“Day 2 of the #carbonprice and the sky hasn’t fallen.”
Julia Gillard’s tweet this morning was the second of many more to come. But few of her 244,708 followers will believe her.
The Chicken Littles just won’t be told. As Bernard Keane writes today:
“We’re decreasingly willing to let facts influence our views of public policy. We regard the economy through a lens of our partisan beliefs, so that Liberal voters see only economic misery and financial hardship. We think we’re doing it tough financially even as we travel overseas. We’re convinced many multiples of asylum seekers are arriving than ever set foot here. We refuse to accept the copious evidence that our incomes have risen far more quickly than prices in recent years. We filter information out that doesn’t accord with our views. If that leaves us with no information at all, that’s no problem.”
We’ll spend more on chocolate bars, ciggies and pet food this week than the government will collect from us in carbon tax-related price hikes. But nobody is putting down the pitchforks.
A wilful irrationality pervades this debate. You can argue — quite legitimately — that this scheme is poorly designed and premature. You can blame a leader for breaking a promise and a government for persisting with unpopular policy. You just can’t argue it’s going to send anyone broke. There’s simply no evidence to suggest it.
What are we so afraid of?
We are a fearful bunch and so open to to the dealers in doubt and doom. like all onlookers we want to be on the bully’s side.
You’d think all those fearers that travel overseas would notice that the grass is actually greener in Australia…
Why does the media (Crikey included) frame the whole story as “Labor can’t explain the scheme rather than just explaining the scheme?
“Afraid of”? Being wrong and admitting we were gullible enough to be influenced by carpet-baggers and snake-oil salesmen?
Our most base instincts have been pandered to for so long we are now unable to see things as they are. Be it the Carbon Price (not tax), or refugees. I do think that the press have certainly had a large influence in the mind set of the nation. The Prime Minister is called a liar over her so-called broken promise without any reference to the changed circumstances of the present government. Tony Abbott has been quoted as saying “unless it is in writing” he can not be taken at his word.