Ignorance is bliss

Sometimes, politicians must believe like the great philosopher David Hume once believed; that is humans are slaves of their passions. The concept of 'too much democracy' which drove the Howard years Liberal policy was that us citizens are not rational creatures and cannot be trusted to make the correct decisions; we use our emotional more than our logical side. 

 It seems to me that Labor are following in Big Papa Howard's footsteps too. As of right now, there has not been an NBN cost benefit analysis publication by the government, and there has been very little said about the nature  of the carbon tax. Just a whole lot of slogans! This feeds right  into Tony Abbott's strategy of filling in the blanks and of course, he has filled in the blanks with a lot of sometimes crude figures which have not been explained in any detail and were probably conjured out of thin air. 

There has been a Treasury paper apparently got under the Freedom of Information Act (does not seem to be available freely on the Internet though or through any other means of information transfer), modelling by how much household costs would rise.

An article from ABC tells us the following

"A treasury minute released under Freedom of Information laws, reveals that the cost of living could rise by $16.60 a week, under a carbon tax of $30.

The figures were in a 'Cabinet in confidence' document prepared for the Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, just last month.

Over a year, the cost would be $863 if fuel were excluded under the carbon tax plan. "

If you raised your eyebrows, frowned in confusion and/or cursed under your breath, you probably have ever right to do so. How is this going to help an ordinary citizen, a citizen in a so called democracy with participatory options, to decide whether or not a carbon tax is the right move for the country? How is this even going to promote any sort of debate? All I can say is that vague information like this is exactly why there has been dirt, misinformation and mass hysteria from both sides of the political spectrum. For  god's sake, be more transparent!!!

This debate is going to go on for a few weeks at least before the media and eventually politicians get tired and sweep the whole thing under the carpet (as it seems to have been achieved with the National Broadband Network fiasco).