Sixteen years ago, on this day, July 11st, 2010,
On Friday, 23 July 2010, at the end of the first week of the 2010 Australian federal election campaign, Prime Minister Julia Gillard held a press conference to announce her commitments regarding Australian Labor Party (ALP) climate change policy.[1] Central to that announcement was her proposal to convene a “Citizens’ Assembly” (CA)[2] that would involve 150 randomly-selected Australian citizens.
http://apo.org.au/commentary/growing-politically-conducting-national-conversation-climate-change
Growing up politically: conducting a national conversation on climate change Lyn Carson 9 September 2010
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 390ppm. As of 2026, 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 initially under the Labor government of Bob Hawke, from 1988 to 1990 or so, the Labor party had (under significant social and electoral pressure) pretended to give a damn about the climate issue. From 1991 or so, the mask slipped. Once in opposition, they found it useful to use climate as a stick to beat the government of Liberal John Howard (1996-2007). Once in office, Kevin Rudd had comprehensively bollocksed it all up, because he was desperate to keep the powerful mining and energy companies sweet.
The specific context was that new Prime Minister Julia Gillard was keen to try to kick the whole issue into the long grass so she could get on with other, more important (sic) issues.
What I think we can learn from this – there is (or might be) time for ‘citizens’ assemblies’, but this wasn’t it.
What happened next – Gillard’s proposal was rightly derided, and rendered irrelevant by the results of the 2010 election, after which, in order to form a government, she had to do a deal with a bunch of independents, and they all insisted on a carbon price, not a citizens’ assembly.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
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Also on this day:
July 23, 1979 – Charney Report people meet – will conclude “yep, global warming is ‘A Thing’.”
July 23, 1979 – Charney Report meeting begins