Rockin’ out to quasi-science

Posted by Chief Blogger – 6 January, 2010

This is what happens when an ageing rock star becomes a politician:

NEW data showing last year was the second-hottest on record has reignited political division over climate change policy, with the government seizing on the figures to declare Tony Abbott unfit for office.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett yesterday shattered the political truce of the holiday period, launching a blistering attack on the Opposition Leader and demanding he accept the reality of climate change.

Even if one accepts the BoM’s figures, leaving aside the urban heat issues with measurement,  ignoring the medieval warming period when temperatures were higher than what they are today absent of industry and accepting that the recent warming is in fact due to human carbon dioxide emissions (big assumptions I know), nothing the government has proposed will solve or mitigate a warming country. The emissions trading scheme is just a new tax by another name promoted through fear mongering.

  • John Comnenus

    Abbott coming to the leadership has provided an opportunity for the Coalition to win this year’s election. Three things give me optimism: 1 grass roots support; 2 a genuine alternative to Rudd as PM; and 3 the information cycle on the issues that Rudd chose to address in his first term.

    Let’s flesh out these points.

    Grass Roots Support.

    Following the grass roots revolt against the ETS the coalition looks like it has somewhere between 100,000 – 300,000 email addresses. With approximately 13,500,000 Federal voters the Coalition can directly reach between one in one hundred and one in fifty voters. This is electoral manna from the virtual heavens. The Coalition can start to partly match the ALP’s union membership contact list to directly campaign to electors. A smart campaign will leverage this contact list to get information about the owner and the other issues they are concerned about. If the coalition can get on average $10 from each of these people then they raise $3 million. If they can get $50 on average they raise $15 million. Remember these people were motivated to stop the ETS, they are likely to be willing to financially contribute to stopping it. Thus the Coalition can get a war chest, a source of information and an efficient campaign distribution network.

    Choice of Leader

    There seems to be an increasing number of stories in the media about people losing confidence in Rudd. The meme of most of these stories is that Rudd is all talk and no action. Abbott by contrast is perceived as an ‘action man’. Thus the public may well see a man of action as a better choice than the current king of spin. Abbott meets the Barry Goldwater test of being an alternative not an echo. This could cut either way, as it did for Goldwater or Hewson, or alternatively as it did for Reagan or Howard.

    Information Cycle

    When we look at the big issues of Rudd’s first term we see key policy changes in global warming, illegal immigrantion and the economy. In all of these areas ideas that were highly popular three, two or even last year are no longer necessarily so. Each is likely to break strongly against Rudd this year. With litigation now likely against people involved in the IPCC, the CRU, Penn University and the Goddard Institute, Global Warming has only one way to go – down. At the EU Referendum blog (http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/), Richard North is uncovering apparent conflicts of interest for Dr Pachuari and possibly outright fraud. Climate gate has further to go with a possible US investigation and increasing numbers of scientists speaking out against the AGW theory. It won’t be too hard to argue that the science was corrupted and the carbon trading solution the biggest sub prime ponzi scheme ever. When people like Pachuari appear to be spreading the fear and then look like they might stand to profit immensily from that fear, then the public could well turn strongly against Rudd. Rudd has given money to Pachauri’s institute TERI as has the CSIRO. North’s questions of Pachauri could well be a line of questioning on the due diligence of the Commonwealth in awarding work, cash and contracts to TERI in light of the information North appears to be revealing. This gives a direct feed into the economic issues and the GFC. Whilst Rudd initially looked good in keeping the country from going into recession the willingness to sacrifice jobs for bad industrial relations and AGW dogma bring into question his judgement. Likewise the outrageous amounts of debt which must increase interest rates. Finally the get soft on illegal immigrants approach, whilst met with initial support from the public, has backfired terribly.

    What all this needs is a good campaign focussed on simple cut through messages that resonate with most voters. For mine the meme to create is that Rudd is Reckless and Short Sighted, more interested in spin than substance. This meme should be underpinned by three simple central messages: Rudd has been conned on carbon, is blase on the border and profligate with the public purse. Carbon = higher household costs and job losses, Illegal immigrants = more social unrest and Profligate spending = higher interest rates.

    The question is whether the Liberal Party has the capacity to take advantage of these windfalls and is able to prepare and support it’s prize fighter, Abbott, to go 12 rounds against the reigning champion. Time will tell.