Sixteen years ago, on this day, April 14th, 2009,
It’s a clear autumn day in April and Penny Wong and her chief of staff, close friend Don Frater, are in a hire car on their way to Noosa. As the sun shines on the coastal playground and restaurant mecca, the politician and her staffer are far from relaxed. Wong and Frater have flown from Canberra to Maroochydore in the Government VIP, then picked up the hire car for a high-stakes game – navigating their way through the politics of the emissions trading scheme they have massaged and managed for months.
The trip is top secret. Four weeks earlier Wong had faced the uncomfortable truth: the scheme, the mainstay of Kevin Rudd’s green credentials, had become a political nightmare, backed neither by business nor by environmental lobbyists, let alone by any of the parties with the balance of power in the Senate.
Today – April 14 – in Noosa is about a strategic backdown. The target is the president of the Business Council of Australia, Greig Gailey, who is on holiday in the town. Today he opens the door to some very businesslike guests. They want to sound him out about exactly what it would take to win business over.
(Taylor, 2009)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 390ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that in 2006-7 Australian politician Kevin Rudd had used the issue of climate change as a stick to beat Prime Minister John Howard with. Rudd was now enjoying watching the Liberals continue to tear themselves apart on whether or not to support an emissions trading scheme. This was all part of the game of politics. The CPRS legislation was about to be introduced into parliament, and everyone expected it would fall the first time. Which did come to pass.
What I think we can learn from this is that we do not live in a democracy. We live in a corporate shell game with demonstration elections. And there are people willing to be the hawkers and the sidekicks to that, because the perks are nice.
What happened next
The CPRS legislation fell again in November-December, 2009 and Kevin Rudd initially thought this was great that Tony Abbott would tank. But then Copenhagen tanked, and then Rudd seems to have had some sort of breakdown and refused to call a double dissolution election, even though he was advised to. And then, when he pulled the plug on his CPRS (see April 11 post), his popularity plummeted very quickly, and he switched to trying to introduce a liberal resources tax. The rest is, as the podcast title goes, is history.
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.
References
Taylor, L. 2009. The minister of cool. The Australian Magazine May 23.
Also on this day:
April 14, 1964 – RIP Rachel Carson
April 14th, 1989 – 24 US senators call for immediate unilateral climate action