Look, It's a Complicated Issue

Consider Gough Whitlam, arguably Australia's most famous Prime Minister (in Australia at least). Here's some edited highlights of his achievements:

• Created a national health care service
• Abolished the death penalty
• Established Legal Aid and no fault divorce laws
  
• Gave Papua New Guinea independence
• Established diplomatic and trade relations with China
• Introduced the Racial Discrimination Act (which despite its name, prevents racial discrimination)
  

He was PM for about three years, and had a hostile senate (which is to say he needed the support of a party besides his own to get bills through). Everybody in Australia knows how Gough's political story ended (sigh, here you go) so it wasn't necessarily a recipe for political longevity, but it does show that being in power does allow a leader to institute change.

Every time I hear a Rudd or Turnbull or one of their lackeys claim that introducing climate change policy is complicated, sensitive and potentially Bad For The Economy and that a working party with a broad-ranging mandate should be set up by 2015 to deliver its findings in ten years at the most I think: what would Gough do? The answer never involves a working party or a steering committee.