Eighteen years ago, on this day, May 16, 2005, the Australian Labor Party tried to pretend it wasn’t also a meat puppet for extractive industries.
MEDIA RELEASE: Anthony Albanese – 16 May 2005
http://anthonyalbanese.com.au/senate-slams-howards-energy-white-elephant
The Howard Government’s Energy White Paper is an energy white elephant.
The Senate Inquiry into the Energy White Paper has concluded the Energy White Paper will delay critical action on climate change for another twenty years.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Anthony Albanese had an interest in the environmental issues and Labor were trying to use Howard’s recalcitrance and opposition to climate action as a stick to beat him with. The energy white paper in 2004 had been a gift to the fossil fuel lobby, there had been a Senate report about the White Paper and this is what Albanese was using.
What I think we can learn from this is that in any parliamentary system, there are games and counter-games between the government of the day and the opposition. And there are various scrutiny and watchdog outfits that can produce reports which are useful both to researchers but also politicians and NGOs who are contesting the government’s actions.
What happened next
Howard brushed it all off. Eventually the climate issue, in the second half of 2006, became an issue that he couldn’t brush off.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.