Sixteen years ago, on this day, November 26th, 2009,
On 26 November 2009, Liberal frontbencher Tony Abbott, reluctant yet determined, confronted his party leader Malcolm Turnbull in his office and instigated an upheaval that would shape Australian politics for years. Abbott asked Turnbull to abandon his support for carbon-pricing. He was accompanied by Senate leader Nick Minchin, the ideological spearhead of the campaign against Turnbull and the engineer of this encounter. This meeting would unleash unpredictable winds that would ruin Turnbull’s leadership, catapult Abbott into the office of Opposition leader and eventually destroy both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
(Kelly, 2014:18)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 388ppm. 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 after a very brief attempt to court environmentally-concerned voters in the run-up to the 1990 Federal election (LINK), the Liberals and Nationals decided to hate on the greenies.
The specific context was that Malcolm Turnbull had tried to get his party to go along with Rudd’s dire emissions trading scheme, and had said the fateful phrase “I will not lead a party… LINK.
Now, after having announced that the climate change science was “absolute crap” Tony Abbott was making his move.
What I think we can learn from this – they are all terrible people.
What happened next – Abbott toppled Turnbull, by a single vote. He was then a wrecking ball as an Opposition leader (tremendously effective) and a catastrophically inept Prime Minister.
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 26, 1979 – CCS first glimmerings, by Albanese and Steinberg
November 26, 1966 – Conservation Society first meeting
November 26, 1996 – Australian climate modelling is ridiculed
November 26, 1998 – “National Greenhouse Strategy” (re)-launched