Thirty four years ago, on this day, September 3rd, 1990, Bob Hawke has to keep the promise that got him back as Prime Minister… (well, one of them).
Conservation groups left Parliament House in Canberra on Monday [3rd], resisting Federal Government pressure to join efforts to achieve consensus over sustainable development.
This followed Stage Two of a special summit process including representatives from government, environmental groups and industry.
Members of Greenpeace, the Australian Conservation Foundation, World Wide Fund for Nature and the Wilderness Society spent more than an hour with Prime Minister Bob Hawke discussing a range of issues.
Anon,1990. Greens meet Hawke but resist consensus. Green Week, September 4, p.9.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that small-g green had come out for Labor giving second preferences in the Australian Federal election of March 1990. This meant that the incumbent Labor government squeaked back home. And the quid pro quo was that there would be more serious engagement with “ecologically sustainable development.” There had been, at last, a position paper in June of 1990. That had been fairly piss-weak on climate, of course, because it’s the big unmentionable to hard basket item, really. And here was Hawke meeting with the greenies to the fear and dismay and disgust of the business sector. Which you have to remember at this point, didn’t know if Hawke might go on for years and years.
What we learn is that there are always these sorts of meetings and quid pro quos and attempts to get mainstream parties to pay at least lip service to not being ecocidal maniacs. These usually end in tears for the ‘greenies’, because the system rewards Ecocide or maniac behaviour and punishes anything that isn’t ecocidal mania.
What happened next? After some further toing and froing and argy bargy the Ecologically Sustainable Development policymaking process did indeed happen. The greenies performed well intellectually. Business didn’t quite know what happened. But it was all for naught because business and bureaucracy – especially bureaucracy – were able to water things down and water things down. And then they got especially lucky, when Hawke was replaced by his former Treasurer Paul Keating. And then the dismissal of ecologically sustainable development kicked up a serious gear. It was killed off in the committees and left to die by the wayside. And also, there was the infamous meeting in the middle of 1992. Supposed to be a two day event. But everyone walked out at the end of day one because the bureaucrats were such assholes.
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.
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Also on this day:
September 3, 1988 – Ann Landers is Greta Thunberg avant la lettre…
September 3, 2002 – “Kyoto cuts too small, so we’re not going to bother”.