Gillard comes home to tax fury

[mellie]

WASHINGTON, March 11 AAP
March 11 2011, 1:09PM

As Julia Gillard prepares to head back from her first prime ministerial trip to the 'home of the brave', she will need to muster all her courage for the political fight ahead.

Gillard's trip to the United States, where she tossed a football with Barack Obama and addressed Congress, was somewhat overshadowed by a damning opinion poll on her carbon tax.

It was the first evidence that Labor is not on a winning strategy electorally with its plan to tackle climate change.

Newspoll found support for Labor plummeted from 36 to 30 per cent in a fortnight - a level not seen since the party's doldrums under Paul Keating in 1993.

The coalition's support surged to 45 per cent of the primary vote - its highest position since March 2006 under John Howard.

Gillard's personal standing dropped from a peak of 50 per cent when she took over from Kevin Rudd in June last year to her worst result of 39 per cent.

Most Australians are opposed to the carbon tax - the first stage of a bigger plan to introduce an emissions trading scheme - with the poll showing 42 per cent approval for it.

The prime minister acknowledges the debate was always going to be tough.

But as she told reporters in Washington: "It's one that I am determined to win so that we ... transform our economy into a clean energy economy."

If she hoped for any endorsement for her plan from President Barack Obama, Gillard would have been disappointed.

The president's own cap-and-trade ETS sank like a stone in the wake of the Republican takeover of Congress and climate change was barely mentioned during Gillard's first official White House talks.

The agenda was largely dominated by defence issues, with the US military poised to make its presence more strongly felt in the Asia-Pacific region - largely in response to China's military build-up - by more frequent visits to Australian ports, more joint exercises and greater sharing of intelligence.

Trade was also a key topic, with Obama and Gillard both keen to progress a new multilateral agreement, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, by the end of the year.

The rapport between the two was obvious, as Gillard showed the leader of the free world how to hand-pass an Aussie rules football and they joked with students at a Virginia high school about the merits of Vegemite.

Her historic address to Congress - the first for a foreign leader in this current session - was a pep talk for a nation struggling with a $14 trillion government debt, low wages, and high unemployment.

While it's critical that the prime minister have a strong personal relationship with Australia's closest defence partner, Gillard will be hoping the imagery of the trip in the minds of voters is more about substance than style.

Back home Tony Abbott remains focused on undermining the government.

"It won't clean up the environment but it will clean out your wallet," is the opposition leader's latest line on the carbon tax.

But Labor appears unlikely to scrap its climate change plan - something that led to public and caucus disappointment in Kevin Rudd, who boldly described it as the "greatest moral challenge" of our time, and the subsequent coup that put Gillard in the top job.

Voters are still pretty keen on Rudd - who has caused some angst for Gillard, as he travels the world talking up tough action against the oppressive regime of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.

Questioned on who was best to lead the Labor Party - Rudd or Gillard - the Newspoll survey found that more people preferred Rudd, who led 44 per cent to 37 per cent.

But there is little support in the Labor caucus for a return to the Queenslander.

Labor strategists point to the fact that while the coalition may hold an election-winning lead in the polls, Abbott's preferred prime minister rating remains poor - voters are warming to his simple slogans but not to him as a potential national leader.

Abbott hasn't helped his bovver boy, social conservative image with a failure to rein in his team over comments against Muslims and adoption of the tactics of America's far-right.

Liberal senator Cory Bernardi - who recently said of the threat of extremism that "Islam itself is the problem, not Muslims" - is using the internet to consolidate right-wing forces against the Labor government.

The strategy bears a remarkable resemblance to that of the Tea Party in the US, which helped propel more Republicans into the Congress and threatens the political future of Barack Obama as he heads into an election year in 2012.

The prime minister will need to find new ways to communicate her own message about tackling climate change.

Key independent MP Tony Windsor, who is on the committee developing the ETS and will be crucial to getting it through the lower house of parliament, is getting edgy.

He argues the government may have mishandled the debate by moving too early to release the broad details of the ETS and allowing misinformation about its finer details to be tossed about by Abbott.

Gillard has a number of factors going for her - a commission headed by Professor Tim Flannery which has been set up to promote Australia's "clean energy future" and consolidate support for action, the backing of a number of big businesses, and a possible taxpayer-funded advertising campaign which if handled well could turn around public opinion.

As she makes her way back to the land Down Under the prime minister will be hoping fortune favours the brave.

By Paul Osborne, AAP Senior Political Writer


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[mellie]

Key independent MP Tony Windsor, who is on the committee developing the ETS and will be crucial to getting it through the lower house of parliament, is getting edgy.

So, this is is the fucker we have to shoot if Gillard passes brings in the tax?

Hang on, isn't, wasn't he supposed to be an independent, representing his electorate?

What do his electorate want?

A carbon tax, or no carbon tax?

Should we ask them?