Are you feeling left right out of the political debate in Australia?
As the parliament prepares to consider the Rudd Government’s ETS and the global bureaucracy invades Copenhagen, I’m getting a little tired of the forced and clichéd polarisation of the climate change and other important debates, such as border protection.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was on Friday when #KRudd tweeted the world at 6.54pm saying “Time for the “do nothing” climate change skeptics (sic) to stop playing roulette with our kids future. KRudd.” It was one tweet too many. Seriously, what a silly and juvenile thing for a PM to say.
The vast majority of Australians are neither climate change zealots or sceptics and I don’t think they take kindly to having their genuine reservations about the Government’s ETS being caricatured by the PM in such a demeaning and polarising way.
When you’re a leader of a nation, it’s not your job to insult the populace, unless of course you happen to be in North Korea.
The vast majority of Australians are reasonable, pragmatic, sensitive people who care about nothing more than the future of their children and their communities. If a Prime Minister cannot assume that about the people of this country, simply because they disagree with him, then that reflects on him, not them.
But the PM is not the only one unable to see this debate in anything other than extreme terms.
If you, like me, are not sold that Mr Rudd’s ETS is the greatest environmental initiative since creation, then you’re a dangerous sceptic, who wants to rob our children of their future and torch the planet.
However, if you also think, as I do, that we need to give the planet the benefit of the doubt, then you’re hypnotised by the climate change cult, you don’t think anyone should have a job and you’re probably about to book a passage in the North Atlantic to scream obscenities at an oil tanker.
Australians hold sensible, practical and principled views that span a broad range of positions, without resorting, in most cases, to the extremes of the debate.
The great danger of the approach being pursued by the Prime Minister is that it disengages and marginalises Australians from the most important questions in this debate – i.e. what is each one of us prepared to do and risk in our own behaviour and decisions, in response to the environmental and economic legacy entrusted to us for future generations?
These are the questions that challenge me most and the ones we most need to wrestle with.
So sorry #KRudd, I will not be bullied by your cheap twitter rhetoric. I will not allow my good faith on the environment to become a blank cheque for the flawed measures you have proposed in your ETS. I’ll be looking closely at the deal that comes back from the negotiations, and make a considered decision then. Regardless of what you think, my kids will always know that I always put their interests first.
The mindless polarisation of commentary and debate is also true on border protection.
The tendency to overdramatise and falsely moralise this debates by commentators and participants alike is unhelpful. It fails to reflect the far greater majority of modest, reasoned good faith contributions taking place. No wonder the Australian public gets tired of politics, when our debates are encouraged and allowed to be mis-represented in this way.
If you think as I do, that we need to take a strong position on border protection, then you’re cast as heartless racist who derives some form of sick pleasure from vilifying asylum seekers, and are seeking to bring out the worst in Australians with dog whistle politics.
It is also inconceivable that such a position can be reconciled with a sympathetic view on the plight of more than 9 million refugees around the world, looking for their chance at freedom. The fact I wish to place the rights of a child in the Sudan or on the Thai Burma border on at least the same level as one whose parents are about to be taken advantage of, by placing her on a leaky boat to Australia, doesn’t cut it.
By the same token, those strongly express sympathy in this debate for people seeking asylum in Australia and their treatment in our care are appallingly demonised as sponsors of global terrorism, as if they spend every other Thursday evening at their ‘cell’ meeting planning our demise, before going bowling as a ‘cover’.
Of course none of this Is true. At the end of the day, this issue is all about whether a policy has failed or succeeded, and that is how this Government will be judged.
Mr Rudd’s actions to unwind a series of measures from the previous government has led to a disproportionate decline in the perception of risk of those desperate to come to this country, and those vile enough to take advantage of them. We are now perceived to be a softer target.
It’s the humpty dumpty syndrome.
While Humpty Dumpty (representing the combination measures created over time and in response to particular events and inherited by the Rudd Government) sat on the wall, there was an impression established that it was unwise to risk a journey to Australia. The boats stopped coming. With the change in policy there have been consequences. Humpty Dumpty has had a great fall, and all of Mr Rudd’s horses and all of Mr Rudd’s men cannot put humpty together again – and the boats keep coming.
This is a problem for Mr Rudd to fix – if you break it, you fix it.
The Coalition’s record and resolve is clear. With access to the authority of Government and the information that comes with it, Malcolm Turnbull would rebuild, over time, the strong borders the Coalition left for the Rudd Labor Government.
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