http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/sour-reception-for-carbon-tax-20120701-21b2x.html

The SMH headline this morning (that was updated) was "THE CARBON TAX BOMBS"

THE Gillard government has its back against the wall as it implements the carbon price, with the latest poll showing Labor deeply unpopular and support for its policy at its lowest level since it was announced. The poll found support for the policy had fallen 4 percentage points in a month to 33 per cent, the lowest level since it was announced 15 months ago. Opposition to the policy rose 3 points to 62 per cent, the highest in 15 months. Despite the billions of dollars in compensation being handed out."

Despite Gillard's cunning burning of Labor's bridges by triggering a leadership challenge and trashing Rudd, it is becoming clear to the labor caucus that federal labor is facing a rout of NSW / Queensland proportions. Speculation is rife that unless labor gets significant bounce from Gillard's "It's not so bad" campaign, that there will need to be a leadership and policy change.

Is anyone

Their is such a lack of integrity with Labour that they have no one to replace even the one that lied so much to the elctorate. Smith made an idiot of himself to our soldiers, Shorten is another professional trade unionist, Rudd can't work with anyone so who is left? The sooner an election happens the better for this nation and for democracy.

It's amazing how people can pass judgement on something that happened within the first 48 hours of implementation and before any personal effects have even been felt.

It will be interesting to see if Abbott can maintain the same degree of public hysteria for the next 12 months, particularly if is doesn't produce the amount of devastation he's been predicting for the last 2 years.

As one journo put it - "Crushed beneath the cruel weight of an illegitimate and incompetent government, lashed by the taxman's whip, our borders overrun by invading Muslim hordes, the very fabric of our society rent asunder by promiscuous homosexuals who mock the sacrament of marriage, our suburban streets the hunting ground of thugs and gunmen, we hard working Aussie families eke out lives of pain and despair, trembling at the perilous future awaiting our children and unborn generations".

This apparently is how many see the world.

Runner are you just an offensive bloke or quite silly?
Yes to dump Gillard and no they will not dump the tax

'Runner are you just an offensive bloke or quite silly? '

Belly can you give one suggestion for the Labour leadership other than Turnbull. How about Thomson?

Labor have signed up to this New World Order first vocalised by puppa Bush in 1992,and now enforced by the UN.See Agenda 21.The Purpose is to destroy production and our industries making us slaves to their world fascist Govt.Both Brown and Gillard have admitted they want this World Govt.

We cannot trust the Coalition either since many like Turnbull believe that a totalitarian one world Govt will save the environment and humanity.What was Adolph Hitler like with absolute power?

I liked how Juliar yesterday kept saying now we have the tax but the world has not ended (word like that) The price increases will come over time not all on the first day.

The truth may start soon quote "indefinite postponement of New Zealand's Emissions Trading Scheme" apparently it was 3.5 times less costly than ours, now someone needs to tell Julia.

Don't be silly Philip, Julia is totally deaf as well as blind & dumb. No one could tell her anything, she just wouldn't hear.

She's too blind to read anything, & if one taught her Braille, she is too dumb to understand anything.

I have no doubt Labor will dump Gillard
This link seems to say soon
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/labor-mp-joel-fitzgibbon-questions-green-alliance/story-fncyva0b-1226416297059
It is the second time this bloke, one I am on record as disliking, has spoken out.
I fronted him once at NSW Labor conference, he had made an anti union statement.
He had put his hand in Lathams, Creans, then Gillards.
I still see all three as a troika, not to be forgiven.
But am impressed, we all make mistakes,with the apparent rebirth of this bloke.
Close observers can see the warnings, feedback is hostile, Julie can never get clean air, she is dead in the water, history, a fair way in the future may not be that bad, but blind hate stalls her now.
ALP will have a new leader this year.
Check too the people standing with and behind Abbott,Pyne looked stricken by fear Morrison too.
Both leaders at least think, their future is wrapped in carbon tax.
Inn truth deeper reasons, concerns about how very bad our Parliament has become, drive change.
TWO new leaders by Christmas .

Here are a few snippets from Paul Kelly the political analyst:

"Carbon pricing in Australia looms as a object lesson in reform mismanagement. Pivotal to Labor's problem is the global failure to progress a legally binding international agreement on carbon pricing symbolised by the Copenhagen debacle in late 2009. This was the turning point; Labor has never recovered.

From that moment the debate changed - domestic support for carbon pricing went into a slump and new fears arose in Australian business, reinforced by subsequent economic troubles in Europe and America, that carbon pricing threatened our competitiveness. The key lobbies - the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Industry Group - turned critical."

The jist of this is that after the collapse of the Copenhagen talks, and the economic crisis the public mood swung against carbon pricing. Gillard's broken promise and attempt to foist the tax invoked a visceral anger in many voters against which the merits or otherwise became irrelevant. The arguments and stunts of those such as Emmerson to show that the tax "isn't so bad" is doomed to failure.

Thanks for that Shadow Minister, no fair dinkum I see it far differently.
Gillards words, the fact she never even tried to explain herself are an obstacle.
Never take it for granted voters know what you are thinking, and do not that they do not know it at times.
She is the reason, not Tony's lies, that it needs help.
A new leader gives a new start,next summer massive fires and heat? slowly the new leader will turn it around.
We can not forget the world meets again at Christmas and that large numbers already support action and pay for it.
ten years hence looking back many more will be paying.
Hating Gillard/Labor is not enough reason to forget.
YOUR team has the same percentage cuts as target, BUT WANTS BATTLERS TO PAY.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/taxing-the-truth-why-we-must-not-let-abbotts-dogmas-lie-20120706-21mlz.html
This link is one of the mos honest seen in print in about 18 months.
I doubt I will, but would love to see SHADOW MINISTER and others rebuttal of it.
I wish to be clear, the stones are moving under Gillards feet, not before time.
We will see extraordinary things soon, and her removal, bless them for that.
BUT TOO Abbott is to fall, rising on his ability to repeatedly lie, and see a press ever willing to ignore it, he is gone.
All those who have wondered even mourned for so lost a Parliament can Begin to breath again.
In what I see as a beat up, very nearly knowing falsehood, Abbott today rubbished the ALP.
A man without the morals of his youth, he knows his party too is targeting the greens as Labor is.
Hence his stated plan to hold a DD election to re gain the senate.
He verbals us for the same thought?

Belly,

Ian Robinson is trying to rewrite what Juliar meant ie:

"The Prime Minister's commitment not to introduce a tax on carbon was implicitly premised on her being in a position to keep the commitment, by leading a majority government after the election. This didn't happen, so her pre-election commitment was effectively null and void."

Let's revisit what she actually said, not what this historical revisionist would like to think she meant:

"There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead"

NOT if I get a majority government

Juliar Gillard broke a solemn promise, an act of bastardry was committed, in short she lied.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Taken from Belly's link:

1) "A lie is when you say something
is true when you know it is not true. This is
quite different from a commitment which is a
promise to do something in the future."

2) "when Mr Abbott says the PM told a lie, he
is saying something is true when he knows it is
not true." Therefore Mr Abbott is telling a lie.

3) " Whereas the most the PM
can be truthfully accused of is breaking a pre-
election commitment, like John Howard with WorkChoices,
with the GST and "core and non-core promises," or Ted
Baillieu with Victorian teachers salaries."

4) The PM's commitment not to introduce a price on carbon
was implicitly premised on her being in a position to
keep the commitment by leading a majority government
after the election.

This did not happen, so her pre-election
commitment was effectively null and void as the author
points out.

5) "Instead she found herself in a minority government
in which she was not in total control of all the outcomes.
She therefore had to work out a compromise with the
other stakeholders."

6)We are told that "Mr Abbott is reported as saying during
the post-election negotiation that he would "do anything,"
to be PM. This implies that he too, would have accepted a
carbon tax as part of a minority government compromise."

7) As the author states - "To be fair, before the election,
no one was taking seriously the possibility of a hung
parliament. Shared government was not on anyone's agenda."

8) "However, it should be obvious that "majority government"
was implied in her statement, because one logically
cannot make firm commitments on behalf of a possible future
minority government, since one does not have the unfettered
power to carry them out."

9) "To keep calling what the Prime Minster said, "a lie"
is to misuse language, disfigure the debate and debase
politics. And it is to be guilty, as Mr Abbott is, of
telling a lie yourself."

cont'd ...

Other interesting items from Belly's link:

1)" When I was in secondary school, my English
class studied a collection of essays ... which
analysed the methods of Nazi propoganda in the
1930s."

2) "there were three components to this -
a) an element of truth, b) gross exageration.
c) constant repetition."

3) "Elements of truth the Opposition is exploiting
are first - that the PM did make an (implied qualified)
commitment before the last election not to introduce
the carbon tax; and second that she has indeed had
legislation passed putting a price on carbon as an
interim measure, before a future carbon-trading scheme
is intorudced a few years down the track."

4) "Mr Abbott's axaggeration of these basic facts are
total distortions of the real situation."

5) "For the repetitions, just watch the TV and listen to
the radio (and read Shadow Minister's posts and threads
on OLO). Every time an Opposition politician gets the
opportunity, they repeat the "Lie" claim over and over
again. As does Shadow Minister. This is clearly a conscious,
concerted and calculated propaganda."

6) "Other aspects of government policy have been given the
same treatment: a charge on carbon polluters becomes
"a great big tax on everyone," a tax that aims to spread
the benefits of the mining boom to the rest of the
community becomes "class warfare," and so on."

7) "By exaggerating a commitment into a "lie to the
Australian people," by exaggerating a charge on carbon
polluters into a "huge tax on evryone," and be repeating
these exaggerations ad infinitum and ad nauseum -
Mr Abbott and the Opposition are lowering the level of
political debate in contemporary Australia to that of
Germany in the '30s."

8) "No one is claiming that Mr Abbott is a Nazi but one thing
has to be asked - why he and the party he leads, are so
doggedly using discredited Nazi propaganda techniques?"

Lexi,

Before the election Juliar said:

"There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead"

Whine Swan backed her up with:

"We reject the hysterical allegation from the coalition that we are moving towards a carbon tax."

There is nothing implied. It is clear and explicit. Juliar and Swan promised the Australian people that there would be no carbon tax. There were no qualifications implied.

The reason that Abbott can use this to shred labor is because it was such an obvious and blatant breach of trust. I know it, the voters know it, and the only ones that are trying to change history are the tiny disillusioned minority of Labor tragics.

Lexi the link put thoughts I had always held in to words better than I ever could.
I think every one of them is true.
I also honestly see SM as the shadow of all current Liberal thought and action.
Not intended to insult just this, if your God stood in front of the man, and told him this was the truth it is, within a Milli second SM would say it is not so.
My thoughts about Gillard remain, she can not ever get traction, she never did.
She has held many views some totally against one she held before.
She did advice Rudd not to continue with climate change law.
She did say why raise pensions they do not vote for us.
She did not knowingly lie on this subject.
The opposition, its supporters knowingly AS A TACTIC LIE DAILY on the issue.
History will question us all, for putting up with her and Abbott.
But both are well on the way to being history, we should be glad I am.

Belly,

You have posted some bollocks in your time, but this takes the cake. You are essentially claiming that I would lie. Considering that I have already caught you out stating as fact something that wasn't true, that is rich coming from you. While our interpretations differ, I never deny the obvious, which you clearly do.

In my previous posts I have put down what was said to the Australian people. What she said was clear and unambiguous.

As in law, you can only be judged on what you said or did, not what you might have been thinking at the time. Your link specifically does not mention what she says, otherwise it would make the lengthy reinvention of what she might have meant look like a pile of steaming dung.

Watch the video and tell me again how the voter might interpret that this does not apply under a minority government.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMVc0IbtyAQ

Shadow Minister I stand by my every word and too your interpretation of them, I think like Abbott you have little regard for truth.
Right now yet another Abbott interview is ending.
On ABC it unquestionably shows Tiny Tony with answer after answer putting the single policy of his party out.
A scant respect for truth.
A willingness to avoid it, be little it and use the opposite of it as coalition tactics.
I require you to show me my inferred lie!
I have on several occasions left this site because it has seemed you can say almost anything.
I think time may tell us just who you are.
I will not back down,you hand out load after load of insults then call foul when it is returned.
More than any contributor you introduced the bad manners that infiltrates politics here.
Tony Abbott is a man using non truth lies half truth sand in effect conning this country.
LABOUR must stop waiting for the bottom to fall out of his bucket.
It is US ALONE who hold it together.
Australia begs for other than Gillard to run to.
She will NEVER be forgiven never ,for knifing Rudd.
LABOUR must eat the humble pie knock on her door.
Then Abbott will too hear that knock.

Dear Shadow Minister,

The Prime Minister did not lie.
Mr Abbott is telling lies, and using
Nazi propaganda techniques to discredit
the Prime Minster and the Government.
That is crystal clear. All Mr Abbott wants
is to be Prime Minster and he will do
everything in his power to achieve that end
just as Hitler did in Germany in the 1930s.

Dear Belly,

Don't pay too much attention to what the
Minister of Propaganda says - that's his
job.

Lexi,

Perhaps you could explain as to a child what the following means:

"There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead"

And how it applies to the government that Juliar is leading.

Lexi you must read a lot in your job, as I do too.
It seems Shadow Minister writes but rarely reads.
This last effort, using EXACTLY the tactic Abbott does/my link talks about, giving and using another meaning to a lie, is?
Well it is a sign of an empty gun, no thought,an empty vacant mind.
It rolls our truths up and heaves them back at us , with the force of a feather thrown in to a strong wind.
On the evidence in front of us Shadow Minister has just conceded defeat.
His side has twisted truth honesty and accountability and called it?
POLICY.TACTICS, case closed .

Belly,

Your failure/ inability to answer a simple question that the rest of Australia understands as simple shows that you concede defeat.

Dear Belly,

My father once told me - don't argue with an
idiot. He'll bring you down to his level and
beat you by experience (or words to that effect).
Anyway - repeating the "lie," claim over and over
again happens with such regularity it can't be mere
co-incidence. It is clearly a conscious, concerted and
calculated propaganda campaign of Goebbels-esque
proportions under way. Best to ignore. And, don't
respond or be baited.

Belly,
It is worse than a lie. It is going back on your word. She should have told the greens 'no way'. She made a definate committment and should keep her word. No excuse for that.

If you sold me an article and we agreed on it, then someone else offered you a higher price I would expect you to say 'sorry it is sold' and I think you would do that.

She has lied to Wilkie about the pokies and she is lieing about turning the boats back. She has no scrupples and has trashed Labors reputation. Far worse than Rudd claiming a couple of hot days was evidence of global warming. Although that is not good either.

Good, then it's settled, and I won't need to argue with any more idiots.

There is a carbon tax under the government that Juliar leads.

Ockham's razor dictates that she lied.

Lexi I understand that.
But can not wipe the smile from my face.
You are aware I dislike Gillard, intensely.
I concede I always did and that I got it wrong in saying she would govern well.
I too said she would be liked,I was wrong.
You however will not see my mate Banjo saying those words, about anything.
SM?
You Lexi will be too young to have seen the old square rusty Kero tins,along with sugar bags, about 20 pound Hessian, we build beds homes any thing with them.
I see in my head our White knight of the Conservatives, calling us idiots?
Sitting on a three legged Donkey in a suit of Armour crafted from those Items square tin eye holes in it screaming at the Donkey to charge us will it quietly eats his Hessian sacks?
We now know changing your mind is a lie, sorry ROTFL!
Gobbles lives again.
read the link Banjo.

Belly,

I was wrong in August 2010.

I said that Oakeshott and Windsor with their strongly conservative electorates wouldn't be stupid enough to support a labor government.

SM! hows it going mate?
Those two solidly independent for over ten years each of them on that day.
Bought with them to Parliament very big margins and support.
From? their electorates!
Now thanks for the information you got it wrong, I have such along list of your wrongs.
Any chance you can pin point one you got right?

Belly,

I generally avoid making predictions, but the ones I have made have come true. In chronological order:

1 Carbon price and Copenhagen. I had doubts that Copenhagen would yield any significant outcomes especially with the GFC. I predicted that a failure here would lead to a large popular swing against carbon pricing. Australians are more than happy to do their fair share, but not to go it alone.

2 Rudd's repeal of the PS (Pacific solution). I predicted a huge upswing in arrivals to pre PS levels. And that with 80% of the voters in favour of tough border protections that this would seriously dent Rudd's stellar popularity figures. I can clearly remember the looney left telling me that driving the boats was a push factor and a small increase was expected.

3 In the stale mate just after the election I predicted that RO and TW would throw their hands in with the coalition as their conservative electorates would punish them heavily if they did not produce huge justification for their betrayal. I was wrong on the first count but the polls show that unless things change RO and TW will be looking for new jobs by 2014.

4 When it was apparent that there was going to be a Labor lead hung parliament, the sentiment here was that it was going to be a co operative parliament. However, past hung parliaments that were co operative have lead to the governing party getting a majority in the next election, and fractious ones have lead to the governing party losing heavily. I predicted that TA would make governing extremely difficult and expose every weakness of Labor.

5 When only after weeks of making her no carbon tax promise, Juliar reneged, I predicted that she would be reminded of this week in and week out, and that the voters would not forgive or forget.

So far 5 out of 6 correct, while Belly is out for a duck.

I have no intention of joining this game.
And do not remember your predictions in all truth.
This may be because much of what you say is extremely avoidable.
I stand firmly behind my predictions.
You however do have me baffled.
Are you Julie Bishop?Pyne? Bronwyn Bishop?
Any of the three old girls? Pyne is the most feminine

Belly,

"I have no intention of joining this game." You started it.

"And do not remember your predictions in all truth." very convenient considering we have been through this before.

If and when I do make predictions it is because I have read up on the issues, and am confident in the figures. Not because I would like it to be so.

And no, I have never been a member of any party.

From what I see Abbott is playing the game as if it were chess, Juliar like it was tiddly winks.

What a giggle I got from "From what I see Abbott is playing the game as if it were chess, Juliar like it was tiddly winks."

I can't let such an asinine comment go by. All MM has done is stay on mantra in his propaganda and scare-mongering campaign while Gillard has got things done under probably the most trying circumstances ever faced by a PM in Australian political history.

The thing one must concede to MM is the tenacity of his attempt to gain power through the refugee affair, which looks like it may well work. In chess, your move is not made until you let go of your piece, and MM is certainly not letting go of that one.

SM I doubt Abbott can play chess.
He would take hours to find the next move change his mind too often and be? himself.
Muppet man is as likely to become prime minister as I am.
No chance.
While you say you are reading can you get a bit more in to just what you read"?
Little Golden books will not do it

Belly,

Whatever game is being played, Juliar is losing and losing badly. Abbott has held a blowtorch to Labor policies and values and not let the focus drift to the coalition. Labor is in La la land if they think that the polls are going to change significantly over the next year.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/life-under-new-levy-fails-to-land-a-blow-on-tony-abbotts-ratings/story-fn59niix-1226422081642

Aw c'mon, a poll is taken a day or so after we have "lived" the CT? All C-Day offered was another opportunity to spout the BNT mantra and completely ignore the compensatory offsets.

It may appear that, for the time being at least, the coalition playing the electorate for imbeciles is working. However, I think it is just a normal reaction to change (of the tax system in this case) and soon enough the tax will be comfortably embedded into national life.

Funny to see the funeral parlour trying to grossly embed the tax into death too! What's that about death and taxes? And, if you can't afford Brumbies bread while you're alive, try eating cake.

LF,

Given the juvenile nature of your posts, I assume that you are presently or recently a student. The voters want good policy and honest leaders. Cash does not compensate for bad policy. Voters are generally slow to make up their minds on a policy and even slower to change them. Even if Labor shows that it is not too bad, the voters will still feel that it is bad policy based on a lie, and Abbott is going to remind them every day for the next year.

Juliar is scrambling for time. Once it was clear that she had lied to the electorate, labor's approval went into free fall. "Don't worry" she said to the caucus, "as soon as the voters see the details and compensation things will improve." Labor's polls fell further.

"As soon as the voters receive their compensation, things will improve." the splash of cash made no difference.

The carbon tax is as popular as work choices. The voters waited 4 years to punish QSW labor and are happy to wait just over a year to punish federal Labor. The polls have hardly changed in 16 months, what is going to change the voters's minds in the next 13?

As for who is treating the public as imbeciles, Who was Emmerson trying to appeal to with his silly song and dance?

In politics stupidity is not a handicap
as any Coalition party member knows every
time their leader speaks.
Mr Abbott is living proof that intellectual
activity is a danger to the building of character.

Luciferase when you have Shadow Minister on the ropes, and you have.
He resorts to rude barbs and changes the subject.
He when angry, changes his verbal tennis racket, picking up one with no strings.
In fact things are going very well for the ALP.
Gillard it can be seen is never going to get traction.
After Slipper is cleared, of any crime, after our Watergate scandal is uncovered.
Gillard will be replaced.
Rising polling will for Muppet man Doctor No out too.
Watch this space.

Lexi,

If you have nothing to contribute and want a mud slinging match, you are supporting a team that is having the sh1t kicked out of it. The battle of wits sees the Labor party at a disadvantage.

Belly,

"In fact things are going very well for the ALP." Really? Perhaps you see something that the rest of us are missing?

Abbott is hated by the left, but very popular among liberals who are happy with the seats he has delivered and will deliver.

Yeah, Belly, poor ol' SM is off his oats today. For goodness sake, don't mention the truth when he's like this. You watch out too, Lexi, shameful woman!

How can Labor possibly have a battle of wits
with such unarmed opponents. And as for contributions
to any discussion - mud-slinging is Shadow Minister's
forte. That's all he knows - following Mr Abbott's
propagandist techniques of :

"Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it
and eventually they will believe it."
(Adolf Hitler).

Or

"The most brilliant propagandist techniques will yield
no success unless one fundamental principle is borne
in mind consistently - it must confirm itself to a
few points and repeat them over and over."
(Joseph Goebbels).

Lexi,

You are partially right, All the coalition has to do is repeat Juliar's clip making a promise that there would be no carbon tax under a government she lead.

If Labor is so much smarter than the coalition, how come they are being thrashed so badly? There are none so blind as those that will not see.

Dear Shadow Minister,

As I stated earlier in politics stupidity is not a
handicap. And talking about simplistic solutions -
the Opposition has nothing to be smug about with
their lack of economic nous, adequate costings
and history of economic mis-management (not maintaining
the asset base). The following opinion piece
gives some food for thought on this issue:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/what-would-the-future-be-like-with-tony-abbott-as-prime-minister-20120605-1ztc8.html

Lexi,

All the polls show that the coalition is far ahead of labor w.r.t. being trusted to run the economy, and its record far outshines the last 4 years.

I am sure that an ex Labor premier will give an unbiased accurate assessment of the coalition.

Dear Shadow Minister,

My apologies. I didn't look too closely at
who the author of the link I cited was.
I was in a hurry and merely read the article,
not who wrote it. I guess I chose it because
I could relate to what was being said about
the competency of the Opposition. I'll now have to
try to find a more suitable link. Although, I
can't help but wonder whether it is at all
possible to be objective - when it comes to
politics?