Thirteen years ago, on this day, February 25th, 2011, radio “shock jock” Alan Jones went beserk (how can you tell, though?), during the carbon wars, while interviewing Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard…
Or consider this excerpt from Jones’ 25 February 2011 interview with Gillard (which he began by berating the prime minister for being late). He concluded his line of questioning about her CO2 emissions policy saying: ‘Do you understand, Julia, that you are the issue today because there are people now saying that your name is not Julia but JuLIAR and they are saying we’ve got a liar running the country’ (cited in Barry 2011a).
(Ward, 2015: 236)
The context was that the day before Julia Gillard had stood next to the Greens Senator Bob Brown and announced that there would be a carbon pricing scheme. She utterly failed to deal effectively with the accusation that it was the very same carbon tax that she had promised during the election campaign that she would not introduce. And now, this was the beginning of open season on her.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
But there’s a deeper context, of course, around both the anti environmentalism of large portions of the Australian elite but also culture and society, a hatred of different nature. “Biological cringe”, as historian Tom Griffiths calls it. And also – and related – a deep, deep misogyny. You can’t understand what Gillard had to put up if you don’t nderstand that misogyny exists and that she was the first female prime minister.
What happened next? Jones kept making increasingly outrageous statements about Gillard being a lesbian and putting her in a chaff bag and throwing her in the ocean. But this didn’t seem to affect his employability. Eventually his contract was not renewed and he had to go and work for Sky. Gillard endured and got a hell of a lot of legislation through. She was an extremely successful Prime Minister in those terms, and was toppled by the guy she had toppled Kevin Rudd in early 2013.
And the emissions? Well, they kept climbing, natch.
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:
February 25, 1981 – National Party senator nails the climate problem
Feb 25 1992- business groups predict economic chaos if action is taken on #climate
Feb 25, 2007 – “Clean Coal Initiative” as move in game of one-dimensional electoral chess #auspol