A tale of two policies

One of the ritual acts of silliness in the present debate over the proposed carbon tax is the repeated call by the Liberals for the government to take its proposed carbon tax / trading scheme to a general election in order to secure a mandate for it to be passed in Parliament.

There is one small but significant problem with this.  The Liberals have form for introducing fly-by-night legislation without having made any commitments in an election.  Let's take a few cursory points to see how the carbon tax stacks up with Workchoices.


Carbon tax
Subject to extensive public debate over a decade or more, at least two election campaigns and a good deal of community-level concern. 

Following the 2007 election there was a public inquiry leading to high-level reports, which preceded the drafting of any legislation.

One bill made it to the division stage, but was deeply compromised in the way compensation was structured.  At the very least, the key stake-holders were clearly brought into the process.

Further high-level reports suggest that action is now imperative -- we reached 2020 levels of carbon emissions at the beginning of May.  The government continues to botch the public relations side of proposing laws to improve our performance on this critical issue.

Workchoices
Introduced as the result of a rogue election result, giving the government of the day an unexpected majority in both houses of Federal Parliament.  The policy was buried deep in the Liberal manifesto, but there had been no expectation of their ever being in a position to enact it (which kind of makes you wonder why it was there in the first place).

No public debate was entered into until after the decision was taken to present the legislation to Parliament.  It certainly wasn't mentioned in the election campaign.

Much of the act was composed on the hop.  Mostly in press conferences.  No attempt was made to give the legislation due scrutiny before it was passed.

In spite of a massive advertising spend, the effects of the bill (and the fears stirred thereby) quickly confirmed that the Liberals had little concern for the workers.  The unions showed their mettle by mounting an advertising campaign in reply.