Thirty years ago, on this day, January 5th, 1995,
“The Industry Greenhouse sought support from the states for its campaign. Participant F says the network lobbied premiers, ministers, and the state bureaucracy, and forward copies of its carbon tax correspondence and reports. ‘I think Kennett came out with a statement against carbon tax that I think was prompted by some of our lobbying of the Premier’s Office.’ The Victorian Premier sent out a news release on 5 January 1995 opposing carbon tax and using many of the points put forward by the Industry Greenhouse Network….”
(Worden, 1998: 111)
(On the same day the greenhouse interdepartmental committee met for first time to plan Faulkner’s next submission… (see Henderson, 12 Jan 1995)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that John Faulkner, Federal Environment Minister, morning, was pushing for a small carbon tax that would help fund renewables research and development. The fossil fuel industries were up in arms about this, and were drawing in as many allies as they could. One of them was state premiers who were that way inclined, including Jeff Kennet, who of course, had famously privatized the State Electricity Commission of Victoria, and with that, destroyed any hope of a response to the greenhouse effect.
What I think we can learn from this is that, as well as “venue shopping,” policy entrepreneurs will go “ally shopping.” And in this case, they went for allies at the state level, as well as trades unions, the real two pronged approach.
What happened next was that the carbon tax proposal was defeated because Faulkner realized he didn’t have the numbers in Keating’s cabinet. Australia eventually got a carbon price, an emissions trading scheme in 2011/12, and it was then abolished by the next government, of Tony Abbott. The emissions have kept climbing, and we’re toast.
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.
Also on this day: