It has taken 4 years, and the political scalps of a Prime Minister and an Opposition Leader, but finally we have the deal for a price on carbon.
Yes it may not be the best package in the world but to be frank at least it is something. And when it comes to stopping pollution, doing something is better than nothing.
Yesterday was a good day for Julia Gillard. It was the first good day she has had for a long time.
She was strong, decisive and she was doing something really important. She looked like her old self. She was sure of what she was doing.
For the first time for many people, she really looked and spoke like the Prime Minister. She barely even glanced down at her notes because she knew what she wanted to say backwards.
As one girl friend said to me, ‘today she really looks like the Prime Minister because she has actually done something’. And how good was that blue suit.
It is true that parts of the deal could be better. But the fact is that putting a price on carbon is a deadly political football that has been kicked back and forth for too many years. It has claimed political scalps in traumatic circumstances and it will probably continue to do so around the world.
Just ask Kevin Rudd or Malcolm Turnbull.
When I heard Julia say yesterday that we will be getting the equivalent of 45 million cars off the road by 2020 I was sold.
That is a good enough deal for me and I am prepared to pay for it. I would be prepared to pay for it at double the cost and for half as good a result.
If we took the alternative and did nothing now, then we would just keep going around in circles in another pointless political debate and continue doing nothing for another eternity.
I for one cannot agree to that. I know I owe it to my kids to do better than that.
We have to try and this announcement gives us that chance.
It is also gives Julia Gillard a very big chance. A chance to show the Australian people that she can lead in her own right. That she can be trusted to deliver one of the biggest reforms in Australia’s economic history. That she cares and understands what people are going through and that she can explain why this is so important for them. That she can relate to them and their families.
It is not enough to rely on selling those messages through the media. They are messages that have to be delivered directly to people on the streets from our politicians. Where their message cannot be broken down or altered.
The Government has a chance now to turn their fortunes around. It won’t be easy but the opportunity is there to be taken.
There was one other important thing that happened yesterday for Julia Gillard.
No matter what else happens now, she has changed her legacy. It is no longer about getting rid of a sitting Prime Minister. It is about trying to change the way our country deals with carbon pollution.
The PM said yesterday “we will get this done”.
Well thank god for that, because none of the political parties in Australia could handle more of the brutal blows that putting a price on carbon has caused them.
And more importantly the Australian people couldn’t handle another failed attempt to get this policy in action.
Fiona was Press Secretary to Kevin Rudd for four years. She is 29 and lives in Queensland with her two children.
Top Comments
Totally agree Fiona! Good on her as far as I am concerned. We need to do something about levels of pollution in this country (and everywhere else in the world). The infantile level to which this debate-which-shouldn't-be-a-debate has descended makes me embarrassed to be an Australian.
The Opposition's claims that no other country is doing anything and we should wait is "absolute crap". A lot of countries are. All people seem to care about is their hip pocket and yet they don't realise that many will be better off because they will get compensation.
If we spent time waiting for the likes of Abbott to catch up, humans would never have dragged themselves out of the caves.
Go Julia.
Sorry - we're all being conned. Australia's carbon emissions are so small that if we had NONE, it would not make any difference. The whole thing is about POWER. Julia wanted it, she stabbed in the back to get it, NOW she has to placate the Greens to keep it. And THEY wanted to reduce carbon. She is giving the Greens (and independents who really don't have a clue) so much money (mostly going to Tasmania) that the rest of Australia is paying for, just to keep in the top job. AND she is recruiting an army of bureaucrats to ensure she stays there. Watch for: more demands from Bob Brown and his "loony left" cohorts; heaps of price increases due to power, fuel, transport, labour, packaging etc; small business going under because THEY (unlike the "big" polluters) cannot pass on the extra imposts. For example, stamps and postage will increase because Australia Post are considered a "big" polluter. They cannot reduce their pollution impost much (more bicycles?) and will just pass it on.
robnlee, you are spot on, pity the bleeding hearts can't see that this is all about politics and nothing else. The one reason Julia 'changed her mind' about introducing this tax is because she has to to keep the Green happy. Such a con, so many people sadly thinking that this somehow preserved the world for future generations....sad really...
Scores of countries have already started the transformation to a low pollution economy: thirty-two countries and ten US states already have emissions trading schemes.
Others, including China, Taiwan, Chile and South Korea and a number of Canadian provinces, are either considering developing their own or already have trial emissions trading schemes in place.
Carbon taxation is in place in the UK, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada and (on a selective basis) in China and India. It is under discussion elsewhere, including the European Union, Japan and South Africa.