Thirty two years ago, on this day, February 5th, 1992, the Leader of the Liberal Party, John Hewson, decided he would not bother meeting with those irritating greenies, who had Betrayed Their Word after the fateful lunch on January 15 1990 (they hadn’t, actually, but it made for a good “Dolchstoss” myth…).
Anon, 1992. Hewson snubs Conservation Foundation. Canberra Times, 6 February, p.4.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357.1ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Liberals felt that they had been shafted by the greens in March of 1990 and that they had not yet let this go. The Liberal view had hardened – they felt that the 1993 election was eminently winnable, especially now the widely disliked Paul Keating was PM. Bob Hawke had given a piss weak response to John Hewson’s Fightback! and so, had been toppled by Labour, who chose Paul Keating, who was deeply unpopular with the Australian public as Treasurer. Meanwhile, green issues were no longer salient. And therefore, Hewson thought that telling the Australian Conservation Foundation to go fuck itself was a no lose proposition which would throw red meat and support to the headbangers.
What we learn is that policies and politics are done by humans who have their senses of status and that can have long-term consequences because there is path dependency.
What happened next Hewson managed to lose the unlosable election in March 1993. Prime Minister Keating went on to shit all over environment issues and especially climate issues which he considered amorphous. You know the rest.
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.
See also
See also 12 0ctober 1989 piece by Andrew Fraser on Alexander Downer and market forces
Also on this day:
Feb 5, 1974 – Energy security, meet anti-Arab sentiment #propaganda
February 5, 2007 – Australian Prime Minister trolled by senior journalist