Julia Gillard's carbon tax announcement was more than just a policy announcement. It was also a death notice for the low risk political strategy that characterised the first six months of the Gillard prime ministership. Unlike many such notices, this one was welcome and well overdue.
Having worked for four opposition leaders and prime ministers, and against four opposition leaders and prime ministers, I'm not the dewy-eyed type. But I know a change of prime ministerial strategy when I see one, and the carbon tax announcement was just such an event.
For the first six months of her prime ministership Ms Gillard's core strategy was based around risk management. Rather than an agenda, she had a plan. Reduce the risk of tax reform by doing a deal with the miners. Reduce the risk of health by doing a deal with the states. Reduce the risk of climate change by doing a deal with no one. Risk reduction sat at the heart of the first Gillard campaign.
Until the carbon tax it seemed it would also sit at the heart of the second.
By announcing a carbon tax the prime minister put an end to all that and took the biggest political risk of her career. It equals any of the risks taken by Rudd or Howard as prime minister. It is about as far from her low risk political strategy as Gillard could possibly get.
If risk elimination no longer sits at the heart of Gillard's political strategy, what does? It is early days but the carbon tax announcement suggests that low risk has been replaced with leadership, and that is a very good thing.
The announcement was just that — an announcement — so it's important not to get carried away. But to even announce a carbon tax shows Gillard's thinking about her role as prime minister has come a very long way.
It is important to remember that it is not just Tony Abbott and an army of hyperventilating climate change sceptics who would have been obstacles to making the carbon tax announcement. A battalion of cabinet ministers, factional bosses, backbenchers, advisers, party officials and pollsters would also have been telling Gillard that low risk, not leadership, was the correct course of action.
Being prime minister is