Correction

A Friday story in Crikey “Sackett on climate change: we must mobilise now” (Friday, item 14) has incorrectly attributed a quote to Australia’s chief scientist Penny Sackett. An original version of the story included the line: “Make no mistake, says Sackett, we need to do away with the war on terror and start a new one: the war on climate change.” Ms Sackett has pointed out she did not say this or say anything which would suggest this. Publishing the remark was a subbing error and we apologise to the author, independent researcher Steve O’Connor, and Ms Sackett.

Citizens discuss the Citizens’ Assembly

Chris Hunter writes: Re. “Citizen Gillard abandons basic leadership on climate change” (Friday, item 1)Bernard Keane says it well, “What a choice, two major parties incapable of leadership and unfit to govern”. Just to think that a few months ago the country had reasonable “leadership” in Rudd and Turnbull. It would have made for an interesting election, unlike this Muppet Charade.

Bob Smith writes: It will be worthwhile seeing what the PM actually proposes with her idea for a citizens panel on climate change. I suggest you hold the scorn while you have a look at the literature on citizens juries, deliberative polling etc. A good author to follow is James Fishkin.

There’s a critical difference between focus (hocus pocus) groups and deliberative polling. In the latter randomly selected citizens are provided with briefing material and opportunities to question and debate with experts. Out of this comes a judgment from non experts that is nevertheless ‘informed’ about the debates that experts are having.

There is plenty of scope for monkey business in setting up such groups. However practitioners have evolved publicly available standards. It’s just possible the PM has hit on a winner.

Tamas Calderwood writes: Fascinating to read the logical contortions that Bernard Keane wrestles with in his two articles on climate change. In “Gillard’s climate policy in brief”, Bernard admits that only 12% of people think it a top three issue and only 4% said it was their top issue. Yet in his first article “Citizen Gillard abandons basic leadership on climate change“, Bernard insists that a broad consensus on the issue “already exists” — thereby defining a consensus as agreement among just 12% of the population.

Of course, the utter confusion in policy over this issue comes as no surprise to climate sceptics. If you are rallying people to avoid the apocalypse, some of your predictions need to come true (like, you know, having some actual warming over the past 12 years). Additionally, the main practitioners of the scientific theory it’s all based on probably shouldn’t use “tricks” to “hide the decline”, manipulate the peer review process and dodge freedom of information requests. Failing all that, if you are lacking the giga-death warming and the science is looking shaky, maybe you avoid policy prescriptions with ruinous costs and fantastical modifications to human nature.

Thus, the PM’s hilariously lame “solution” to this “problem” is perfectly consistent with the quality of the science, the behaviour of its practitioners and the breadth of that consensus.

Roy Ramage writes: If the Prime Minister’s plan is to invest $1b over ten years to upgrade private electricity transmission networks, I recommend we go the whole hog and nationalise them completely. After all, our private energy boys have paid themselves attractive salaries, neglected to invest in infrastructure and failed utterly to warn us of climate change.

Any doubt as to the necessity of this approach evaporates when it is realised that most power infrastructure was emplaced by government, state and federal some 70 years ago. This has been compounded by the abject failure of private power CEOs to invest in any meaningful renewable energy alternatives.

In SA 35% of the state’s high-voltage transmission infrastructure is up to 60 years old and owner-operator ElectraNet must spend almost $800 million over the next five years to ensure it can meet demand. A recent Macquarie Capital study suggesting a consortium of four private traditional energy companies can build a couple of giant wind farms and that taxpayers can pay the necessary $4.5 billion investment to get them up and going further strengthens the nationalising argument. The realisation that Macquarie Bank formed a consortium and paid $938 million for ElectraNet in 2009 simply leaves governments no alternative.

In case there are some who think — hang on wind farms are a good idea, it should be noted that in SA energy distributors only call in wind farm turbine power two or three times annually – usually on the hottest summer days when all the air conditioners go on. Guess what! The energy enters the grid at the highest spot price and when the peak is over the turbines are turned off. It’s enough to look green though.

Why bother to rescue these highly leveraged “best practice” private power companies when they continue to push us towards higher energy prices and more debt with no corresponding action on climate change. Lets save ourselves the bother and nationalise them.

No sovereign risk

Michael R. James writes: Re. “For Twiggy, war on Labor and MRRT remains an option” (Friday, Item 24). Adam Schwab has made a rare strange error, because it is completely inappropriate to refer to whatever mining tax risk issue he discusses as sovereign risk. As has been pointed out by others, when the Don Voelte boss of Woodside first raised it as a scare tactic early in the RSPT war, the IMF and World Bank do not even include Australia on their lists of countries rated for sovereign risk – i.e. because the risk for our country is immeasurably small. The word refers to countries ability to service their sovereign debt, i.e. the government’s foreign borrowings. The kind of thing that Argentina did a while back and Greece was at risk of until rescued by the EU.

Rio, Woodside and BHP-B have considerable projects in all sorts of countries which actually have serious sovereign risk — which does add a lot of risk to doing business in those countries. So add hypocrisy to the charge sheet along with their scare-mongering reprehensible, irresponsible behaviour.

Ian Verrender had a detailed article on the topic in The Sydney Morning Herald.

Without trying to fall foul of Godwin’s Law I suspect Schwab has fallen prey to the phenomenon described thus (cited by Verrender): “Joseph Goebbels, the master of propaganda, noted: ”If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

Don’t mention the home insulation schemes

Greg Williams writes: Re. “A racism scandal with a broader message” (Friday, item 16). Charles Richardson says aside of “. . . .(non-Coalition Government’s) not actually bungled home insulation schemes”. Pardon? Even through Charles Richardson’s Labor-tinted prism of reality, how exactly was a scheme that cost one and a half billion dollars; not to mention several lives and an only-to-be-guessed-at number of major house fires; was cancelled by Labor because it was such an unmitigated disaster; resulting in financial ruin for any number of ethical installation companies, and is estimated will cost somewhere up to double that figure to rectify, “not actually bungled”?

Anyone . . . . Please? And referring to non-Coalition governments in that context? Err, Charles, did you mean “Labor”, but couldn’t bring yourself to use the name in the same sentence as “home insulation schemes”?

Niall Clugston writes: Regarding the Shirley Sherrod case, Charles Richardson argues: “The beat-ups almost exclusively harm one side of politics” i.e. the left.

I think this is an important point. But the reason is not that “unscrupulous bloggers and pundits on the left…. generally stay on the fringe”. The fact is that left-wingers are more interested in causes than characters, and the further left you go the more true this is.

The attacks on Bill Clinton were the most extreme example of this: they were all personal. In contrast, the strident leftwing attacks on Nixon and Reagan were all about policy, not about personality.

Brett Gaskin writes: Great article by Charles, and not a moment too soon. It’s criminal how the right wing commentators can knowingly peddle absolute untruths and generally not get called on it. It’s all well and good for the left to say they won’t stoop to such levels, but far too many people believe the rubbish peddled by Bolt and co. It’s time the left took off the gloves and got down and dirty with the right wing charlatans – or look forward to sitting in opposition more often than not.

Politicians at military funerals

Barry Everingham writes: Julia and Tony have taken a disgraceful leaf out of John Howard’s book who gazumped Michael Jeffery, a distinguished and decorated soldier, and was everywhere there a khaki uniform to be seen. Howard was really like Lili Marlene.; he was always hanging around the barrack gates. The prime minister and the opposition leader represent those who voted for their respective parties; if we want to be pure about this they should get Bob Brown and ,God help us , Steve Fielding to join them as mourners.

There is only one person in this country who should represent us at Military funerals and that is the Governor General. Julia needs to look at history and put a stop to this blatant grab for publicity at the expense of dead warriors.

Marriage equality please

Dr Gauld, principal of Macquarie Grammar School, Sydney, writes: One of the worst breaches of human rights in the World today is for two consenting adults to be denied the right to grow old together and marry, because a homophobic government of the last continent in the World to legalise marriage, fails to recognise equality.

Debating the debate

Andrew Haughton writes: In Scatological terms the debate was a wet fart…no real result from a trip to the crapper.

Denise Marcos writes: As to whether Gillard or Abbott won the leaders’ debate last night, I believe Football was the winner on the day.

Dave Lennon writes: A new drinking game. From here on in count the number of times Tony Abbott appears on screen without his wife and or at least one daughter by his side. I’m picking the answer will be none.

Twiggy

Mick Peel writes: Re. “Forrest and Bennison try their best to revive the mining tax war” (Friday morning edition, item 1). Bernard Keane publicly vindicates many things that I have been saying privately for the last few months.

Also, the last time I saw Twiggy was when I was working at ABARE in Canberra around 2002. At that time, we were commissioned to do a consultancy for AMEC on impediments to mining exploration and Twiggy owned a failed laterite nickel project (Anaconda). AMEC and a cast of thousands (not literally thousands, mind you) were begging cap-in-hand for a system of tax offsets and flow-through credits (similar to the original RSPT). Fast-forward only seven short years, and Twiggy has miraculously amassed a large fortune, by digging up some red rocks in the Pilbara, to become one of Australia’s richest men. So strong is his resolve to avoid paying any extra tax on his ventures that he will switch positions and contradict his own arguments at every turn to oppose, for the sake of opposing, any new tax arrangement.

Twiggy, old son, best you leave politics to politicians – they are, after all, the professionals at the game. Without any sort of platform whatsoever, your self-perceived popularity doesn’t really exist outside of your Perth office block.

Election bits and pieces

John Kotsopoulos writes: Abbott did not implode and disgrace himself but the worms figured him out. It’s as if the worms had asked themselves a series of questions namely:

  • How can you complain about debt without acknowledging that it was used to deal with the GFC and that it saved us from a recession.
  • How can you talk about responsible economic management when your policies would have given us a recession which we did not have to have that would have meant business failures, higher unemployment, higher welfare payments while tax receipts from companies and individuals were falling.
  • How can you talk about responsible economic management when $300 m of the savings you claim will be for money that would only be spent if the mining tax is implemented, a tax you say you will repeal
  • How can you complain about higher taxes when your policies will mean a 2.7% higher company tax. How can you complain about a lack of leadership on climate change when you stopped the ETS.
  • How can you seriously complain about how Rudd was treated when you knifed your own leader in the process of delaying the ETS. How can you talk about wasteful spending when you intend to gift $75k of parental leave to people on $150k.

Vernon Brabazon writes: Re. WorkChoice being dead, buried, cremated. My real concern is that usually when things are buried, they stay that way. In order to cremate anything after burying it, Tony will have to dig it up again. I am concerned that will provide the opportunity for some Frankenstein possibilities before cremation.

Pattie Tancred writes: I don’t know what this says about (certain) Australian values. Recently, I’ve heard two men say in the media that they don’t think that Australia is ready for a woman Prime Minister. The first one espousing this abhorrent (but interesting, in a paleontological sort of way) view was on Insiders a few weeks ago and, although startled and outraged, I thought he was just an anomalous relic of an unlamented past. But then, last night on PM, I heard exactly the same sentiment voiced by another random citizen, which rather indicates that this is a more prevalent view than we might otherwise suspect. Unless both Insiders and PM managed to interview, just purely by chance, the very last two extant dinosaurs who believe this?

… Nah didn’t think so.

Debora Campbell writes: i would like to know if anyone anywhere is polling for complete and utter disinterest, cynicism and /or despair?

I have been polled twice – i think by the mining industry footing the bill but i had no option to say anything other than ALP or Liberal or Greens for the lower house when in fact I will be voting informal to deny the ALP my preferences and green in the Senate. Surely someone SHOULD be monitoring community Disillusion?

After one month of a new PM and one week of the election campaign, everyone I know has turned off. No one -certainly not either ALP or Coalition – are saying anything anyone believes or is even interested in. By now even Sussex Street must realise that many of us DO give a stuff about climate change and a range of other issues. Shame on the ALP for this ridiculous abrogation of responsibility, But with a climate denier and Christian acolyte as Liberal leader, what chance has Australia got?

It seems to me that while the politicians and the media are lost in a self-contained bubble of self-deception and self-importance, the real world continues out here. This election campaign is a stage-managed farce, which, if the outcome wasn’t so important, would be laughable.

No one I know is taking what any politician or media personalities says seriously, and all of them seem to have completely missed the point The media should stop this mutual masturbation session and start reporting what people actually think, NOT what our faux representatives feed them.

Instead of glorifying all the spin by reporting and endlessly commenting on it, the media should be demanding that the politicians to actually say something real and denouncing them all when they do not.

Harry Lucas writes: There is a lot of talk about electing Prime Ministers in Australia. We do NOT elect a Prime Minister we elect a political party. The logic of such talk is then to say we elect leaders of the Opposition. The election of party political leaders in Australia over the past couple of years has not been a pretty sight.

In the present debacle the people do not have to confirm the leadership of the Labor Party. What the people have to do is to say what Party, in our mind, is fit to govern. Of course that leadership may well be taken into consideration by the voter in determining such fitness to govern

As yet we are not a republic that elects its President. Come on the Republic! Only let’s not have the U.S.A. model.

It’s okay to heart something

Gabriel McGrath writes: Re. Kim Lockwood (comments, Friday). Kim asked “For the second time recently, Crikey has used “heart” as a verb. Why?”.

It’s from a film Kim.  Sometimes “the people of Gen X or Z or whatever the latest gen is” riff on an obviously incorrect saying because… it’s fun. Such as when we say “the interwebs”, we’re well aware it’s incorrect. We’re just being playful; it’s a wink to others who ‘get it’.