Thirty one years ago, on this day, November 9th, 1994,
A DOCUMENT leaked from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has revealed the department’s strongly critical view of business and farm lobby concerns over international environment treaties now being negotiated by the Government.
The document, a minute written by First Assistant Secretary, Mr W.N. Fisher, to the department head, Mr Michael Costello, reveals a DFAT institutional view that is highly critical and dismissive of business and farm lobbies.
The minute will gravely embarrass the Federal Government, which has undertaken to improve consultation with business and farm groups over treaty negotiations. The minute reveals DFAT’s conviction that consultations are a waste of time because, ultimately, the Government knows what is best for business.
In it, he calls DFAT contacts with business “despairing” and “pretty appalling”. He says Mt Isa Mines Ltd salesmen are “incompetently briefed” by the company on a climate change convention now being negotiated.
“You would think that MIM, with a multi-million dollar export contract at stake, would at least have the wit to brief its salesmen on the contents of the framework convention so that if they have to confront these arguments they would know what they are talking about.”
“Too much to hope for, apparently. MIM salesmen must be a pushover for the Germans and the Japanese to deal with,” the minute says.
Barker, G. 1994. Govt leak scorns business lobby. The Australian Financial Review, 9 November.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 359ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. 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 there had already been fierce fights within the federal policymaking machinery about climate change. Problem was, the bad guys were winning.
See this great piece by Royce Kurmelovs on ABARE…
The specific context was – the first COP was coming up (Berlin, March-April 1995) and Australia wanted to get its position straight. Meanwhile, there was a fierce campaign for (and a fiercer campaign against) a carbon tax.
What I think we can learn from this – states are not monoliths. There are all sorts of fights going on about turf, but also direction of travel. And industry has its meatpuppets within the official bureaucracy, as well as lots of zombie think tanks etc.
What happened next – the Department of Climate Criminality and Assholeness continued to win all the important fights.
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:
November 9, 1988 – Tolba gives “Warming Warning” speech at first IPCC meeting
November 9, 1991 – Australian TV station SBS shows demented ‘”Greenhouse Conspiracy” ‘documentary’
November 9, 1992 – Ark sails on, Downunder – All Our Yesterdays
November 9, 2000 – Tyndall Centre launched
November 9, 2009 – Senior Liberal says CCS won’t work – All Our Yesterdays