Tag: Tony Abbott

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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

September 30, 2009 – Tony Abbott says #climate science is “absolute crap”

On this day, 30 September 2009, Tony Abbott had another of his Moments, which led him to become the opposition leader, and then three years later, the Prime Minister…

“Abbott’s ‘road to Damascus’ was in fact the road between Bendigo and Beaufort in country Victoria. He explains in his book Battlelines that it was during a car trip to a Liberal Party fundraiser on 30 September that former House of Representatives speaker David Hawker told him there would be a bush revolt against what was being seen as just another tax. Farmers were worried that an ETS would put them out of business.”

(Cassidy, 2010:23)

and then

“Abbott spoke for about 20 minutes, plugged his book Battlelines, outlined the difficulties confronting the party and then opened the floor to questions. After several questions on the ETS, including the impact on farmers and whether it was wise to commit to a policy before Copenhagen, Abbott called for a show of hands on whether the Coalition should support the ETS. Only a handful voted yes.

Abbott, until that point Turnbull’s main defender on the ETS, became increasingly blunt. According to many in the room, he left no doubt that he was a climate change sceptic. He ruminated there had been many changes of climate over the millennia not caused by man. Finally, he said the science behind climate change was “crap”, at which stage Wilson snapped awake.

“I think I was nodding off down at the back of the room when all of a sudden he came out with the comment that the science around climate change was `absolute crap’ and I kind of jumped back awake and wrote down his quote,” [Craig Wilson, editor of the Pyrenees Advocate] says.

Rintoul, S. (2009) The town that turned up the temperature. The Australian 12 December.

The context was that in October 2009 the “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” was coming up for its second attempt at becoming law. The problem for the opposition parties was whether to support or oppose. The National Party were implacably opposed, the Liberals split (they needed to win back seats they had lost in 2007, in the first climate change election). The problem for them was that they had gone into that election promising an emissions trading scheme not that dissimilar to what was about to be voted on.

The Liberal Party leader, Malcolm Turnbull, was already unpopular in his party, and about to become more so (see a blog post coming up in early October). 

See also –

Tony Abbott, once the ‘climate weathervane’, has long since rusted stuck

On this day the PPM was 384.95 ppm. Now it is 421ish – but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

It doesn’t, really, unless you are a politics tragic and history buff…

What happened next?

Abbott toppled Turnbull. Then put the frighteners on Rudd. Then did his wrecking ball impression with Gillard. Then became Prime Minister, briefly. What a horror show.

Categories
Agnotology anti-reflexivity Coal Fossil fuels Greenwash Predatory delay Propaganda

February 26, 2014 – Advanced Propaganda for Morons

On this day, eight years ago, Peabody Coal started an advertising campaign called “Advanced Energy for Life.” Because as the dirtiest fossil fuel, coal had a serious image problem, and therefore needed to conflate itself with notions of energy poverty.

Why this matters

What they’re trying to do when they do this is insinuate that anyone who is opposed to the burning of ever more coal somehow wants people in Africa to die young, after a miserable impoverished life.

What you’ll find, of course, is that the many of same people who are protesting about environment also would like debt relief (cancellation), democratisation technology transfer and all the rest of it.

But Peabody would rather have you believe that all environmentalists are racist Malthusian assholes all the time. Now, it is indisputable that some environmentalists historically and down into this present day, racist assholes, and explicitly and unashamedly others, confused or ignorant, and of course, most buy into the myths of it being possible to have everything for everyone and there being no trade offs.

What happened next

One of Australia’s briefer Prime Ministers, Tony Abbott, used the “coal is good for humanity” line when opening a coal-fired power station later that year.

Peabody is making money at the mo’, because gas prices have spiked and so coal is competitive. For now.

Further reading.

The truth behind Peabody’s campaign to rebrand coal as a poverty cure | Coal | The Guardian

I’d recommend an article by James Meek in the London Review of Books about Scottish offshore wind energy and who is building the towers and the kits and under what conditions. But I digress. 

What happened next

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s later that year when opening a coal mine, use one of the Peabody talking points. Coal is good for humanity. So that’s When for pee buddies, PR people, 

Peabody has, of course, entered bankruptcy proceedings chapter 11, I think. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not that some people aren’t making money. It just means that times are tough for call my heart’s bleeding.