Oz PM Kevin Rudd has been ousted, largely because his popularity had plummeted because he was pursuing insane greenie policies. The centrepiece was a ludicrously high tax on the mining industry, despite the fact that minerals extraction is the current main reason for Australia’s prosperity. He can be seen as one of the first major politicians to have been ousted by his greenie arrogance and lunacy. Every element of his eco-wackery was increasingly unpopular with the electorate. For the BBC, though, the reason for his demise is simple; he bottled out on introducing new CO2 emissions targets. And the mining tax? Well, according to the BBC report, it is only a “super tax on the super rich” (code in BBC terms for being a highly desirable, necessary measure); not a breath of a mention that Australian voters were desperately concerned that Mr Rudd was the architect of a whole suite of legislation the sole purpose of which was to lower living standards in the name of eco-worship.
BY HIS OWN PETARD…
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Are you listening, messrs Obama and Cameron? Next time, it could be you…
I think the feeling in the UK and the USA is running stronger than in Oz, where they appear to be swamped, day and night, with the greenie nonsense. So if THEY can vote with their feet…
There is another side to this story, not just the angle that the eco nonsence was set to make the average Aussie poorer.
It was the fact that he bottled the legislation. Governments can often get away with unpopular policies if they are seen to be strong and resolute. Rudd was neither, and theres nothing the Aussie public hate more than a wimp. That doesn’t make him any more right in his pursuit of the policies to start with, but does help to explain the speed of is fall.
The Australian public didn’t sack Rudd, although opinion polls probably helped. Nor did the Australian Parliament.
The Australian Labor Party sacked him as leader which by unwritten convention means as Prime Minister. Indeed, unless he chooses to resign his seat he remains a local member of Parliament which is the only popular vote required.
That was really my point, the Ausse public cocked the rifle, his own deputy pulled the trigger.
Well hoisted, that man!!
I didnt realise petards came in green.
Maybe the leadership change will also be the death knell for the Great Australian Firewall – another unwanted, illiberal and unworkable castle in the air.
The Australian public realised before it was too late that the ETS carbon tax and the mining tax would not help Australia in any shape or form, it would merely transfer massive wealth abroad with no regard to cost benefit.
The sole reason for the ETS fraud was wealth transfer to a)super giant multinational money trading leeches and b)third world despots Swiss accounts and c)carpet bagger spivs on the make.
Rudd was the author of his own demise and his assassin will follow him into the dustbin as will their party if they do not listen to reason and to the Australian public.
The good word is out, the genie is out of the bottle and there aint no puttin the sucker back again, the Aussie public now realise that the ecofascist loony policies are poison to their economy.
To be fair to the BBC it’s not alone in its analysis. Both the Times and the Telegraph this morning reported that Rudd’s demise was due to his withdrawal of the ETS legislation. However, this does not excuse the BBC (or those newspapers) from the accusation that they have seriously misled themselves – let alone their readers/listeners – as to what happened here: 1. the Australian opposition removed an AGW fanatic from its leadership because that fanatic was not opposiong Labor’s ETS legislation (which was unpopular with both the electorate and the rank and file of the Australian Liberals); 2. the Liberal’s support leapt in the polls – Rudd’s poll approval started to crater 3. Rudd – in desperation – shelved the ETS legislation ; 4. The Australian electorate was not impressed either with the manifest insincerity of Rudds manoeuvrings or any other of his burbling; 5. Labor – led by the unions – panicked and removed Rudd.
Yes, the withdrawal of the ETS legislation preceded Rudd’s removal but it was neither the proximate nor the underlying cause of his political demise. There, I’ve analysed it in 5 minutes from publicly available sources and a whit (I hope) of common sense in examining the Australian policial scene since the revolt within the Liberal Party. I freely admit that I consider the ETS (and its underlying rationale) as total crapola but any political commentator with a pretence of competence (and lack of pre-conceived bias) would – I think – come to a similar conclusion. The BBC in implying that Rudd’s failure to accede to some spurious popular demand for action on climate change was the only cause of his demise is misleading, biased and – as has become par for the BBC – crap journalism.
I think your analysis is correct. The “right-wing” opposition party – the Liberals – started to wake up to the econonsense, with people like Ian Plimer helping to challenge the “settled science”. Indeed I think they themselves changed leader over the issue of how green to go. The Liberal Party then challenged Rudd head on, and it became clear he could not get the legislation he wanted. Sensibly, he backed away – at least for the time being. This pissed off much of his own party – and that is why they have turned against him.
Your key point is that it is internal party politics, feelings within his own party, that led to his removal. It is NOT feelings within the general Australian electorate.
My impression is that there is a much more lively debate on eco-issues in OZ than here. Lots of public meetings challenging the “settled science”, for example. And the Australian Broadcasting Company does not have the same propaganda clout as the BBC.
And all of the above is simply from my vague memory of OZ news over the past couple of years. Not even 5 minutes’ research on the net – which obviously the BBC has failed to do.
A newspaper can have a ‘view’ but the BBC takes public money and should reports facts and not camp male lefty opinion.
Martin
I don’t think the Times or Telegraph have a particular view on this – it’s just lazy journalism. As with their coverage of climate change and green issues generally, they both merely provide a transmission belt for press handouts. For instance, as I’ve noted before (here or elsewhere), Louise Gray – the Telegraph’s Environment correspondent – is queen of the press release. What she actually does to earn a living (other than sit at her computer receiving emails from Greenpeace and forwarding them (metaphorically) to the Telegraph’s printroom) is beyond me.
Ms. Gray is not too alone in her ‘reporting’ methodology, and in the BBC also does share the regal description you bestow with quite a few.
Krudd by name, crud by nature.
For various reasons I am not a disinterested party but from the BBC to whom I pay a large license fee every year I did not get a reasonable explanation of what was happening.
Thank you Mr Horbury and all commentators for telling me things as they are
I’d love to see your reaction if the BBC published the views of climate sceptics. Then it would all change and the BBC would be pro-enviromental destruction. At the end of the day what comes first – money or the environment?
1. What exactly is a “climate skeptic”?
Can you find me one person on the planet who is “skeptical” over the fact that we have a climate? And depending upon ones guestimates, have had one for about 3 billion years.
2. If you mean people who are skeptical that there is any scientific proof whatsover that the activities of human beings can have any discernable affect on the “climate of a planet…
WHY WOULDN’T THE BBC “PUBLISH” THESE VIEWS.
Isn’t the BBC supposed to be a publically funded organization which is impartial, unbiased and representative of many different perspectives and ideas?
Overall, I fail to see your point, because it appears you don’t have one.