Thirty three years ago, on this day, October 16, 1990, some big green groups said “yes” to a policy process. It’s more significant than it sounds…
“The Federal Government’s sustainable development consultations received a fillip yesterday with the long-awaited decision by three of the four main environment groups to take part in industry working groups.
However, the three groups – the Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace and the Worldwide Fund for Nature – refused to take part in the forestry working group on the grounds that it duplicated a Resource Assessment Commission inquiry into the industry.
The fourth main green group, the Wilderness Society, decided not to take part in the working groups, saying the Government’s recent environmental decisions showed it was unlikely to put ecologically sustainable development ahead of “conventional economic growth”.”
Garran, R. 1990. Green groups to join govt inquiry. Australian Financial Review, 17 October.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
In order to win the March 1990 Federal election Labor had had to cuddle up to green organisations, and promise them that it would be different next time, that the green organisations would be invited into the room with the big boys who were making the decisions. The “ecologically sustainable development policy making” process was part of this big picture but obviously that came with risks for everyone…
What I think we can learn from this
Is that for green groups there is an eternal dilemma – if they engage closely with state policy-making processes they can use up their time energy and credibility on something that goes nowhere, but if they refuse and are the perpetual outsiders than the foundation money is less forthcoming, ambitious people go elsewhere because aren’t you trying to change the system from within. “If you’re not trying to change the system from within, well what’s the point of you?” say middle class people who don’t understand how power works.
But then maybe they do, maybe without these sorts of efforts – even though they often go wrong – we would be in an even worse position? Who knows…
What happened next
The green groups went in, and the ESD process went tits up. And this was most evident in the middle of 1992 when a planned two-day conference ended in farce. New Prime Minister Paul Keating kicked ESD into the long grass. And it is mentioned ruefully now if at all; you have to be quite old to have any history with it…
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.