I’m have a profound hearing loss (far worse than Howard) and do need hearing aids if I’m to communicate at all. So I’m not in the least dismissive of the hearing issue — should it have relevance — because I know what it’s like. But I would like to look at what actually happened rather than people’s interpretation of (what they hope) happened.

Whether or not it even matters is a moot point — to me. Howard has already made, and continues to make, his (non-)position on climate change clear. It would just be nice if Howard supporters (and everyone else too) stuck to the facts when the man himself said it was a mistake.

(As hearing aids have been mentioned — just in case anyone is interested — even the most sophisticated hearing aids don’t correct hearing loss in the same way, for example, eyeglasses can correct certain eyesight problems. Once frequencies are lost, no amount of amplification can get them back again. If there’s still some hearing there, that can be improved but not necessarily corrected. Clarity is often always an issue. Hearing aids, as the name suggests, help — not correct.)

Up there with Mungana and the Loans Affair.

As anyone familiar with Howard in Question Time will attest, the man – hearing aid or no – is as deaf as a concrete pylon and quite often continues talking even as Mr Speaker yells at him to resume the prime ministerial swivel chair following a point of order.

How about essaying something actually worthy of analysis? For example, the gigantic gaffe of an Opposition appointing and wheeling out a business high-flyer to lend Pitt Street cred to Labor’s collection of former union clerks. He left the reservation straight away and refused to back Rudd’s IR “policy”.

Oops.

…a question about the fidelity of one of his ministers to the relationship between emissions and climate change, inviting the prime minister to support or disavow his colleague.

Do McCarthyistic GW hysterics have an ear at all for how religiously fundamentalist they’re beginning to sound. 1) Who gives a toss if either the PM or his minister lack “fidelity” to this junk science? 2) He says he misheard anyway.

The End.

PS: Yawn.

PPS: Good to see you back, Christopher.

PPPS: The Waratahs still suck.

For the record, Howard fucked up. Severely. Bannerman heard him do it, and no….his hearing is just fine, unless of course, he’s had a hearing aid inserted in the last 24 hours.

Moreover on the following day when Rudd addressed a similar question about repudiating Ian Macfarlane’s remarks, the Prime Minister had no problem in hearing and comprehending the question. He said he would not formally repudiate Macfarlane’s remarks. Then Mr Howard obfuscated the matter by introducing irrelevant comments on the inexperience of Mr Rudd. If we follow Mr Howard’s line of reasoning then Edmund Barton, Robert Menzies and John Curtin were lacking in sufficient federal parliamentary and federal ministerial experiences before they each held the office of Prime Minister.

What is not often debated in popular forums is the manner in which question time operates. What is also often lacking in popular forums is sufficient analysis and reflection on the rhetorical stratagems employed by the Prime Minister and his cabinet.

Ken’s description of partial deafness is spot on, and I’ve always had quite a bit of sympathy for Howard because of it. Deafness not only means opening your mouth and inserting your foot from time to time (which is what has clearly happened here), it also means not being able to sing and – as you age – having flat, atonal prosody (something that’s getting worse for Howard over time).

Amazing what nonsense makes for political commentary these days. (Not really having a go at you CS, but I find this kind of tea-leaf reading pretty tedious – the fact that all the journos do it means that it actually HAS political significance. I wish they’d just take a lie down and read about some policy.)

The issue is whether carbon emissions from human activities are warming the planet, causing a whole range of climatic problems, possibly including droughts in Australia. If the answer is yes, we should be cutting back on carbon-emitting energy production as our small part in a coordinated global strategy to prevent adverse worldwide climate change.

Another issue on the table is how to deal with this specific drought, how to prevent river systems drying up, ensure that towns and cities have enough water and so on.

But I never heard anyone advocate action on greenhouse gases to fix this particular drought, or suggest that the energy policy depends on establishing a connection between carbon emissions and the current drought.

So I am wondering whether we are realing dealing with a bit of Howard obfuscation here. Why would Rudd ask a question about something that isn’t an issue at all? Perhaps it’s convenient to turn the whole climate debate into a jigsaw of interlocking controversies, with voters totally confused about what it means to be sceptical, and what policies are justified by scpeticism.

I reckon Kim was drummed out because of his appalling dance routine at the MCG union rally.

I suffer some hearing loss (although not enough for a hearing aid) and I know that what happens when there is high background/ambient noise level is that you simply can’t clearly distinguish words directed to you from the background noise. It’s irrelevant that “emissions” doesn’t sound like “drought” because Howard simply wouldn’t have heard it at all. When I can’t hear what someone is saying, I can either ask them to repeat it (which can get tiresome and irritating both for me and the other person – Jen is especially intolerant of this) or attempt to deduce what they said from the bits I actually heard and the overall context. It’s also easier if you can see the speaker’s face and therefore get visual cues as well. Having heard the Parliamentary exchange in question, there really isn’t any doubt that Howard didn’t hear the question properly and thought he was being asked about drought and greenhouse gases.

That said, the deafness issue together with the gaffe it gave rise to certainly plays into a subtext of a leader who’s getting too old and tired, has run out of ideas and doesn’t really understand a range of contemporary issues. Labor can exploit that as long as it’s careful to avoid gleefully slagging Howard for his hearing problems, because that could evoke sympathy for him and alienate many voters (like me) who experience hearing problems ourselves.