COALITION sources were well pleased yesterday with their ''Carbon Cate'' attack on the new $1 million pro-carbon tax advertising campaign.
Not because they have anything against the academy award-winning actress Blanchett, they said, but because most of the discussion about the ad campaign she stars in was concentrating on her ability to afford the tax and the fact that others might be able to afford it less.
In other words, everyone was still talking about the hip-pocket pain.
Blanchett and her co-stars were aiming to refocus the debate on the climate science, the moral and economic arguments for carbon pricing and the need for the country to do something. From the Coalition's point of view, that had to be stopped.
The ''say yes'' campaign is just one of numerous ''third party'' efforts to try to broaden the climate change argument. The climate commission has reported. This week leading economists will step up. Professor Ross Garnaut will start touring the country after the publication of his final report today.
The Productivity Commission will issue a report on the ''effective'' carbon price in countries that do not have a tax but do impose costs on their economy and businesses. The Treasury will publish modelling on what a carbon price will really cost households, which is likely to be at considerable variance from some of the Coalition's wilder claims.
And the government is pulling out all stops to paint Tony Abbott as a wrecker and wrest back control of the debate, to pave the way for the release of its package.
But Abbott has had more than a year's head start, and he has made the most of it. During that time public support for a carbon tax has steadily fallen. According to an Essential poll published yesterday, it languishes at about 38 per cent. Of the 48 per cent of voters who oppose the tax, 29 per cent oppose it ''strongly''.
And the political divisions, confusion and delay have sapped away a lot of the broader support for the reform.
Business backing is either absent or far more lukewarm than when Kevin Rudd was prosecuting the case for his carbon pollution reduction scheme.
Those business groups the government can cite as backing a price say it should either not apply to them or be set so low and with so many caveats that it would achieve very little. Others like the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry oppose the tax outright.
The National Farmers' Federation has come out against it, too - even though farmers would not pay the tax directly - although the federation still wants its members to be able to cash in on the benefits of the voluntary carbon farming market that Labor is setting up.
Abbott and Julia Gillard have staked everything on this fight, and as the end-of-June deadline for a deal looms they will only become more shrill.
Given the Coalition's attitude yesterday, it is also unlikely to be concerned about people with genuine policy views who become collateral damage along the way.
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