Tag: Julia Gillard

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Australia

September 2nd, 2002- Peter Garrett argues “community action” vs #climate change

On this day, September 2nd 2002, Midnight Oil lead singer Peter Garrett gave a lecture at ANU, pointing to “community action” as the only real hope….

“In a time of change so fundamental that even the notion of humanity was not immune, being passive was to accept impending doom, Midnight Oil lead singer and environmental activist Peter Garrett said. Speaking at the Australian National University’s public lecture series yesterday, the president of the Australian Conservation Foundation decried the country’s environmental record, yet pointed to community action as the only real hope.” 

Centenera, J. 2002. Garrett urges community to take action. Canberra Times, 3 September, p. 5.

On this day the PPM was 370.93 ppm Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

Community action was never going to be enough. And it is so hard to sustain…

What happened next?

Australians got agitated about climate change in large numbers a few years later (2006), but the politicians fucked it up (if your perspective is that they are there to serve current and future generations. If you think they are there to protect the rich and powerful in the short term, then….).

Julia Gillard did the best she could, got some legislation passed – inadequate, but passed. In an act of cosmic vandalism, the next Prime Minister, a deeply inadequate figure called Tony Abbott, repealed it.

Another wave of community action happened. And the atmospheric concentrations kept rising…

See also this about Midnight Oil’s 1990 gig outside Exxon HQ…

Categories
Australia

August 16, 2012  – Tony Windsor calls Tony Abbott an “absolute disgrace” on carbon tax/climate

On this day, August 16 2012, independent MP in the Australian Federal Parliament Tony Windsor has to explain the basic facts of life to Tony Abbott, then Opposition Leader

The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 392.59 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.

“The issue had also erupted about 12 months earlier, on 16 August 2012…. I’d had a gutful. His hypocrisy on the so-called carbon tax, or as it was originally cast, a price on carbon, was evident as the scheme had been supported by the Coalition in the lead-up to the 2007 election. Abbott and many inside and outside the parliament seemed to have forgotten that both sides of politics shared the same target for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. So when Abbott moved one of his many politically motivated suspensions of standing orders I gave him a spray about his hypocrisy on the matter….”

(Windsor, 2015: 212)

‘I will do anything, anything, to get this job’ – they were the comments, and people know that, and they should know it, because you are an absolute disgrace in the way in which you are wandering around on this issue. You have exactly the same target as the emissions trading scheme-pricing arrangements. You have exactly the same target in terms of the 1990 levels by 2020. And you have the audacity to actually say to people that you are going to achieve that target through a much more expensive arrangement than putting a price on carbon – particularly given the history that you have on this issue.

(Windsor, 2015: 218-9)

Why this matters. 

You can be a Rhodes Scholar and dumb as a rock. That is all.

What happened next?

Abbott became Prime Minister. Of course he did. And the one thing he achieved? Repealing the carbon price that the Gillard government had shepherded through parliament.

Categories
Australia Denial

May 25, 2011 – Aussie #climate scientist smeared rather than engaged. Plus ca change…

On this day, May 25, 2011 noted climate scientist and deep thinker Alan Jones [that is irony – the man is a particularly shocking “shock jock”] tried to undermine a climate scientist on his radio show.


The context was that the minority Labor government of Julia Gillard was trying to get a carbon price (“a carbon tax” according to its opponents) through Parliament. There was an extremely virulent agitation against this.

Jones had David Karoly, Professor of Meteorology at the University of Melbourne and a contributor to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on his show.

Jones: Are you being paid for being on the Government’s Climate Commission Science Advisory Panel?…

Karoly: No, my salary is not being paid by that.

Jones: Are you in any, and in receipt of any, benefits or funds or anything at all from the…

Karoly: I am receiving a travel allowance to cover the costs of going to meetings of the Science Advisory Panel and I am receiving a small retainer which is substantially less than your daily salary.

Jones: So you’re paid by the Government and then you give an opinion on the science of climate change. Have you ever heard about he who pays the piper calls the tune?’ (Cited in Barry 2011b) (Ward, 2015: 235)

Why this matters. 

This is a classic technique, to say that if someone gets any money at all from Them, then they and their work can be dismissed without any discussion of its merits, shortcomings, implications.

It’s a lazy (but necessary for the thick) shortcut to “winning.”

What happened next?

The Gillard legislation got up, and was then repealed by the next Prime Minister, Tony “Wrecking Ball” Abbott.

Gillard lost a leadership challenge in 2013, was replaced by Kevin Rudd.

Jones finished as a radio presenter in 2020. His Sky News Australia contract was not renewed.

Karoly retired in 2021.