On this day, August 29, 1990, the Australian mining and forestry industries – so long accustomed to freezing the greenies out of policymaking forums, had a tantrum.
“The mining and forestry industries last night threatened to pull out of the Government’s sustainable development consultations unless the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, repudiated highly critical comments by the Minister for the Environment, Mrs Kelly.
In a speech to the Fabian Society last night, Mrs Kelly attacked the Australian Mining Industry Council and the National Association of Forest Industries for their views on sustainable development.
Mrs Kelly said AMIC’s idea of a sustainable industry was “one in which miners can mine where they like, for however long they want. It is about, for them, sustaining profits and increasing access to all parts of Australia they feel could be minerally profitable even if it is of environmental or cultural significance”.”
Garran, R. 1990. Mining, forestry groups threaten to leave talks. Australian Financial Review, 30 August.
On this day the ppm was 353 ppm. Now it is 420ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
Sometimes, for reasons to do with public pressure, the normally closed shop of government (politicians and civil servants) and industry is prised open, briefly… It doesn’t last, and it rarely ends well…
What happened next?
The Ecologically Sustainable Development Process ended up happening, and some decent suggestions got put forward by various green groups, especially folks from the Australian Conservation Foundation. And it all got filed in the “circular file” thanks to the next Prime Minister, Paul Keating, and Federal bureaucrats (see earlier post this month!). Turns out the state is not a wise neutral arbiter. Who knew…
One reply on “August 29, 1990 – The Australian mining and forestry industries threaten to spit the dummy”
[…] On December 2 1991, the Australian policy experiment of “Ecologically Sustainable Development” basically ended, just over a year after it began. It had been set up because the ALP’s Bob Hawke needed small-g green (the Greens didn’t exist yet) votes to win the 1990 election. The ESD process had rattled along,and there’s lots of interesting stories (see AOY posts here and here). […]