Brekkie Crumbs (Notes from the NewsRadio Breakfast team) for Monday December 14th
Marius - politics …
You only get one chance to make a first impression.
And Tony Abbott is not exactly an unknown commodity for Australian voters.
But taking on the leadership is a point of renewal in any career and the “new” Tony Abbott is selling himself hard to the electorate.
And while he is trying to make a good impression, the Government is doing its level best to encourage doubts in the public mind over the Opposition leader.
The key words being chanted, from the Prime Minister, down are: “extremist…. erratic….policy on the run….loose talk….”
This Government mantra will continue through the next year as the never-ending election campaign intensifies as the election itself draws nearer - August is the best guess.
On the other side, the Greek Chorus of the Coalition will chant: “…..the Government’s big tax….”
This exchange cascades on through a litany of claim and misrepresentation:
“You want to reintroduce Workchoices!!”
“You’re just big tax and big spend!!”
So we must look through that blizzard of slogans to see what is going on.
The truth is in there, somewhere; it accumulates through a study of what people say over time about an issue like - in this case, climate change.
Ask any politician publicly about the issue and all of them - every man and woman, from Cory Bernardi to Bob Brown - will profess they believe climate change is real and something should be done about it.
So there’s no point in asking that question. Motherhood is the answer.
Dig down and you’ll see revealing patterns.
That’s why the Four Corners program which triggered the Liberal leadership rockslide was so powerful. It showed Nick Minchin and others expressing their misgivings about climate change. Nothing that new in what they said - and nothing that definite.
Nick Minchin’s hardest line was to say a majority of Liberals shared his view that the case of human action being the main driver of climate change had not been proven.
But when his views were lined up with other doubters and presented on your TV on a Monday evening, the impact was much more than the sum of its parts.
The reality of both Government and Opposition is hard to define…
And harder still in the increasing pace of spin in the months (eight?) between now and when you participate in the only poll that matters.
