Just to prove that I’m not a dyed-in-the-wool ‘progressive leftie’, I’ll happily put into text that I’m in agreement with Dennis Shanahan’s perspective as noted in today’s Oz.
It’s amazing what can happen when major peer pressure influences are removed from the conservative media. In the Howardian days, such urging by the ‘progressive left’ would have been treated with all the derision and scorn the conservative MSM could summon. Thankfully, those days are past. Rationality seems to have replaced biased lunacy, at least in some quarters. There’s still Andrew Bolt.
I agree with Shanahan. There’s a lot of foolish posturing in the essays from Manne, et al which if acted upon would seriously place Australia at economic risk. Taxing the family home, penalties for excessive electricity usage and dirty car exhausts. We already have regimes in place which adequately address such issues. We don’t need to leap into the great beyond, believing the deity in charge of saving the blithely ignorant will save us.
Equally, ‘traffic congestion tolls’ and ‘massive commonwealth-funded urban public transport systems’ are foolish jousts at quixotic windmills which will only ever benefit a tiny minority while creating massive imposts on the majority. Rudd is no fool. He’s a politician with a long term goal to improve Australian society. He can only do that by retaining political power. With electoral knee-jerks likely every three years, the decisions he makes must always be tempered in the oil of political awareness to be of any benefit both now, and into the future.
Two old sayings spring to mind. Rome wasn’t built in a day….and, All things come to those who wait. I suggest that Robert Manne and his ilk need reminding of the meanings of both.