Carbon Poll Polution

So apparently Julia Gillard should just give up; should in fact resign in disgrace because according to the latest Newspoll and analysis of said Newspoll she is: "Prime Minister in name only.” Which is an interesting observation; because it seems to me that it is the name that counts. Power doesn't just disappear because Newspoll says it has. Newspolls do not elect governments, and the day they do is the day I'll be living in a tin shack south west of nowhere, muttering to myself and reading old newspapers. Polls can however, control Governments if they let them.

The poll also stated that 53% of people are opposed to the Carbon Tax, which given the fact that no one knows what that actually is yet, what it will affect, and to what extent it will affect it, that should probably say 53% of people guess that they will be opposed to the Carbon Tax when they find out what it is. It seems that it is never too early to have a poll about something the people are yet to be properly informed about.

Q. "How to you feel about a carbon tax that: may cause a rise in grocery prices, may make fuel unaffordable and may ultimately cause modern civilisation to crumble; leading to the establishment of a series of shanty towns warring with each other over the use of the last iPad, or may not, we're not sure yet. What do you think?"

A. "Strongly opposed."

Useless, but this is what you get when you announce a policy where a large amount of the detail is still unknown, and this is what the Government have done. In August last year I said that Gillard would struggle with the conservative independents on one side and Greens on the other, and while she has avoided a lot of confrontation in the first 6 months, we're beginning to see fissures. The Government largely went too early on this policy because of a combination pressure from the Greens for a carbon tax and pressure from everyone else for an environmental policy of some kind. The result is the announcement of impending environmental policy, but with no detail and no nuance. There is a title, and a vague framework, but nothing else because the work is still to be done. Meanwhile, the Opposition can say whatever they want to demonise the policy, because there is an information vacuum to fill. Tony Windsor came out last night and said that the Government has made a mistake. No shit.

I'm not saying the policy is wrong (how could I anyway?), but the strategy certainly is. The Government cannot not ditch this tax now; if they do, they're finished. There is nothing the public hate more than a Government that cannot make up its mind, and this one has already spent a lot of time dithering. They've gone too early, and they'll just have to eat the bad polls until they have something concrete, which needs to be soon.
In the meantime, we'll just have to put up with more polls on how people think they will think about things they haven't yet thought about.

Probably forever.