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Groundhog Day politics

November 1, 2006 on 9:41 pm | In Uncategorized |

The Howard Government is old, tired, well past its use-by date. Surely people are beginning to notice that they’re still mouthing the same meaningless recycled rhetoric? Tonight for example Undertaker Phil was on the news, responding to Amnesty International’s announcement of a global campaign to have David Hicks returned to Australia. Ruddock’s response was that he would like to see Hicks tried on the charges brought against him “as soon as possible”. Fuck’n'hell dude you’ve been saying that for four years. When do you finally admit that “as soon as possible” just isn’t going to happen? What’s your Plan B?

More importantly, let’s hope more and more people finally notice the endless repetition of this drivel and work out that this government substituted spin for substance a looooong time ago.

Unfortunately, the government-in-waiting is often guilty of the same offence. The sudden acceptance by the media that “Hey! This global warming thing might actually be important!” should be a golden opportunity for Labor to show leadership. Howard and company have been contemptibly negligent in protecting the most basic Australian national interest - its long-term viability as a place for people to live in reasonable comfort - and are demonstrably the captives of big business and big agriculture. Labor on the other hand has consistently argued that we need to be doing a lot more to bring greenhouse emissions under control.

The only response that Howard can come up with to the Stern Report is to mumble about starting to build some nuclear power stations in oh, 10 years or something. Terrific Prime Minister, just the air of urgency the issue demands. It’s a wonderful chance for Labor to define itself as the party that can save Australia from the imminent environmental catastrophe that threatens to overtake it. So what does Kim Beazley say on the news tonight? “Sign Kyoto.”

Jeez Louise Kim are you stuck in the same time warp as ol’ deaths head Phil? That’s been the sum total of your global warming policy for years now: “Sign Kyoto.” It doesn’t mean anything to people. Besides which the world’s moving on from Kyoto. Where are the bold initiatives that match the desperate urgency in the Stern Report? When will you try to get the message across to people that global warming matters to their private lives in a much more serious way than the War on Terror or another rise in interest rates or even the potential loss of their penalty rates for working on Sundays? Kim it’s a lot more than signing some international treaty that hardly anybody understands. Hell, we might even have to make more sacrifices than we already have by giving up our plastic bags at Coles. When we remember to take our cute green ones that is.

The world is changing profoundly and I’m afraid our political leaders on both sides are oblivious. That’s what happens when you spend half your life in a fancy bomb shelter in Canberra, reading opinion polls.