PM Gillard: No Need to Review Carbon Tax
There was no pressing need to revisit the provisions of the carbon tax, which takes effect July this year, according to Prime Minister Julia Gillard amidst suggestions within the Australian Labor Party that the tax could spell disaster for the Labor-led government.
Ms Gillard admitted on Tuesday that significant oppositions have emerged against the fixed-pricing carbon emission tax but stressed anyway that the initiative would redound to the betterment of the greater Australian community.
"I made the right decision in the nation's interest and in the interests of seizing a clean energy future," Ms Gillard told reporters on Sydney as reported by the Australian Associated Press (AAP).
The resulting benefits, the Prime Minister said, said would be reaped by Australians in the form of solid government services as against the short-term downsides that were underscored by those critical of the new tax program.
"It will enable us to better support families with tax cuts, family payment increases and pension increases and we will see ... clean and renewable energy for the future," Ms Gillard said.
She was reacting on claims aired by Labor members, who called her attention on the 'reality' that the carbon tax was discouraging voters' support for the Labor government as shown in the latest Nielsen polls.
The survey, Fairfax said, placed Ms Gillard and the ALP at the losing end come the national elections in 2013, possibly suffering the same fate that former Queensland Premier Anna Bligh had recently encountered in the Sunshine state.
ms Bligh was chased out of government by a crushing Liberal sweep of the crucial state and the latest Nielsen strongly showed that Ms Gillard and the federal Labor await the same resounding defeat.
Apart from its main failure of convincing voters that its handling the country and the economy quite well, analysts pointed to the recently approved tax programs pushed forward by the Labor government as major contributors to the declining support numbers of the once might ruling party.
In recent interviews, former Attorney-General Robert McClelland has called on his fellow Labor members to reconsider the party's way of governance, pointing out that Australians were wise enough to detect insincerity among government officials.
Mr McClelland, who was eased out of the Gillard cabinet for reportedly supporting the leadership challenge earlier posed by former Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, stressed that voters have grown tired of political spins peddled by federal authorities.
Reviewing the carbon tax, he added, could lure back Labor supporters who were dismayed by the series of mistakes displayed by the Gillard-led government.
Ms Gillard, however, shot down the points raised by former cabinet official, insisting that her moves were not motivated by mere words but rather by actions and substance.
"That's the way in which I work and that's the way in which the Government works," the Labor leader said.
Her policies, she stressed, led to concrete results such as the collection of bigger mining taxes that would fund numerous government programmes, the roll out of the national broadband network and greater insurance coverage for the disabled.
Chris Evans, a key Gillard supporter presently serving in the cabinet, countered Mr McClelland's claims and asserted that no spin cited by the former cabinet official was ever observed in running the government.
"There's no spinning involved in the sort of things the Government's focused on," Mr Evans told AAP.
Also, the official who took over from Mr McClelland, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon clarified that the government was not in the business of manufacturing so-called political spins though she added that the former AG was entitled to voice out his opinion.
"But it is our job as members of the Government to constantly engage with the community ... to talk to people about what it is we are doing to make their lives easier or better," Ms Roxon was quoted by ABC as saying on Tuesday.