‘Carbon Cate’ Blanchett tells Aussies to pay up over carbon charge in new TVC to air tonight
May 29 2011, 8:38 am | | 35 Comments
Cate Blanchett has sparked outrage in the community with her decision to front an ad campaign promoting the federal government’s controversial carbon tax, reports the Telegraph this morning.
The millionaire Hollywood actress has been accused of being out of touch by spruiking the benefits of the tax which she can afford to pay, unlike many hard-up Australians.
The spot was created by agency Republic of Everyone, and directed by Leigh Richards via production company Jungle Boys.
Forget Cate when it comes to climate: Naked partner Adam Ferrier’s viewpoint
35 Comments
Cate, Keep to acting in movies and on stage, but stay off the Australian political stage!!!
Surely the Australian people are entitled to know what the tax rate is going to be before we can even begin to judge whether to support a carbon tax or not. Imagine if we’d all been asked to support Howard’s GST before we knew what the tax rate was going to be. It’s ridiculous.
What does it say about the politics of the CB Blog that it chooses to print the very Coalition partisan copy and far more combative take on the campaign from the Daily Telegraph and only site reference the more journalistic reporting of the campaign in The Australian and the comments in the body of the video itself from the ACF, Get Up, Green Peace, and the other organisations and individuals who support the campaign to price carbon?
This is why it was brilliant of Tony Abbott to refer to the Emissions Trading Scheme as a Tax, so much easier to bring up emotions.
Just oUt of interest lynch, whO is making the tobacco companies propaganda?
Cate. Surely you don’t believe this crap.
Concentrate on something you might know something about!
The Telegraph’s ‘Carbon Cate’ smear is the kind of attack campaign we’ve come to expect from the Right in this country. Assault the messenger, rather than deal with the all too real issue of climate change. As if Ms. Blanchett, or any other citizen, celebrated or not, wealthy or poor, has no right to speak out on the political issues that effect us all without being branded as ‘out of touch’?
Who could be more out of touch than the likes of Joyce, Abbott and Co., politicians who are firmly in the pockets of the big polluters and the mining industry, who continue, despite mountains of scientific evidence to the contrary to deny the existence of manmade climate change, and who would clearly do anything to return the Coalition to power, even at the expense of the truth and what is certainly the best interest of the environment and the Australian people. They can’t even manage a consensus among their own party leaders with Turnbull and Hockey taking an opposing position and generally embarrassed by the tactics of the foaming at the mouth wing of the parties.
Just sad that the Blog chose to reprint the Telegraph’s headline and article with its inflammatory language and Right Wing take, as opposed to the more journalistic reporting of the campaign in the Australian. Our guess is that the majority of our industry will side with Cate, the ACF, Greenpeace, Get Up and the like, and while remaining anonymous on this blog, so as not to ruffle the feathers of their more rabidly conservative clients, will see this kind of tactic for what it is, and conversely appreciate the campaign led by Blanchett and other for what it is, the right thing to do for Australia, and the planet. Leadership always has a price, but those who are courageous enough to lead,a s opposed to the reactionary mob, are the very people we should all be listening to.
Cate stay with role playing! It’s great for those living upon the hill to tell us poor suckers how to live! Unless the USA, China and India do something all you are doing is making us all poorer! Arrogance and stupidity beyond belief!
Is this the same Cate that was given a shit load of free solar panels by the government to cover the entire rooftop of her Sydney theatre company making it completely carbon free.
Yes Cate. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
8:31
Would you have voted ‘Yes’ for Howard’s GST before you knew what the rate was, what it was applied to and what compensation, if any, those disadvantaged by the tax would receive and what the net effect of a GST was?
I’m an average middle aged Australian who isn’t opposing a carbon tax, but one who refuses to support it until I know exactly what the details are.
That doesn’t make me a right wing fanatic.
it appears you need to have bad teeth to be in the Video
Cate badly advised.Who is creating this waste of money.
This is not going to change peoples ideas especially families earning around $65k.
China and other countries around the world are spending billions on clean technology so even if you refuse to pay a small percentage more for your energy etc in the near term, get ready for Australia’s economy and jobs to go down the toilet as soon as our customers come up with a better solution.
Cate is the perfect brand endorser for the Carbon Tax. Due to her wealth, her cost of living will increase with no compensation given from the government. People in her income range have the most to lose and fair play to her for endorsing an iniative that will cost her personally.
The power bills of the Sydney Theartre Company will also increase due to the Carbon Tax with severe ramifications for the Sydney Theartre Company ticket sales, as the wealthy people who frequent the Sydney Theartre Comapny will be cash starpped due to their increase in cost of living with no compensation.
Well done Cate.
As the SMH says this morning, Cate gets slammed for being rich and doing something that doesn’t benefit her at all personally. What about Gina Rhinehart worth over $10 billion leading the cause on the other side?
Is the money going towards the environment or plugging the black hole?
That’s what I’m interested in.
How dare she try and influence the carbon price debate by appearing in an ad. She should buy her own Newspaper franchise like everyone else if she want’s to do that.
I am going to put a carbon tax on your ass.
Well, seeing as yesterday’s figures showed that the carbon emissions kicked out by the planet in 2010 were the highest in history.
Greenpeace have said that stopping the inevitable climate rise of 2% by century’s end is now an almost impossible task.
So Tony Abbot, in the annals of history, you will go down as one of the men who helped destroy the Great Barrier Reef, flood Brisbane and Sydney, create bushfires the likes of which we’ve never seen before and probably doomed the planet Earth.
Sleep on that you political vote grabbing scare mongering motherfucker.
1:18. Grow up.
1:18 Please. What a load of rubbish.
“Abbott will ruin the great barrier reef”…… You sir, are a fool.
Travel to China and India. Once there, you’ll soon come to the really f**ked up conclusion that absolutely NOTHING we do here is going to reduce global emmisions.
If you view the actual spot you can hardly say that it’s “Cate’s ad”, can you?
I agree with a poster above. Yes Carbon Tax may be a good thing, but what is the money going towards?
My bet’s on propping up the budget, just like Johnny did when he sold all of our assets off and introduced GST.
‘Look guys, we’re in the black!’ – yeah right, with our money?
The majority of cigarette and alcohol tax certainly doesn’t go towards hospitals, I doubt very much if carbon tax will go towards anything like public transport, clean coal or green electricity.
Wake up hippies!
And you too Cate!
4.39 Please. What a load of rubbish. You sir, are the fool. Per capita, we are responsible for the highest emissions on the planet. Why should we expect China to make changes unless we are willing to. And they’re investing more than anyone in clean technology.
So many right wing tools in the advertising industry. Who’d of thunk it?
@7:36
We could use allot more ‘hippies’ as you’re labelling those who care about the quality of the environment, the quality of life on the planet for the next generation and whole lot fewer boofheads like yourself who are brilliant at tearing down progressive ideas and policies, but have absolutely nothing to offer as an alternative to a global catastrophe in the making except the status quo and the satisfaction of their own immediate needs. You and Tony Abbott make a lovely pair.
If you mean the 60’s term ‘hippies’ as a negative epithet, it is interesting to consider a movement 40 years ago that spawned the Whole Earth Catalogue and Mother Jones as its environmental and political bibles and asked the citizens of the world to take a good look at the repercussions of a society built upon unlimited growth and consumption. Here we are 40 years later with the corporations having taken over our democracies, poisoned us all with the byproducts of providing things we don’t need, but are compelled by the business we all work in to buy nonetheless, and you’re making fun of the longhaired kids who warned us it would happen to wake up?
Smell the river, mate.
439. We are responsible for more emissions per capita than any other country, and India is largely an underdeveloped country. Are all your politcial opinions based on what 3rd world countries are doing?
Why does this country need a carbon tax, we aren’t even sure if it’s carbon is the sole contributor which is causing all the related damage. We don’t produce anywhere near the same amount of carbon emissions as China, India and America, why should we be slugged with another tax and hope this government can solve the world’s problems.
“Cate Blanchett has sparked outrage in the community with her decision to front an ad campaign promoting the federal government’s controversial carbon tax, reports the Telegraph this morning…The millionaire Hollywood actress has been accused of being out of touch by spruiking the benefits of the tax which she can afford to pay, unlike many hard-up Australians. ”
Outrage?
Eh?
Way to push to Abbott / News Limited Line word for word.
Having studied and got honours in environmental economics and having written and extensive and highly regarded paper on the success of taxing the market in a bid to prevent environmental damage I can with some authority say that this proposal of a carbon tax is the worst possible way for us to tackle climate change. Those who this aims to affect have a number of very simple ways to actually make more money from such schemes so the end result is we all pay more for what these people produce and the government gets a whole bunch of tax revenue. What happens is a new financial market for carbon will be created and people who work in finance like my brother are all rubbing their hands with glee for something new to trade.
The best way to overcome environmental issues is to fund and support innovation for new ways to create what we need. It seems scary but humans have an amazing ability to come up with something, if you check any of the work of Nathan Myhrvold these are the types of people we should be giving time and money to.
Not all his stuff is socially palatable but at least he is thinking of solutions to our problems rather than Al Gore telling everyone to flush the toilet less and compost. Cows provide more “hothouse” gases than all the cars in the whole two times over, so should we kill all cows??
In the end though, Cate getting up and being a spokesperson for something she believes is good. Does anyone bag Kate Ritchie for selling yoghurt?
@5:09
“Having studied and got honours in environmental economics and having written and extensive and highly regarded paper on the success of taxing the market in a bid to prevent environmental damage . . .?” WTF?
Basic English grammar is generally considered a prerequisite for being taken seriously as a writer, spokesperson, or pundit, more or less one who “got honours”.
Sounds more like an aspiring undergraduate to us, and by the way, eating less meat and dairy, and as a result raising fewer cows wouldn’t be a bad idea either, mate.
Find a proofreader, or a semi-literate friend and maybe you can try posting again, in a year or two, when you graduate.
9:46 AM,
Good to find a brother on here and I’m old enough to know who Freewheelin’ Franklin is. Fat Freddy’s cat was the smartest of the bunch in my opinion.
I wasn’t arguing against real hippies, more the pseudo’s that live on the Northern Beaches and drive SUV’s.
The heart of my comment was a question.
What are the government going to spend the money on?
If it’s climate change, I’m all for it. However too many micro-dots over the years make me assume otherwise.
Peace.
‘Free wheeling’ Frankophile,
name at least 6 out of the albumn covers in this clip and I’ll believe you’re the real deal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSiCgHLNJrc&feature=related
The first six then:
Lycergic Blues Anthology “First” (Collection of Psychedelic Blues artists, hence the Lysergic, the “L” in acid), History of the Grateful Dead Volume 1 “Bear’s Choice” (Bear being the Dead’s sound man), The Dead “Steal Your Face” (self explanatory), Beatles “Sgt. Pepper’s . . “, Mothers of Invention “We’re Only In It For The Money” (Zappa’s reply to Sgt. Pepper), Stones “Their Satanic Majesties Request” (Stones reply to Sgt. Pepper), Diga Rhythm Band (a Dead side project led by drummer Mickey Hart and Mr. Garcia)
Wow man, that’s the first seven.
As Freewheelin’ Franklin always said, “Dope will get you through times of no money, better than money will get your through times of no dope”. Now that’s the kind of copy even a deadened head like Rowan Dean could appreciate.
Go Cate, Go the Planet.
Speaking of album covers…
The building featured in this spot is the (long-decommissioned) Battersea Power Station in London. It’s probably best recognised from the cover of Pink Floyd’s 1977 album, Animals – whose lyrics seem strangely relevant in the context of this whole argument.
“We would zigzag our way through the boredom and pain
Occasionally glancing up through the rain
Wondering which of the buggers to blame
And watching… for pigs on the wing.”
Peace.