On this day, April 1, 2001 an Australian Labor Party MP tries to explain the dangers ahead for his party.
In a speech yesterday, Tanner opined that middle class voters of both hues cared about the environment. “If Labor allows the distinction between the Greens and the Coalition to become the dominant point of environmental differentiation in Australian politics, we will lose a major advantage over the Liberal and National Parties,” he said.
Tanner was concerned that the government would slip through the environment net through advertising glossing over its record. The big one going now is TV celebrity Don Burke extolling the Coalition’s Greenhouse credentials. Funny that, since most of the cash comes courtesy of the Democrats, who insisted on real money going into alternative energy research and rail as part of its price for supporting the GST. The Democrats got $400 million in extra funding for greenhouse gas projects over four years. In retrospect, lucky for the Coalition.
Kingston, M. 2001. Australia: green enough for Kyoto? Sydney Morning Herald, April 2 . http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/21/1069027322567.html
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that social democratic parties, based in productivism and unions, were always uneasy allies with greenies: the “environment issue” gets bolted on (the foot of) pre-existing shopping lists of demands. It’s easier done in opposition when you can criticise the ruling party, the governing party. Once you’re in power, it gets trickier (though Moss Cass, Whitlam’s Environment Minister had some successes).
The specific context was that, after the failure and betrayal of the Hawk Keating governments on climate change, the greens (small g) had, on the second or third attempt, created a national political party. By 2001 they were beginning to win, warning that Labour could continue to bleed support.
What I think we can learn from this is that spotting dilemmas is easier than taking action to manage them.
What happened next: The Green vote has continued to grow (unevenly both spatially and temporally). And Labor continues to have sooks when people they think they own vote otherwise. And the emissions continue to climb.
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:
April 1, 1857 – Bucharest gets oily illuminations
April 1, 1960 – TIROS satellite launched – All Our Yesterdays
April 1, 1970 – Eco-documentary shown on Melbourne TV, carbon dioxide build-up mentioned
April 1, 1979 – JASONs have their two cents on the greenhouse effect