Thirty years ago, on this day, February 11, 1993, with a Federal election campaign underway, an academic ran the numbers on the Liberal Party’s Fightback! policy and what it would mean….
According to the director of science and technology policy at Murdoch University, Fightback! would result in a six per cent increase in car use immediately, and 28 per cent in a few years.
The table shows that Australia is the third worst polluter in the OECD region and that our poor performance is very much related to low fossil-fuel prices.
If Australia is to get its carbon emissions down to a level comparable with other OECD countries, some form of carbon tax will have to be introduced.
International pressure to move in this direction is likely to intensify over the next decade
Davidson, K. 1993. Hewson Error Of Emission. The Age, 11 February, p.13.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
From late 1991 Opposition Leader John Hewson had been successfully attacking Labor with an even more neoliberal set of policies than Labor had been using. He called it “Fight Back!” Hewson had spooked a tired Bob Hawke and this gave Hawke’s former Treasurer Paul Keating an opportunity for a second bite at the leadership cherry. Fight back indeed! Fight Back! marked the end of the Liberal experiment with appearing green, (see, January 15, blog post).
But Fightback! would, as per this report, mean that environment issues would be further down the policy agenda. And the quality of the human and natural environment would further decline.
What I think we can learn from this
The intense battles in the realm of politics, often two bald men fighting over a comb, bear no relation to the actual problems that the society or species faces. We mustn’t mistake all of that heat for light.
The Green Party’s and greens of the world have been saying this for decades, I’m saying precisely nothing new here. But hopefully, by dint of repetition, it will get into my own head.
As per February 5 blog post, we mistake the shadows on the wall for the reality. We think that because some planet-destroying goon is getting laughed out then progress is being made. And on the whole, it’s not.
What happened next
Hewson went on to lose the unlosable election to Paul Keating. Environmental matters were nowhere to be seen. Hewson over time, has had a semi Damascene conversion. I don’t know that anyone has ever asked him if he regrets the Fightback! stuff.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.