The Chinese curse is, May you live in interesting times. I’m sure this has extra resonance for Malcolm Turnbull today. Tony Abbott won today’s Liberal Party leadership contest in a three horse race (where Joe Hockey was the first spill).
I rather agreed with Jacques’ assessment of Turnbull’s downfall at Club Troppo:
…[Turnbull] needed to adopt a useful differentiating point to distinguish him from Kevin Rudd in the public’s eye. For instance, he might have adopted a carbon tax approach instead of cap & trade. He’d have been clearly different without ceding ground on the overall narrative of taking action.
Turnbull was seen as too close to the Labor party by his own party, and thus they’ve chosen someone who is very clearly different. I’ve seen a number of predictions of a Liberal party schism into two parties containing the “liberals” and “conservatives”. I wouldn’t be too surprised if it happened.
I’m not quite sure what to expect now. I can’t help wondering whether a double dissolution will occur? Ken Parish raised doubts about the legality of such a course.
Interesting times indeed.
Update:
May I recommend PC’s excellent post on women and Abbott? I was thinking yesterday about precisely these concerns.
56 Comments
I doubt that there’ll be anything so dramatic as a schism in the Liberal Party – but a National/Liberal Party divide seems likely.
Turnbull was seen as too close to the Labor party by his own party,
I’m not 100% sure about that. The combined HockeyTurnbull vote towered over Abbott’s
My guess is that the people working right close to him ended up disliking him intensely so I would think his managerial style had a lit to do with it.
For all the faults people see in Howard, people generally liked the guy .. even in defeat.
management style says a lot about how successful leader is.
Antony Green has a good summary of possible electoral possibilities.
As for a split, I doubt it will happen – unless enough senators cross the floor to approve an ETS (which I don’t think will happen),
I still reckon the Libs could pull of a surprise if they ran an effective anti-ETS scare campaign – but that in itself will be difficult with so many ETS supporters in their midst… so Abbott will need to come up with an alternative solution not just so he doesn’t look like a denier – but to give the “true believers” a way out of supporting the ETS.
A carbon tax won’t cut it.
Ugh… “possible electoral possibilities” – did I write that?
Interesting indeed. Wish I could say something that made sense about it, but here discretion is the…
Dunno what the Libs will do now.
Personally, I’ve never been quite sure of the ETS. My worry is that it would allow big polluters to go on polluting if they pay money to do so, and the major economic detriment would be on ordinary people. Also, I have some concern that it might not achieve the stated aim of reducing emissions. I strongly think that we need to look at ways of moving away from fossil fuels, and I worry that the ETS wouldn’t achieve that.
I came across this interesting site called “Carbon Trade Watch” which criticises the ETS because:
To some extent I agree with this.
Seems the Chinese curse is not Chinese.
A pity, it is a useful thought.
My prediction is that it will all fizzle. Nothing out of copenhagen other than “aspirational” goals and an agreement to work together etc.
No DD partly because of KR’s inate caution and partly because polls will say Australian do worry about AGW (a bit) but don’t really want to do anything about it.
The NY issues will be interest rates and slow drop in unemployment.
I could be wrong, but.
jc – yeah I think you were right re Turnbull’s leadership style. He made decisions without consulting everyone else and expected everyone else to fall into line. I’m sure his announcement that everyone agreed with signing up to an ETS was fatal.
Ken N – damn, nice saying anyway. Yes, I think the whole thing will fizzle too – because people like the IDEA of doing stuff – until it ends up impacting harshly on them…
This sums up the whole warmenist movement… it’s all about seeming to do rather than actually doing. Problem with the ETS, is that it hurts – people will feel it. If this is going to pass, it’s best for the libs to absolve themselves of responsibility – and best for ALP to share the blame. ALP don’t want a DD – they want to share the blame.
The Greens didn’t support it btw… are people calling them denialist?
Problem with the ETS, is that it hurts – people will feel it.
I wonder if that isn’t a positive in some ALP voters’ minds – a variation on the ‘no pain no gain’ principle. Frequently climate change rhetoric makes reference to ordinary people’s ‘extravagant lifestyles’, so maybe this is seen as a way on cutting back on that. It’s not a rational connection but then again people aren’t always rational.
The Oh my God((OMG) Generation have succeeded once again in turning a real issue into a media event.
So much easier than actually achieving change.
I also keep seeing a connection between the lets scare them into belief with analogous tactics by totalitarian regimes.
Has anyone read the book ‘Why we disagree about climate Change” and has a comment on the strategy of analysing the science , ethical, economic etc bases separately before attempting a answer taking into account a weighting of the various dimensions.
I have long said that I could imagine the times suiting Tony Abbott as PM. Ordinarily, I would say that those times are not these times. However, given his “Bring It On” bravado over the next election being a referendum on climate change, with him playing the bull in the skeptic’s shop, who knows?
A long election campaign that injects steroids into the already invigorated skeptics’ case, with the alarmists looking more and more like The Luvvies of the Republic referendum, who knows what could happen?
Given that most of the ALP parliamentary intellectual heavyweights – such as Craig Emerson – are skeptics themselves, perhaps Labor would do well to swim for safer harbours and avoid “interesting times” a DD would unleash.
The ETS could well be to Rudd what the GST was to Hewson. Maybe it is just Summer, but Abbott’s ascension has provided quite a tonic for my political jaundice!
Jayjee, I usually react to political machinations with a fair degree of yawn factor, but somehow the Abbott ascension has piqued my interest, perhaps because it was not at all what I would have foreseen. I don’t agree with the man on many, many points, but he will be interesting, I suspect. Sometimes the times maketh the man.
I didn’t realise Craig Emerson was a skeptic. They tend to keep pretty quiet in these times (as you do, if it leads to you being compared to an apologist to a Nazi regime – see Clive).
Terry – haven’t read that book. But I do detest being scared into anything. I’m just CONTRARY.
JG says:
“Given that most of the ALP parliamentary intellectual heavyweights – such as Craig Emerson – are skeptics themselves …”
Well that is just you inventing facts again I suspect.
Craig Emerson made it clear on ABC’s Q&A a couple of weeks back that he is not a skeptic. Transcript here: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2648337.htm
LE says:
“They tend to keep pretty quiet in these times (as you do, if it leads to you being compared to an apologist to a Nazi regime – see Clive).”
Really? Plenty of people including politicians readily identify as skeptics. Abbott has recently identified himself as a skeptic for instance. Clive doesn’t have the clout you seem to think he has.
Abbott will be a disaster as opposition leader and that is why I’m happy to see him in that job
Mel – I guess I was thinking about on the Leftish side of politics – many on the Right seem to be proud deniers…
You don’t have to like Abbott or vote Liberal to see the Abbott coup as an opportunity to rethink the whole ballgame in the light of the frauds that are coming to light in the heart of the so-called science of climate change.
Everyone a winner! Go nuclear!!
Rafe says:
” … the whole ballgame in the light of the frauds that are coming to light in the heart of the so-called science of climate change.”
No such fraud has come to light. Even Jason Soon, who is one of those rare libertarians with a 120+ IQ, tells us there has been no evidence of fraud.
There may well be serious problems with the science behind climate change, but Tony Abbott is not the man to do anything about it as liberal leader. He is unelectable. I do agree with Ken Parish that Rudd would be unlikely to pull a DD, for the simple reason that he may well finish up with a more hostile senate (more greens, more independents, more whatever).
Mel
I am no libertarian.
Before I found libertarians on blogs, I thought they all had psychological issues, such as Asperger’s, and had no clue about social capital, the non-monetary value/importance of social interactions, and the importance of those interactions to actual market transactions. I am less prone to that view nowadays, even though I am still absolutely no libertarian.
Having said all that, the one thing I do find attractive about libertarians is their clear superiority intellectually, however you want to measure that. To comprehend the world-view and social, market, psychological premises/facts that underlie/gird the libertarian view takes more ‘G’ intelligence than does falling in with socialists/conservatives/whatever.
As a group, their [libertarian's] mean/median IQ would easily be one standard deviation ahead of their aforementioned ideological competitors.
To wit, the concentration of adherents with IQs of 120+ would be far, far, far, FAR greater among libertarians than any other political philosophical outlook.
That does not mean they are right, or even close. After all, loopiness is positively correlated with extremes.
“There may well be serious problems with the science behind climate change … ”
More likely there is a serious problem with the way all science is conducted and we are only now becoming aware of it because of the intense and unprecedented scrutiny surrounding climate science.
The skeptics/deniers are right about one thing, science must be far more transparent. The public should demand:
-complete access to all primary data, source code, working papers etc
- transparent funding arrangements
- robust peer review
- minutes of all meetings etc..
The above should apply to all science not just climate science.
Irrespective of the above the skeptics/deniers have not landed a serious blow on the mainstream science as far as I can tell.
It’s feckin’ weird that so many right wingers including libertarians now seem to think Professor Andrew Bolt is the final word on all matters of science. These people are not worthy of respect while they behave like this. I’m glad Soony hasn’t allowed himself to be swept up in the hysteria.
Grow up, guys.
This may well be true, Mel, and not just of science. Someone commented on this blog the other day that our academic boroughs are rotten, and (with exceptions, of course) there is some truth to this. People have been mentioning Royal Commissions and Independent Inquiries with powers of compulsion, which is making people on both sides jittery. They shouldn’t be. With law’s power of discovery, the truth will eventually out. The only way around this for parties who would be secretive is to destroy the evidence first. Of course, that’s happened — most recently with the recent BAT/Rolah McCabe litigation — but on the whole, lawyers are good at winkling information out of people and making sense of it.
“To wit, the concentration of adherents with IQs of 120+ would be far, far, far, FAR greater among libertarians than any other political philosophical outlook.”
That might be true actually. My comment about about 120+ IQs above was borne out frustration. However the same was true about socialists in an earlier age- many of them were very smart people.
Having said that, non-libertarian Oz bloggers like Steve Keen, Ken Parish, Nick Gruen and John Quiggin are prodigious intellects irrespective of what you think about their ideas.
“People have been mentioning Royal Commissions and Independent Inquiries with powers of compulsion, which is making people on both sides jittery. They shouldn’t be. With law’s power of discovery, the truth will eventually out. ”
I agree this is an absolutely excellent idea.
mel
That’s better. I agree with you on all points – including the frustration. On your last sentence, for one or two at least, this “prodigiousness” is annulled 100 times over by the bovine dunderheads that turn the “Opportunity Class For the Gifted” into sheltered workshops for the vain.
In any poll of the Luvvies’ Luvvie, I wonder who would win? Surely this George Monbiot would be in with a jolly good chance!?
Canada’s image lies in tatters. It is now to climate what Japan is to whaling
Not South Africa? Israel? Australia!?
It is precisely these types who would be largely responsible for PM Tony Abbott!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/30/canada-tar-sands-copenhagen-climate-deal
It’s feckin’ weird that so many right wingers including libertarians now seem to think Professor Andrew Bolt is the final word on all matters of science. These people are not worthy of respect while they behave like this. I’m glad Soony hasn’t allowed himself to be swept up in the hysteria.
Perhaps. Mel, you’re becoming reasonable these days. Explain to me what it is that engenders so much hatred towards people that disagree with the science. Why on earth does it matter if Ian Plimer has written a book on the subject to attract such hate.
I agree with Crichton in that this quasi totalitarian is very damaging to western science and it could change it for the worse.
I think the science about AGW is about right, although the rate of change is still under serious question.
And also don’t you think that these guys need to be brought to account if they have indeed lied to us?
I agree, all the data and methodology used to reach that conclusion needs to be on public record.
Actually, someone made the point in an email to instapundit the other day that not all science is rotten.
Most science is conducted under somewhat oppositional regulatory regimes and can’t afford to be rotten (at least not in the way climate science appears to be). Two main institutional factors ensure this:
a) the threat of regulatory action – this applies primarily to pharmaceuticals but also to chemicals, IT hardware and energy more generally; and
b) the threat of lawsuit – this applies to nearly every industry.
Climate science lacks either. Any putatative regulatory regime is in bed with them, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to sue them despite the massive damage they are threatening to do to our well-being.
Plimer’s seen as a traitor because for many years he took the fight up to the fundy Christians with his pro-evolution anti-Creationism stance, and in a rather vocal and pugilistic manner. That was a cause lefties could and did get behind. Now that Plimer’s carrying merrily on with his contrarian stance and being cynical about global warming, he’s left his former lefty admirers fuming.
The weird thing to me from a leftish perspective is the way in which everyone seems to have swallowed the idea of “green capitalism” – that carbon emissions can become a tradeable commodity.
The idea of trading the right to pollute, I think, came from the likes of Ronald Coase. I know I’ve read an explanation of it in Calabresi and Melamed. Point is they’re all law and economists, the kind who are anathema to lefties generally.
One of my concerns is that an ETS scheme will leave the rich and powerful with a right to pollute as much as they want, and the plebs will be in trouble. But then I discern a not so-hidden hatred of the plebs in those whom Jayjee would call the Luvvies. Take hatred of bogan “McMansions”. Only the elite are allowed to have large houses. The plebs have to stay in hovels where they belong. Deeply anti-progressive, imo.
You’ve got the wrong end of the stick, LE. The ETS package included compensation for less well off households that almost all commentators forecast will exceed real extra costs.
I’m thinking less of the really vulnerable (who would be compensated, and properly so) than the average punter. It always seems to me with these sort of schemes that the burden falls disproportionately on the average punter who is not rich enough to pay to pollute, nor poor enough to be exempt.
LE,
How do think the problem of agw and the associated problem of ocean acidification should be dealt with?
Mel, big question. I think there has to be broader systemic change.
For example, today I caught public transport for the first time in about 3 years, and it sucked majorly. Slow and inconvenient. No point pricing people out of using cars when there isn’t really a workable alternative. The problem with Melbourne is that we’re far too spaced out, and public transport is generally crowded, unreliable and unsafe.
I am tentatively interested in the possibilities of nuclear power, but don’t know enough to be sure on that one. I do know that I think we should be putting lots of effort into developing workable alternative power sources.
The other thing I would like is more measures to ameliorate the potential problems because I sometimes wonder if it’s not too late already. So if the sea does acidify, how can we prevent that affecting wildlife? What if global warming leads to deserts in some areas, but might also lead to greater possibilities in other areas? What can we do if the sea rises? (look at dykes in Holland) so forth.
I just don’t think ETS is a particularly useful solution. It’s more about being seen to do something than actually doing something. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s any easy or quick solutions.
“I just don’t think ETS is a particularly useful solution. ”
I assume you are aware that ETS’s have been used for the last 20 years or so with great success, for example the sulphur dioxide trading permit scheme introduced in the USA in the early 1990s.
This article by an environmental economist is well worth reading: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=4757
I hardly think poor low lying countries like Bangladesh will have the tens of billions of dollars required to build a workable system of dykes.
LE/mel
I don’t know about Dutch dykes, but the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is led every year by a VERY workable system of dykes – Dykes on Bikes!
LE
I’m not sure how much your concern about transfer of costs/taxes to the ‘poor punter’ really applies to Australia. As a matter of economic history, it would make an interesting research topic, but my guess is that our compulsory voting system has protected the ‘average punter’ quite well over the ages.
The punters are more than capable of booting out of office any party that starts taking the piss too much. They were not persuaded that Hewson’s GST would not disproportionately disadvantage them, same with Workchoices.
As I mentioned earlier, the only subset of the poor/average punter not protected by ballot-box mobilisation is the unemployed. Fortunately, that has not been too much a problem over the past decade, as their number have dropped so much.
Mel:
The example of that cap and trade is inappropriate for energy.
The ETS is unworkable because it’s basically a flawed system.
This is what I wrote at Catallaxy about it.
FFS try and understand a few things will you. The S02 cap and trade was an entirely different animal that had nothing to do with freaking power response rates along with what these idiots are trying to achieve and anyone who repeats S02 equivalency ought to be made to wear a dunce cap for a week… even while sleeping.
Do you want me to repeat what I said? Obviously.
The mix of renewables/coal fired plants and the objective they are trying to reach being a 20% renewable target by 2020 has as much chance of happening as Homer dating Angelina Jolie because of his cognitive abilities.
We’re very close to achieving optimum target once we get to around 7% transient energy into the grid.
the reasons are.
1. We have a north south grid
2. renewables are very transient
3. We don’t have nuke to react quickly to the transience
4. Coal fired plants require longish response time to fire up which therefore means they need to run them at close to peak therefore defeating the purpose (it limits transient energy flow into the grid).
the ETS is basically flawed crap that doesn’t deserve the freaking light of day and Rudd deserves to get thrown out on his freaking ear for even suggesting it. Penny Wong shouldn’t be that far behind either by the way as she too knows about this flaw but hasn’t really discussed it.
To repeat again….. an effective ETS can only work with nuke or the renewable required target has to be set at around 7% and no higher or you either get massive overload and useless production or you can settle for intermittent shortages.
Again: The ETS cannot work in its current structure.
Lastly there are many injustices in the world that hardly makes Bangladesh our problem. In 50 years time the rest of the world could build Dykes for the place if it were needed and be much cheaper than mitigation.
Jayjee@38 – I had a friend in that aspect of the parade one year.
LE
I’ve been in the parade: as a marching boy!
Woo hoo!
And a fair share of my sistahs have been on those bikes, who are now on Supreme Court benches, SCs, partners at top corporate law firms. You’d be shocked – and titillated (and we love one who is ‘titillated!) – by what goes on after dark in the Emerald City, my dear.
Update: Link to PC’s post on women and Abbott.
My own concerns with Abbott lie precisely along these lines.
LE
I’d say on those issues he would confront what a potential top-dog must compromise on. Do you really think any attempt to ‘roll-back’ the social and legal advances women have made in this country?
After reading that blog post, I have to ask: Does anybody have any data on this supposed ’51% of the population’ who are against Abbott?
Read what’s written there, Jayjee. What the sentence actually says is ‘… the 51% of voters who are women and the implications this might have for Abbott and the Coalition …’
As at June 30 2008, the overall sex ratio of the Australian population was 98.9 males per 100 females, and that may be slightly different again for people of voting age, so yes, I admit that the figure of 51% is slightly out. But somehow I don’t think that’s what you were referring to.
It’s the RU486 decision that’s the deal-breaker on Abbott for libertarians, as Jason Soon and John Humphreys’s comments over at Andrew Norton’s place show. He’d have to publicly repudiate that decision to even come close to passing the smell test.
the guy is new to the job and will live or die on how he performs in his current role. I don’t really believe those old perceptions of him will carry if indeed they are actually right.
Andrew Norton has a different set of polls that actually show him in another light.
…And another thing. The ‘gate’ suffix. I know everyone does it, but Watergate is, actually, you know, a real place (the hotel is still in business AFAIK). ‘Climategate’ just reeks. Come up with a new name already.
SL
“… gate” has been the standard scandal moniker since, well, Watergate. (Anyone remember Muldergate?) I think the horse has well and truly bolted on that one: particularly given the underlying issues have a certain complexity to them so no easy alternative name suggests itself.
LE
If you are concerned about carbon reduction (and calling CO2 a “pollutant” is more than a little odd: it is the only “pollutant” naturally issued by living things than feeds other living things) then the issue is what works. An ETS allows you to control emission levels with maximum efficiency, just as a carbon tax allows you to reduce emissions with maximum control over the cost. (They have the reverse failings: an ETS has possibility of massively shifting costs, a tax does not control total emission levels.)
If you are worried about differential burdens, then rebates and discounts are available.
I think Oz trying to lead the world on an ETS is deeply silly. But I am confident that Rudd–as a PM of great political cunning and no political courage–would change any scheme that was too expensive.
More generally, I am a lukewarmist–yes, there is warming; yes, there is likely some human element; no, it is not worth getting all hot and bothered about. Particularly as the “positive feedbacks”, “our models tell us” and “it is the only explanation left” stages in the catastrophist case are somewhat dubious. (What, precisely, is the explanation for the current warming pause?)
Various things about the catastrophist push get my back up, but what bothers me most is the moral bullying involved: I have seen these tactics before, they never lead to good places. In particular, they never lead to good policy. Or, as we have seen in the case of the CRU emails, to good scientific practice,
SL
A new moniker for the fracas, especially attractive to C.S.Lewis fans:
The CRUtape letters
I recall pissing off some cyber-sistah -on-steroids during the US Democrat primary race by referring to Teargate. That moment when Hilary shed a little tear in a coffee-shop after a bad performance.
One positive for an ETS is that it would provide a boon for the employment of all those quant jocks who lost their jobs in the GFC. Climate derivatives and swaps could well be the next job title paying 7 figure salaries. Sign me up!