The Beginning of the End

This week is likely to mark the final betrayal of the Australian people by Prime Minister Gillard.

The expected passage of the carbon tax through the House of Representatives, despite an explicit promise not to introduce such a tax during last year’s election campaign, signals the final death throes of her political leadership.

The Australian public has clearly rendered its verdict and her colleagues are very close to doing the same.

It is now simply the mechanics of how to manage another leadership change without further angering their already disillusioned voter base that occupies the minds of Labor’s ‘faceless men’.

Naturally they are also concerned about their own positions given their spectacular judgment failure in initiating the move to Gillard in 2010.

Unfortunately, while Labor apparatchiks spend most of their waking moments (and possibly their nocturnal ones too) running through potential leadership scenarios, the country is suffering.

Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars are being wasted and the government is stifling the spirit of entrepreneurialism while regular mums and dads struggle to pay the bills.

Only four years ago, Labor was elected on a platform of reducing cost of living pressures for working families.

Instead, international visitors (and locals who have recently travelled overseas) now see Australia as a very expensive place to live.

Our food costs are escalating, utility bills are rapidly rising and the level of bureaucracy is placing an increasing burden on almost every aspect of our lives.

For businesses, the lack of flexibility in employment laws has resulted in students struggling to find after school jobs, while the employment cost of Sunday trading is proving prohibitive for many businesses.

Australian manufacturing is under pressure and Gillard’s broken promise will see tens of thousands of existing mining and manufacturing jobs exported to other nations.

There is also a great deal of international economic uncertainty that could add to the pressure already placed on struggling Australian families and businesses.

A carbon tax will only make this pressure worse.

That makes this betrayal of the Australian people by Julia Gillard and the Labor Government one of the most egregious decisions we have ever witnessed.

It is a fundamental breach of faith to promise one thing before an election and to do the opposite afterwards.

However, to introduce the biggest tax change in our history, in a world of domestic and international uncertainty, is sheer folly.

But it is not simply the Prime Minister who has betrayed the Australian people.

Every member of the Labor Party who won their seat at the last election stood on a platform of opposition to a carbon tax.

Yet this week, they will be voting to introduce a tax that will fundamentally re-engineer and stifle the Australian economy whilst providing no benefit to the environment.

This week is the beginning of the end for Julia Gillard’s leadership.

It will also consign many members of the parliamentary Labor Party to that inglorious position in the Australian psyche of having betrayed the Australian people and the national interest.