I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, ‘Will he really go to a double dissolution?’ Now to tell you the truth I can’t really say in all this excitement. But being this is a Carbon Tax, the most lethal tax in Australia and it tends to blow political leaders clean out of the water, you’ve gotta ask yourself a question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, Bill?

Apologies to Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan for the above flight of fancy, but the image of the hapless new leader of the Opposition already lying bruised and bloodied in a Canberra forecourt with the Prime Minister figuratively holding a gun to his head was too delicious to resist.

First, the gun. Anyone who denies that Tony Abbott has anything other than a thumping mandate to repeal the carbon tax is living in a fantasy world. For three years, he has repeated ad nauseam the two major planks of his election platform: stopping the boats and scrapping the carbon and mining taxes. Meanwhile, in government, Labor hopped from one flawed design of a price on carbon to another, starting with Kevin Rudd’s on-again off-again ETS, to Julia Gillard’s notorious broken promise of ‘no carbon tax under the government I lead’, back to Mr Rudd’s frenzied and repeated insistence at the last election that the tax had been ‘terminated’ and finally failed Labor leadership-contender Anthony Albanese’s bizarre proposal to support the repeal of the carbon tax in exchange for a carbon price of zero dollars.

Second, the ammo. Labor’s position has been marred by inconsistency and obfuscation. The Coalition’s position has been unequivocal. The voters have spoken. The carbon tax must go. There are no other bullets left in the chamber.

Third, the punk. Bill Shorten faces an unenviable choice. Allow the carbon tax to be repealed and risk the wrath of many of his own supporters within caucus, and certainly the majority of party members who voted against him. Thwart the Coalition, and he almost certainly signs his own leadership death warrant.

Labor MP Nick Champion, a pragmatist who dares to speak what many
others within his ideologically driven party are too scared to even think, has called for Labor gracefully to allow the tax to be repealed, so that Mr Abbott will unequivocally ‘own’ climate change. This is a smart idea, giving Labor breathing room to develop policies in Opposition in step with what is happening globally, while giving the Coalition nowhere to hide if their own Direct Action plan proves unpopular or ineffectual.

We now know Labor only won an abysmal seven seats on first preferences at the recent election. We also know the prospects of reaching a genuinely global deal to reduce emissions at Warsaw next month are virtually zero. In the event of being forced back to the polls for a double dissolution early next year, the most likely scenario is that Labor would be punished even further by voters bored of the whole carbon tax kerfuffle. Bill Shorten would be confined to the dustbin of history.

So go ahead, Bill, make our day.

Bring back Col Allan

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, we learn that an army of evil grinning sharks are moving down the coast to devour us all. Or so Sydney’s Daily Telegraph would have the terrified residents of this blighted city believe. On 14-15 October, the Tele stumbled spectacularly in love with the issue of anthropogenic global warming; courtesy of a yet-to-be-released IPCC draft full of all sorts of dire warnings and scary predictions. Apparently, our eastern seaboard is set to become a global ‘hotspot’ of climate change, with the Tele excitedly reporting on the multitudes who will die ‘from extreme heat’, or fall ill ‘from contaminated food and water’, and on houses tumbling into the sea — where no doubt the killer sharks are waiting.

Thoughtfully, the newspaper was able to illustrate this terrifying apocalyptic scenario with a handy pic of firefighters attacking a fiercesome blaze and the blackened shells of burnt out cars as an inset. For the kiddies, the paper helpfully produced cartoonlike wall charts of grinning sharks designed to scare them witless. Perhaps it’s the proximity to the fads of Surry Hills that have momentarily turned this otherwise sound newspaper a noticeable shade of green.

Coincidentally, on the same day the respected and feared News Ltd editor and Murdoch right-hand man Col Allan flew back to the States, his mission in Australia (to encourage the nation to ‘kick this mob out’) having self-evidently been a success. Looks like he left too soon.