Tony Abbott

Yesterday in my brief summary of how I saw politics at the present I gave Tony Abbott this for a round up::

Tony Abbott:: Poo Poo man. Poo poo this, poo poo that. That's all I can hear. I never anything positive. Its all a government conspiracy. The reason why: We are the opposition.

 To be fair I thought it needed some greater explanation. For me as a voter, and one who does swing between parties at election I find it very hard to evaluate him on his current performance.

When all you get from an opposition is a negative response, it is very hard to know which policy the government has which has genuine merit. Whatever government in power, they put out a small or a large amount of bad policy but I don't believe all of it is bad policy.

The opposition if good, needs to be able to see government legislation which is good and then review it and make it better. Take the credit of making good legislation better. Not bag everything.

The opposition needs to be able to put forward new policy which will be there next election platform.

Tony Abbott is the opposition, he is fit, but he is very predictable in his response to everything the government puts out.
For the short term it will encourage tradition liberal/national voter's but that will be all. But he needs more than that to win.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cinephobia/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Libs bring out there environmental policy....

I was pleased to see that the liberal party unveiled their environmental policy the other day. From the Herald Sun::

Opposition's alternative proposes a slow and gradual rise in penalties for electricity generators to allow them time to adjust to cutting their greenhouse gases.

It would also reduce the "churn" effect in the Government's plan, which will raise tens of billions in pollution revenue from industry, but then have to compensate households for their higher electricity and gas bills.

The alternative scheme would save 26,000 jobs in regional Australia, according to the Opposition, including in the Latrobe Valley, Geelong and Portland, which are expected to be hit hard by the Government's scheme.

-The positives as far as I'm concerned is that both Labor and the Liberals are on the same page, that the environment is important. That the have do do somthing in regards to reducing our Carbon emissions. That emissions without offsets aren't good for the environment.

-It also sidelines Fielding more and more. He is now in the minority that believe that carbon emissions don't effect the environment. I don't actually think he needs his 'scientific' argument. Just that Its Gods creation. That humans shouldn't be pumping stuff into the air. God didn't create the earth with chimneys all over the place belching toxic fumes.

-both parties need to articulate a policy which is simple to understand. Both as far as I'm concerned, are to complex in there presentation.

Once again as a Christian, I think its upmost important that we are good stewards of the earth. That there is to much of a linkage between poverty, justice and environmental issues for Christians to ignore.