The Singapore Forum

This is going to be a tough sell for Gillard - arguing that pricing Carbon pricing will make a difference to global issues... call me a cynic but I can't envisage that argument working with more than 20% of the population, 10% of whom already vote green. Belief in climate change is more wide spread of course though solutions have to take into account the economic realities on the ground. To ask an electorate to take the pain without any real gain is not going to work, Gillard has neither the charisma nor persausiveness to counteract the attacks that will be mounted by a confident opposition heavily backed by the miners and business in general.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nationa ... 6019974555

It's just a tax and carbon is the excuse.

The real problem is that labour primary vote is collapsing and requires preferences from the greens to remain a viable major political party. For instance Wayne Swan lost on the primary vote but quite a bit but won on green preferences. (if you want an excuse for the UK not to adopt preferential voting then there it is) so Labour needs to court the green lunatics to remain in power.

Where's the benefit in this turd? With the GST, Howard went on about simplification of sales tax and removing X number of state taxes. It was more then "save the planet" and of course all that was just crap and after the vote people had to swallow a huge tax. Once bitten...

GST was a gutsy move and even though I don't like Howard, I could really respect him as a politician, ignoring the media, ignoring public opinion and just going with it and even though he lost the popular vote, he won the election and built a legacy that makes him one of Australia's best PM's. Keating had that attitude of not focusing on popular discontent - Gillard however is driven by focus groups and Abbott doesnt seem far behind. Since when does a focus group understand the complexities of government?

This time, Gillard seems to have gone out on a limb to pursue a policy with no ones backing her but the greens... she will lose... both the argument and her job. Then we can have Abbott - who I dislike as much as I do Gillard. Where the hell is a half decent politician?