Asia and the Americas is an arguable position.

      As a conservative voter I think Tony Abbott should make it clear his government would definitely be part of any such agreement and in fact would work towards getting one established.

      It wouldn’t leave Rudd too much room to move on the issue

    • neil says:

      04:18pm | 04/05/10

      Tasmanian politics are now like the Greens, completely disfunctional, the TAS situation proves that a vote for the Greens is a vote waisted. Hopefully as this Labor - Greens coalition falls a part and force TAS into another very early election the rest of the country we see the folly in voting Green and they will go the way of the Democrats once and for all.

    • Justin Turner says:

      08:46am | 04/05/10

      Go to Google news & search for stories on “coal ports” in pages from Australia & read all about the expansion of Abbot Point in Qld & Newcastle in NSW.

      There’s plenty of government backed action on climate change going on, it’s just that it’s in a way that’s opposite to the rhetoric.

      Reply

    • James says:

      10:22am | 04/05/10

      Rudd’s problem isn’t what he is doing now. It’s the BS he spoke 2 years ago. He adopted seemingly popular positions on just about everything, except those matters on which he duplicated Coalition policy. He never once adequately considered the consequences. Now he is stuffed. Either he, in consideration of consequences, does the responsible thing and drops the policy, or he doesn’t consider the consequences, stands his ground, and puts the country deeper in the excrement. Either way he is politically screwed and deservedly so.

      Reply

    • theshakenspear says:

      11:06am | 04/05/10

      Rudd is a dudd
      but Abbott’s dumb as Elma Fudd
      I would sooner vote in an empty box
      Than him or goldie locks

      the 2 would simply fight
      while the country was alight
      they would rather stand on the other’s toe
      than look out for the average joe

      The Greens get my vote
      their election chances are remote
      but at least they rock the boat
      what they say keeps hope afloat

      Reply

    • Andrew says:

      02:50pm | 04/05/10

      So you give your vote to the do nothing Greens
      The party we all abhor
      I guess you what that means
      More preferences for Labor

    • Richard says:

      11:54am | 04/05/10

      It’s a pity Rudd didn’t get a bit more informed before jumping on the Climate Change bandwagon.  Here’s a speech from Lord Christopher Monckton called Apocalypse, No!  If you’ve watch the movie starring that hypocrite Gore, you should watch this.

      http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=5206383248165214524#

      Reply

    • PauL says:

      12:45pm | 04/05/10

      What Bunk man made Global warming is. I bet that the people involved in this poll were all tree hugging greenies. The ETS sucks and will cost those in the community who can least afford it more than those who actually use vast amounts of power to clean their pool and run the split level air-conditioner etc etc. The ETS needs to be consigned to the bin because it achieves nothing. If Rudd is finally screwing his head on and not listening to Tim Flannery’s bleatings then I will be happy.

      Reply

    • Don DJ says:

      03:53pm | 04/05/10

      What he has done surrounding the ETS is plain stupid.  For a guy that is supposed to be so smart politically it was a dunce more.  Why would you dump something like the ETS until at least 2013 and not have any alternate plan in the meantime?  To postpone the ETS could have been done 10 fold better and he could have come out like a winner… I’m amazed how badly this was handled.  To me is smells of a guy and possibly party that is loosing the plot under the pressure.

      Reply

    • Willy K says:

      04:57pm | 04/05/10

      If Rudd was genuine he would have taken the issue to a double dissolution election.

      He didn’t and he wasn’t.

      A foul mouthed creepy little liar.  One termer.

      Reply

    • Dallas Beaufort says:

      01:56pm | 11/05/10

      Peter Lewis “and you can listen to the people and find out you didn’t get the right message after all” but who was really listening or just making decisions only to win elections dam the community costs.

      Reply
 
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