It should be possible to sell Julia Gillard’s climate change package to voters. Despite Tony Abbott’s alarmist claims, it can be portrayed as a good news story.
Take what Treasurer Wayne Swan has dubbed the “battlers’ buffer” - an undertaking that low-income families will be generously over-compensated.
The promise is that these people will be reimbursed in full for the extra costs they face under a carbon tax, and then get an extra 20 per cent on top of that. They will, in other words, be financially better off. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer told us a couple of weeks ago that around three million households would be in this category.
In fact, the news has got better since then. I can reveal that work done by Treasury in final preparations for Sunday’s big announcement shows that over a million more households will benefit from over-compensation via tax cuts and extra payments than was first thought.
More than four million families, Treasury now says - nearly half the households in Australia - will end up with more money in their pockets, not less.
As I said, it should be a saleable package. A Liberal MP told me yesterday: “If it was ours, and John Howard and Peter Costello were doing the selling, I’d feel pretty confident.” But he added: “I don’t think Julia Gillard has the competence to pull it off. And if she makes a mistake, there is no way back.”
That’s dead right. Gillard is in the Last Chance Saloon, and knows it. If she can’t pull off the sales job she is finished.
For the next few weeks Gillard will be stumping the country in an all-out bid to convince Australians that the policy is right and the government is competent to implement it. She has told staff she does not want it to be a “soft”, stage-managed tour. There is no point preaching to the converted.
Gillard will face her critics at town hall meetings and on talkback radio. In the words of an adviser: “She intends to go into the lions’ den.” The Prime Minister’s determination is palpable. But more than determination will be needed if she is to turn the carbon tax into a political winner.
And most Labor MPs are pessimistic. They look back over Gillard’s performance since she became PM and shake their heads.
A year ago today - just 15 days after she rolled Kevin Rudd - Gillard’s first big blunder was in the headlines.
Her plan for a processing centre in East Timor to stop boatloads of asylum seekers coming to Australia was unravelling rapidly, and she was being ridiculed for trying to pretend she had not really nominated East Timor in the first place.
A couple of weeks later there was more ridicule over her silly proposal for a 150-member Citizens’ Assembly to decide climate change policy.
It has been downhill since then, to the point where only her most rusted-on supporters have any faith that she won’t blow this issue as well.
According to one of Labor’s most level-headed MPs, there are two crucial questions hanging over tomorrow’s announcement.
“Are they listening to her any more?” he says. “And do they believe anything she says anyway?” It is clear what he thinks the answers are.
Labor’s desperation was reflected in gossip about the leadership in Parliament House over the last few days. A small group of MPs from the party’s right was said to have discussed leadership options early in the week. It was claimed Bill Shorten had told colleagues he did not believe he would be ready to assume the role this side of the next election.
Other names were allegedly canvassed. But if Gillard blows this issue, Labor’s fate at the next election will be sealed, whoever ends up as leader.
On the coalition side there is excited muttering about the possibility of Tasmanian Independent Andrew Wilkie withdrawing his support from the government and forcing an election.
Some Liberal MPs believe Abbott has assured Wilkie that, should be bring down the government, Liberal preferences will guarantee he holds his seat.
The origin of this rumour was a casual conversation between Wilkie and manager of opposition business in the House, Christopher Pyne, about what the Independent would do if Labor changed leaders or failed to pass his anti-poker machine bill.
Wilkie said he hoped the Liberals would not set out to crucify him at the polls if he caused an election. The response, apparently, was that they would not.
But there is no deal. Wilkie still supports the Government, as he showed yesterday with his decision to vote for the carbon tax legislation. The coming battle will be a test of Abbott, too, of course. No-one doubts his attack dog talent, but there is concern among some coalition MPs about the “promise them anything” approach that goes with it.
“Tony’s making the Paul Keating error,” a Liberal said yesterday - referring to the way Keating won the 1993 election by attacking John Hewson’s proposed goods and services tax while promising big tax cuts of his own that turned out to be unaffordable.
Voters never forgave Keating. That’s the message his smarter colleagues want Abbott to keep in mind in the coming weeks.
Laurie Oakes is political editor for the Nine Network. His column appears every Saturday in News Ltd papers.
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