Fourteen years ago, on this day, October 12th, 2011,
“Carbon pricing (fixed for the first three years, then floating as part of an ETS) therefore passed the lower House of Representatives on 12 October 2011 with the support of Oakeshott, Windsor, Bandt and Wilkie with a vote of 74:72.” (Crowley, 2013: 377)
At 9.40am on 12 October, Gillard notches up a decisive victory with the passage through the Lower House of eighteen pieces of legislation making up the Clean Energy Future Bill which, inter alia, establishes the carbon price mechanism and its regulatory body.
(Walsh, 2013:87) Stalking of Julia Gillard
The day the carbon price bills passed the Parliament on 12 October 2011, journalist Annabel Crabb wrote for ABC The Drum online:
“Inside Rudd’s office, they used to speak of ‘kicking the can down the road’ – delaying decisions for a future date by which time conditions, it was hoped, would improve. Of all the criticisms that can validly be made of Julia Gillard’s Government, this is not one…
Julia Gillard is picking up the can that has been kicked down the road by John Howard, Kevin Rudd and, in his own way, Malcolm Turnbull…. There’s a compelling, almost cinematic quality to her determination; it’s like watching a slalom downhill skier deliberately hitting every peg.
(Cooney, 2015: 218)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 392ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 425ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that putting a price on carbon – either by a straightforward tax or an emissions trading scheme (the latter has more scope for loopholes and the enrichment of consultants, so guess which was considered more “efficient”) – had been pushed since the late 80s. And the fossil fuel lobby and its ideological henchmen had done an extremely effective job of stopping it, repeatedly, with help from John Howard on several notorious occasions.
The specific context was that Kevin Rudd’s cowardice and incompetence on carbon pricing had tanked his reputation, and in the end cost him his job. His replacement, Julia Gillard, was forced by the electoral mathematics of her minority government to push through a carbon price, in the face of an extraordinary campaign of vitriol (looking at you, Murdoch media minions and worms).
What I think we can learn from this – women have to clean up men’s messes.
What happened next – the next government, of Tony Abbott, abolished the pricing mechanism. God help us all.
(To be clear, the pricing mechanism was utterly inadequate as a response).
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:
October 13, 2005 – “Climate Change: Turning up the Heat” published