Saturday, 19 December 2009

Saturday SoapBlog: Ross Parisi - Emission Trading Scheme could cost Rudd

Former Mulgrave Shire Councillor who now farms on the Barron River delta, Ross Parisi, takes this week's SoapBlog and says that Rudd's Emission Trading Scheme is nothing more than a tax.

Parisi explains that everyday consumers will wear the cost, with no benefit to the environment.


The re election of the Rudd Government in 2010 is no longer an assured shoe-in.

There is every chance that Rudd will have to pull out all stops to retain a working majority, let alone win with an increased majority. The unexpected election of Tony Abbott to the leadership of the Liberal Party has caught the Rudd Government and its advisors on the hop.

Totally unprepared for the elevation of Abbott to the Opposition leadership has got the Government in a spin. Rest assured there will not be an early election notwithstanding what happens to the Emission Trading Scheme, ETS when it is reintroduced into Federal Parliament in February 2010. Rudd will hold off calling an election right up to the last minute in the hope that like Latham, Abbott will self-implode.

As sure as night follows day the ETS legislation will be rejected by the Senate with the taunt from the Opposition for the Government to call an early election. If Rudd had the ability to hide the ETS legislation under the biggest of rocks, he would readily do it. Rudd has snookered himself.

What was used by Rudd to hammer Turnbull into political submission may well be the poison chalice that could cost the Rudd Government the next election.

What has caused this phenomenon, this major turnaround in electoral landscape to eventuate?

Rudd, the process politician, the micro manager, the control freak, the king of political spin, has failed to take to Copenhagen with him the Australian people. He has left them behind due to his lazy politics and miscalculation.

Rudd, Wong, Combet and others, put all their efforts into Turnbull. The thing is that Turnbull needed no convincing. All he needed was a face saving opportunity. This was presented to him on a plate when Rudd agreed to negotiate.

The Rudd Government was always going to agree to the bulk of the proposed Liberal amendments. Rudd surmised that if the Liberals could be given a face saving opportunity, then there was no need for the hard yards that would be needed to convince the electorate of the ETS and the costs thereof to Rudd’s working families.

As political observers have since realised Turnbull was/is no politician. That became evident by the way Howard set up Turnbull during the Republican referendum of 10 years ago and of more recent times by calling for Rudd’s resignation based on false emails. How politically incompetent was Turnbull!

Rudd had the measure of Turnbull, but he does not have the measure of Abbott.

Abbott, amongst many other things is a moving target and therefore at times may appear as erratic. Nevertheless, Abbott is the retail politician. He has form. He was given the task by Howard to negate the impetus of Pauline Hanson and we well know that result.

Abbott is a politician, not a merchant banker, whose ilk would stand to make million in the application of ETS, nor the process man that Rudd is. In the end, in the game of politics, politicians always win through against pretenders.

The template for Abbott strategy was set by Keating in the 1993 ‘true believers’ election. Hewson, the then Liberal Party leader lost the “unloseable” election. During the course of the election campaign the major theme that Keating ran on was visiting retail outlets including the infamous cake shop and stating how much extra the cake would cost once the GST was applied. Well the rest is history.

Abbott will be using this strategy to damning effect during the course of the 2010 election campaign. Only this week it was flagged that the NSW electricity price would rise over the course of a 3 year period by 60%. Here in Queensland electricity costs are forecast to rise by over 16%.

Every Mum and Dad that made up Rudd’s working families, the same ones that abandoned Howard in the 2007 election, will listen to Abbott’s mantra and it will resonate with them all the way to the ballot box.

This scenario will be compounded if there is no substantial agreement in Copenhagen which at the time of writing seems likely. This is the risk that Rudd was desperate to avoid when he demanded that the ETS legislation be approved by the Senate before Copenhagen.

One of the smartest politicians in the Parliament is Senator Barnaby Joyce. He picked up on a simmering disquiet in the country community which has since spread to the cities and continues to spread with subtle determination. Generally by their very nature Oppositions reflect more accurately community sentiment.

Rudd chose to gamble on the Liberals being frightened to the point that they feared electoral annihilation and would surrender meekly but he did not consider that while Turnbull could be easily persuaded because of his previous public utterances, the majority of the party would not be.

Rudd thinking that Turnbull and the Liberals were in his pocket saw no need to articulate the effects of the ETS on working families. The electorate is left out of any consideration when there is bipartisan support.

This miscalculation may well cost Rudd the next election. The 24/7 process man may yet prove to have been a lazy and careless politician.

11 comments:

nocturnal congress said...

Once Abbott introduces WorkChoices Version 1, I don't think too many working Australian Mums and Dads will worry about an ETS tax. We still, of course, have the huge cost of Iraq's war reparations waiting to bludgeon us over the head in the future. It will make an ETS tax look as cheap as chips.

Warren Entsch said...

Dear Barny Joyce.

LEGALIZE POT and you will be the next PM.

99.999% vote from blacks and 97% from the rest of the population.

The 3.001% vote not received will be from the extreme Christian right who need total world war as a prerequisite for the return of their beloved Jesus to fulfill Bible prophesy. Enter KKKrud and Abattoir.

Jesus is turning in his grave.

Prohibition destroyed Australia and now we have to lock our doors when we go out. When my older brother was arrested for a very small piece of cannabis after a long and futile search by ten drug squad officers the red face look of shame on the younger cops was obvious.

The position of PM is your for the taking if you choose Barn.

Thaddeus said...

In a country experiencing one of its worst ever droughts, where one of its major rivers is now practically a mudslip, where some of the worst bushfires in living memory have and continue to occur, it must be the most evil, unconscienable political act of so called responsible leaders, to divide the country on this gravest of issues.
One wonders also, what evil was at play back in 2003 when John Howard and Tony Abbott committed Australia to invading and destroying an innocent country, without any thought of the long term consequences of their actions?

Al said...

Abbott may be a politician, but Joyce surely ain't - and he is on the opposition front bench until the next election. Nationally, he will be their Achilles heel (locally it's the recycled Entsch)

Max Herrington said...

Rudd's Emission Trading Scheme is nothing more than another tax. Rudd dresses it up with the spin that it is the tax that saves the world from upheaval.

It is interesting to note that Rudd needs a new tax source base to help pay for 'Rudd's Cash Splash' and Rudd's socialist agenda, like propping up the Banks, while the individual is sold up.

The GST that Howard introduced was the last taxation proposal to reap and continues to reap billions.

Prior to the GST, the Income Tax, Payee, were every employer became an agent of the Taxation Office was made uniform in 1942.

In the 1930's it was the Sales Tax which almost applied to all goods.

In 2010 it would have been the ETS Tax. Rudd has struck a snag though, in that the Australian people have timely woken from their slumber and have said NO.

RupyTN said...

The planet's temperatures are changing, and one day every person/nation will have to take notice. Unfortunately all of us, under whichever flag, are pawns in a game played over political life cycles. Forget about Rudd; Abbott; Joyce ... any of the current power junkies, this will be played out well into the future when theories become fact. Personally (and this from a Labor bias), I think Rudd/Wong made a mockery of the seriousness of the situation, trying a 'smoke and mirrors' approach and assuming that Australian voters, (a fairly conservative bunch when it comes to major change) would just swallow these politician's postulations. No less outrageous are the politicians siding with climate change deniers, and those who merely try to popularise themselves off the back of that (Mr Joyce). Worldwide, and collectively, these wealthy bureaucrat don't give a rats a... about climate change, they can afford to drought or flood proof their own personal environments, instead they ignore the coming tide (no pun intended) of environmental change to bolster their political lives. When we, the hoi polloi finally shout with one voice you watch the Pollies change their tune.

Gavin Newstead said...

Welcome back to Australia Mr Rudd, your parternal country. When is your next overseas trip? Are you staying for a while or are you going back overseas to rally support for your UN position once you through with your country of birth?
I noticed you arrived back in Australia with no great fan fare and your tail between your legs. What happened to all the bluster you enveloped yourself in before Copenhagen?
You are a process man so why don't you engage Aussies in a serious debate about the cost to middle Australia, the Aussie battler as a result of you new tax?
Why don't you agree to debate Abbott as a curtain raiser to enganging the rest of your people? Why don't you show some leadership instead of playing politics?
And what about your man in Leichhardt Mr Turnour, will you allow him to have discourse with his constitutents or has he been gagged and banished overseas on holidays?
The Globe and indeed Australia can't sustain your folly and your political posturing.
What is needed is decisive action that will reduce caron essions now. Not another tax, dressed up as an ETS.
Yes, you can just do it!!

Ross Parisi said...

As a dilettante of history it is revealing the number of parallels that history throws up at us.

For instance each of the Roman Emperors left a symbol of their period of authority by constructing an edifice or two.

The Greeks did the same with the Olympic Games.

The Pyramids fall within this criteria.

Even modern infamous Dictators have left not all evil lasting legacies still functional and usable today.

This phenomena is evident today still and it applies across the political spectrum.

The only difference is that instead of leaving a legacy of infrastructure they leave behind a legacy of new Taxes!

KitchenSlut said...

Is that a dilletante or dill of history?

I am pleased that Ross sees infrastructure as always good such as the pyramids while taxes are always bad? Ummm .... the pyramids do what exactly?

So who has shown the most fortitude and honesty?

Ross Parisi said...

When I penned the above article it was early days in Abbott's Coalition leadership. It is revealing to witness how much the political landscape has deteriorated for Rudd and the ALP Government since then.

Like a rabbit startled by the headlights of an oncoming Mac truck, Rudd does not know which way to jump.

His Sunday performance on the Insiders TV programme was pitiful. To see an otherwise articulate politician reduced to a blob of political jelly was sad. Then to leave behind his briefing notes on the interview table was the clincher.

Rudd knows he was less than sincere in his rhetoric. For Rudd to say that he did not imagine how difficult it would be to implement his promised policies is disingenuous and not convincing in the least.

Rudd’s image, his cultivated perception of a precise man has come back to haunt him.

Rudd as Chief of Staff for Qld Premier Wayne Goss was instrumental in implementing the 1989 ALP reform agenda for Queensland. Rudd is totally familiar with Government processes and Rudd knows that.

Rudd's 'mia culpa' line which Beattie has legal rights too, will not wash with the hardnosed Canberra journalists. This will eventually permeate to the general public. When that eventuates, his creditability will be further questioned.

Abbott the consummate politician will then pounce and put it into sharp focus as the election draws closer.

Reality is such that Abbott has a startled Rudd in his sights.

Meanwhile Julia Gillard's smugness is obvious. A creation of the Canberra press gallery. Her well scribed ambition will be ventilated by a blood scenting press.

Could there be a change in the Federal ALP leadership before the election. That is the question?

Factman said...

I agree Ross.

A very smart move for Federal Labor would be to replace Rudd with Gillard right about now.

She shares the "common folks communication" skills of Abbott, unlike Rudd, and seems able to mix it with Abbott on the network 9 Friday morning show.

And of course, she will pick up the female vote ...