Our Cognitive Surplus

The Liberal party lost the last election because Kevin Rudd was onto the rather clever strategy of doing exactly what the other guy does. In a country with compulsory voting and preferential voting the middle ground is the only thing that matters. The left people will end up voting ALP and the right people will end up voting liberal pretty much regardless of the political debate at the time. So the entire focus of a political party needs to be snapping up those middle of the road type people – and I’d consider myself one of them.

What the liberal party should have learned from the last election is that the middle is further to the left than they expected. So the obvious thing to do after taking a hammering in an election is re-invent yourself closer to the left – it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.

But what they’re doing on emissions trading (or the apology for that matter) is anything but.

The Federal Opposition has accused the Government of slugging consumers with more taxes and higher costs through its proposed emissions trading scheme and will not support a 2010 start-up date.

Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says the cost of petrol, groceries and electricity will be pushed further up under the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, released by Climate Change Minister Penny Wong today.

I mean, they’re onto an interesting point and they’re saying the sorts of things that 40% of Australians want to hear. But what’s the point? That 40% of Australians is going to vote for them regardless. They need to be saying things that 20% of Australians in the middle want to hear. And if you’re not clever enough to figure that out, just say exactly what the other party is saying.