Twenty three years ago, on this day, June 20, 2000, business was getting what it wanted…
It’s quite plain who has the Government’s ear on greenhouse issues, writes Andrew Clennell.
At 4pm on June 20 on a busy parliamentary sitting day in Senate committee room 1S3, the big players in industry put their views to Government on greenhouse. A single sheet of paper was placed on the table. Now, as the Government takes its place in talks on global warming in The Hague, we can appreciate the full significance of that piece of paper. Policy on greenhouse coincides with business’s June wish list. See also his piece – Clennell, A. 2000. Industrialists Urge Caution On Gases Plan. Sydney Morning Herald, 21 June, p.5.
A contingent of industry leaders asked the Federal Government last night to state clearly that it would not ratify the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases unless the United States did so first, and to pledge that Australian jobs would not be sacrificed.
Representatives from BP Amoco, Rio Tinto, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Alcoa Generation met the Industry Minister, Senator Minchin, the Environment Minister, Senator Hill, and the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Anderson, and ministerial advisers from three other offices to discuss Australia’s greenhouse policy.
On the red leather chairs at the rectangular table were three ministers Robert Hill (Environment), Nick Minchin (Industry) and John Anderson (Deputy PM) and advisers from their offices and from the offices of the Treasurer, the Finance Minister and the Forestry Minister.
Facing them were BP’s Australian head, Greg Bourne, miner Rio Tinto’s managing director, Barry Cusack, and heads of the major lobby groups the Business Council, the Minerals Council, and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry among others.
Clennell, A. 2000. Taking Care Of Business. Sydney Morning Herald, 14 November, p.15.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Xxx John Howard was now 4 years as prime minister and facing another election soon. He had displayed just how willing he was to stop environmental policy if it hurt the interests of the fossil fuel industry, and what the above Google shows is the detail of how lobbyists helped make that happen.
What I think we can learn from this
We can learn that even though business is structurally lucky and in a mutually supportive relationship with the state apparatus usually, it never really takes anything for granted and so, the lobbying and smoothing of the wheels continues non-stop.
What happened next
Howard made sure that the Kyoto protocol was not brought forward for ratification and prevented an emissions trading scheme from being started. ronically this would have helped some forms of business but he also was unrelentingly unremittingly hostile to renewables.
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.