Eleven years ago, on this day, May 31, 2012, Australian climate minister Greg Combet mocks Opposition Leader Tony Abbott over the latter’s idiotic claims of the costs of a carbon “tax”.
“At which point Combet burst into song: ‘Cabramatta Parramatta, Wangaratta, Coolangatta-” but the punchline is: “Everywhere is doomed, man”.’ Paul Keating and Peter Costello would have been proud.”
Oakes, L. 2012. Abbott is the high priest of pessimism. The Australian, 2 June.
And some audio here –
https://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3515530.htm
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 396ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that all through the climate wars of 2010-11 Tony Abbott had made outlandish and unsupported claims about the economic costs to citizens and businesses of the Gillard Emissions Trading Scheme. Abbot claimed that various regional centres would be “wiped off the map,” that would be $150 pot roast, at cetera, et cetera.
These sorts of the sky-will-fall pronouncements, while ludicrous, will lend credibility simply by the fact that he was – God help us – Leader of the Opposition. And they were, of course, amplified by the deeply irresponsible, and in fact, malicious Murdoch media, who will now clutch their pearls,saying “nothing to do with us gov”. So Combet wanted to have a little fun.
What I think we can learn from this
What we learn is that lies and bullshit in the service of capital are always okay. God help you if you make one error of fact, or exaggeration, when trying to reduce the damage of industrial civilization, if and when that impinges on rich people’s ability to make more profit.
What happened next
Nowhere was wiped off the map. But the ALP did get wiped out, and Abbot became Prime Minister. That went well…
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.