Welcome back, Annabel

Annabel Crabb

Annabel Crabb makes a welcome return to Fairfax today with the above witty column on Rudd delaying the ETS. I liked this section in particular:

What was surprising was the bold attempt to portray the inevitable backdown as some sort of toughening.

"These changes today are all about strengthening the carbon pollution reduction scheme," insisted Penny Wong.

Mercilessly, the Prime Minister spelled out the details of the tough new measures.

First, there would be a year's delay. Ouch!

As if that alone weren't brutal enough, big polluters would be forced to accept more money from the Government.

And they would be obliged to pay a carbon price that has been remorselessly lowered to $10 a tonne by rapacious Rudd.

"Bring on … the comfy chair!" you almost expected the PM to pronounce, as he detailed his fluffy instruments of torture. Rudd hates to be wrong.

Yet the changes are enough to convince John Quiggin. He's pretty easily swayed, if you ask me. For example, I am not at all sure how Rudd's new idea that (as quoted by Quiggin):

Households would be able to calculate their energy use and then make donations to fund which would then buy and cancel carbon permits

is actually different from what householders could have voluntarily done under the first version of the scheme.