Somewhat predictably, Stelmach has compromised with the oil industry on the royalty review. He’ll leave half a billion dollars on the table each year and delay the changes until 2009 but there will be no grandfathering of existing deals and the rates will be going up – something the government Stelmach was a Cabinet Minister in refused to do despite all the evidence that changes needed to be made [someone in the Liberal research bureau needs to dig up an actual figure of how much money has been pissed away and then ram it out there time and time again during the next campaign].

Whenever a politician compromises like this, it will either be seen as a brilliant tactical move, or he’ll be attacked for indecision on all sides. Honestly, I have no idea how this one will be spun and, really, it’s all about the spin now. I would have personally liked to have seen the entire report implemented since that’s what the experts recommended. Andrew Coyne has a non-conventional alternative for anyone interested in the topic of royalty rates (and who isn’t interested in that topic?). Another outside the box idea I really liked was to bring in a carbon tax equivalent to the total royalty rise (1.4 billion…2 billion…whatever number you want) so that there’s an incentive for the oil industry to become more environmentally efficient.

As for the decision (or non-decision)? Historians will either be calling this the “pension moment” that saved Stelmach’s government or the beginning of the end of a 36 year dynasty. And without the results of the next election in front of me, I’m really hesitant to predict which way it will play.