Twenty-nine years ago, on this day, May 30th, 1996,
The Federal Government’s promise of no new taxes included carbon and other so-called greenhouse taxes, the Minister for the Environment, Senator Robert Hill, told the Minerals Council of Australia in Canberra yesterday
Callick, R. (1996) Greenhouse tax off the agenda, Hill tells miners. Australian Financial Review, May 31
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 362ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the fossil fuel lobby had been fighting – half-assedly but with structural advantages and then cleverly and successfully – against any carbon pricing since the late 1980s. They’d created something called the (Australian) Industry Greenhouse Network in the early 1990s, and it had spearheaded the fight against the Toyne/Faulkner carbon tax proposal of 1994. But the Australian Mining Industry Council had gone Too Far on the question of Aboriginal land rights. They’d had to call in one of capitalism’s fixers – Geoff Allen – and on his advice rebrand as the Minerals Council of Australia and change their CEO. Once that was done, both Labor and Liberal meatpuppets, sorry, “politicians” were happy to bend the knee.
What I think we can learn from this. The trade associations are a good (not perfect, but good) barometer of what a sector wants and how the state responds.
What happened next. The MCA kept on winning. Which meant everyone bar the C-suite and the shareholders kept losing. And the losing accelerated.
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:
May 30, 1990 – Midnight Oil do a gig outside Exxon’s HQ in New York
May 30, 1996 – Denialist goons smear scientist
May 30, 2007 – Kevin Rudd pledges to ratify Kyoto, set emissions target and create an ETS