William - you do not understand. We do not have an Emissions Trading Scheme which I agree can be rorted, we have a price on carbon. That means the big emitters of CO2 are taxed hard until they bring their emissions down. The higher price of your electricity has very little to do with the carbon tax - and by the way you almost certainly have been compensated for the slight rise - and everything to do with excessive expenditure on poles and wires.

Funny how Prasser has not bashed Abbott for agreeing to human trading, cruelty to refugees, bashing single parents and other poor people and plunging tens of thousands into dire poverty because ACA and TT love bashing the blob called single parent bludgers.

Abbott agrees with Gillard on almost everything, in fact they are twins in their racist bullying attacks on the defenceless.

Mike you and many other comments are right in saying there is a problem with this article and not just one. I would have hoped for better analysis of the current politics than this, which verges on being bad. As James below said all Turnbull did was to continue with what was Howard's proposed policy. That is to form a market based system to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions. Abbott simply saw a way to grab the leadership by getting the support of the anti-climate change proponents within his party.

The Opposition role is simply to oppose everything the government propose, what bollocks, what rot. The Opposition can be constructive. They can provide constructive input into bills put before Parliament. They don't simply have to oppose everything the government puts up, simply for the sake of it.

In fact I would think far much more of an opposition that worked constructively in reshaping legislation so that it works better for all. After all they are in our system all Representatives of Parliament, voted in there to work for the wellbeing of this country and its people. If they are simply there to oppose everything for opposition sake than they are a waste of space as far as I am concerned.

If the opposition was working constructively to improve legislation, we would actually see if they were worth voting in as a government next time. Now all they are is the default position. And that is that we have decided this lot are not what we want so we will give this other lot a go and see if they are any better.

And of course if the opposition prove no better, or worst in government than we have to go back and try the other lot again the next time. And if they have acted the same in opposition by simply opposing every thing for the sake of opposition, how are we to know if it worth trying them again. Scott's whole idea of Parliament makes the whole thing a farce. But than as far as I am concerned that is what Tony Abbott has done. His practice of opposition for opposition sake has made Parliament a farce and for that reason alone and I can think of a lot of reasons, I see no reason to vote for the coalition.

Hi Stephen, The carbon tax is actually a very conservative and market based approach. With Markets you have some by-products of transactions that are not paid for in the transaction, for instance if you put in a dam you can generate electricity and sell to the customer. But you also get lake, flood control, which is good but there maybe less water coming down stream to say a farmer, who just got screwed. So governments can impose a excise tax to cover these externalities. Governments can also offer incentives to encourage certain behavior from industry and they can offer perverse incentives which discourage certain behavior in industry.

The Carbon tax is a perverse incentive more than a excise tax

ie. its not there to raise money to cover an externality but rather it is there to discourage CO2 consumption.

Which is far better in this case when you think about it, there is not enough money in the world to cover damage ever increasing CO2 consumption will cause.

Rather the government is making CO2 use more expensive than not consuming CO2 (or less profitable depending on which side of the transaction you are)

So if a generation company finds its more profitable to build a wind farm rather than a coal plant due to the tax associated with CO2 then...well then usualy market forces will force the shift, pretty simple business as usual

Free markets baby

Would be that all political parties were banned from politics: that we could be presented with a group of candidates who were all assessed as being capable of governance: that our numerous governments were capable of debating instead of harassing. One could then find a reason for nor despising politicians.

Darren - they appear occasionally - and they do not fare well

Darren - James response, I think, is your answer.

Well said James - I have studied colonialism of the past and how it proceeded, and the East India Company is a classic. They were the main facilitators for introducing Opium to the Chinese - indeed hooked them on drugs just to keep the British coffers balanced. Along with the slave trade, it was simple money exercise authored by the ruling classes.

As for writer of this story saying - "Abbott understood that the role of an opposition is to oppose"

Yes, Abbott does think that way - but that's his failing. Voters know this, the man in street is aware that big things are wrong with the country, yet they expect far more than mere opposition.

Turnbull, their PM in waiting, moves about like a flag in the breeze with an equally vacuous attitude as well. Public opinion drives him from time to time, but at the end of the day he's a $$$ only man - business. Which is all very well for cash flow in the here and now, but it does nothing for country building. Unlike Howard, he had the nous to change his public view on global warming when it became a hot topic with the voters - whereas Abbott is still out on the subject. Turnbull is now a convert, and it was public opinion that swayed him, not the science

Ala, Abbott's avowed promise to trash the carbon conversation. Indeed, he's so dull that he might find this one is a killer application. The reason: China, by years end, along with the USA, will probably have their own carbon taxes. Each are dead serious about tackling the problem in their own way - yet Abbott with his parochial thinking is bent on a local phase shift. A do nothing bloke, if ever.

Ultimately the unwashed millions, who do read newspapers and watch international developments, will read this as a blunder for Australia - Ergo, leaving the door open for a new PM in waiting.

Is it only left and right?

Ie. do you live in 2D - recognise that there are multiple dimensions - or atleast be 3 dimensional, 2D platform games are so 1980's

It would. Someone should write one so we could find out.

Conspiracies??? No evidence mate. But the author doesn't seem to be objective, much as he's tried to write with an objective tone. It reads like an opinion piece in The Australian with the hysteria attenuated.

Every other article on this website seems to have the university affiliation of the author mentioned. Why would the author of this article, who researches public policy at a catholic institution, somehow neglect to disclose/mention that?

What is his opinion on the church-state divide? On God in politics/policy? On "secular" policy that is in line with church doctrine?

Does he believe that under an Abbott government only "catholic friendly" public policy will be introduced?

Could his views in these matters possibly imply that his article on Tony Abbott is not objective?

They didn't oppose everything though. They love the idea of being as cruel as possible to minority groups like gays and lesbians, the homeless, single parents and refugees.

The main parties combined to torture refugees in Pacific gulags and now neither party has mentioned the law or refugee convention for so long the country and media seem to have forgotten that it even exists or that we helped to write it and were teh 6th country to ratify it.

Are those the same power bills that Mr Abbott and co waved around in parliament that proved to be completely bogus? The electricity bills that had absolutely nothing to do with the carbon tax?

I was questioning the author's use of the cliche 'policy debacle'.
However, i see you are another person who wishes to ignore the GFC, and who fails to realise the cost of a recession (and we'll pretend for a moment that human social and emotional costs don't matter a mote) is far greater than the cost of borrowing to stay out of recession.
The only thing that has been dragged down in the last few years is the national psyche and the national confidence, and that is thanks to a particularly aggressive opposition and a pitchfork media brigade.
There is so much good news from the achievements of this government - and i include the minority partners here - for so many groups of Australians on some fronts, and all Australians on other fronts, and yet we have to search for that news, we have to often unwrap it from the wrapping of negativity that the media has presented it in.
It's not good enough, and i thought the Conversation was supposed to be different, but on politics, it is not.

Oh dear, so you think they just borrowed the money on a whim? I love liberal supporters who seem to think we were immune from the GFC because of our foreward thinking PM Rudd who had a plan in place 6 months before Lehmans'collapsed and was called paranoid by Ken Henry.

But he was not paranoid, he had his ear to the ground and heard it coming.

Good comment.

But learned a lesson??? Not on your life Michael... they've never learned nuffink. But they have sent fellas over to the USA and watched in stunned admiration as the Tea Party showed 'em what real radicals for conservative should be about. All that stirring rhetoric and sabre rattling ...

Not learning - cheap imitation.

hi james

i can see a laurel wreath adorning TA head.

dont know about the romans, but there are certainly enough men running around that see themselves as god, or try to act accordingly.

i suppose one question is can TA and the many other liberal catholics, divorce religion and religious ethics from politics.

deep down those convictions have to be percolating somewhere, and if TA and others can have a benign attitude to gays, abortion etc, then they must be hypocrites. the rulings from on high are VERY clear on these positions, so secular tony will be at odds with catholic tony.

am i saying you cant be a catholic and be in politics.......hmmmm - probably not unless you want to change the world.

tony et al anthem could very well be "my way".

Yeah trading humans, sending single parents into dire poverty and refusing to consider raising student and unemployment allowances is so positive for the nation.

Ranting about foreign workers, selling out to the big miners (something all governments do), trading out human rights for some and staying in Afghanistan for no reason, calling Assange a criminal and refusing to help him.
All so positive.