The Dreyfus Files - The Age
In the past week, industry leaders, environmental groups, journalists and many other Australians had no trouble in responding constructively to the announcement of a carbon price in Australia.
They did have trouble, however, making their views heard over the hysterical posturing and shouting of the federal opposition.
The Liberal and National parties have seemingly found it impossible to engage in any productive discussion at all. They have made up a long string of false figures, ignoring the Prime Minister's clear statement that no carbon price has yet been negotiated.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott went to a petrol station on Sunday to falsely claim that petrol would go up by exactly 6.5 cents a litre. Other Liberal frontbenchers asserted annual power bills would rise by $300.
On Wednesday the opposition changed tack, criticising the government for not announcing details of the carbon price scheme. This ignored the fact that the Prime Minister had explained the previous week that further details were yet to be negotiated, and neatly demonstrating the idiocy of the opposition's welter of false claims of precise price impacts.
But worse than the lack of constructive engagement was the opposition's language, which seemed designed to destroy any atmosphere in which Australians might be able to consider what the national interest requires.
The Opposition Leader called for a "people's revolt". Two opposition frontbenchers compared Prime Minister Julia Gillard to murderous Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Mr Abbott called the Prime Minister "a fraud", "a liar", and "contemptible", and spoke bizarrely of "a conspiracy by the parliament against the people".
Called to account by journalists on Wednesday for the intemperate language, Mr Abbott refused to criticise his frontbenchers who compared the Prime Minister to Gaddafi, saying merely that this was a "colourful" description and, hypocritically, that "it is very important that this debate be conducted in suitable terms". He said he "deeply regretted having to use strong language against the Prime Minister".
But on Thursday morning the opposition was still at it – I heard another Liberal frontbencher speaking of a carbon price as "an assault on democracy", and an "assault on every household".
I know the old jibe "if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen". But the concern being voiced by journalists, industry leaders and other Australians wanting a rational debate is that at some point rational debate is made impossible by too much heat.
It is not enough to excuse any and every excess of language as "colourful" or, to use another of Mr Abbott's excuses, as holding the government "fiercely to account". Language is our tool of communication. Those participating in public life have an obligation to use it wisely.
Most Australians want action on climate change. They understand that it is a difficult but essential economic reform, which needs patient and methodical consideration and a measured national conversation. The opposition should reflect, in the two weeks before Parliament sits again, on whether it wants to take a constructive part in the national conversation, or continue on the pattern of wrecking and negativity that has become Tony Abbott's trademark.
