Tag: Penny Wong

Categories
Australia Business Responses

April 14, 2009 – Penny Wong meets the Business Council of Australia, white flag in hand…

Sixteen years ago, on this day, April 14th, 2009,

It’s a clear autumn day in April and Penny Wong and her chief of staff, close friend Don Frater, are in a hire car on their way to Noosa. As the sun shines on the coastal playground and restaurant mecca, the politician and her staffer are far from relaxed. Wong and Frater have flown from Canberra to Maroochydore in the Government VIP, then picked up the hire car for a high-stakes game – navigating their way through the politics of the emissions trading scheme they have massaged and managed for months.

The trip is top secret. Four weeks earlier Wong had faced the uncomfortable truth: the scheme, the mainstay of Kevin Rudd’s green credentials, had become a political nightmare, backed neither by business nor by environmental lobbyists, let alone by any of the parties with the balance of power in the Senate.

Today – April 14 – in Noosa is about a strategic backdown. The target is the president of the Business Council of Australia, Greig Gailey, who is on holiday in the town. Today he opens the door to some very businesslike guests. They want to sound him out about exactly what it would take to win business over.

(Taylor, 2009)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 390ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that in 2006-7 Australian politician Kevin Rudd had used the issue of climate change as a stick to beat Prime Minister John Howard with. Rudd was now enjoying watching the Liberals continue to tear themselves apart on whether or not to support an emissions trading scheme. This was all part of the game of politics. The CPRS legislation was about to be introduced into parliament, and everyone expected it would fall the first time. Which did come to pass. 

What I think we can learn from this is that we do not live in a democracy. We live in a corporate shell game with demonstration elections. And there are people willing to be the hawkers and the sidekicks to that, because the perks are nice. 

What happened next

 The CPRS legislation fell again in November-December, 2009 and Kevin Rudd initially thought this was great that Tony Abbott would tank. But then Copenhagen tanked, and then Rudd seems to have had some sort of breakdown and refused to call a double dissolution election, even though he was advised to. And then, when he pulled the plug on his CPRS (see April 11 post), his popularity plummeted very quickly, and he switched to trying to introduce a liberal resources tax. The rest is, as the podcast title goes, is history. 

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.

References

Taylor, L. 2009. The minister of cool. The Australian Magazine May 23.

Also on this day: 

April 14, 1964 – RIP Rachel Carson

 April 14, 1980 – Carter’s scientist, Frank Press, pushes back against CEQ report – All Our Yesterdays

April 14th, 1989 – 24 US senators call for immediate unilateral climate action

Categories
Australia

May 9, 2009 – Another white flag goes up on the “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme”

On this day, May 9 2009, the Australian newspaper carried a report that would surprise no close watcher of climate policymaking at the time.

Kevin Rudd had become Prime Minister of Australia in December 2007 with a promise and a mandate to take action on climate change. There followed a bewildering array of reports and documents (interestingly, economist Ross Garnaut was quickly sidelined because he lacked sufficient enthusiasm for “compensating” industries who were supposed to be changing their ways.

By the end of 2008 it was clear to activists (especially those who interrupted Rudd’s speech at the National Press Club) that Rudd’s basic idea was to give the rich and powerful whatever they wanted. That was the plan. And it got even worse in 2009, when he sent his climate minister on a “charm offensive.”

Steketee, M. 2009. Cool compromise. The Australian, 9 May, p.18.

WHEN Penny Wong did the rounds of environmental and business groups last week, they suddenly found her more receptive to their arguments. What were the key things they needed to be able to support the Government’s climate change package, she asked. The Climate Change Minister had a fair idea because she had heard their demands often enough, but this time she wasn’t fending them off. Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan and Wong already had decided on a new strategy to try to get the Government out of the political bunker.

Business demanded – and got – a delay to the start date of the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme. More was to follow…

Why this matters

In the absence of an enraged and engaged civil society, capable of more than spasms of emotion and outrage, then of COURSE “governance” is going to mean little more than doing whatever powerful industries allow. It’s easy to beat up on Rudd (and, actually, hits that sweet spot of being not only easy, but accurate and deserved), but where is the bold climate movement able to force better? Watch this space – the 2022 Federal elections in Australia may leave a bunch of climate-action-minded independents in a position of strength. Party like its early 2011 all over again!!

What happened next

Rudd couldn’t get his legislation over the line in June. When he came to try again in November he also couldn’t. Surprisingly the Greens weren’t going to vote for something they viewed as worse than useless. And then it all fell apart, with Julia Gillard left to pick up the pieces. And then… oh, it’s so exhausting and outlandish I can’t bring myself to type it up

Categories
Australia Carbon Pricing

Feb 23, 2009 Penny Wong flubs the CSPR… The CPSR..  THE PCRS. Oh, hell. #auspol

On the day 23rd of February 2009, Australia’s climate minister, Senator Penny Wong – full disclosure, I knew her when we were both at Adelaide University – confused the policy that she was advocating the carbon pollution reduction scheme.

“Under pressure from the mounting criticisms about how the CPRS cancels out the benefits from individual emissions reductions, Wong responded on the ABC’s 7.30 Report on February 23 that individual reductions will allow the government to increase carbon targets in subsequent years. This prompted an incredulous response from Andrew Macintosh, associate director of the Australian National University Centre for Climate Law and Policy. “Either Wong doesn’t understand her own scheme or she is deliberately lying”, he wrote on Crikey.com.au on February 24.”

The context is this. The Howard Government, 1996 to 2007 had successfully resisted all calls to meaningful action and climate change and even meaningless stuff like an ETS, even from within its own cabinet. Kevin Rudd used this uselessness on climate change – or rather, this defence of fossil fuel interests, which is not useless to fossil fuel interests – as part of his branding, to become prime minister. And in 2008, a torturous, confused, complex, complicated and ultimately corrupted process to create a carbon pollution reduction scheme had unfolded. 2009 was to be the year when the legislation was pushed through and what Wong was doing was trying to sell it. But the CPRS was insanely complex and hard to explain. And I for one, taken with the idea of a very simple carbon tax which might be less “efficient”, but more effective and hard to game was the way forward. It was not to be… 

Why this matters 

Because when politicians make complicated proposals, they lose the public and the public thinks this is going to be unfair, there are going to be loopholes, the rich will get their way and the public is usually right. “And the policies are planned, which we won’t understand” as TV Smith sings…

What happened next 

The CPRS failed to get through first time in the middle of the year, as was expected, and then didn’t get through again in November, December. And therein lies a story….