Posted by Alexander White theguardian.com
Wednesday 9 April 2014
If the recent Western Australian half-senate election was a referendum on the carbon price, it was yet another failure for Tony Abbott.
The Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has failed in his third so-called referendum on the carbon price. Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images
Tony Abbott declared the Western Australia half-senate election to be a "referendum" on the carbon price in his first major door-stop as prime minister in Perth last year
If there is a new election it will be another opportunity for the people of Australia to say no to the carbon tax and frankly I welcome another opportunity for the people to participate in a referendum on the carbon tax.
While the idea of elections in general and this by-election specifically being referendums is utter nonsense, on Abbott's own criteria the results of the senate by-election is a repudiation of Abbott's carbon price policy specifically and his climate policy generally.
The count is still continuing in Western Australia, but at the time of this writing, the Liberal party jettisoned around 175,888 votes since the 2013 election and the re-run. What's more, over 285,500 people in Western Australia chose not to vote at all in Abbott's so-called referendum. This is a 21% lower turnout than 2013, where 1.3 million people voted. Only 1.02 million people voted this time around.
On the Sunday after the election, The Guardian's Bridie Jabour wrote:
Abbott said the 5.6% swing in the Senate election rerun was "typical" and one of voters' main expectations was that the government would get rid of the carbon and mining taxes.
"As far as I am concerned the very strong take-out of this result is that the Australian people yet again have voted to get rid of the carbon tax and get rid of the mining tax, and I expect these taxes to be swiftly scrapped," he said.
It is utterly risible to suggest that Abbott can claim a "mandate" for repeal of the carbon price in such a circumstance. Even if you add up all the parties who oppose the carbon price (the Liberals, Nationals and Palmer United Party), on the current count they reached less than 50% of the vote.
(It is also a truism that people vote a certain way for a range of reasons and on a range of policies. Abbott's notion of a single issue being the sole cause for voting behaviour is mischievous.)
This is Abbott's third failed referendum on the carbon price.
The first one was during the 2013 federal election, where he declared the election to be "more than anything... a referendum on the carbon tax". This first referendum was a non-starter, with a massive no-show at the ballot box and a paltry 1.5% swing to the Liberal Party (the LNP actually had a swing against it), despite a three-year fear-mongering campaign.
The second referendum was the Griffith by-election, where serial LNP candidate Bill Glasson lost to pro-carbon price Labor candidate Terri Butler. Before the by-election, Abbott once again nailed the carbon price referendum colours to the mast, saying in a statement:
The by-election will be an opportunity for the people of Griffith to vote for a candidate that will support the Government's plan to build a strong and prosperous economy and a safe and secure Australia.
In particular, it will be an opportunity to vote for a local member who will vote to scrap the carbon tax, reduce electricity prices and ease cost of living pressures.
Well, the people of Griffith rejected Abbott and his candidate who would "vote to scrap the carbon tax".
Of course, Abbott should be expected to push an entirely self-serving view that as the executive, he should have free reign to implement his regressive climate policies.
Australia's democracy doesn't work this way; Australians have voted for a senate that will not give Tony Abbott a rubber stamp. As Lenore Taylor and Gabrielle Chan note, Abbott must negotiate all his legislation through this new senate. This includes repeal of the carbon price.
For Tony Abbott to so categorically tie the results of the Western Australian Senate election to the repeal of the carbon price demonstrates the fundamental hollowness of his climate change policies. Simply, he has no policy because he and many of his most senior ministers, advisors and supporters do not believe climate change is real.
Unfortunately for Mr Abbott, a majority of Australians do still consider man-made climate change to be a real. This is despite the relentless campaign of fear, uncertainty and doubt run by News Corp in Australia and tens of millions spent by other conservative organisations.
In fact, the most recent polling suggests that attitudes about human-caused global warming has strengthened since Tony Abbott was elected, and at an all-time high. Fifty six percent of Australians now accept that climate change real and is human caused.
At the same time, the most recent Essential Report shows that disapproval of Tony Abbott has remained at the high level of 47%, putting his net approval "under water" by six points. Such an unpopular prime minister is in no position to be dictating terms or making demands on senators.
Graph shows attitudes to climate change over time to April 2014. Graphic by Alexander White. Data from the Essential Report.
It is utter nonsense to suggest that any election is a referendum on a single policy. Australia's democracy does have a system to determine this -- genuine referendums.
However, using Abbott's argument that the Western Australian senate election was a referendum, it is clear that voters repudiated the abolition of the carbon price, and rejected the Abbott government's shameful, negligent climate policy.
