Crikey political "analyst" clueless, as usual

Analysis from a Crikey political media expert:

Labor now has a huge fight on its hands, trying to explain a difficult policy to voters in respect of which the media and certain vested interests are, it turns out, implacably hostile. Gillard – who before the election made it very clear she saw a “carbon price” and a “carbon tax” as two different things, and that whilst she ruled out the latter she believed in the former – is being pilloried by the shameless for supposedly “changing her mind”. (All you have to do is take her remark about a tax in isolation, and then, ignoring that she always made a distinction between the tax and a price, argue that the carbon price policy is a tax and therefore she broke her own promise according to your definition you know she made clear when making the earlier remark she didn’t share.)

Is that clear... as mud?

The Prime Minister is of the opinion she flip-flopped, however:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has admitted she promised there would be no carbon tax during the election and said circumstances had changed.

She qualified her comments made a week before the August 2010 poll, arguing her Government had wanted to legislate for an emissions trading scheme.

"Yes, I did say that and circumstances have changed," Ms Gillard told Channel 9 today.

"What my vision was was to be elected as Prime Minister and to introduce an emissions trading scheme, which is not a carbon tax."

If Crikey pays its apprentice political expert a cent, he's overpaid.