Correction:

Crikey writes: Re. “Italy on slide, Berlusconi quiet as he gets his bottom (line) pinched” (Tuesday, item 8). Jo McKenna’s story stated that Silvio Berlusconi called his Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti “a cretin”. In fact, he said he was “not a team player” and that “he [Tremonti] thinks everyone else is a cretin”. We apologise for the error.

Tony Abbott’s brilliant pitch:

Andrew Lewis writes: Re. “Abbott’s scorched earth (and brilliant) carbon pitch“(yesterday, item 1). Bernard Keane addresses what he considers the brilliant and effective tactic of Tony Abbott in whipping up fear about the carbon tax. What the hey, it’s working, you can’t really argue with that.

However it is juxtaposed with your opening editorial decrying the American political situation and their short-termism.

While Abbott’s tactics may appear brilliant at the moment, I can’t see it as good strategy. It’s hard to maintain fear for the whole two years to the next election, and the sheer fact remains that most people will be better off, some will be worse off by a couple of cups of coffees a week, and businesses will mostly be fine, possibly growing at a slightly lower rate than they already are.

I’m thinking that Abbott’s best attack is the whole trust issue against Gillard, but how much of this trust is Abbott going to lose by continuing to whip up fear of the bogeyman that never arrives?  What does he do when life just goes on?

As badly as Labor is doing, and as poor as they are at selling anything, the Libs are digging a longer term hole for themselves. They may well try to go to the polls with a policy of unwinding the carbon tax, but that leaves them open to claims of either economic vandalism or unwinding tax cuts. In any case, he won’t be able to get the legislation through because the greens are there, and that then erodes the trust issue.

Labor can’t sell a bean, and the Libs have nothing to sell but fear. Forget the current polls, neither party looks remotely healthy at the moment, taking the longer term view.

Martin Gordon writes: With the details of the carbon tax, compensation and other measures in the open, there will be some certainty and certainly a lot of churn. I favour an economic solution to climate change but churning a tax into compensation to compensate for the tax when it makes a marginal impact on incentives except undermining our competitiveness has to raise questions?

Part of the package is an element of direct spending which will probably have more impact on reducing emissions and producing R&D solutions than the carbon tax. Minimise the churn and you would be onto something.

The political rhetoric and political fixes stand out; leaving petrol out is a political fix and makes no sense in terms of emissions reductions; polluters pay is bunkum — as evidenced by consumers being compensated; CO2 is pollution — better revisit biology texts on that one. Carbon tax does not make renewables cheaper directly — they make carbon based fuels dearer and less competitive; and saving the planet — well acidification of oceans etc is occurring; as for other nations embracing carbon taxes — the developing world is not and the major CO2 emitters China, US, India, as well as much of the non western European OECD are not playing.

We might get to the 5% reduction target per annum by 2020, but it’s a long way to go to the 2050 target of 80% reduction (and 13 elections). Spin is probably the stand out ingredient in all of this, oversell invariably comes back to bite the spruiker.

Margaret Walker writes: The tactics of Tony Abbott are those of a person willing to do anything and say anything to get rid of the Gillard government. He says the carbon tax will frighten away overseas investors, drive up inflation, damage the economy and reduce the mining boom. The fact that none of this is true is immaterial to him.

These tactics are deeply frightening. Abbott appears to view the pursuit of power as the only issue of importance and he does not care about the collateral damage he causes along the way. These tactics engender a toxic mental state in the electorate so the economy is damaged by fear itself. I fear for the future of Australia under this man.

The carbon tax:

Bill Williams writes: Re. “Bartholomeusz: mining Macarthur’s register” (yesterday, item 18). Stephen Batholomeuz  argues that it is “slightly amusing” that Julia Gillard seized on the Peabody takeover offer for Macarthur Coal as an endorsement of Labor’s carbon tax. Batholomeuz argues that Peabody would have factored in the proposed tax cost in calculating their offer.

Isn’t it just possible that Peabody are also factoring in the possibility that since most Australians don’t want the carbon tax they will very likely dismiss Labor at the next election primarily because of that very tax?

What Ms Gillard can’t see, that Peabody probably can, is that the American assessment of Kevin Rudd probably applies to her even more (read: accident prone, makes snap announcements without consulting other countries — Indonesia for example? — and does not have the experience to do the job properly).

Many Australians who might previously have been favourably disposed to a carbon tax have so little confidence in her now that they interpret her endorsement of the tax as a good reason to doubt its merits.

Slightly amusing? It is almost pathetic that Ms Gillard can’t see the possibility that Peabody is not scared of a tax that it won’t have to pay after the next election  if she loses it.

Rupert Murdoch:

Rod Metcalfe writes: Re. “Your cut-out-‘n’-keep guide to News Int allegations” (yesterday, item 4). What happened to the Westminster System of accountability. News publications often call on Ministers to resign over wrongdoing in their departments. Do as I say, not as I do.

Vincent Burke writes: It’s amusing to recall that the hero of the famed TV series Yes Prime Minister was none other than Jim Hacker!

Google+:

Bryan Buchanan writes: Zachary King (yesterday, comments) wrote: “..Facebook is now the preferred method”. So he’s presumably happy with a privately owned foreign company being in control of a substantial part of the world’s communications?

For those old enough to remember pre-Internet times, FB is really no different to Compuserve, AOL or Prodigy. Private, incompatible networks, that had total control over what you could or couldn’t do on their systems. Then along came the Internet, which as Kieren Diment pointed out was built on open standards. If I have a static IP address I can run my own mail server, web server, chat server, Usenet server and communicate with any other server anywhere on the planet  without the central control of one entity.

It’s a real pity Google Wave didn’t take off, because one of the fundamental characteristics of Wave was that anyone could potentially run their own Wave server. Whether that will ever be the case with Google+ I don’t know, but as Keiren Diment, maybe if there are enough competitors to FB, some standards for data interchange may come about. As it stands now though, FB is more Big Brother than some warm and fuzzy “social network”.

The Hendra virus:

Matt Davis writes: Re. “Crikey Clarifier: do we have a handle on Hendra?” (yesterday, item 10). Crikey intern Andrew Duffy asks, presumably on our behalf: “Is a bat cull the best way to contain the virus?” Sure, pick on the poor little bats, native to the region for millenia. My question is, simply. Wouldn’t a horse cull be easier?

Harry Potter:

Keith Binns writes: Re. “Daily Proposition: make Harry disappear forever” (Tuesday, item 15). I know that this is a day late, but what is the point of having a review of the final Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two, by someone who doesn’t like the series and who is sarcastic to boot? Would you get a soccer aficionado to review rugby league?

I wanted to know how the film stacks up against the others and whether it is a satisfying ending. The review was useless and showed no respect for the directors or the actors involved in the film. Very annoying.