<< ALP strategists are reportedly already distancing themselves from the Prime Minister’s “Citizens’ Assembly” and you can see why. It could be the single worst idea that has ever been floated by an elected government in a federal election. >>

<< …what were they thinking? >>

Er…yes, what indeed, Richard. My mind boggles!

This has been one very big step backwards for ‘moving forward’ Gillard!

In a democracy the government governs by consent of the governed,not by a consensus of the governed.There will never be a consensus as the majority,at least in theory,rules.

The proposed citizen's forum or whatever it is called is a sick joke along the lines of Rudd's feeble attempt at consultation early in his term.

This is simply a cynical exercise in delaying indefinetly a decision on effective measures to combat human induced climate change.It is at the behest of the people who own this government and the opposition - industry,mining,developers -the whole growth at any cost consortium of greed and short sightedness.

There will never be any progress towards a sustainable Australia until this consortium is destroyed.This will very likely happen sooner rather than later through an economic collapse - too bad about the collateral damage.

What rot.

This was an attempt to stop some loss of votes from those who know that a carbon trading scheme is a big spenders way of fleecing the public.

It was also meant to give them an excuse, & someone else to blame, for such a stupid policy, when the fact that CO2 is a harmless, but essential, plant food becomes common knowledge. The assembly was to rubber stamp the desired policy, of course.

Beattie pulled this one with his water commission. It made the nasty announcements that he wanted to avoid being associated with, when the problems were of his causing.

Worked somewhat too. For just a few million of our money, he saved a few thousand votes.

Groan!
Another politically biased thunk tank diatribe.

Did I mention more deliberate misinterpretation for those with personal axes to grind.

I watched the speech which announced this assembly. Its reasoning is clear and bears no likeness to how it is being interpreted by those self interested individuals.

This cit assembly will be part of the process. An attempt involve and seen to involve the public in the decision making process. Will they make the decision? no
They will give the government feed back on public understanding if given access to the same information as the govt. a litmus test to indicate if their (govt) thinking is insider or has informed validity.

Will it indicate areas where the govt needs to work harder to explain? you bet.

Will it work as planned ? My crystal ball is in for repair.it won't if the self interested have any say.

Is it worth a try ?..absolutely, anything that helps to make better more informed decisions is fine with me.
Will it convince the curmudgeons? no JG said as much .

In the final analysis both the panel of experts and the citizens Assembly will *advise* the Govt, rightfully the govt will make the decision.

Cynical stunt or not I can't see that its not worth a shot.
This article says heap about the Aust institute that they focus on such a minor issue and post it here as though its something of critical importance

"Tackling climate change is not beyond our democratic processes, it is simply beyond our current elected representatives.”

Deomonstrably wrong:
For more than a decade it has been beyond our elected representatives; and beyond our democratic processes.

The people who cast their votes at elections have less representation in Parliament than the (non-voting) cashed-up lobby groups from the leaders of the push for a never-ending bigger-Australia

But Xammy, hasn’t it all effectively been done? Isn’t there a strong indication from the general community and from the experts about how they think our government should proceed?

Isn’t it now time to act rather than putting off any action until the exact course of action, that is the least offensive, the ultimate balance of what everyone wants and hence a considerably less effective approach than what could be mounted, is worked out??

The eventual policy will be way off the mark because they will be concentrating on the wrong things, in all probability. And the probability of this will very likely be increased if the Gillard government listens to a citizens’ assembly, the scientific community, the green lobby, the business lobby , the denialists and the political pollsters and tries to find a balanced position which minimally offends any of these groups.

I reckon that climate change policy should basically be a spinoff of policies directed in a couple of other all-important areas. It shouldn’t be something that is policified as the primary objective.

We desperately need to concentrate on adjusting our society to a scenario where the price of oil is considerably higher than at present, which is something that could happen very quickly. This could enormously affect our economy, on all levels from personal to big business and government and could trigger massive unemployment and social unrest.

It is extraordinarily important that we gear our society towards a regime of being vastly less dependent on oil. If we did this, we’d be reducing greenhouse gas emissions enormously more so than if we tried to address climate change in isolation.

continued

The other all-important policy area is the development of a sustainable society, which necessitates a move right away from the continuous growth paradigm. This is intimately related to and overlapping with the move away from oil.

Again, if this was the primary focus, gains in terms of climate change would be much more effective than if we addressed climate change as a primary objective.

So, is a citizens’ assembly or a balance between the abovementioned major players in the climate change issue likely to reach this conclusion? No. So then what’s the point of having a long consultation process?

The way forward is very clear. It is time for action….. NOW!!

Dear Richard, could it be your objection to a “Citizens Assembly” is because it is seen as blatant propaganda initiative and an embarrassment to the “cause”?

As an economist, like so many others promoting a carbon tax, I would much prefer to hear how you reach your “carbon tax “as the solution when it is based up on only half the required input?

The opposition scientific community is increasingly vocal and we must come to terms with the fact that this is not, as you believe, settled science. Leaping off into your economic solution to solve an ill defined problem is economic vandalism. Is this what we now teach in our Universities?

You suggest <<But climate change won’t go away >>. My money says it will. The only questions remaining relate to when? Will it dissipate over time, crumble or implode?

Many advocates will have much egg on face. To avoid this career limiting embarrassment, many are furiously trying to breathe life into it. It’s called “dead cat bounce”

I suggest that when you accept that there are two sets of scientific research to be considered, you will be better placed to be an economist rather than an advocate. In the meantime the advocates of this world continue to be responsible for choking off investment in our energy requirements, steering investment into immature and costly renewables, driving up energy costs and forcing new taxes to pay for the energy shortfall they have created.

Not a bad track record. For advocates this may be excusable, for economists this is unforgivable.

Citizens' assembly is a thought bubble and a distraction. Put 150 people in a room, get a government funded scientist with manipulated graphs to scare them and you have an alarmist consensus. Put 150 people in a room with a better scientific theory to explain global warming (such as 'It's the Sun, stupid')and you at least have a sceptical consensus.
After 20 years the UN IPCC still can't prove their AGW theory. In fact it's been disproved more than once. It's even had a name change to cover both warming and cooling. You only need to disprove a theory once in science. What normally happens is you then you move on and find a better theory.
Better theories of nature's climate change are out there. Here's a hint, 'it's the Sun stupid'.
Never before have so many been fooled by so few. Rather than which way 150 citizens can be swayed, what we really need to know is why we were mislead about 2500 UN IPCC scientists all agreeing to something. Nothing could be further from the truth

Denniss - I dunno if anyone has sat down with you to explain the dilemma the government faced with the ETS, but it was abandoned because it had become an electoral liability. As you know the political parties run focus groups all the time and those groups showed clearly that while people liked talking about doing something about the environment they objected very strongly to paying to do something about the environment. See Latham in the Aus Fin Review today, but he is by no means the only one to say this.
Rudd had other problems, so perhaps Gillard might find the political will to do a ETS but she's not going to saddle herself with it in the middle of an election campaign. Why you should find any of this suprising astounds me.
As a strong la Nina is on the way (the Bureau of Met has announced this) it is now accepted that temperatures fall for the next year or two. That means the scientific orthodoxy that industrial activity has caused some climate change will continue to weaken. By the next election it may have vanished from the political agenda altogether, and you will have to fin another reason to be angry.

The assembly of a 150 is silly. Also silly is the author’s claim that: “The simple fact is that the vast majority of the population support the need to take serious action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”, when the “vast majority of the population” does not have a clue what is involved and how much it will cost them. In fact, the vast majority still haven’t had proven to them that so-called greenhouse gases have anything to do with climate change. All they have been told is: “The science is in”; that it is a ‘moral issue’ when it suits certain politicians, but it can be dumped when the same politicians choose to dump it; and, as the author admits there has been nothing but yakking for the past 20 years without any real catastrophes occurring. If it were not for a few alarmists and rent-seekers, the vast majority of people wouldn’t even know that there was such a thing as climate change. They would still be going happily about their lives without having to worry about scare-mongering and vicious doomsayers. Fear campaigns have become a feature of Australian society.

Forget climate change. Another 85 illegals arrived here today. Gillard can’t stop them! How on earth can she stop the works of nature.

*that while people liked talking about doing something about the environment they objected very strongly to paying to do something about the environment.*

You've hit the nail on the head, Curmudgeon.

Many of those screaming loudest about doing something, will be
the first to complain that they can't afford it, should power
prices rise by 30-40%.

Unions will insist that their members are compensated via a pay rise
and its a folly to think that corporations will pay. The economics
of power generation are such, that its cheaper to produce no power,
then to operate at a loss. Given that most of the privatised
power generators are mortgaged to the roof, their owners would have
little to lose in letting them go under.

This discussion group is indeed a clever way of avoiding the
ultimate question of who is actually going to pay and how much
of a difference will it actually make to climate. For of
course, even if we shut down every power station in Australia,
globally it would not matter. So its little more then a feelgood
exercise.

Methinks that many of the ALP leaders understand these points,
but many in the electorate are still too irrational to accept them.

So delay is how its dealt with

Yabby "that while people liked talking about doing something about the environment they objected very strongly to paying to do something about the environment.*

YEs, Rudd came in on a ETS mandate and Gizzards has buck-passed it to a talk-fest... tytpical "time-buying"

She can claim to be doing something when in fact she is doing nothing

and refering to Yabbys comment

as one politician famously said


"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money"

Ultimately one has to ask who "benefits" from an ETS ?

It is certainly not the electorate and whilst I have met many voters,

I have never, ever met even one single "common good"

So, let "the common good" vote for it and leave the electorate vote for what they are prepared to pay for -

but really, why should voters ever consider supporting one?

gw religion is a substitute for faith in God. It ignores inward corruption in order to sprout outward self righteousness. What an enormous waste of time and money. For those who want true action in cleaning up the environment it must be heart breaking.

Many Australians have been through the relentless cycles of faux consultation and spin, then the inevitable, imposed 'solution' that was there all along. This is the way 'necessary' change has been slyly and ruthlessly implemented in private and public spheres for decades now and even the slowest, 'uncommitted' junior whipping boy is awake to it.

It is the process by which government has achieved its 'positive' affirmative action strategies that summarily forced fathers of families out onto the street never to get another job - too old at forty-five - and the way private industry was able to mount continuing, successful assaults on workers' hard-won conditions and 'permanent job status.

The only mercy as far as Gillard's 'initiative' (they are always 'initiatives') is concerned is that the plump, soft hands of the usual horde of consultants reaching out for whopping fees are not obvious so far. However they will be there in the background as per usual and they will already be looking at budgets first, totting up their possible take. It has been a long-standing joke that the first priority of Australian governments is to ensure that no consultant will ever live in poverty.

My criticism isn't that the consultation will be a sham, everyone realises that, but that there are well-tried models of direct community consultation that are available, yet government implacably refuses to use them. There is a danger in democracy and it is that the 'mug punters' envisioned by political machines and their backers might find they don't really need big government after all and many of the laws which are the only measurable output of parliament achieve sweet bugger all but more inconvenience and loss of liberty.

I would sack half of the remaining politicians after abolishing State governments. As should be obvious to any consultant with her glossy, ready made solution, the management overhead of government is appalling and the value for money is not there for the shareholders.

A 'Citizens' Assembly' is not such a bad idea if it could be massaged a bit to replace those drones and their entourages in Canberra.

"Citizen's assembly"- when a government wants to pretend to care about what the people think, without having to resort to a referendum and getting the result they don't like- and worse, planting an idea in the public that they would somehow be entitled to have a say, as if they were living in a democracy or something.

More Labor bull. Nothing to see here.

"Citizen's assembly"- Isn't that what they had at CopenHagen. Will the China and India be invited? If not what is the use? Another round of free junkets for Labour lackies.

Why just 150 people to decide? Why not 22 million? Everyone who thinks a carbon tax is justified could just write out a cheque to the government and send in the amount they think they deserve.

Only equalled by the cynical 'Law & Order' campaign from the other side:

http://www.news.com.au/features/federal-election/coalition-leader-tony-abbott-promises-to-crack-down-on-gangs/story-fn5tar6a-1225898374041

and the Greens, well let's not mention their ratbaggery with a leader who knows not what he leads if at all and what was that policy again but never you worry. Talk about politicians, wobblies and sheer lack of value for money, cop this classic interview with Bob Brown, an Australian Senator, mind you:

http://www.4bc.com.au/blogs/michael-smith-blog/bob-brown/20100720-10jan.html

Makes a voter wish for a dump box at the foot of the ballot form for Blue, Red and (watermelon) Green. What a waste of oxygen some of these pretenders are and at a cool $1 million a year each, which is the lowest, most optimistic estimate.

Sigh. Got to agree with the article. What were they thinking!

Putting Julia Gillard in was supposed to remove the rust from the machine and get the wheels going again and achieve something and restore confidence that the government was progressing on our concerns.

Instead we have seen another no action fizzer. Stamping your feet on the spot and whilst saying 'onwards' isn't going to fool anyone. If Rudd was 'Howard Light' Julia is 'Rudd Light' but hoping people will fall for the spin.

It's an interesting time we live in- politicians who flat out don't want to touch any issue with a 20-foot-pole themselves- and don't want to give the public any rights to do it instead, because they know that once that horse has bolted all of the pay and perks they're enjoying at the moment for doing absolutely nothing (and likely the whole reason they even entered politics) would be next on the chopping block.

I guarantee to you all that there are only two things either Gillard or Abbott (or their followers) are concerned about in this issue:
1- how to turn it into a benefit for themselves and their lobbyists
2- try to look hip jumping aboard the global warming movement
Nothing else.

Whenever someone utters the phrase 'the vast majority', you may be certain they are speaking only of their private prejudice.

Clownfish "Whenever someone utters the phrase 'the vast majority', you may be certain they are speaking only of their private prejudice."

just as those who speak for the "common good"

have an equally nefarious agenda

- to limit peoples democratic right to hold a "private prejudice"

I suppose if I mentioned that the ALP were stopped from introducing a tax on carbon by the Liberals and the Greens, would I be impolite, would I circumvent the silly hostility towards Julia?

Just asking!

Nah, she's just trying to park the issue for a bit.
Not quite a storm in a teacup, but its certainly exercised the attention of some more than you'd think necessary. Forest for the trees mode won't give a voter an overview that puts the thing in context.
Gillard's having to do a fair bit on the run, but I feel she's done a bit better the last couple of days- the Laurie Hoax is hot air to distract and does nothing for the public in trying to understand the suite of issues , but people are learning to peer through the haze.

send it to a committee, set up a forum, find the consensus view. All labor methods for avoiding the subject. Well you can hardly wonder why, we vote them into government with a mandate to introduce an ETS, then when the senate (that unrepresentative swill) overturn it in a bloody coup for the lib's we are so resolute we give them the "all clear" by crashing the polls in favour of an ignorant bigot sorry new liberal leader. Yes we get what we deserve, at this point we deserve a procrastinating government with no direction and even less will as this is how we as an electorate are behaving.
All a bit strong? well look at it this way. We all like to say how labor have run up a debt for our children to avoid the GFC. Well the same "ME" generation are happy to commit future generations to a waste land so that they don't have to make any sacrifices for their future children and grandchildren. Who is to care if the resources run out, what of a deteriorating environment, atmosphere and eco-system?
Cornflower, Yes an appalling interview by Bob, But an even more appalling interview. The interviewer clearly saw some cheap ground to be made out of ignoring the way our whole stuffed up preference system works in the senate. Still no excuse for Bob not to realise that the labor party had distanced itself from what it stood for in the climate change debate. After all he help achieve it.

Paul, it would appear that a few more people are starting to see through the haze, seeing the "real" Julia, & not liking what they see.

I know I like her less, the more I see of her, in fact it has not taken too much exposure of her for me to find her very wanting. The polls seem to be saying I have a few mates there.