"If the evidence changes, the policy is flexible enough to cope with emerging realities." I'd like to believe that, but when PM Rudd is insistent that if it was an election promise, then come what may that's what he will do.

He has not shown, nor has the Labor party in government, that there is any flexibility in their behavior. There seems to be an abhorance to admitting they were wrong about anything, owning up, changing and moving on - we all make mistakes and try to learn and move on - why the terrible fear of actually admitting it, seems quite egocentric.

I'd like to see the blame game end, not just repeating that statement - but do it, stop blaming the previous government, or the states, or the rest of the world - you wanted to govern, to lead, it seems not to fit too well now. The ALP certainly does not govern with the confidance of the Howard government, you cringe, pick, blame and argue too much. The only actions seem to be harmless, so far, empty gestures that have changed nothing more than shallow perceptions.

Stop the navel gazing and get on with it.

The author: "Both extremes embody the lament of Yeats: the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity." ... "Whatever their voting behaviour, the free thinkers of the world prove Yeats wrong: the best are full of passionate intensity."

I (like the author) don't agree with Yeats. Look at Einstein for example - although despite his successes in relativity, he had great difficulty with accepting aspects of quantum mechanics. He went about trying to disprove quantum mechanics in the right way - through scientific argument, but never could, and in effect strengthened our surety in quantum mechanical theory.

Save us from politicians! Not satisfied with power out of all proportion to their abilities, and totally ignoring the fact that they have long forgotten that they are servants, not masters, they still want to browbeat us on public forums.

They should be ignored. Better still, they should be banned from windbagging on OLO.

Australian politicians have proved that they are not to be believed, and I find it insulting that they are given space here.

Sorry, Graham, but we don't need them.

Emerson makes one good point about Left-Right wing dogma which could obstruct good pragmatic policy making ie. what works, what is fair and what is sustainable? If we are to talk 'sides' of politics both are guilty of trying to maintain the high moral ground.

The term 'competition' is meaningless. If we live in a nation that prides itself on egalitarianism, fair wages and a reasonable standard of living how can we hope to sustain those values if we are to compete in a market of lower wages and poor living standards? Looking domestically are our banks and supermarkets competitive?

Both the ALP and the Coalition have ignored the disadvantages experienced by small business against the big end of town.

As for evidence-based man-made climate change - as a layman, both sides of the argument are presenting 'evidence' and the rest of us just muddle on the best we can. If Australians only produce 1-1.5% of man-made emissions then an emissions trading scheme would appear to be the mallet hitting the amoebae on the head approach.

The ALP is in danger of hanging its environmental credentials purely on climate change while it diverts attention from other important environmental issues such as the Gunn's Pulp Mill, car congestion (pollution) and the logging of old growth forests. And making tough decisions on water allocations to high water users such as cotton and rice growers.

We are all easily manipulated. Sometimes it is hard to see through the rhetoric to what is really happening.

Many years ago even Conservative parties were Social Democrats - acknowledging the place of small business, 'real competition' and publicly owned assets. We talk about a fair go but we don't practice it. Lack of sufficient assistance to pensioners (aged, disabled and carers) in the Budget is just one example.

In modern times we have been conditioned and manipulated into thinking that those who support publicy owned assests (even essential utilities) are labelled a Commie or a radical Leftie quicker than a politician can sprint towards a media opportunity. Labels are counter-productive.

It is hard to take anyone seriously who uses such cliched language, especially when pretending to criticise "extremists"

Everything is reduced to a set of binary exclusions, the purpose of which is to shut down even the possibility of intelligent consideration---consideration of all the evidence including the historical and cultural origins that helped create the current situation.

And like all of those on the "right" of the culture wars is incapable of seeing that his position is just as much ideologically driven and formed as that of anyone else---while pretending other wise.

Where and who are the "hard"-left in Australia?

And besides which the left has no real power to decide who is going to live and die. Those decsions are made by the interests described in The Shock Doctrine brought to its hapless victims by Craigs friends at the CIS and IPA which seems to where Craig has hitched his allegiance.

The outfits which,in my opinion are full of passionate intensity re the "rightness" of their "world"-view. And who, as The Shock Doctrine describes, are more than willing to use whatever it takes to impose their restructuring experiments on any and everyone---all in the name of "freedom".

Craig refers to the great poet W B Yeats, yet there is not a hint of a subtle poetic sensibility in any of his rantings.
On the contary his rantings are full of dismal techo-speak---the kind of tcho-speak that considers poetry, and the artistic imagination altogether, as a form of self-indulgence with no relevance to "real" life.

I'm happy to have Ministers writing for OLO, and have enjoyed earlier essays from Craig Emerson. Can I suggest some carefulness in language, nonetheless?

In this field I know of no one who is a 'climate change denier'. Climate change has been a fact of human existence from the beginning. I do know that many people are sceptical that human beings are influencing climate change in any significant way. They do not take this position as 'an article of faith', but because the evidence is unclear and the argument less than forceful.

'The science of climate change' hardly exists as a discipline: it is multi-disciplinary. In consequence it naturally produces different approaches and results. There is certainly voluminous stuff about climate change, but, as argued already, it does not point unequivocally to anthropogenic global warming.

Like another who has commented, I would be happier with the Government's green paper if I was sure that evidence would cause the Government to change its mind and, in my case, if the green paper did not have such a clanger in its title: 'carbon pollution'. Sorry, that looks like 'dogma' to me. I don't want to live in a carbon-free world. Indeed, I couldn't, and nor could anyone else. It seems pretty likely that the increase in carbon dioxide has contributed to the world's increasing food production,and that is just what the science says should happen, other things being equal.

What 'evidence' would the Government need to change its position on human-induced climate change?