FBI Radio 28 April 2010

Hey everyone...

This week on sociologic FBI Radio I looked at a couple of issues that will be affecting our lives... here they are:

1. Time for lazy kids to get off the dole

Last week, Tony Abbott announced that if his government was elected, they would make unemployment benefits subject to age requirements. This is one of the silliest policy suggestions for a long time and I explained why. The discussion on FBI Radio was based on an article I wrote for Newmatilda.com which is available here...

2. Climate change back flip

This week, the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that the government would be shelving any plans for a carbon trading scheme! This is one of the great political back flips and highlights three key things:

• The first is a lack of political courage on behalf of the Rudd Government. They claimed this to be a key moral challenge of our time and pushed it as a way to split the Opposition. When the Opposition stood up to them, they backed down. This is a shame;
  
• Secondly, it highlights that there are a number of dinosaurs in the Opposition. Tony Abbott is more interested in scaring the public than discussing the issue. I have written extensively about the overwhelming evidence for human-induced climate change but the same dinosaurs that believed passive smoking was not a problem have now turned their attention to climate change; and
  
• That climate change may well be too complex an issue for our political system to deal with. If everyone waits for someone else to act, then we are in serious trouble...
  

For a great read about this political back flip check out Ben Eltham’s awesome piece.

If you want to let Kevin Rudd know this is political cowardice, then I suggest you sign up to the Get Up petition.

Thank, james