Like a niggly married couple, Australia’s increasingly divided populace is having a big, dirty spat this morning. And just like parents split on how best to discipline a naughty child, the warring parties are united on the goal but divided on the methods employed to achieve it.
The goal we’re united on is the need to cut carbon emissions. Even the staunchest anthropogenic global warming denier would surely concede there are all sorts of benefits in cutting carbon emissions, not least cleaner air and the transition to smarter industries and renewable energy sources.
But thanks to the “Say Yes Australia” ad, made by a coalition of leftist groups and starring popular actors Michael Caton and Cate Blanchett, the carbon tax debate has been turned into the equivalent of a he says/she says marriage dispute. Or in this case, a we pay/they pay issue.
This, right here, is the clearest portrait yet of the tragedy of the unthinking, organised Left in Australia in 2011. The Left that doesn’t come close to representing vast swathes of people who still consider themselves lefties.
The Left likes to paint Tony Abbott as the ultimate robotic naysayer, and there’s no doubt the PM-in-waiting has been true to form on the carbon tax issue, as with countless other issues. Partly that’s just his style and partly it masks his own party’s policy vacuum.
But the loudmouth, organised Left has become just as just as predictably one-eyed as Abbott himself. There is no longer any nuance to their rants. It’s “do this” or accept that” because we know best. So there.
There’s a brilliant Twitterer out there called Fake GetUp!, which mocks the tone of the progressive activist group GetUp! This morning’s Tweet was brilliant.
“Very proud of our new ‘Just Say YES’ (no matter what) campaign…
That really does say it all. Because the Left was spawned, and often still dwells, on university campuses, it habitually laments the lack of proper dialogue in public debate, the fact that no one reads anymore. The masses are belittled as unthinking, and desperately in need of guidance beyond the daily sound bite.
So what does the Left give the unthinking masses? A sound bite! Just say yes, it screams. Because we know better than you.
Apart from its hypocrisy, this strategy is inherently unsuited to Australians. Remember the republic referendum in 1999? We were given a yes/no vote, and though a huge majority of us wanted to say yes, we overwhelmingly said no. Why? Because we don’t like being cornered, that’s why.
But that’s what the ACF and their friends have done today. They’ve turned this into a “you’re with us or against us” thing. With a subtext that if you’re against us, you’re a polluting, irresponsible, dumb bastard who is nowhere near as beautiful as Cate Blanchett or as congenial and blokey as Mick Caton.
The stars of the ad, and its makers, are today arguing that Rupert Murdoch’s evil foot soldiers are attacking the ad as a kind of gratuitous blood sport. No. The papers aren’t spinning bullshit. But they happen to be very, very good at detecting it.
As ad man Adam Ferrier writes in today’s Australian, the actors in the ad haven’t even told us WHY we should pay. They’ve told us why we should curb carbon emissions but as mentioned, we all know that. But why again should we pay?
This, of course, is still a question for Julia Gillard as much as anyone else. Just how this whole issue became a messy process of a tax on big polluters with a consumer rebate is a mystery. She should’ve just taxed them. People would have respected her unwavering leadership for one, if nothing else.
And to those who kicked up the same sort of stink that Big Mining kicked up when the Mining Tax was being kicked around, Gillard might have cited last week’s figures, showing Australia now has more billionaires than ever before, 35 to be precise, the bulk in the resources sector.
Anyway, that opportunity has passed, and we are all left bickering like husband and wife. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all patch up the dialogue. As any husband and wife knows, no one wins when they start shouting over the top of each other.
If I was making the Say Yes Australia ad, I’ll tell you what I would have done.
I would’ve ditched Blanchett, who plays a mean southern belle and Queen Elizabeth but a poor everywoman. But I would’ve retained the services of Caton and stuck him in front of a really loud, dirty, coal-fired power station. Then I would have stood him in front of a batch of gleaming solar panels.
And I would’ve scripted one line, a line that would have resonated to every Australian, Left or Right, wealthy or mortgaged-to-the-eyeballs.
How’s the serenity?
And whether you agree with the carbon tax or not, you might at least have thought about it with a serene mind, not one convoluted by the anger so many are rightfully feeling today.
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