Sunday, December 13, 2009

Robert Manne attacks Abbott

Howard hater Robert Manne has found a new target to aim his venom at, Tony Abbott. His attacks on John Howard never made much sense to me and his attack on Howard Abbott is not much better. Lets have a look at his latest:
With Tony Abbott, the hard-Right Howardites have taken over the party. In part this is a matter of personnel: Ruddock, Minchin, Bishop, Andrews and Abetz. And in part it is a matter of policy reversion. Abbott will now campaign without ethical restraint on the question of asylum-seekers.
Ruddock a member of the hard right? bullshit. The return of Ruddock and Bronny Bishop is about using your best assets not moving to the right. Mr Ruddock is the longest serving pollie in Parliament. Having Yoda there as a non voting member of the shadow cabinet makes sense. Bronny is Shadow Minister for Seniors again makes good sense. She is a formidable woman and the right age to connect with older voters. Regarding asylum-seekers, the Shadow for immigration  is Scott Morrison, another moderate.

No denialist is more ignorant or cocky on climate change than the new leader of the Liberal Party, the natural successor to John Howard. It is certain that Abbott will now try to make ground over climate change by the deployment of the kind of politics of populist conservatism that Howard pioneered. It is important for the future of the Liberal Party and vital for the good name of the nation that he does not succeed.
The ignorent person here is Manne. Abbott accepts AGW and has consistently said he accepts the governments 5% emissions cut. Now, I'm skeptical on his claims to be able achieve this without a carbon price, but lets see what he comes up with. Note Greg Hunt still has his old  Climate Change Shadow job.
The simple reading of this is that while cosmopolitan Australians care about the coming climate catastrophe, the numerically far larger mainstream can be influenced by a scare campaign about even minuscule personal financial costs of climate change action. Whether this simple reading provides a clue to our political future, only time will tell.
More Manne crap: According to Manne Abbott is going hard right to pick up the mainstream vote. By definition the mainstream is the centre, not the left or right. What Manne really objects too is that the centre of Australian life is conservative in character. Abbott, unlike Manne likes ordinary Australians and can connect with then.

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