Joe Hockey has called for a mature, constructive debate around tax reform - but everybody from Labor premiers, to News Corp editors, and even the PM have blown that possibility out of the water this week, writes Barrie Cassidy.

The Treasurer, Joe Hockey, this week called for a mature, constructive debate around taxation reform. And isn't that going well?

The very concept of maturity - of policy before politics - has been blown out of the water on so many fronts in a single week by everybody from Labor premiers, to News Corp editors, and even the Prime Minister himself.

Let's take them one by one.

The Treasurer stuck his neck out about as far as he could on GST reform, arguing that the system was under "increasing structural threats through the mobility of commerce, particularly internet-based commerce", and even though it "applies to 46 per cent of the economy, it's a narrowing base".

Health, he pointed out, was excluded and yet that's growing faster than almost anything else.

However, changes require the unanimous support of the states, and Hockey already had the verdict ringing in his ears.

"Victoria has just ruled it out," he lamented.

"Unilaterally, under no political pressure, ruled it all out. (Premier Daniel Andrews) said he doesn't need the money. So this is the difficult environment in which we operate."

Is it ever. It's never been worse.

Next, negative gearing.

The Reserve Bank no less has warned that negative gearing encourages debt-fuelled property speculation, potentially inflating prices.

But Tony Abbott had already claimed that the last time Labor tinkered with negative gearing they "destroyed the rental market in most of our major cities".

Most economists concede Labor's "tinkering" had an impact, but it was small, mainly confined to Sydney and it didn't last. And in any case, there were other factors in play. To suggest the rental market was "destroyed" is just the sort of hysterical overreaction that surely Hockey had in mind when he called for a sensible debate around taxation reform.

Abbott was no doubt encouraged to go in hard because the Opposition has negative gearing under review. That's enough these days to set off the scare campaign. Merely considering something makes you politically vulnerable.

That's why the country now faces the ludicrous prospect of a full scale tax debate with the Government ruling out the GST, negative gearing and superannuation. As we have seen with pension reform and the concessions around super both sides of politics prefer political advantage - an old fashioned scare campaign - to sober reflection.

And then there was the re-birth of the "scariest" policy of them all - the carbon tax.

An options paper was leaked that confirmed what we already knew: that Labor is considering a return to an emissions trading scheme - one that allows companies to figure out for themselves how to tackle carbon abatement, and trade in permits.

It's a massive stretch to characterise that as a tax. But the Government, of course, did. A double whammy, according to the Environment Minister, Greg Hunt. No, insisted the Prime Minister, a triple whammy.

That was a response inspired by News Corp with their tabloids depicting Bill Shorten as a zombie, crawling from the carbon tax grave. "Shorten brings Gillard's failed green tax back from the dead," the headline shouted.

There was no subtlety in the story. Simon Benson wrote: "The new plan ... has been drawn up despite the previous carbon tax having doomed prime minister Julia Gillard."

There you have it. A carbon tax just like the last one.

That is News Corp's contribution to "mature and constructive" debate around reform issues.

The Australian and the Australian Financial Review are jointly sponsoring a summit next month on reform. They could do worse than focus, at least in part, on the media's role - and particularly the role of the News Corp tabloids - in the inertia that pervades the country.

Apart from the politicians themselves, the media are often the single biggest impediment to economic reform. They embrace the scare campaign every time, giving succour to the weakest of the MPs.

And even though there is a thirst among business leaders for reform, many of them are reluctant to offend.

The chief executive of the National Australia Bank, Andrew Thorburn, however, this week warned that "if we don't change, our living standards will inevitably fall":

We are at the crossroads, and I think the next few years will be vital for Australia. There are profound changes that are happening around the world and every year will count.

A voice in a political wilderness.

If only he had the megaphone of an Alan Jones.

The 2GB shock jock is now outraged by the Government's approval of the Shenhua Watermark coal mine in NSW. Now the mine might be in or near prime agricultural land. A lot of good people are up in arms about this one. But at the end of the day, it's a coal mine, just like dozens of others.

Yet Jones says - as hysteria again takes over from "mature, constructive" discussion - this decision is "beyond belief" and "tantamount to the Government selling its soul to mining".

"Quite frankly," he said "Tony Abbott and Michael Baird are going to have to understand that government's rise and fall, sometimes, on a single issue. And the single issue, about selling this country out to foreign interests, no matter whose interests they are, is now emerging as a massive issue in this country."

This is a people revolution and this is not going to be pretty. There has never been rage in Australia like we are seeing on this issue. This isn't over. It hasn't even begun. And frankly, any government that doesn't see the stupidity of this doesn't deserve to be in government.

All that raises the question. Will Abbott resist such threats from Jones? Similarly, will Bill Shorten refuse to be spooked by Abbott and the tabloids and embrace a modest emissions trading scheme in line with so many overseas economies?

Or will the bluster and bullying of Jones and the tabloids control the agenda yet again?

After a "mature and constructive" consideration of the politics involved, probably. We'll see.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of the ABC program Insiders. He writes a weekly column for The Drum.