Ms Gillard said people would be compensated and accused Mr Abbott of running a scare campaign.

"He will be out there actively misleading people with false and baseless figures," Ms Gillard said. "That's the only thing he knows how to do."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/25/3148452.htm

The Opposition Leader says if Ms Gillard wants to introduce a carbon tax she must take the policy to the next election.

"If she wants to make, politically speaking, an honest woman of herself, she has got to seek a mandate for this," he said.

But Greens Senator Christine Milne has called his attack "craven populism", saying the Opposition's $10.5 billion scheme will cost consumers far more than any market-based mechanism.

"I really condemn the craven populism of Tony Abbott here. He is saying that he will not choose the cheapest way of doing that... he will use taxpayers' money to do it," she said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/25/3149178.htm

Gillard: Alan, Alan, are you suggesting in a 35-day campaign, the only speech I ever made, the only statement that ever came out of my mouth was on the day of the ALP campaign launch? How ridiculous, Alan, and how calculated to mislead your listeners.

Ms Gillard continued to challenge Jones, responding to his accusations that she backflipped on cancelling Greens-supported programs to accommodate the flood levy tax by saying that he was "trying to deceive".

"Alan, what you've just said to your listeners is completely untrue. Either you misunderstand what happened or you are trying to deceive.

"Alan, are you going to let me give people the truth or are you going to insist on your lies?

"You are trying to deceive your listeners with the wrong figure. That is the wrong thing to do, Alan, you shouldn't treat your listeners like that ... what a load of nonsense."

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/alan-jones-lets-rip-at-juliar-gillard-20110225-1b7km.html

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/25/3149267.htm

Idiots of the shockjokery!!!...

The Sydney Morning Herald editorial 26/02/11

JULIA GILLARD'S announcement on Thursday that the government would legislate this year to fix a price on carbon came as a bolt from the blue. It follows years of botched attempts, fruitless political brawls and phoney wars over giving Australia a serious mechanism for tackling climate change. Much of Gillard's latest plan still needs to be explained. Nonetheless, this time there must be no going back.

The case cannot be sustained for Australia's delaying any longer a scheme designed to cut emissions of gases that cause global warming. Since coal was first mined at Newcastle in 1797 we have enjoyed cheap energy from this dirty source of carbon dioxide, a chief driver of global warming. Coal now provides about 80 per cent of our electricity. We have become the world's highest greenhouse emitter per person.

Some experts reckon Australia's recent tally of natural disasters is linked to changing climate patterns: Victoria's bushfires and Sydney's dust storms in 2009; floods devastating three states and cyclones hitting northern Australia this year. True or not, such phenomena are becoming frequent enough for the impact of human activity on climate to be quizzed. The Bureau of Meteorology cites the decade to 2009 as Australia's hottest on record. The federal multi-party climate change committee, whose report triggered Gillard's announcement, talks of unmitigated climate change ''threatening our economy, our natural heritage and our way of life''.

The committee comprises independent, Labor and Green parliamentarians, the Coalition having refused an invitation by Gillard and Greg Combet, the Minister for Climate Change, to join it. So far the model's details are more sketchy than the one the Rudd government tried and failed to get through Parliament three times, thanks largely to an unholy alliance between the Coalition and the Greens in the Senate. The new plan would start with polluters being obliged from July 2012 to pay a fixed price (yet to be determined) on each tonne of carbon they emit. After three to five years there would be a ''clear intent'' to evolve to a cap-and-trade system, a market in which polluters could buy permits to produce carbon dioxide and sell them to others if they cut their own emissions.

These costs would be passed on to consumers of electricity and other services produced from high emissions. The the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, has brandished electricity price rises of $300 a year, apparently drawn from an Australian Industry Group postulation of a $26-a-tonne carbon price. But figures on both counts are still unknown. Anyway, some power price rises cannot be all bad: the scheme's whole point is to encourage lower emissions long-term. An initial fixed carbon price has potential advantages, too. It will give the sort of certainty about change that some in the business world have been demanding, as they plan investment decisions. It will encourage serious investment in solar, wind and other renewable energy sources. And it will allow Australians to adapt to a new world order, in which the market would eventually find an equilibrium between emissions and prices.

For Gillard the political stakes in seeing this plan through are high. She has had to break a somewhat foolish pre-election promise not to introduce a carbon tax because of the reality in which she later found herself, leading a minority government depending on Greens and independents for survival. She is hardly covered in glory, either, from her part in urging Rudd to take the inexplicable decision to drop his climate policy, a commitment that had helped to sweep Labor to power in 2007. She must learn from those mistakes, and fulfil her pledge to win the political debate that lies ahead.

The debate will be nasty. Abbott's provocative response, with talk of a ''people's revolt'' against a carbon price, is sheer political opportunism. He will try to scare people on this, as he has tried to do on asylum seekers. But even Abbott's political mentor, John Howard, finally accepted a carbon-price policy after it became clear the Liberal Party had fallen behind public opinion on climate change. Abbott wrecked that bipartisanship after he took over as opposition leader 14 months ago. His coarse approach must not prevail this time.

Australia has little choice about building a carbon price into economic reform. With their acceptance of the GST and water-use restrictions, perhaps grumpily at first, Australians have shown a willingness to adapt to economic and environmental change. Handled properly, and sold convincingly, there is every reason they would adapt to a carbon price, too.

-------------

"[Tony Abbott's] coarse approach must not prevail this time..." See toon at top.

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/11810

"Let us remember the words of the Prime Minister, words that will haunt her every day of her political life: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead'."

But Ms Gillard has branded Mr Abbott's stance "the most reckless political position in the last 15 years", saying he is only interested in playing politics with the issue.

"The Leader of the Opposition has had five different positions on pricing carbon. There is no principle in anything he says to the Australian people or to this Parliament," she said.

"He said, and I quote, about climate change: 'I don't think my assessment of the science or the policies really changed that much. I think all that really changed was my assessment of the politics of the issue'."

And she has again accused the Opposition of running a scare campaign over the scheme.

"So few facts are in this, that every day a Liberal Party spokesperson uses a different figure," she said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/28/3151077.htm?section=justin

see toon at top...

Jones was amongst many dignitaries, last night at the launch of Maria Venuti's biography... Apparently, there was also Joe Hockey and Barry O'Farrell... Maria Venuti is bigger than life and fairly upfront... The launch of the book was at Machiavelli, the ristorante that is....

Maria has done much entertainment in support of charities... Still stunning, she's turning 35 twice, this month...

Happy Birthday.

see toon at top...

The broadcaster says he may have been wrong to chide the Prime Minister, writes Liz Hannan.

Six floors above one of Sydney's premier restaurants, the Opera House and Harbour Bridge in stunning panorama, I am invited to be seated for lunch with one of the nation's most influential men.

David, private butler and chef to Alan Jones, has prepared a three-course meal which would not be out of place at Aria, sourcing coral trout from Queensland and tomatoes from the broadcaster's farm in the Southern Highlands.

2GB is inscribed in cream in my host's soup, SMH in mine, a surprise soon forgotten when Jones says something wholly unexpected: ''I think I was most probably wrong.'' That's right, wrong.

At 7.10am on Friday, February 25, the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, had been due in a Canberra radio studio to talk to Jones in Sydney. She was late. When she arrived, Jones wished her good morning before pointing out that ''10 past seven is 10 past seven, isn't it?'' And so it began.

For 65 seconds, Jones berated the Prime Minister for being both discourteous and tardy, countering her ''I'm a very busy person'' with ''We're all busy''.

He went on to demonstrate his formidable ability to prosecute a point - on this occasion, that Gillard's announcement of a carbon tax contradicted her pre-election pledge that ''there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead''.

But she refused to concede - she has since done so - leading Jones to declare: ''Do you understand, Julia, that you are the issue today because there are people now saying that your name is not Julia but Ju-liar. And they are saying that we have got a liar running the country.''

It was a startling accusation, outraging his critics, shocking some of his most ardent fans and, as it turns out, troubling the man himself. Which is where we find ourselves in conversation over lunch at his apartment in No. 1 Macquarie Street - aka the Toaster.

''I think I was most probably wrong in upbraiding her for being late,'' he says. ''Though they suggested the time, not me.'' [''David makes the best soup on the planet. On the planet. Will you have a little bread?'']

''The comments I made were probably better left unmade, primarily because I have a fair regard for this woman. I have known her for a long time. I think her judgment is poor and the policy position poor [but] as a person I quite like Julia Gillard.''

Indeed, when she was deputy prime minister, Jones corresponded with her by personal email. ''Immediately the program ended I dictated a letter to her,'' he reveals. ''I said we've had some robust encounters before but perhaps it would have been better if I hadn't said that. If I've upset you or offended you, I'm sorry about it.'' That's right, sorry.

---------------------------

Gus: dear Alan, when your mate Johneedoo smacked the GST with a never ever, if you did ever never slap him it would have been with a feather... I never hear a sound... And let me say this: You were rude to Julia. And whether she promised a carbon tax or not is irrelevant to the future of this planet. Boom. What is relevant is that something is being done to reduce carbon emission — not enough — BUT IT'S A START.

And stop wearing Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley's jockstraps on your head: climate change is real and human induced.

see toon at top...

Preparedness to damage oneself politically in pursuit of a difficult reform has – in recent years – become a rare thing. Bipartisan gutlessness is what made the 2010 campaign so dreadful; the ghastly self-effacement of the People's Assembly on one side versus the national swifty that was the promise of a Coalition without an industrial relations policy on the other. Julia Gillard has changed that equation, certainly to her own detriment. Whatever you might think of the carbon policy itself, you couldn't deny that for a girl, the PM has some pretty serious cojones.

The fact that people feel comfortable yelling at her that she is a liar tells you a lot about the difficulty she is in; the extent to which respect for the office itself has corroded during her period of occupancy. But her response to it tells you a lot about her too. She has displayed no sign of panic, unless you count yesterday's micro-sniffle at the National Press Club. Compare this to her predecessor, who used to take Japan to the International Court of Justice every time his poll figures fell below the temperature of a Canberra summer's day.

Can a majority of people be convinced that all this steeliness is aligned to their interests? Can the PM fashion respect from dislike, as the other iron lady did? If she could shake the hobgoblin, she might have a chance.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-15/crabb-can-our-iron-lady-shake-her-carbon-tax-goblin/2796286

Julia's main problem has been to have to deal with a slithering idiot, a nasty wooden puppet, a rabid dog, a silly windmill chaser, a clowning backflipper, a no-principled-no-to-anything brat, a spruiking liar — I could carry on for years with descriptions — that the media loves (mostly Murdoch's and Alan Jones who both control a lot minds out there).

This gutter media and the shockjocks brush off all the major faults mentioned above as if the little Tony ratbag was an intelligent larrikin, a serious contender for a job he should never be appointed to... Julia can do nothing more but push her agenda through and hope a large part of the media (Murdoch's) will destroy itself, loosing all its credibility. She could wish the big boss, Murdoch himself, gives back her dues — or at least some of them... But the dung beetles of the Murdoch press, including John Hartigan, will still be out there pushing their little ball of shit against Julia, because they know of no other way of employing their little brains...

NBN Co pulled advertising from radio station 2GB after Ray Hadley and another presenter prefaced paid ''live reads'' with negative comments about the government's broadband project.

Mr Hadley repeated criticisms last week about the project's ''cost to the Australian taxpayer'' before disclosing that he was about to live-read a scripted commercial.

''NBN Co has asked me to read a commercial - not about how wonderful it is, which I would not do - but [because there is] some confusion about how it is going to work.''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/not-what-we-paid-for--nbn-co-ditches-ads-after-announcers-lash-out-20120403-1wawr.html#ixzz1r33LCdmU

LESSON ONE: Do not advertise with the rabid 2GB... in their blatant anti-NBN rant before their paid job, the mongrels are breaking the media code, they are showing total lack of decency and judgement... One can see clearly here how much of the media is against anything that Labor is doing even if there is value in it, as there is. Ray Adley and Andrew Moore are mongrels and arseholes...

Malcolm Turnbull is worried that Question Time in Federal Parliament is seen as a forum for "abuse, catcalling and spin". He says it arouses fury and invites contempt.

Of course, he's right. The nature of the place and the rules under which it operates are by definition adversarial.

Question Time throws the two major parties together to slug it out for an hour or so in the full glare of the public and media. It is rarely about seeking information, and more about ramming home political advantage with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

But the debate outside the chamber - in the media - isn't too flash either, and there the participants don't have the same excuse of deep partisanship nor the atmospherics of a coliseum.

Gerard Henderson wrote this week in the Sydney Morning Herald about some of the recent political dialogue in the media, discussing contributions from broadcaster Alan Jones and commentator Grahame Morris; whether Jones' remark on 2GB that women "are destroying the joint" was misogynistic and whether Morris had gone too far by calling a female journalist a "cow".

On the Jones issue, Henderson wrote that when Jones made his comment about women, he was referring to the former Victorian police commissioner Christine Nixon and the Sydney Lord Mayor, Clover Moore.