That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.

Aaron Sorkin wrote the words. Michael Douglas delivered them in "The American President". Years later, Anthony Albanese unwittingly "borrowed" them.

"We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle age, middle class, middle income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family, and American values and character, and you wave an old photo of the President's girlfriend and you scream about patriotism."

These words are part of a monologue from a 17 year old movie about a fictional American President. They are also an accurate summation of conservative politics in Australia in 2012. It's all about fear and blame.

Anthony Albanese wasn’t just borrowing some beautiful language when he unknowingly quoted Sorkin earlier this year. He was delivering truth.

Tony Abbott has redefined the meaning of Opposition with his campaign to make us afraid of the Carbon Tax and blame Prime Minister for the national cataclysm her actions will cause.

"Climate change is absolute crap." – 2009

“This is a redistribution pretending to be compensation, it's a tax increase pretending to be an environmental policy. It's socialism masquerading as environmentalism.” – July 2011

Eeeek! Socialism? Not the bloody commies! Wasn’t JuLIAR a socialist when she was at university? And didn’t she have a dodgy boyfriend way back in the past? You have to admit, Mr Abbott and friends are very good indeed at following the script.

And if you hadn’t yet figured out that this bastard Carbon Tax rort is something to be afraid of, here’s the Leader of the Opposition, promising a Gillard-generated July 1st Armageddon for Australia’s industrial centres:

“Whyalla will be wiped off the map by Julia Gillard’s carbon tax. Whyalla risks becoming a ghost town, an economic wasteland, if this carbon tax goes ahead and that’s true not just of Whyalla, it’s also true of Port Pirie, it’s true of Gladstone, it’s true of communities in the Hunter Valley and the Illawarra in New South Wales, it’s true of Kwinana in Western Australia, it’s true of the La Trobe Valley, Portland, places like that in Victoria. There’s not a state and there’s hardly a region in this country that wouldn’t have major communities devastated by a carbon tax if this goes ahead...” – April 2011

  Afraid? Absolutely. With the assistance of Bigmouth in Chief Alan Jones, Mr Abbott had whipped about two thirds of the country into a pulsating clomp of ignorance and panic. Busloads of conservatives joined with hundreds of big rigs and headed for Canberra for the Convoy of No Confidence – better known now by it’s Twitter name, the Convoy of No Consequence. It was an appalling day in which the Very Very Afraid chose to voice their displeasure via placards calling our Prime Minister a Bitch, a Witch and other insults which may or may not rhyme with itch.

On the first day of the brave new Carbon Taxed Australia, Mr Jones headed a rally in Melbourne, attended by an impressive crowd of less than one hundred damp pensioners, but he made them afraid. He also told them who to blame for it. That, of course, would be his old sparring partner and our Prime Minister, “JuLIAR Gillard”. The Age reported:

Mr Jones said some businesses would collapse as they found themselves unable to remain competitive after passing the tax on. He said Prime Minister Julia Gillard had shattered the public's faith in politics by backflipping on her pre-election pledge not to introduce the tax.

"What this one person has done ... is to diminish the image of parliament and politics in the eyes of the public," he said.

"The notion of global warming is a hoax, this is witchcraft.”

The Carbon Tax Terror peaked just days after it was introduced, and has been sliding ever since. Come next week, we’ll have had three months of life with a Carbon Tax, and the promised apocalypse has not happened. Recent polling figures from July, August and September indicate that the fear is diminishing, and along with it, some of Mr Abbott’s support.


Oh dear. Mr Abbott will have to find something else that we can fear. How convenient that we have an ongoing problem with asylum seekers, a budget deficit, a female prime minister, the prospect of same-sex marriage, rioting Muslims and Kevin Rudd. Pick your fear, people, or suggest a new one.

Sorkin’s words are not restricted to federal politics, though. Campbell Newman is Master and Commander of the Good Ship Scare-the-Shit-Outta-Them. Without having spent a single moment as a state parliamentarian, he walked into the state’s top job and told us that he would save us from our true enemies: gays, single people, the Public Service, artsy-fartsies like writers and student musicians, the debt, the deficit, the budget, the economy, the balance sheet, the ALP, the Greens, intellectuals, lefties, the federal government and just about everything else.

Predictably, the LNP Government is blaming everything on the previous Labor Government. Prior to the election, voters feared another term of Labor would cripple Queensland, so we voted for the LNP and here we are, more afraid now than at any time since the Fitzgerald Inquiry.

The scariest prospect so far is the idea that Premier Campbell might just be the curtain-raiser for Tony Abbott. Look at Queensland, then look at Australia. Look at Campbell Newman, then at Tony Abbott. This is the way conservative politics win; they don’t inspire anything but fear. Premier Newman made you afraid of life under Labor, and Mr Abbott has been successful in doing the same thing.

As we’re seeing now in Queensland, there are other, far more terrifying things to be afraid of, and the spectre of Tony Abbott as Prime Minister heads that list.

You can fight fire with fire (if you have a functional fire service left, that is), but fighting fear with fear doesn’t work. Sooner or later, one side has to offer an alternative to scaring the pants off you. Federal Labor has a couple of choices now: they can try to defuse the Coalition Scare-bomb Campaign which hasn’t been very successful under Mr Abbott, or they can offer a positive point of difference. In 2008, Barack Obama offered Hope.

Is there anyone in the Labor camp who can inspire us?

Butchering the Carbon Tax

The Courier Mail today runs the story of young Brisbane butcher Luke Stefanetti, who is having to increase his retail prices by 15-20% in order to maintain his profit margins. Luke is convinced that the Carbon Tax is the single driver that has forced him to raise his profits.


The Courier Mail has chosen – perhaps wisely – not to open comments on this story. If the story was open to comment, we would see everything posted, from misinformed agreement with Luke’s conclusions, to caustic comments about his inability to run a business. I would have liked to have added my comments to the original story, because in a nutshell, I’m not convinced by this piece that the butcher or the journalist know much about the Carbon Tax.

Perhaps they could’ve referred to this basic but handy guide to the Carbon Tax, published in today's News Limited Online editions. (See below). There are a few points here that Luke, and all small business owners, need to know.

In Luke’s case, the most important point is that point is that farmers do not have to pay Carbon Tax, and in fact, they may receive Carbon Credits under the Carbon Farming Initiative. Of course, some farm inputs will be supplied by large polluters, and could be liable for C-Tax – electricity and fertiliser are two examples – but we can’t assume that just because a company is a top polluter and is liable to pay the carbon tax, that they will pass any increase onto customers.

The point is, those big polluters are supposed to pay more under the Carbon Tax. It’s the big stick to encourage them to invest in greener solutions. People like you and me get a tax cut to help us manage the C-Tax, and small businesses like Luke’s Butchery get assistance too.

Luke says that meat prices are going through the roof. Does he mean the wholesale price he pays his supplier? Or the supermarket retail prices? It sounds to me as though someone’s prices are going up and they’re blaming the C-Tax.

Transport costs was another area where Luke feels he’s being hit by the Carbon Tax. It’s probable that he is paying more for transport costs. How much is impossible to say, as we don’t know how much is being transported, or how, or how far the product is being moved. Luke’s business, as a small business, would be exempt from the carbon price on fuel.

One of the things that worries Luke most is his electricity costs. In a C-Tax world, between 9-11% of his electricity bill will the result of the Carbon Tax. According to the Courier mail, his electricity costs are around $3000/month. He should expect a rise of between $270-$330 per month due to the Carbon Tax. No his electricity bill will increase more than that, as it has for each of the past several years, yet these increases will not be attributable to the Carbon Tax. This should be displayed on each bill. Luke should also be investigating assistance from the government. There’s help available – for example, his large electricity usage would qualify him for a 50% rebate on an energy assessment plan to help him become a more efficient user of electricity. He’d not only save money on the assessment; he’s also save money on every single electricity bill if he implemented the recommended changes.

In the meantime, Luke’s 15-20% increase appears to be far above where it should be. I don’t know much about what meat costs, but we could assume that a family might spend $50 per week on meat. That’s an increase of $7.50 - $10 per week, using Luke’s retail increase of 15-20%. Calculating the impact of the C-Tax on a small business is a complex process of financial modelling, and really, he’d be far better talking to his accountant than to a journalist. Comparing that increase to the government’s modelling, I’d suggest Luke is being ripped off. He’s not alone, but this article has some very important tips for nailing down pricing.

Luke needs to grow up and take responsibility for his business. If he is struggling because the things he has to buy (meat, packaging, electricity, transport, staff) cost more, he needs to get quotes from other suppliers, and he needs to understand why prices are rising. A price rise in the area of 15-20% because of the Carbon Tax is the kind of price movement that will see him noticed and investigated by the ACCC. If he’s being ripped off by a supplier, he should know that, too, and consider if he wants to continue to business with them.

It’s possible that Luke is totally on top of all of the C-Tax issues, and that it’s the journalist who has made him look incompetent. In that case, I’d like to see the figures – and I’ll bet the Government would too. Yet even if Luke is a world authority on C-Tax, there’s no getting past this little gem:

Luke told the Courier Mail:

“He didn't vote in the past federal election but says next time around, if he had to vote he would vote for the Coalition and support their promised removal of the carbon tax.”

He does have to vote, because it’s compulsory in this country. He should’ve voted in the last election too, but he chose not to, and was lucky not to be fined. He has no comeback. Decisions are made by those who show up. If you choose not to vote, you have no right to complain about the government.

Perhaps Treasurer Wayne Swan, who is also Luke’s local member, could pop around and explain a few of the details that Luke seems to be struggling with and run through the numbers with him. It’d make a great case study on the Carbon Tax meeting Real Life.

Pants On Fire

Fox News, that fortress of objectivity, that embodiment of fairness and balance, must have been close to spontaneously combusting when President Barack Obama admitted to supporting same sex marriage. This is a big deal for Fox's conservative right wing audience, and the Fox on-air teams sang in unison of their disapproval. (Well, all except for Shep Smith, who seemed to support Obama.) 

It's a big deal for the Presidential election, too. The feeling is that by openly supporting same sex marriage, President Obama has reclaimed some of the more progressive ground from presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.  Romney's electability comes from his moderate position on a range of issues; it is expected that his moderate positions would appeal to Undecideds and conservative Democrats who've become cynical after four years of GFC.

Support of same sex marriage tends to be binary. It's yes or it's no. By grabbing that socially progressive middle ground, Obama has just forced Romney to move to the right and claim the voters opposed to same sex marriage. Across four major polls conducted this year, support for gay marriage has consistently scored higher numbers than the opposing view. It's a real point of differentiation, and it plays to the Democrats' strengths.

So was this simply fortuitous timing on Obama's part? I doubt it.

I suspect Vice President Joe Biden announced his support of same sex marriage a few days ago as part of a coordinated campaign. Biden dipped his toe in the water, found the temperature acceptable, so President Obama waded in, with only the words for me, personally to keep him safe should things turn to custard. 

Fox News presenters were strongly voicing their fair (conservative) and balanced (conservative) suspicions that the evolution of Obama's support of gay marriage lacks credibility. Over the past decade, he's been guilty of some high-speed u-turns on the issue. According to Fox, at least some of those conflicting statements must be untruthful. Politically useful lies.

Where have I heard accusations like that before? 

Could it have been right here, in Australia, where the Prime Minister has evolved from Julia to JuLIAR in the wake of some spectacularly nasty reaction to the Carbon Tax? 

Prime Minister Gillard's well publicised pre-election pledge that there would be no Carbon Tax under her government has been credited with getting the ALP just enough votes to form a minority government. Then, when a Carbon Tax was announced, the accusations were immediate and unrelenting. Political anger turned to personal abuse fuelled by Sydney shock-jock Alan Jones, and at its heart is the assumption that the Prime Minister lied to get elected.

Did Prime Minister Gillard break a pre-election promise? Absolutely.

Did Prime Minister Gillard lie to get elected? I honestly don't know.

I've never been able to swallow the JuLIAR Kool-Aid. For me, it's always seemed more plausible that Ms Gillard changed her mind. New information, a changing economic environment as the world fell over the edge into the GFC, the need to respond to the Greens' agenda, the reality of a minority government with an obstructionist opposition and a thousand other factors may have tipped the balance. 

It's entirely likely that when Ms Gillard stated that there would be no Carbon Tax introduced by her government, she believed every word of it, and believed it was the right decision. Not far down the track, she saw that a different decision was needed.  Was there a political factor to her decision? Probably. <I>She changed her mind. <i/> That's different to lying.

And what of Prime Minister Gillard’s position on same-sex marriage? She has been been over-ruled and undermined by her party. Should she ‘change her mind’? No. I disagree with her on this, but she is entitled to her opinion. If, however, her opinion genuinely changes, that’s good too.

Is Obama's evolved support for same sex marriage really what he believes, or is it cynical political manoeuvring? And if this is the way Obama's stance has evolved, will it stick, or is it subject to change? Was he lying...or has he changed his mind?

None of the answers matter. President Obama and Vice President Biden have stated their support for gay marriage. If gay marriage is a vote-changer for American voters, they now have a clear choice.

In Australia, the Carbon Tax is coming in July. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has made a ‘pledge in blood’ to repeal it, although business analysts from DeutscheBank have reported that it would take at least 2 years to effect that backpedal, and would cost billions of dollars, including compensation to companies that have invested in new technologies to avoid paying Carbon tax.

After coming to power - and it looks inevitable that he will - I wonder if Tony Abbott will decide his blood pledge to repeal the Carbon Tax is too expensive, financially or economically…and if he does, will he be accused of lying, or will be allowed to change his mind.