On this day, in 2009, at the climax of their three day Climate Action Summit, protesters linked arms around Parliament House in Canberra. Climate activism had exploded in 2006 in Australia, with everything from marches to, in the following years, direct action attempts to prevent the export of coal from Newcastle. Activist group Rising Tide had held climate camps and with the new Rudd Government talking about climate action, the time seemed ripe with promise.
However, by the end of 2008, it was obvious that the Labour government which had promised so much was going to deliver at best, very, very little. Activists had interrupted Rudd’s National Press Club presentation at the end of 2008. And economist Ross Garneau had denounced Rudd’s “carbon pollution reduction scheme” with the words “Never in the history of Australian public finance has so much been given without public policy purpose, by so many, to so few,”
So 2009 looked like it was going to be the year when citizens said enough. However, it was not to be. Protest movements struggle, once an issue is on the agenda, because many who would otherwise support it, say, “you’ve got to give the process time, you’ve got to see what emerges.” This, of course, plays into the hands of incumbents who know very well how to slow things down, how to sideline proposals, how to water down commitments, how to demand extensions, and special treatment. If the insurgents don’t have a class interest that binds them together, they are even more vulnerable…
And of course, this was all happening in the middle of the global financial crisis. (But there is always some reason not to act on a long term problem, like climate change.)
Why this matters?
We need to understand that you can physically, symbolically encircle a parliament but actually restricting the ability of elected politicians to weasel out and to water down is a much tougher proposition requiring different skills, different capacities.
What happened next?
Rudd’s CPRS failed to get through Parliament early in 2000. And in mid 2009, and failed again, in December of that year, when the Liberals revolted, the Greens refused to support it. And the rest of the story is horrible. But we know that.
See also