I wonder whether the Convoy of No Confidence will be an unexpected pivot point in Australian politics.
The vast majority of the people in the convoys are not active in politics. They have never been to a rally, never protested before. They have seen the worst and the best in the last week or so. The outpouring of bile and venom in some areas of the net is extraordinary. Complaints range from the petty to the accusational. They have been belittled, misrepresented, pigeon-holed and reviled.
Julia Gillard was far too busy to take up the invitation to address them. Bob Brown also declined, but the Greens organised a counter-protest with an email declaring that the convoy was going to blockade Canberra.
Bob Brown called the protest something of a truck flop, because it hasn’t blockaded anything (something neither planned nor intended). It was described as politically motivated because one of the organisers is a former candidate for the LNP. Anthony Albanese, the Transport Minister, called it a ‘Convoy of No Consequence’ whilst the ALP giggled in Parliament, so no mockery there. There were allegations that the convoy was bankrolled by right-wing groups.
The convoys worked very closely with police to minimise traffic disruption, were kept separated and diverted to the fringes of the city in various showgrounds. Canberra had no rush hour (or blockade) on Monday, but now there have been complaints that it cost a lot of money in policing.
The numbers for this and the previous week’s demonstration may not look that impressive, but the protesters are unique in a number of ways. Look at their ages. How many of them have protested before? They are not rent-a-mob. They haven’t been bussed in or equipped with placards. They certainly haven’t been funded by the LNP or shadowy right-wing think tanks, as was suggested by several Green affiliates. Tony Abbott may be a fellow-traveller in opposing the Carbon Tax, but a large number are simply interested in getting a government that will govern. They’ve paid their way, driven for days and taken time off from their businesses. In a real sense, as witness some of the scenes en route, they are representing communities, not just themselves or their staff.
Whole towns came out to support the convoys on the rural routes. People dug into their pockets to make the trip, and others dug into their pockets to feed them, show them hospitality, greet them and applaud them on their way. People dressed in the convoy colours drove down to the main routes to wave them past.
So, these are not teenagers marching for World Peace with ‘Gay Whales against the Bomb’ placards. People who run their own businesses have an acute sense of what will damage those businesses, and of how slim the margin between profitability and bankruptcy. Their super is their business, not a cushy indexed-linked pension. Devalue their business, attack their livelihood and they will react. Farmers have overdrafts to make the average householder’s eyes water, and rely on annual payments through crops and sales. They have seen the disruption and destruction caused to an entire successful industry by a campaign against animal cruelty and a knee-jerk governmental response. They are aware that there are graziers who are in a slow-motion train wreck as a result, who have stock they cannot sell and cannot afford to feed, who are slipping inexorably down the drain. If they go, rural suppliers take a hit, as bills remain unpaid, demand for feed and essentials dries up. That erodes hauliers business as costs keep rising. Whole communities are at risk. For Senator Christine Milne to talk about “exiting opportunities… in carbon farming” is ridiculous.
The convoys were news in South Africa, Korea, the UK, around the world. Every news channel in Australia carried some mention. Not bad for a non-violent protest ‘failure’.
So is the carbon tax going to save the planet? It identifies (but does not publish) the major polluters, exempts and compensates the worst offenders (or those with political clout), proposes to bribe the electorate, and appears to treat the whole exercise as social engineering. Money will be paid to the UN. Success relies on trading certificates, and the Danes found out how many holes there can be in that process when they were rorted out of 2 per cent of their GDP in 18 months by carbon trading scams. A calculation using Treasury numbers puts the cash outflow on certificates at over $50 billion a year in 2050. Currency variations will be a problem, as will fraudulent certificates, and banks will want their cut.
It is already apparent that research grants will not go to ideologically unsound projects, such as clean coal or nuclear power.
Rural Australia expects disproportionate cost increases, well beyond the government models. Freight and refrigeration are energy intensive. Many small businesses are price takers, not price makers, so will be forced to absorb costs. How are they going to get more efficient? Turn the power off? Stop driving? Put up a solar panel? Some will go under. Farms don’t tend to come back. That’s OK – Australia is rich enough to import food for the moment, but China will be buying food, too. Sell a farm to a miner, bankrupt the farmer or plant it with trees, the net result is the same - a reduction in food security.
The carbon tax is an icing on a particularly unpalatable cake of governmental legislation and spend, from industrial relations legislation to an NBN which is more likely to generate porn profits than build the nation.
Rural communities are likely to look at the way the convoy was treated, and use it as a proxy for the way they are regarded, and they are probably correct. A politician should be sparing with contempt for voters; a little goes a very long way, and is remembered for a very long time. Anthony Albanese may have thought it was a clever line; time will tell how smart it was.
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