It is indeed “late in the show”, and only on a News Ltd blog, not an actual newspaper, but Malcolm Farr this morning finally makes a point that should’ve been heard long, long before now: “This is NOT a bloody carbon tax”. As Farr points out: I know what taxes are. I see them every […]

It is indeed “late in the show”, and only on a News Ltd blog, not an actual newspaper, but Malcolm Farr this morning finally makes a point that should’ve been heard long, long before now: “This is NOT a bloody carbon tax”.

As Farr points out:

I know what taxes are. I see them every day in too many manifestations. They are everywhere, but there is no trace of a tax on carbon in the 18 pieces of legislation which will be debated in Parliament from today. Now, I have on rare occasions come across speeding fines – penalties designed to encourage me to drive at acceptable speeds. The “clean energy” legislation has what closely resembles a speeding fine, except in this case it is intended to encourage acceptable levels of carbon emissions. It is not a tax on carbon, just as a speeding fine is not a tax on cars.

I suppose we’ll be directed to ignore Farr as some kind of “leftist” now that he’s contradicted the party line.



Of course, it might well be too late now.

But see the damage this lie about lying has done. The entire attack on Gillard starts with her alleged “lie”, which even on the Coalition’s version would be a broken promise, not a lie. And hardly the first broken promise – we all remember (or at least I hope we all remember) that it was John Howard who gave us “non-core” promises that he felt he could break after an election.

Have you noticed when the Coalition bashes Gillard they always start with the carbon tax “lie” (you’d think if it were truly such a bad government they’d have a better example by now) and then rattle off a list of things from the previous government that they smeared but were actually successes? The very effective BER scheme, from which every child around the country benefits, is damned as “waste” even though it was a “gold standard stimulus program”. The home insulation scheme, code-named for the right-wing faithful “pink batts”, is called a lethal “disaster”, although it actually improved safety compared with what was before it.

Again, it’s the old sling-enough-mud trick. None of the smears stand up when you look closely, but if they throw out enough of them, who’s got time to look at each one and realise how shallow it is?

It’s all built on the “Gillard is a liar” lie. And, as Farr points out, not only is what Gillard did not a “lie”, it’s not even a broken promise.

But who’s listening now? And where were the national media when the lie about lying was being established?

(Visited 12 times, 1 visits today)