POLL POSITION: The Greens' free-market fudge

July 27, 2.45pm – All aboard the Pork Barrel Express

It may be nothing more than cynical vote-buying, but Labor's announcement today that it will commit $740 million to build a rail link through Brisbane's northern suburbs at least addresses one of the real issues masked by the current phoney 'population' debate.

Migrants, both domestic and international, have flooded into Brisbane in recent years and Julia Gillard, announcing the federal funding component of the $1.15 billion project today, said the suburbs in question were the third fastest growing postcodes in the country. So yes, Ms Gillard, let's call it an 'infrastructure' problem, not a 'population' problem.

This will put further pressure on the Coalition, which has already promised to cut government spending by $1.2 billion – $400 million of it from infrastructure 'sweeteners' promised by Kevin Rudd to WA and, you guessed it, Queensland.


July 27, 2pm - The Greens' free-market fudge

Is it just coincidence that the day the Green's announce their 'Making cars more sustainable' policy in Melbourne, 400,000 rail commuters are thrown into chaos by a power failure at the CBD's Southern Cross station? Was this the handywork of saboteurs (Green berets?) prepared to scupper trains to drive home the party's 'more trains, fewer cars' message?

Okay, that might be going a bit far. But at a policy launch in Melbourne's Treasury Gardens today, Senator Christine Milne made a very sound point on transport infrastructure: when the drivers currently complaining about congested cities suddenly decide to switch to public transport – as they did in 2008 when oil price bubbled above $US140 a barrel – the current infrastructure can't take the strain.

Milne, flanked by lead Senate candidate for Victoria Richard Di Natale and candidate for the lower house seat of Melbourne, Adam Bandt, told reporters that her party would be pushing for far higher federal funding of public transport and rail freight infrastructure to make this transition gradual.

But in the meantime, the Party wants legislation to mandate vehicle fuel efficiency of 160g CO2/km by 2015 (Europe is legislating for 130g in the same year) and wants to overhaul the Green Car Innovation Fund to tie manufacturing subsidies to improvements in fuel efficiency.

Richard Di Natale spoke in favour of encouraging local innovation by using government fleet purchases to support innovation – he argued that Anthony Albanese's decision to buy 40 Mitsubishi electric vehicles instead of EVs from Castlemaine-based Blade Electric Vehicles should be reversed.

However, Senator Milne would not commit to subsidising of EVs for Australian drivers – as is being done in the US and Europe – saying her party did not have a "hard and fast rule on what would be ruled in and ruled out” but added that "you need market based mechanisms that make sure the people are really being charged the cost of the pollution that they emit.”

To Poll Position this sounds a bit like wanting to drive on both sides of the road – current market settings make EVs too expensive for many motorists to buy, and don't provide for a price on the 'negative externalities' of carbon emissions and other pollution from petrol-driven cars. Senator Milne might want to rethink her 'free market' policy before getting back out on the road.


July 27, 11.20am - Blurring the boundaries

Left is the new right and green is the new brown, according to former executive director of Greenpeace International, turned entrepreneur and sustainability consultant Paul Gilding.

He's written a provocative piece for Business Spectator's sister publication, Climate Spectator, pointing out that "we must accept that the vote for Rudd failed to deliver [an ETS], whereas a vote for Howard would have seen us with an ETS, probably along the lines of what Rudd himself proposed.”

His argument is an insightful reminder of what a conviction-free era we are living in. He writes: "But surely, you cry, Labor has always been more committed on green issues, so must be a better bet? I'd always assumed that, but I think I was wrong.”

Labor's polls-driven backdown on carbon reduction as the "greatest moral challenge of our time”, alongside the Coalition's big-government tax-and-spend approach to paid parental leave, Labor's socially conservative stance on gay marriage, and Tony Abbott's acceptance during the leaders debate that Fair Work is the best IR framework possible at this time, will leave large numbers of voters' heads spinning.

Which is right, and which left? The era in which political beliefs came as a package is over. All we're left with is one overpowering political philosophy – that the best way forward for Australia lies in constant polls-driven policy shifts. Gilding is to be commended for pointing this out, though whether it will ultimately provide any progress on creating a carbon price is a moot point.


July 27, 9am - Alan Jones does 'a Grimshaw'

Shock-jock Alan Jones has taken his best shot at 'doing a Grimshaw' on Julia Gillard. To recap, Channel Nine presenter Tracy Grimshaw tripped up John Howard in the 2007 campaign by asking him to name the average worker's earnings and the RBA cash rate. Kevin Rudd, hit with the same questions, got both answers right, but Howard got maximum negative publicity by becoming flustered and getting both answers wrong.

But nothing flusters Julia Gillard, it seems, even when she's not sure of the facts. Jones asked her when Labor's cut of the company tax rate to 29 per cent would take effect, to which she answered "2012”.

"No it wouldn't,” snapped back Jones, before reading from yesterday's Budget update from Treasury, which has the cut taking effect in 2013-14.

In true Telfon-coated style, Gillard tried to gloss over the error by segueing straight into: "I have the better economic plan…"

But had Gillard been able to recall all the details, she'd have known her first answer was partly right – the ABC pointed out a short time later the cut will, in fact, apply to SMEs from 2012.


July 27, 8am - A boon for rust-bucket owners

Labor's cash-for-clunkers program, announced over the weekend, may have the unintended consequence of turning WA, SA and Tasmania's most dilapidated rust-bucket vehicles into a valuable commodity.

The scheme promises $2000 for every pre-1995 registered vehicle traded in on a new car, but in all states other than WA and SA and Tasmania, buying and re-registering a car costs too much to encourage old bombs to change hands – Victoria, Queensland and NSW all require some form of roadworth/safety certificate to get a car re-registered, whereas WA, SA and Tassie do not.

The South Australian state executive director of the Motor Trade Association, John Chapman yesterday warned that Labor's program will "distort the market if people can go out and pick up an old bomb for a few hundred dollars and then trade it in for the $2,000 rebate”.

The scheme has also been slammed by Shadow Minister For Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Sophie Mirabella who said it would distort the new and used car markets, cost local jobs (only two locally made cars are on the approved new-car list) and be "open to rorts”.

Rorting? In the used-car market? Whatever next?


July 27, 7.20am – Why Labor won't consider 'Gillard's island'

As Coalition MPs head into a meeting with Nauru's foreign minister in Brisbane today to discuss rebooting the 'Pacific solution', it's worth reflecting on Julia Gillard's repeated assertion that "there's no quick fix” to setting up an offshore refugee processing centre.

Despite Labor's protestations that Nauru has a "deadlocked parliament” and hence could not be relied upon to sign up to the UN refugee convention – supposedly Labor's main objection to re-using the detention facilities the Howard government built with Australian taxpayers' money – the Coalition knows this nation is a much easier place to get things done than East Timor.

Why? Because Nauru is a nation on its last legs, heavily dependent on foreign aid and with barely a shadow of its former phosphate rock export industry remaining to generating a little income. Having tried and largely failed to set up tax-haven banking as an income stream, Nauru is in greater need than ever of the revenue that would flow from servicing Australia's offshore detention needs.

So will the parliament 'deadlock' persist in the face of generous offers from the Coalition to get funds flowing again? Not likely. A little income goes a long way in a 'nation' with a population slightly lower, at 13,000 people, than the sleepy western Melbourne suburb of Williamstown (14,000).

Poll Position's guess is that the parliamentary deadlock could be overcome and facilities reopened in a jiffy, if Labor chose this "quick fix”. So what's stopping it? Probably the footprints of John Howard and controversial former Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone all over that troubled island. Gillard wants to be seen as tough on border security … just not that tough.

Read previous Poll Position posts here.