Clive Palmer's Atomic Wedgie

As if Tony Abbott hadn’t wedged himself enough on climate policy, yesterday Clive Palmer delivered him a Seinfeldian atomic wedgie that will have him tasting his own underwear.

A wedge of his own making

A relentlessly negative opposition is always going to run into problems when it forms government. Constantly howling about spending cuts, without offering any alternative savings measures, will end in perceptions of hypocrisy when you impose your own cuts. Pointing out the flaws and frailties of the government will see you attract the same sort of attention when you get into office. And making conflicting black-and-white pre-election promises will put you in a poilcy wedge of your own making.

Mr Abbott spent three years campaigning on a few key issues, with the carbon tax chief among them. For three years, Mr Abbott told Australians that the carbon tax would ruin the economy, put people out of work, drive up the cost of living, and cause the sky to fall in. His big promise was to put right Julia Gillard’s broken promise by axing this “great big new tax on everything”.

And now axing the carbon tax is causing a slew of problems for the opposition-turned-government. First of all, it has given them a fiscal headache. Axing the carbon pricing scheme has cost the government around $9.67 billion over the next three years, and the costs associated with Direct Action will drive the budget further into the red. Despite reassurances before the election that they could scrap a profitable tax and introduce a government-funded scheme with no net impact to the budget bottom line, reality has kicked in. The result? Cuts to everything in sight, including some very unpopular ones: welfare payments, health and education, the ABC and SBS, to name a few. In short, its seems that Mr Abbott et al are reaping the fruits of planting, in the minds of voters, a very unrealistic idea of what they could deliver in government.

But, more importantly, Mr Abbott and, seemingly, the entire Liberal party completely misread the politics on climate change. They made the mistake of thinking the politics on this was all about the carbon tax, when it was far more complex.

Australians were furious with Julia Gillard when she replaced Kevin Rudd as leader. Removing a sitting prime minister in his first term was undemocratic, sacrilegious even. And for a woman to do it! Outrageous! Then came the 2010 election and the hung parliament it delivered, resulting in the “broken promise” that was required to form government. The issue was never simply that Australians didn’t want a price on carbon; it was that they resented the government and its prime minister for backstabbing Kevin 07, for backstabbing 2010 voters, for treading on democracy. The tight election election was always going to deliver a poisoned chalice to whichever side took the spoils, and Labor spent three years dealing with perceptions of being an illegitimate government, formed through backroom dealings and lies to the public. Ms Gillard's image, in particular, was tarnished beyond repair.

The reality is that Australians do want meaningful action on climate change. Essential polling shows that the majority of Australians think that climate change is real and human-induced, that it should be discussed at the upcoming G20 meetings, and that the Liberal-National government is not handling the issue well. Polling by Lowy shows that a growing number of Australians think that urgent action is needed, and that a majority think that Australia should be taking a leadership role on the issue, rather than waiting for international consensus. The Climate Institute recently found similar results, with polling showing that a growing proportion of Australians agree that human-induced climate change is occuring (70%, up from 60% two years ago) and a majority saying that the Abbott Government should take climate change more seriously.

And so this is the political wedge Mr Abbott has made for himself: he has forced himself into a position where he has to axe the carbon pricing scheme, and has left himself no wiggle room for any other meaningful action.

Mr Abbott continually said that one of his first acts of government would be to abolish the carbon tax. He has been in office for 9 months, and still hasn't achieved this goal. Instead, he is waiting for the new senate to form, which he hopes will be more supportive of unwinding the legislation.

But the longer Mr Abbott waits, the more trouble he finds himself in. With the ousting of the Labor government, community angst over the carbon tax has been alleviated (and now, bizarrely, more people support a carbon price than oppose it). In fact, fresh angst has built up over this new government’s handling of asylum seekers, of pensioners, of the sacred ABC, and all manner of things. Meanwhile, community attitudes on climate change are shifting. More and more, people want meaningful action. And Mr Abbott’s world tour, where his views were shown in stark contrast with the White House’s rejuvenated interest in climate change, have not done him any favours.

Each day, as Labor's "broken promise" recedes further and further into history, and as we read headlines like "Almost 3,000 jobs lost in renewable energy industry last year" and "Tackling climate change would grow global economy, World Band says", Australians gradually come to the realisation that they've been conned.

Palmer's grenade

Enter Clive Palmer, the joker in the pack of Australian politics. Yesterday, Mr Palmer did what he does best: he caught everyone by surpise. This was perhaps his most spectacular stunt so far, turning up to a press conference with former US Vice President and climate evangelist Al Gore. Social media services groaned under the weight of #PalmGore, and surely Mr Abbott and environment minister Greg Hunt groaned with pain, as their self-imposed wedge was driven even further into places that are not mentionable in pleasant company.

Mr Palmer announced his recent conversion to the cause of climate protection. He said he would support the government's abolition of the carbon pricing scheme on the condition that it replaces it with and emissions trading scheme (as well as retain the renewable energy target, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the independent Climate Change Authority).

It is immaterial whether Mr Palmer's change of heart is genuine, or whether he is cunningly attempting to cut costs to his own businesses (by scrapping the carbon price) while appearing to save the planet ("appearing", because the emissions trading scheme would initially commence at $0 carbon price). The fact is that this position will cut the government off at the legs; the government that unequivocally stated it would not introduce an emissions trading scheme to replace the carbon tax, the government that has branded the green bank a waste of resources and climate authority a bureaucratic mess, the government that has been looking to ditch the renewable energy target because Direct Action will never hit the mark.

Suddenly the government finds that, when the new senate sits, the upper house will not be as agreeable as it hoped. It will need to negotiate and compromise, the very things that landed the previous government in such a pickle.

These are intractable problems for a government that has charted an impossible course on climate policy. It is a thing of beauty to see a government that has treated the environment as collateral damage on the way to power being dealt such a bum hand. Hopefully the result would eventually be more meaningful action to tackle this important problem.