Tag: Malcolm Turnbull

Categories
Australia

November 24, 2009 – the Climate War in Australia goes kinetic…

On this day, November 24, 2009, the Liberals and Nationals finally decide there are more votes in rage than in the future…

The pivotal event was the Coalition party meeting of 24 November [2009] to consider the shadow cabinet recommendation to support Rudd’s amended scheme. This meeting determined the future of conservative politics for many years, and its consequences for Australia were far-reaching. The debate began at 10am with a briefing from Macfarlane who called the deal ‘exceptional’. Most backbenchers struggled with its complexity. The meeting ran for more than seven hours, with two breaks. Its disputed outcome was an insight into the arcane nature of political rituals.

Kelly, (2014:252)

The context was that, despite having gone to the 1990 Federal Election with a stronger climate target than the ALP, the Liberals and Nationals decided that the scientists were lying, physics was wrong and there was nothing to worry about. That held until 2006, when Prime Minister John Howard had been forced into another of his U-turns, and had announced the “Shergold Report” – a “limited hangout” of an emissions trading scheme. It had convinced nobody and Howard was swept from office in November 2007. The Liberals had started to backtrack on climate under the first Opposition Leader, Brendan Nelson. Once Malcolm Turnbull had taken over, things shifted back. But Turnbull, disliked by his own party and also wounded by a shoot-self-in-foot scandal earlier, was in a weak position…

What we can learn is that big events don’t need big causes. It can all go horribly wrong for no particular reason (though by this time the Australian Coal Association had properly got itself going on the anti-carbon pricing campaigning. Again.

What happened next

Turnbull was sacked. His replacement was not, as many expected, Joe Hockey, but thugchild Tony Abbott. And the climate wars properly kicked off…

Categories
Australia

 July 7, 2008 – Liberals start back-tracking on climate promises.

Fifteen years ago, on this day, July 7, 2008, the Liberal Party in Australia, perhaps bewildered to be in Opposition, started backtracking from the (pissweak) commitments it had taken to the 2007 Federal election.

THE Coalition split over climate change policy is growing, with Brendan Nelson refusing to embrace publicly the policy he has agreed to in private with senior colleagues.

Dr Nelson refused again yesterday to state simply that the Coalition supported the introduction of an emissions trading scheme regardless of whether the world’s major polluters were also prepared to act.

While taking an increasingly sceptical line towards climate change, the Opposition Leader denied there was an internal split over policy, claiming instead that it was “a question of emphasis”.

But he is falling foul of senior colleagues including the deputy leader Julie Bishop, the shadow treasurer, Malcolm Turnbull, and the environment spokesman, Greg Hunt.

Until this week the Coalition policy was to introduce a domestic emissions trading scheme no later than 2012.

On Monday [7 July] Dr Nelson walked away from that, saying nothing should be done until major polluters such as China and India were also committed, otherwise it would be economic suicide.

Coorey, P. 2008. Party lurches as Nelson shifts climate course. Sydney Morning Herald, 11 July

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 386.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Brendan Nelson had become leader of the Liberals after John Howard had lost his seat in the 2007 election. Let’s say that again. John Howard lost his seat in the 2007. Election. Nelson was by this time finding it pretty hard to square the circle because many Liberal MPs and especially National Party MPs, (the party the Liberals were in coalition with) did not like the idea that the hippies had been right and that greenhouse gases were something to worry about. And he was finding it hard to square the circle. And by this time, he must have known that Malcolm Turnbul, the ambitious  merchant wanker was circling, wanting the top job. 

What I think we can learn from this is that climate change is driving us mad both as individuals but also as organisations. It is an impossible object, a bit like what Captain Picard wanted to implant in the captured Borg in that episode of Star Trek. It is simply driving everyone mad because to use an old Marxist bit of jargon, “the contradictions” cannot be contained and papered over indefinitely.

What happened next is that Turnbull knifed Nelson, tried to bring the Liberals along with climate policy, was left swinging by Kevin Rudd, was then toppled and took everyone by surprise. Tony Abbott became opposition leader. Turnbull eventually toppled Abbott as Prime Minister in 2015. Yes, this is a soap opera. And then Turnbull was himself toppled as Prime Minister. And one of the people who voted against him in that leadership contest mentioned, Brendan Nelson The writers of the soap opera have clearly been paying attention to the back catalogue, and taking way too much acid.

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.

Categories
Australia

June 19, 2009 – Liberals warn ‘woke’ companies…

Fourteen years ago, on this day, June 19, 2009, the leader of the Liberal Party gets in a snit because business is – gasp – happy enough with the weak policy being proposed by the Australian Labor Party (then in government).

MALCOLM Turnbull has attacked big business for “snuggling up” to Labor, demanding business publicly back the Coalition strategy of amending and then passing the government’s emissions trading laws.

In a blunt exchange with about 30 chief executives at a Business Council of Australia breakfast at Parliament House on Wednesday, [17]Mr Turnbull attacked business for being “intimidated” into supporting the government and for failing to publicly push for amendments to the laws.

Taylor, L. 2009. Opposition tells industry: don’t `snuggle up’ to Labor — Turnbull puts heat on business. The Australian, 19 June, p.1.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 389.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

Malcolm Turnbull as the new Liberal Party leader needed to attack Labor, get business on side and not lose his own support. This was always going to be tricky given the competing and frankly irreconcilable demands.

What I think we can learn from this

A political party has explicit ideological needs, whereas business needs to cuddle up to whoever is in government and to keep selling stuff to people even when they’re having one of the periodic fits of “Let’s save the Planet.” Therefore business is going to take a more rational clear-eyed reality-based focus. This can be hard for a political party – especially one which takes business support for granted – to understand.

What happened next

Turnbull tried to take the carbon pricing issue off the table sending his Chief of staff Chris Kenny to talk with Rhodes chief of staff but no dice road was enjoying Turnbull’s agony too much. See Paul Kelly’s book Triumph and Demise for the gory details. Turnbull then lost his position as Liberal party leader to Tony Abbott, who came out swinging against doing anything on climate change.

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.

Categories
Australia

November 6, 2009 – Kevin Rudd playing politics with the climate

On this day, November 6 in 2009, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd gave a speech at the Lowy Institute about climate change, ahead of his second go at getting legislation through Parliament, and with the Copenhagen Conference coming up.  And he enjoyed poking Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull in the chest

“The clock is ticking for the planet, but [the] vested interests at work are simply too great”

Rudd had not really done very much talking about climate change over the previous two years (except when a policy document was landing). A February 2010 article by journo Peter Hartcher  claimed Rudd’s climate silence had been deliberate, since it meant the media would be attacking Liberals a lot. Who knows. Certainly Rudd could have been out there explaining the basics and explaining the danger, instead of occasional soundbites. 

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was xxxppm. At time of writing it was 416ppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – 

Turnbull had made false accusations about Rudd and corruption a few months previously (“Godwin Gretch”). Rudd was enjoying the Liberals and Nationals fighting each other, weakening Turnbull.

Why this matters. 

No issue – even the end of the world – is off limits to politicians engaged in their usual positioning and fighting. An active civil society might have kept a lid on that, a bit, I guess. We’re so toast.

What happened next?

Turnbull got replaced by Tony Abbott.  Rudd’s legislation failed, (and yes, the Greens didn’t vote for it), Copenhagen was a disaster and Rudd didn’t have the spine and good sense to do what his advisers were begging him to do – call a double dissolution election about climate change.  He then pissed off Julia Gillard one time too many, she rolled him and…. Oh, it’s so exhausting to recount.

Categories
Australia

November 2, 2009 – , Australian opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull seals own doom by not bending knee to shock jock

November 2, 2009 – , Australian opposition leader seals own doom by not bending knee to shock jock

On this day, November 2 in 2009, 

Abbott had dropped his daughters at the bus stop and was driving back across Roseville Bridge at about 7.30am when he turned on 2GB and heard Malcolm Turnbull having a set-to with Alan Jones. If you listen to a tape of that 2 November 2009 exchange now, you hear Turnbull refusing to kowtow to Jones, who becomes hysterically agitated about the ‘hoax’ of global warming and a secret deal by world leaders which will bleed $50 billion from Australia and send it off to South America. Turnbull is sharp with Jones once or twice, asking to be heard, reminding him his heroes Margaret Thatcher and John Howard wanted action on global warming: ‘Don’t you think,’ asks the leader of the Opposition, ‘you sound like the old lady who says the whole world is mad except for thee and me, and I have my doubts about thee?’

Abbott thought Turnbull’s leadership was terminal at that moment. What he was hearing was  bar-room brawl between his leader and the guru of a great swathe of the Liberal Party. This was no way to deal with Alan Jones. Turnbull wasn’t showing the necessary respect. It would cause immense damage.

(Marr, 2012:73)

[see also Paul Kelly “Triumph and Demise” on same period – Turnbull trying to get CPRS through with Rudd enjoying his pain too much to bother making a deal. You never hear the ALP talk about that – instead they like to bash the Greens…]

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 385ish ppm. At time of writing it was 41ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – 

John Howard had resisted any climate action for as long as possible, but finally in late 2006 had switched too a fallback of asking a civil servant to look at emissions trading – the Shergold Report, as much of a u-turn as you were going to get. He then got blown away in the November 2007 elections by Kevin “I’m from Queensland, I’m here to help” Rudd. Turnbull had overthrown first post-Howard Lib leader, Brendan Nelso, brought some Libs with him, not others….

Why this matters. 

We should always be alert to “but for a nail the battle was lost” and just how mad-as-a-box-of-frogs-left-on-the-back-seat-of-a-Ute the internal dynamics of political parties can be.

What happened next?

The Climate Wars

Categories
Australia Carbon Pricing Economics of mitigation Politics

Jan 21 (2010) – The flub that sank a thousand policies #auspol

On this day, in 2010, – yes, another Australia one, but it “matters” –  Australian  Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, was caught out having to admit that his proposed “carbon pollution reduction scheme” was dead and that he was kicking the whole climate issue into the long legislative grass.

The CPRS was an insanely complex piece of legislation. Economist Ross Garnaut said of it in December 2008 that  “”Never in the history of Australian public finance has so much been given without public policy purpose, by so many, to so few,”“ – and that’s before the further watering down. Green groups had called it a give-away to the fossil fuel lobby, and the Green Party had refused to support it in parliament in late November 2009, meaning that it failed to become law.

Rudd was in Norwood, a leafy, and relatively affluent suburb of a large country town called Adelaide in South Australia.

As leader of the Australian Labor Party, Rudd had used climate change as a battering ram to differentiate himself from Prime Minister John Howard, and been elected to do something about the issue. As Prime Minister from late 2007, he had been playing chicken with the Liberal National Party, especially its leader Malcolm Turnbull, and had initially rejoiced when Turnbull was replaced by the dark horse (and subsequent wrecking ball) Tony Abbott. 

But the climate conference in December 2009 in Copenhagen didn’t go well. And in the aftermath, Rudd ignored the urging of senior Labour Party members to call a snap election on the question of climate policy, and then didn’t even come up with a plan B. So he was caught on the hop. We know all of this because the period is intensely reported in the battle of the memoirs. And I’d alert you to Philip Chubb’s Power Failure. Julia Gillard’s My Story, Paul Kelly’s Triumph and Demise. 


What happened next?  Australia entered a period of extreme volatility about climate change that  has brought down successive prime ministers and left the country with enormous policy failures around climate, energy, renewables, you name it. If Rudd had had the courage of his convictions, or even just taken on the Green Party idea of a temporary carbon tax while an Emissions Trading Scheme was devised/an election held, none of this needed to have happened. And here we are. 

Why this matters? Because I think you can make an argument that Australia’s confusion and cynicism about climate change and politics is directly related to Rudd’s failure to pursue the climate agenda to the ballot box again, if needs be.,

Rudd had enjoyed going on and on about climate change as “the great moral challenge of our generation” (which it is). People believed him. Rudd’s popularity remained stratospheric. Then, when people decided that Rudd had been using climate as just another “positioning issue,” they felt cheated, betrayed, taken for fools. Rudd’s personal approval ratings took a massive hit. Climate was the only issue, but it certainly was the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

So if you, as a political leader, are going to use climate change as an issue, you better bring your A game and if your A game doesn’t work, you better switch to your B game, which is as good as your A game. And if you don’t, you will cause havoc. And it is now harder than in Rudd’s day, because everyone is cynical, everyone is kinda terrified, whether they can articulate it to themselves or not.