Friday, 31 October 2014
Emissions trading will be back in the game if Direct Action proves ineffective
Extract from The Guardian
Australia’s global promise to cut emissions seems certain to test Greg Hunt’s determination to resist carbon pricing
- Lenore Taylor, political editor
- theguardian.com,
Greg Hunt vows emissions trading is dead and won’t be revived for 20
years or more. But he has quietly given himself the power to bring back
a form of carbon trading, and he has advice that if he doesn’t use it,
Australia cannot meet the climate promises it has made to the world.
The seeds of an emissions trading scheme are buried in the deal Hunt did with crossbench senators. And the power for them to bloom into a new form of carbon trading also rests with him.
The catch is, if he doesn’t allow this to happen, Australia is very unlikely to meet its 2020 emissions reduction targets, and has almost no chance of meeting the deeper targets it will have to commit to after that.
In a few years the minister is very likely to face a choice – break the Coalition’s promise never to introduce any form of carbon price, or break Australia’s promise to the world about how much we would reduce greenhouse emissions.
Despite the minister’s denials, his own scheme and amendments he developed with independent senator Nick Xenophon clearly leave the way open for him to develop a baseline and credit-style emissions trading scheme in two ways.
The first is through the “safeguards” he will develop to make sure businesses not seeking money from his “direct action” fund don’t increase their emissions and undo all the reductions the government is buying.
The idea is to set baselines that emitters are not allowed to exceed. But Hunt’s own white paper says that “in the unlikely event of baselines being exceeded” he could allow the offending companies to make up for it by “purchasing credits created by other accredited emissions reduction projects”.
The white paper also says that companies that promise a certain quantity of reductions in return for money from the $2.5bn emissions reduction fund, but then don’t manage to live up to their promises, could buy credits from companies that reduce emissions by more than they had envisaged.
Whenever he is asked whether this means Direct Action could morph into a baseline and credit scheme, Hunt always fobs off the question with the same answer – that the government will get “zero revenue” from its policy.
But neither of the trading scenarios envisaged in the white paper – a business that exceeds its baseline buying a credit from another business, or a business that fails to achieve all the emission reductions it has promised buying a credit from another business – would result in the government receiving money. And it would still be a carbon market. The “zero revenue” line is true, but it avoids the real question.
Obviously, Hunt could squash this market before it ever started by setting the baselines so high that no company would ever exceed them and find itself in need of buying a credit.
But there a few reasons this may prove difficult.
First, there are established ways of setting the baselines and scrutinising them, and under the Xenophon amendments the rules governing them can be disallowed by parliament.
Second, analysts agree that without some real limit on total emissions, Australia stands little chance of meeting its target of reducing emissions by 5% by 2020, let alone the deeper post-2020 target we will have to announce next year.
This is especially true after Tony Abbott rejected Xenophon’s suggestion that some of the emissions reduction fund be set aside to buy cheaper international carbon permits if the target was starting to look difficult to achieve. It is understood Hunt was in favour of this idea, as are large sections of the business community and the environment movement, but it was vetoed by the prime minister (who once described buying international permits as being like sending “money … offshore into dodgy carbon farms in Equatorial Guinea and Kazakhstan”..). It was also rejected by the Palmer United Party.
Xenophon says the rejection of international permits is a “bizarre, ideological decision”. He also says the Direct Action scheme could easily become a “springboard’ to a baseline and credit scheme, “depending on the emission baselines”.
And he says that if Hunt made the baselines too easy to comply with, “there’s no way Australia can meet its target”.
On Wednesday, the Reputex analytical firm said it calculated that “on its own” the emissions reduction fund would achieve about one third of the emissions reduction needed to meet Australia’s target.
But the firm, which has been close to the negotiating process – its press release about the deal came before Hunt and Palmer had announced it – added that “while the ERF alone will fall short of Australia’s 5% emissions target”, the “ongoing design of the safeguards mechanism will buy the government time to address any emissions shortfall”.
“The safeguard mechanism is likely to operate akin to a baseline and credit scheme,” the company said.
Hunt says he’s “confident” Australia will meet its target because the decline of manufacturing means emissions are falling without the government doing anything, and because he thinks he’ll be able to buy emission reductions cheaper than he first thought.
But most observers – and all available modelling exercises (the government hasn’t done any) – are confident he’s wrong. If he is, the government is going to face some difficult choices. And one of them will involve emissions trading.
The seeds of an emissions trading scheme are buried in the deal Hunt did with crossbench senators. And the power for them to bloom into a new form of carbon trading also rests with him.
The catch is, if he doesn’t allow this to happen, Australia is very unlikely to meet its 2020 emissions reduction targets, and has almost no chance of meeting the deeper targets it will have to commit to after that.
In a few years the minister is very likely to face a choice – break the Coalition’s promise never to introduce any form of carbon price, or break Australia’s promise to the world about how much we would reduce greenhouse emissions.
Despite the minister’s denials, his own scheme and amendments he developed with independent senator Nick Xenophon clearly leave the way open for him to develop a baseline and credit-style emissions trading scheme in two ways.
The first is through the “safeguards” he will develop to make sure businesses not seeking money from his “direct action” fund don’t increase their emissions and undo all the reductions the government is buying.
The idea is to set baselines that emitters are not allowed to exceed. But Hunt’s own white paper says that “in the unlikely event of baselines being exceeded” he could allow the offending companies to make up for it by “purchasing credits created by other accredited emissions reduction projects”.
The white paper also says that companies that promise a certain quantity of reductions in return for money from the $2.5bn emissions reduction fund, but then don’t manage to live up to their promises, could buy credits from companies that reduce emissions by more than they had envisaged.
Whenever he is asked whether this means Direct Action could morph into a baseline and credit scheme, Hunt always fobs off the question with the same answer – that the government will get “zero revenue” from its policy.
But neither of the trading scenarios envisaged in the white paper – a business that exceeds its baseline buying a credit from another business, or a business that fails to achieve all the emission reductions it has promised buying a credit from another business – would result in the government receiving money. And it would still be a carbon market. The “zero revenue” line is true, but it avoids the real question.
Obviously, Hunt could squash this market before it ever started by setting the baselines so high that no company would ever exceed them and find itself in need of buying a credit.
But there a few reasons this may prove difficult.
First, there are established ways of setting the baselines and scrutinising them, and under the Xenophon amendments the rules governing them can be disallowed by parliament.
Second, analysts agree that without some real limit on total emissions, Australia stands little chance of meeting its target of reducing emissions by 5% by 2020, let alone the deeper post-2020 target we will have to announce next year.
This is especially true after Tony Abbott rejected Xenophon’s suggestion that some of the emissions reduction fund be set aside to buy cheaper international carbon permits if the target was starting to look difficult to achieve. It is understood Hunt was in favour of this idea, as are large sections of the business community and the environment movement, but it was vetoed by the prime minister (who once described buying international permits as being like sending “money … offshore into dodgy carbon farms in Equatorial Guinea and Kazakhstan”..). It was also rejected by the Palmer United Party.
Xenophon says the rejection of international permits is a “bizarre, ideological decision”. He also says the Direct Action scheme could easily become a “springboard’ to a baseline and credit scheme, “depending on the emission baselines”.
And he says that if Hunt made the baselines too easy to comply with, “there’s no way Australia can meet its target”.
On Wednesday, the Reputex analytical firm said it calculated that “on its own” the emissions reduction fund would achieve about one third of the emissions reduction needed to meet Australia’s target.
But the firm, which has been close to the negotiating process – its press release about the deal came before Hunt and Palmer had announced it – added that “while the ERF alone will fall short of Australia’s 5% emissions target”, the “ongoing design of the safeguards mechanism will buy the government time to address any emissions shortfall”.
“The safeguard mechanism is likely to operate akin to a baseline and credit scheme,” the company said.
Hunt says he’s “confident” Australia will meet its target because the decline of manufacturing means emissions are falling without the government doing anything, and because he thinks he’ll be able to buy emission reductions cheaper than he first thought.
But most observers – and all available modelling exercises (the government hasn’t done any) – are confident he’s wrong. If he is, the government is going to face some difficult choices. And one of them will involve emissions trading.
TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE ON GOVERNMENT'S DEAL ON DIRECT ACTION
Media Release
Mark Butler MP.
Shadow Minister for Environment
Climate Change and Water
Date: 30 October 2014
MARK BUTLER, SHADOW MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE: Good
morning everyone. Well, a report from Reputex this morning confirmed
that the deal done yesterday between Clive Palmer and Tony Abbott, at
best, will deliver 20 to 30 per cent of the emissions reduction that is
needed by Australia to get to the five per cent target by 2020. This is a
devastating report from Reputex, it confirms that the deal announced
yesterday is utterly hopeless for Australia’s future. What it means is
that in order to get to the five per cent target, the Australian
Government, Tony Abbott is going to have to spend, on Ken Henry’s
estimate, four to five billion dollars per year between now and 2020
just to get to the five per cent reduction. Or else, it means that Tony
Abbott’s going to have to give up on any substantial attempt to reduce
Australia’s carbon pollution. What it also means is that Tony Abbott is
going to go to meetings like the G20 next month and a range of other
meetings over coming months leading into next year, that will discuss
climate change, whether or not he likes it, he’ll go to those meetings
completely empty handed while countries like the United States, China
and many others have serious plans to tackle climate change. The deal
done yesterday between Clive Palmer and Tony Abbott has left Australia
utterly empty-handed.
JOURNALIST: Is it a positive thing that the Climate Change Authority will at least investigate an ETS?
BUTLER: Well, the Climate Change
Authority is a great authority filled with great people. It’s done work
on this before. This is an assignment, frankly, you could have given a
first year high school student who had access to the internet. This is
an utter joke. And for Clive Palmer to claim that somehow he has saved
the ETS – which was the headline on his media release – either shows
that he doesn’t understand the deal that he has done with Greg Hunt or
that he has developed an extraordinary capacity for spin.
JOURNALIST: [INAUDIBLE]
BUTLER: Well, Labor has been
utterly steadfast on this. We took an emissions trading scheme to the
last election, we argued the case for an emissions trading scheme in the
House of Representatives and the Senate. There was a real, substantial
emissions trading scheme before the Senate only a couple of months ago
and Clive Palmer lined up with Tony Abbott to kill it. So, he’s not in a
position to be issuing media releases saying he saved the ETS when he
joined with Tony Abbott to kill an ETS only a couple of months ago.
JOURNALIST: Isn’t it time for Labor to introduce its own proposed alternative?
BUTLER: We had a proposed
alternative for the last several months, we released draft legislation
before the last election, we issued costings that would reflect the
change from the carbon tax which we said we would terminate for an
emissions trading scheme. You could not get more detail, it ran to
hundreds of pages, it had been released and the subject of comment from
business and dozens of other stakeholders. It was a proposal killed by
Tony Abbott.
JOURNALIST: Do you think the safeguards for emissions in Direct Action will be able to stop them emitting too much without penalty?
BUTLER: Well of course it can’t. A
meaningful safeguards mechanism will involve a substantial price on
carbon pollution and Tony Abbott has made it clear he’s not interested
in that. He’s just not interested. So what we have is a situation where
billions and billions of tax payers dollars will be handed over to some
polluters to make some change to the way they operate, changes that many
of them would have been intending to make anyway, can now do so on the
taxpayers’ chip. While on the one hand, they will do nothing to prevent
other companies from blowing their carbon pollution, from massively
increasing their carbon pollution.
JOURNALIST: You don’t have any faith that Australian businesses will do the right thing? You think they need a stick?
BUTLER: Well Australian
businesses, as has been recognised around the world, will operate best
under an economy wide cap on carbon pollution that then lets business
work out the cheapest and most effective way to operate. That is the
essence of an emissions trading scheme. You see it in all of our oldest
trading partners in the UK and Europe, we see now seven emissions
trading schemes in China, moving to a national trading scheme we think
in the next few years, South Korea – not North Korea, South Korea, not
North Korea to my knowledge – South Korea, our third largest export
partner, starts an emissions trading scheme next year. Many other parts
of North America have them. It is recognised around the world as the
most effective and the cheapest way to reduce carbon pollution.
JOURNALIST: How are the negotiations going for the RET?
BUTLER: Well we are committed to
doing all that we can to get this policy back on the rails. Tony Abbott
walked away from the long standing bipartisan support for renewable
energy that had meant that by the middle of last year Australia was one
of the four most attractive places in the world to invest in renewable
energy along with China, the US and Germany. So these were the power
houses investment in the world, and what we’ve seen since is Australia
plummet down the table to the point where now we’re 10th, the 10th
most attractive place to invest and there’s been essentially no large
scale investment this year. Now, we think it’s our responsibility as the
alternative party of government to engage in good faith negotiations
with Ministers Macfarlane and Hunt to see whether they’re able to come
back to a position of bipartisan support for this industry because if
there is not bipartisan support we will see no investment in the future,
we lose thousands of jobs and we see carbon pollution in the
electricity sector, which is the largest source of pollution in
Australia, start to increase rather than start to reduce. So, we’re
engaging in those negotiations in good faith, but we will insist that
any deal between Labor and the Liberal Party will ensure that the
renewable energy industry in Australia continues to grow robustly into
the future.
JOURNALIST: That 41,000GWh target, is that going to be a prerequisite for any deal?
BUTLER: Well we’ve said that is
our starting position for these negotiations. This is a policy that
undoubtedly worked. It’s a policy that Tony Abbott voted for in the
Parliament in 2009 and that he took to the 2010 and 2013 elections. Even
his own handpicked panel, Dick Warburton’s panel, found that it worked,
it created investment, it created thousands of jobs, it’s keeping down
power prices – they’ll be lower under the RET than without the RET – and
it’s also reducing our carbon pollution. So yes that is our starting
position but our objective is to stop the renewable energy industry
collapsing in Australia ensuring instead that it continues to grow, but
grows robustly in the future.
JOURNALIST: How do you rate Clive Palmer’s negotiation skills?
BUTLER: Well frankly I just don’t
know what Clive Palmer’s done yesterday. I said yesterday that Greg Hunt
must have performed some Jedi Mind Trick to get Clive Palmer to sign up
to this. He has lambasted the Direct Action policy for months – and for
good reason, it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars that will do nothing to
achieve meaningful reductions in carbon pollution. Now he’s back flipped
on that, decided to support that hopeless policy, just for an authority
to deliver a report you can get off the internet.
JOURNALIST: To take the Star Wars
analogy a little bit further, Jedi Mind Tricks only work on weak minded
forms, is that what you think Clive Palmer is?
BUTLER: Well, that’s not the case.
Jedi Mind Tricks work on pretty much everyone except Jabba the Hutt. He
was the only one I remember being able to resist Jedi Mind Tricks, so I
pay no disrespect to Clive Palmer being vulnerable to Jedi Mind Tricks,
I’m sure I would be as well, but the fact is – Star Wars analogies
aside – this is a hopeless deal, an utterly hopeless deal which might be
good for the Government, which is the only thing that Greg Hunt seems
to be saying at his press conferences, but it is terrible for
Australia’s future.
JOURNALIST: So he’s gone to the Dark Side?
BUTLER: Well there was always a
question about whether Clive Palmer was on the Dark Side on this
question before, notwithstanding his press conference with Al Gore, but I
think he’s been exposed here. He’s sided with the Government on a
hopeless policy that will waste billions of tax payer dollars, achieve
nothing in terms of meaningful reductions in carbon pollution, for a fig
leaf about a study on emissions trading schemes that, as I said, has
been done countless times before and you could give to a high school
student to do.
JOURNALIST: Glad you know your Star Wars.
BUTLER: Thanks very much.
DEBT CALCULATOR SHOWS HOW HARD STUDENTS WILL BE HIT
Media Release
Mark Butler MP.
Shadow Minister for Environment
Climate Change and Water
Date: 30 October 2014
A
calculator on Labor’s new website will show students, parents and
grandparents exactly how much Tony Abbott’s unfair university changes
will cost, Federal Member for Port Adelaide Mark Butler said today.
Labor’s campaign to stop Tony Abbott’s $100,000 degrees continues with the launch of a new interactive feature on nodebtsentence.org
The Debt Sentence Calculator allows visitors to enter a chosen degree to find out how much Tony Abbott’s changes will cost them.
“I think people will be shocked at the difference,” Mr Butler said.
“I
know for students and their parents in the Port Adelaide electorate
considering university next year or the year after this is a genuine
concern.
“Labor believes the opportunity to go to university should depend on hard work and good marks, not ability to pay.”
Based
on independent modelling the calculator shows the level of debt a
university course will incur and how long it will take you to pay it
back.
For example, under the current arrangements a female student studying nursing pays $19,410 in HELP repayments over 7 years.
Under Tony Abbott’s unfair university changes, her degree will cost $66,700 and take nearly 17 years to repay.
Additional scenarios are available at www.nodebtsentence.org
The
calculator means students, prospective students, and parents in the
Port Adelaide electorate can now see – to the dollar – the shocking
consequences of an Americanised university system.
While
Tony Abbott continues to break election promises and lie to
Australians, the Debt Sentence Calculator will show students the hard
truth.
“This is taking Australia down the American path of $100,000 degrees and a debt sentence.
“Tony Abbott’s plan to deregulate fees will make attending university an unachievable dream for many young Australians.
“Now
students living in the Port Adelaide electorate can calculate exactly
how hard they will be hit, and join Labor’s campaign against these
unfair changes.”
Labor will fight Tony Abbott’s plan to saddle young Australians with a debt sentence every step of the way.
Thursday, 30 October 2014
A poem for Greg Hunt, Minister for the Environment
The Liar
We are many and you are few,
we listen to the crap you spew.
Don’t think we aren’t up to speed,
on truth and lies as you deceive.
You spout out lines of twisted tales,
like politicians or car sales.
You change what we would like to hear,
while your treachery has no fear.
You are what’s wrong in every way,
no longer care ‘bout what you say.
You paint your picture so distorted,
you change the story not reported.
The words come out but do not say,
the truth behind what you portray.
You bend the facts for your own gain.
How is it that you feel no pain?
LIAR!!!
by
Michael Charles Messineo
The Worker
"DIRECT ACTION" STILL A DUD
Media Release
Mark Butler MP.
Shadow Minister for Environment
Climate Change and Water
The Abbott Government’s Direct Action
policy is still a waste of taxpayers’ money, despite amendments agreed
to by the Liberals, Palmer United Party and Senator Nick Xenophon.
The dirty deal cooked up by Greg Hunt, Clive Palmer and Nick Xenophon is hopelessly flawed.
Direct Action will still pay billions in taxpayer
dollars to big business to reduce their pollution, rather than making
the polluters pay.
And Tony Abbott’s promise to include safeguards
that prevent any reductions in carbon pollution being offset by
increases in carbon pollution elsewhere in the economy has been exposed
as a mirage.
What we end up with is a situation where Tony
Abbott will hand billions of taxpayer dollars to some polluters while
others will be free to increase their pollution levels with impunity.
Over the past four years, expert after expert have
agreed that Direct Action has no chance of achieving meaningful
reduction in Australia’s carbon pollution levels.
Australia will be left looking utterly foolish at
international forums, like next month’s G20, as countries like the US
and China present serious plans to tackle climate change.
In relation to the Palmer amendments, Labor
respects the work of the Climate Change Authority, but we don’t need
another report to describe what’s happening in the rest of the world.
Labor had an Emissions Trading Scheme before the Senate and Clive Palmer voted with Tony Abbot to kill it.
Labor’s ETS had a legal cap on pollution which allowed business to work out the cheapest way to operate within that cap.
All Clive Palmer has achieved in his deal with Tony Abbott is a photograph of an Emissions Trading Scheme.
Coalition secures $2.5bn Direct Action plan amid fears over emissions target
Extract from The Guardian
- Controversial policy will pass Senate after deal with PUP
- Greg Hunt agrees to investigate emissions trading scheme
- Labor says Australia has ‘no way to reduce carbon pollution’
- Modelling suggests it will not be sufficient to reach 5% target
- Lenore Taylor, political editor
- theguardian.com,
The Coalition will get its $2.5bn Direct Action climate policy
through the Senate after agreeing to investigate the emissions trading
policy it has vowed never to introduce, leaving analysts sceptical
Australia can achieve its 2020 emission reduction target or deeper
long-term cuts.
Environment minister Greg Hunt agreed to an investigation of emissions trading schemes and Australia’s future greenhouse targets as a “gesture of good faith” to win the votes of the Palmer United party, even though he insisted the coalition would never, ever support an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax.
Despite this, and despite the fact that his party voted to repeal the emissions trading scheme Australia already had in July, PUP leader Clive Palmer said his deal with Hunt had “kept alive the hope of the ETS”, releasing a press release proclaiming “Palmer Saves Emissions Trading Scheme”.
Hunt said the deal was “a tremendous outcome for the government ... a fundamental success”, but Labor, the Greens and environment groups slammed the outcome.
Labor’s environment spokesman Mark Butler said it was “a terrible deal for Australia’s future … leaving Australia with no meaningful way to reduce carbon pollution.”
“I don’t know what Jedi mind trick Greg Hunt just played on Clive Palmer … we don’t need another inquiry. We need action,” he said.
Greens leader senator Christine Milne said: “What we have here is no contribution to bringing down emissions, no modelling to backup the claims, by a government and Clive Palmer which tore down an emissions trading scheme which was bringing down emissions.”
The government has also agreed to a demand by independent senator Nick Xenophon to move quickly to set up a “safeguards” scheme to stop companies increasing their greenhouse emissions – but has not committed to any detail, and Hunt insisted Xenophon had not won any concessions that were not already coalition policy.
He rejected Xenophon’s push to allow the government to purchase international carbon permits, something the prime minister once described as sending “money … offshore into dodgy carbon farms in Equatorial Guinea and Kazakhstan”, even though this would have made it easier and cheaper to reach Australia’s agreed emissions reduction target. It is understood Tony Abbott remained strongly opposed to this idea, despite its strong backing from the business community.
The government has also agreed to retain the Climate Change Authority – which it was once committed to abolish – to undertake the investigation into an ETS and future reduction targets, and provide reports to parliament.
Under Direct Action the government will commit $2.5bn over four years to an “emissions reduction fund” for competitive grants to companies or organisations that volunteer to reduce their emissions.
The “safeguards” mechanism is supposed to impose some upper limit on emissions across the board – including on companies or sectors not bidding in its auction – so that their increasing emissions do not cancel out the decreases in emissions purchased through the government fund.
But Hunt insisted there would be no revenue raised as a result of the “safeguards”.
As revealed by Guardian Australia in August, former Australian Conservation Foundation head Don Henry and co-chair of Greg Hunt’s own expert committee on Direct Action, Danny Price, have been involved in months of backroom talks to win the backing of PUP, Xenophon and DLP senator John Madigan during the three months since the government succeeded in repealing the former government’s carbon pricing scheme.
Deep concerns about the adequacy of the policy remain. The government has not modelled whether the fund has enough money to meet Australia’s minimum 2020 target to reduce emissions by 5%, with Abbott saying during the election campaign he preferred to just “have a crack”.
CCA chairman Bernie Fraser, who attended the press conference to announce the deal with Hunt and Palmer, referred to the authority’s previous work when asked whether Australia could meet its target, and what that target should be.
In February, the authority reported that Australia would have to treble its 2020 target to 15% to remain internationally credible, and without a carbon price or other “effective” policies, emissions will grow to 17% above 2000 levels by 2020. That, it said, would leave an “improbably large task for future Australians to make a fair contribution to global efforts” to constrain global warming to 2C.
Market analysis firm Reputex said their projections showed the emissions reduction fund would only be able to buy 20 to 30% of the greenhouse gas abatement needed to meet the 5% target. The firm says that if the “safeguards mechanism” did become a proper baseline and credit emissions trading scheme, it could help the government make up this shortfall.
Separate modelling by Sinclair Knight Merz/MMA and Monash University’s Centre of Policy Studies, commissioned by the Climate Institute, which used assumptions more generous to the Coalition, found it would need at least another $4bn. Abbott has said if Direct Action falls short he will not allocate any more money.
Hunt would not reveal what advice he had to substantiate his “hope, belief and expectation” that the target would be achieved, but said Australia would be helped by the fact that the decline of manufacturing was reducing electricity emissions and that abatement might be purchased more cheaply than he had originally anticipated.
The government must reveal by early next year what post-2020 target it is willing to adopt, and is under strong international pressure to agree to much deeper cuts, but few observers believe the “direct action” policy could achieve them.
The terms of reference for the CCA review show the report could embarrass the government just as this pressure is intensifying.
Coalition frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull once warned its costs could become prohibitive when Australia has to cut its emissions even further after 2020, especially without the option of buying cheaper offshore carbon permits.
In a 2010 speech after he was deposed as leader, Turnbull said direct-action style schemes were “a recipe for fiscal recklessness on a grand scale” and “schemes where bureaucrats and politicians pick technologies and winners, doling out billions of taxpayers’ dollars, neither are economically efficient nor will be environmentally effective”.
And the “blue book” prepared by the Treasury for a possible incoming Coalition government in 2010 said “a market mechanism can achieve the necessary abatement at a cost per tonne of emissions that is far lower than alternative direct-action policies”.
Environment minister Greg Hunt agreed to an investigation of emissions trading schemes and Australia’s future greenhouse targets as a “gesture of good faith” to win the votes of the Palmer United party, even though he insisted the coalition would never, ever support an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax.
Despite this, and despite the fact that his party voted to repeal the emissions trading scheme Australia already had in July, PUP leader Clive Palmer said his deal with Hunt had “kept alive the hope of the ETS”, releasing a press release proclaiming “Palmer Saves Emissions Trading Scheme”.
Hunt said the deal was “a tremendous outcome for the government ... a fundamental success”, but Labor, the Greens and environment groups slammed the outcome.
Labor’s environment spokesman Mark Butler said it was “a terrible deal for Australia’s future … leaving Australia with no meaningful way to reduce carbon pollution.”
“I don’t know what Jedi mind trick Greg Hunt just played on Clive Palmer … we don’t need another inquiry. We need action,” he said.
Greens leader senator Christine Milne said: “What we have here is no contribution to bringing down emissions, no modelling to backup the claims, by a government and Clive Palmer which tore down an emissions trading scheme which was bringing down emissions.”
The government has also agreed to a demand by independent senator Nick Xenophon to move quickly to set up a “safeguards” scheme to stop companies increasing their greenhouse emissions – but has not committed to any detail, and Hunt insisted Xenophon had not won any concessions that were not already coalition policy.
He rejected Xenophon’s push to allow the government to purchase international carbon permits, something the prime minister once described as sending “money … offshore into dodgy carbon farms in Equatorial Guinea and Kazakhstan”, even though this would have made it easier and cheaper to reach Australia’s agreed emissions reduction target. It is understood Tony Abbott remained strongly opposed to this idea, despite its strong backing from the business community.
The government has also agreed to retain the Climate Change Authority – which it was once committed to abolish – to undertake the investigation into an ETS and future reduction targets, and provide reports to parliament.
Under Direct Action the government will commit $2.5bn over four years to an “emissions reduction fund” for competitive grants to companies or organisations that volunteer to reduce their emissions.
The “safeguards” mechanism is supposed to impose some upper limit on emissions across the board – including on companies or sectors not bidding in its auction – so that their increasing emissions do not cancel out the decreases in emissions purchased through the government fund.
But Hunt insisted there would be no revenue raised as a result of the “safeguards”.
As revealed by Guardian Australia in August, former Australian Conservation Foundation head Don Henry and co-chair of Greg Hunt’s own expert committee on Direct Action, Danny Price, have been involved in months of backroom talks to win the backing of PUP, Xenophon and DLP senator John Madigan during the three months since the government succeeded in repealing the former government’s carbon pricing scheme.
Deep concerns about the adequacy of the policy remain. The government has not modelled whether the fund has enough money to meet Australia’s minimum 2020 target to reduce emissions by 5%, with Abbott saying during the election campaign he preferred to just “have a crack”.
CCA chairman Bernie Fraser, who attended the press conference to announce the deal with Hunt and Palmer, referred to the authority’s previous work when asked whether Australia could meet its target, and what that target should be.
In February, the authority reported that Australia would have to treble its 2020 target to 15% to remain internationally credible, and without a carbon price or other “effective” policies, emissions will grow to 17% above 2000 levels by 2020. That, it said, would leave an “improbably large task for future Australians to make a fair contribution to global efforts” to constrain global warming to 2C.
Market analysis firm Reputex said their projections showed the emissions reduction fund would only be able to buy 20 to 30% of the greenhouse gas abatement needed to meet the 5% target. The firm says that if the “safeguards mechanism” did become a proper baseline and credit emissions trading scheme, it could help the government make up this shortfall.
Separate modelling by Sinclair Knight Merz/MMA and Monash University’s Centre of Policy Studies, commissioned by the Climate Institute, which used assumptions more generous to the Coalition, found it would need at least another $4bn. Abbott has said if Direct Action falls short he will not allocate any more money.
Hunt would not reveal what advice he had to substantiate his “hope, belief and expectation” that the target would be achieved, but said Australia would be helped by the fact that the decline of manufacturing was reducing electricity emissions and that abatement might be purchased more cheaply than he had originally anticipated.
The government must reveal by early next year what post-2020 target it is willing to adopt, and is under strong international pressure to agree to much deeper cuts, but few observers believe the “direct action” policy could achieve them.
The terms of reference for the CCA review show the report could embarrass the government just as this pressure is intensifying.
Coalition frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull once warned its costs could become prohibitive when Australia has to cut its emissions even further after 2020, especially without the option of buying cheaper offshore carbon permits.
In a 2010 speech after he was deposed as leader, Turnbull said direct-action style schemes were “a recipe for fiscal recklessness on a grand scale” and “schemes where bureaucrats and politicians pick technologies and winners, doling out billions of taxpayers’ dollars, neither are economically efficient nor will be environmentally effective”.
And the “blue book” prepared by the Treasury for a possible incoming Coalition government in 2010 said “a market mechanism can achieve the necessary abatement at a cost per tonne of emissions that is far lower than alternative direct-action policies”.
Wednesday, 29 October 2014
LNP BACKBENCHERS TURN THEIR BACKS ON MINING REGIONS OVER FIFO
Media Release
Newman Government backbenchers who claim to be opposed to 100% fly-in fly-out workforces at Bowen Basin mines showed their true colours in State Parliament when they voted against an Opposition Motion to end the practice, says Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk.
“LNP MPs Jason Costigan (Whitsunday), Vaughan Johnson (Gregory) and Ted Malone (Mirani), have been outspoken in their electorates against FIFO. Mr Johnson even went as far as describing 100% FIFO as 100% evil,” she said.
“But when the crunch came in Parliament on Tuesday evening they voted to continue the unjustified discrimination that is ruining mining communities like Moranbah and Collinsville.
“I can only conclude that their previous outspoken criticism of 100% FIFO was a sham attempt to hoodwink people in their local electorates. When they had the chance to strike a blow for freedom of choice for Queensland workers, they lacked the backbone to stand up for their constituents.
“People who live in mining communities are sick and tired of the broken promises, weasel words and mixed messages emanating from the LNP.
“They were told before the last election by Campbell Newman that if he became Premier he would not tolerate 100% FIFO agreements, but in power the LNP has not honoured that vow.
“On Tuesday evening the Opposition gave regional MPs a chance to stand up for their communities; a chance to vote for a motion calling for an end to 100% fly-in fly-out operations.
“The Opposition has clearly stated its policy to end once and for all the divisive practice which allows mining companies to exclude job applications from local residents.
“The Opposition’s policy is not against fly-in fly-out resources jobs per se, as the Newman Government suggests.
“It is not going to cost anyone who might live in Brisbane or Cairns, but who flies to work at a Bowen Basin mine, their job. But it is a policy that will compel mining companies to consider local workers when filling vacancies.
“It will mean that people who live in places like the Capricorn Coast, Rockhampton, Mackay, Moranbah or Emerald won’t have to move to either Brisbane or Cairns to get a mining job in the Bowen Basin.
“It is a matter of fairness and common sense but MPs like Bruce Young (Keppel) and Rosemary Menkens (Burdekin) let their communities down yet again.
“It should be remembered that ending 100% FIFO agreements was a pre-election pledge from Campbell Newman and the LNP. It is yet another broken promise from a government that has trashed a sackful of them.
“A new Labor Government will review within 100 days of taking office all existing 100% FIFO agreements and where a mine is close to a regional centre or mining community, the employer will be obliged to consider all applicants, no matter where they live.
“We know this would help to address the serious problems now being experienced by towns where FIFO staff live in camps and make little or no contribution to the sustainability of the community.
“It would also stop the ridiculous circumstances in which workers who reside within easy commuting distance of a mine are forced to uproot their families, attempt to sell their homes and move 1000 kilometres or more to Brisbane or Cairns to stand any chance of getting a job at that mine.
“In voting down the Opposition motion the LNP has made it plain that only a Labor Government will end this unjustifiable discrimination and restore the fundamental right for Queensland workers to choose where they live.
“People who live in Queensland’s mining regions will not be conned again.”
The following is from a news report in the Courier Mail published on July 19 2011 and refers to a pre-election promise he made during a tour of the Bowen Basin coalfields.
Mr Newman said that if the LNP was elected it would categorically rule out a 100 per cent fly-in fly-out workforce for any mine.
"It's not acceptable to us," he told AAP.
"We understand that fly-in fly-out has its place as a component of and the answer of providing the workforce ... but a 100 per cent fly-in fly-out is just simply something we would not tolerate if we get into government.
"That's our rule, our policy, it won't be tolerated."
ABBOTT'S 40% RET REDUCTION DISASTER
Mark Butler MP.
Shadow Minister for Environment
Climate Change and Water
Media Release
Date: 28 October 2014
New research has shown the Abbott
Government's plan to cut the RET by 40 per cent may lead to legal
challenges, businesses defaulting on loans and future projects being
unviable.
The Abbott Government has said its preferred position on the RET is for a reduction from 41,000GWh to about 26,000GWh by 2020.
The research conducted for the Clean Energy Council shows under this scenario “sovereign uncertainty raises compelling reasons to doubt the stability and longevity of a reduced RET”. [Executive Summary P.ii]
“This research raises a number of very serious
issues about the financial implications of the Government’s plans to
slash the RET,” Shadow Minister for Climate Change Mark Butler said.
“The Clean Energy Council has outlined the real
risk of massive asset devaluation, job losses and business closures that
would be the result of the so-called real 20 per cent.”
“Labor has rejected the Government's proposal for
this 40 per cent cut to the RET. We will not be part of an arrangement
that cuts jobs and closes businesses,” Mr Butler said.
Labor will continue to talk to the Government about
returning the RET to a position of bipartisanship to provide certainty
to the industry, investors and workers.
ABBOTT GOVERNMENT’S PARADE OF INCOMPETENCE
SENATOR THE HON PENNY WONG
LABOR SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA
MEDIA RELEASE
25 October 2014
A remarkable exhibition of Abbott Government incompetence,
extravagance, deception and division was on display at Senate estimates
hearings in the week just ended.
This shambolic parade started with the value-subtracting Defence Minister David Johnston who, on his own admission, did not attend a Cabinet National Security Committee meeting because his presence “wasn’t going to add too much.”
It continued with the Treasurer Joe Hockey who flew a celebrity chef to Washington to cook a slap-up dinner for fellow finance ministers and Rupert Murdoch.
Senate estimates heard that Mr Hockey and his office played a hands-on role in selecting a chef to dispatch to America earlier this year.
Given recent problems with the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ employment statistics, perhaps it would have been better if Mr Hockey had paid as much attention to selecting a new Australian Statistician.
The former Statistician retired back in December, but estimates heard the position was not advertised until February and remains vacant nearly a year later.
Mr Hockey was not the only senior Liberal caught out living high on the hog as the Government cuts pensions, family payments, schools and hospitals.
The Department of Parliamentary Services spent $23,000 installing a “hot box” and upgrading the kitchen in the Speaker Bronwyn Bishop’s Parliament House office and has delivered a “mobile bar” to her suite six times since her appointment.
Under Mrs Bishop, the Speaker’s office is in danger of becoming known as the House of Fun(d-raising) for the Liberal Party.
It is in little danger of becoming known as a place of sober decision-making after it emerged that Mrs Bishop’s decision to segregate Muslim women visiting Parliament was a knee-jerk response to a prank call to a Sydney radio station.
Those revelations triggered division between Mrs Bishop and the Prime Minister Tony Abbott over his claim that he asked her to reverse the segregation directive – a claim she denied in the House of Representatives this week.
The divisions continued when Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan used estimates to act as the Government’s in-house truth-bomber by calling out Mr Abbott’s Parliamentary Secretary Josh Frydenberg:
It was also revealed that Tony Abbott is hiding the multi-billion-dollar cost of his paid parental leave scheme.
Mr Abbott failed to disclose the cost of the scheme in the Budget, claiming it could not be finalised until he reached agreement with State Governments on how his scheme will apply to State public servants.
But senior Treasury officials told estimates that federal and state government officials reached agreement on this issue months ago, just after the Budget was handed down.
The Health Department also revealed that the government’s potential liability for the wind up of Medicare Locals is $112 million. This is despite the Prime Minister promising no Medicare Locals would close before the last election.
And what would a week of Senate estimates under Tony Abbott be without discovering further patronage?
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has appointed two Liberals – one a former staffer to Tony Abbott and one a former Liberal election candidate – to the Migration Review Tribunal even though they were not recommended by a selection panel.
Labor will continue to use Senate estimates and Parliament to call the Abbott Government to account for its broken promises and incompetent behaviour.
This shambolic parade started with the value-subtracting Defence Minister David Johnston who, on his own admission, did not attend a Cabinet National Security Committee meeting because his presence “wasn’t going to add too much.”
It continued with the Treasurer Joe Hockey who flew a celebrity chef to Washington to cook a slap-up dinner for fellow finance ministers and Rupert Murdoch.
Senate estimates heard that Mr Hockey and his office played a hands-on role in selecting a chef to dispatch to America earlier this year.
Given recent problems with the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ employment statistics, perhaps it would have been better if Mr Hockey had paid as much attention to selecting a new Australian Statistician.
The former Statistician retired back in December, but estimates heard the position was not advertised until February and remains vacant nearly a year later.
Mr Hockey was not the only senior Liberal caught out living high on the hog as the Government cuts pensions, family payments, schools and hospitals.
The Department of Parliamentary Services spent $23,000 installing a “hot box” and upgrading the kitchen in the Speaker Bronwyn Bishop’s Parliament House office and has delivered a “mobile bar” to her suite six times since her appointment.
Under Mrs Bishop, the Speaker’s office is in danger of becoming known as the House of Fun(d-raising) for the Liberal Party.
It is in little danger of becoming known as a place of sober decision-making after it emerged that Mrs Bishop’s decision to segregate Muslim women visiting Parliament was a knee-jerk response to a prank call to a Sydney radio station.
Those revelations triggered division between Mrs Bishop and the Prime Minister Tony Abbott over his claim that he asked her to reverse the segregation directive – a claim she denied in the House of Representatives this week.
The divisions continued when Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan used estimates to act as the Government’s in-house truth-bomber by calling out Mr Abbott’s Parliamentary Secretary Josh Frydenberg:
Heffernan: Shouldn’t they have a standard, like you have with brakes? Have you ever ridden behind a motor bike without a rear mud guard? You get sprayed with crap and stones. Why would we agree to remove them? What brain dead person did that?Estimates also heard further evidence of the Abbott Government’s Budget deception when a senior Treasury official said the $7 GP Tax would do nothing to improve the sustainability of hospital finances.
Conroy: I think his name was Frydenberg.
Heffernan: What a load of crap.
It was also revealed that Tony Abbott is hiding the multi-billion-dollar cost of his paid parental leave scheme.
Mr Abbott failed to disclose the cost of the scheme in the Budget, claiming it could not be finalised until he reached agreement with State Governments on how his scheme will apply to State public servants.
But senior Treasury officials told estimates that federal and state government officials reached agreement on this issue months ago, just after the Budget was handed down.
The Health Department also revealed that the government’s potential liability for the wind up of Medicare Locals is $112 million. This is despite the Prime Minister promising no Medicare Locals would close before the last election.
And what would a week of Senate estimates under Tony Abbott be without discovering further patronage?
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has appointed two Liberals – one a former staffer to Tony Abbott and one a former Liberal election candidate – to the Migration Review Tribunal even though they were not recommended by a selection panel.
Labor will continue to use Senate estimates and Parliament to call the Abbott Government to account for its broken promises and incompetent behaviour.
SPRINGBORG’S BOASTS BUILT ON UNRELIABLE DATA
Media Release
The
Newman Government’s claim to have improved the performance of hospital
emergency departments have been based on unreliable data according to an
Auditor-General’s report released today.
“The
independent Auditor-General has raised serious doubts about the
reliability of the data on the performance of hospital emergency
departments, “said Shadow Health Minister, Jo-Ann Miller.
“The
Minister for Health Cuts and Closures, Lawrence Springborg, has been
running around the state claiming the throughput of EDs has vastly
improved under the LNP.
“He has even authorised the waste of taxpayers’ funds to publish advertisements across the state to make those claims.
“But with the release of the Auditor-General’s report we see his claims are built on shaky ground.”
Mrs
Miller said the Auditor-General’s report revealed data from emergency
departments under the LNP Government was unreliable and open to
manipulation at a number of levels within individual
hospitals.
“Only 35% of ED patients admitted to hospital are seen within the four-hour target,” she said.
“The
target agreed to between the state and federal governments for all ED
patients to be seen within four hours was 76% in 2013 and 83% in 2014."
“While
patients with basic complaints may be out the ED door and on their way
home quickly, those who need to be admitted to hospital for treatment
are not despite what the Minister keeps
saying.”
The report also said:
- controls over emergency department data “…have been and remain, weak or absent…“
- the lack of accountability for accurate and reliable data “….leaves the system open to manipulation…..”
-
some hospitals were admitting patients to SSUs (short-stay units) to
meet the four-hour target “…. not when they are identified as being
suitable for admission….“
“Lawrence Springborg now needs to be honest with Queenslanders,” Mrs Miller said.
“He
needs to admit that his repeated claims to have improved emergency
department performance have been based on potentially manipulated and
unreliable data."
“Most
importantly he needs to put an immediate stop to the waste of
taxpayers’ funds for his massive advertising campaigns,” Mrs Miller
said.
Monday, 27 October 2014
The Whitlam Mob
Gough Whitlam may have taken great delight in designing
his own funeral arrangements – or at least a self-mocking fantasy
version of them. But the pleasure of reciting his epitaph rested with a
colleague, the acerbic New South Wales premier Neville Wran, although in
all probability it was penned by the great speechwriter Graham
Freudenberg, who acted as an amanuensis to both men.
As Wran put it, ‘It was said of Caesar Augustus that he found a Rome of brick and left it of marble. It can be said of Gough Whitlam that he found Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane unsewered, and left them fully flushed.’ It was a line that delighted the elder statesman, whose epic visions – national, international and, some believed, interplanetary – had their origins in a firmly grounded policy of improving the quality of life: he began with the outhouse, and reached for the sky.
It is for this breadth of vision, for the unquenchable optimism of his ambition, that Australia’s twenty-first prime minister will be best remembered. He spent less than three years in office – less than a full constitutional term, although he won two elections in the process. But in Australian history his name outshines most of his predecessors; only Menzies and perhaps Deakin among the conservatives and Curtin and Chifley on the Labor side are similarly household names.
Edward Gough Whitlam truly became a legend in his own lifetime. But it was a different legend to different audiences. Most of the left saw him as a flawed genius and a political martyr well on the way to beatification, if not canonisation. The right regarded him as a monstrous aberration, a devilish warning to budding politicians of the awful fate that awaits those who overreach. All, however, acknowledged that he was the dominant figure of his times, a giant who bestrode the parliament in a way that few had done before him and none has approached since.
His achievements – the now legendary Program – were many and radical. Some, like Medicare (son of Medibank), consumer protection laws, the Family Court and of course the sewering of the outer suburbs, have endured. Others, like free university degrees, Aboriginal land rights, the Australian Assistance Plan (a scheme of grants to kick-start overdue projects in disadvantaged electorates) and the promotion of the arts as a national objective, have been axed, abandoned or severely watered down by his successors. But few would deny that the fall-out from the great social explosion of the Whitlam years is still spreading: Whitlam remains one of our few leaders who can be truly said to have changed Australia – not just for the brief period of his administration, but forever.
But change brings with it instability and insecurity, and the dark side of Whitlam’s legacy is that the cost of trying to implement a grand political and social vision is now seen to be unacceptably high. The runaway inflation, high interest rates and burgeoning unemployment of the latter half of Whitlam’s turbulent administration were not entirely his fault; the twin oil-price shocks of the early ’70s caught every government in the world by surprise, and all, with the possible exception of the Japanese, failed to provide an adequate response. But Whitlam seemed unwilling even to try: when he did make a grand economic gesture in the form of an across-the-board tariff cut, the cure, in the short term, turned out to be worse than the disease.
Economics was never his strong suit; it was something for others to worry about while he got on with implementing The Program. The trouble was that none of his colleagues knew very much either, and they were highly suspicious of the better-informed Treasury officials, most of whom they saw as leftover conservatives dedicated to subverting The Program.
As was his wont, Whitlam was determined to crash through or crash, and while there may be argument about how effective he was in terms of implementing his own policy, there can be no doubt that the economy suffered collateral damage in the process, damage which was ultimately to prove fatal to the government. Thus, all his successors in the Labor leadership – Hayden, Hawke, Keating, Beazley, Crean, Latham, Rudd, Gillard and Shorten – have had to live under the shadow of Whitlam’s supposed economic irresponsibility. The idea has since been refined into the great conservative lie that, whatever else happens, Labor is never really to be trusted with your money.
This doleful refrain, repeated at every election since 1975, is what the Tories would like to see engraved on Whitlam’s tomb: they would prefer to see his brand of carefree exuberance, the daring and ambition of those years, buried and forgotten. If people must have aspirations, let them confine them to their own backyards: let them wish for bigger cars, more prestigious schools, perhaps a holiday home.
Let them not dream of making real changes to society, let alone to the world; the upheavals can be too great, the triumphs too destabilising, the disappointments too crushing. Let them remain relaxed and comfortable, but just a little fearful of those who would shake their complacency. This mantra makes perfect political sense; it won John Howard four elections and even put Tony Abbott, a man once thought to be unelectable, into the Lodge.
And yet, and yet. Somehow the grandeur of Whitlam lingers on, even among the under-forties, the generation that has only heard the stories and never experienced the highwire act that was the reality. Somehow this unlikely figure, the Canberra-reared son of a public servant, the physically awkward, pedantic, legalistic, frequently self-righteous, often maddening and at times just plain boring preacher of reform, has become part of the Australian pantheon.
In part, of course, it is because he made his own myths. Much of what the public saw as Whitlam’s bombast was in fact a somewhat clumsy attempt at self-deprecation. Like King Canute, he thrived on flattery but did not take it too seriously, and his attempts to put his flatterers in their place were often misunderstood.
In retrospect it is easy to see how. On one celebrated occasion, the director of the National Gallery of Australia, Betty Churcher, informed Whitlam of a plan – fortunately kyboshed – to make him appear to walk across water to the opening of an exhibition. ‘Comrade,’ Whitlam replied, ‘that would not have been possible – the stigmata have not yet healed.’ His fans found this hilarious but it confirmed the worst fears of his critics. Here was Whitlam literally challenging the Almighty. But of course he wasn’t: Whitlam, though an agnostic, once described himself as a fellow traveller with Christianity and was a great respecter of religious belief. Rather than blaspheming, he was thumbing his nose, yet again, at the pretension, the pomposity and the hypocrisy of an establishment which all too frequently, in his view, failed to distinguish between God and Mammon. If the snobs didn’t get the joke, that was their tough luck.
But he was certainly no prude; indeed, there were times when he could be positively prurient. I treasure the memory of a VIP flight in 1970, which was diverted from Melbourne to Hobart by bad weather. The travelling press corps was seriously miffed; most of us had already made more or less sybaritic arrangements for the forthcoming evening, instead of which we were now to be deposited in the bleak south. The prospect was made worse by the memory of a former Whitlam visit, during which the Labor leader had been accosted by an eager young reporter with the demand: ‘Mr Whitlam, tell us what you will do for Tasmania.’ Whitlam had replied with devastating honesty: ‘What can I do for Tasmania – what can anybody do for Tasmania? I mean, the place is fucked.’ There was a feeling that a return visit might not be entirely welcome. But this time Whitlam had words of optimism. ‘There’s one thing about Tasmania,’ he reassured us. ‘With all that inbreeding, there’s always a chance of a bit of double-headed fellatio.’ The trip was made.
I first met Gough Whitlam in 1969, shortly after I arrived in Canberra. I had seen him in action often enough, and been impressed by his oratory and his knowledge, but like many on the left I was not yet entirely sure where he stood on the key issues of the time, especially the war in Vietnam. As the heir to Arthur Calwell’s noble but doomed anti-war crusade of 1966, Whitlam, while clearly determined to negotiate Australia’s way out of the mess to our north, seemed to me not to have the same fire in his belly.
Although he had only been opposition leader for two years, he had already survived a challenge from the charismatic king of the streets, Jim Cairns (masterminded, oddly, by the man who claimed to be Whitlam’s greatest admirer, Phillip Adams), and was clearly distrusted by some in his own party, notably the leader of the New South Wales Left, Lionel Murphy, with whom I felt considerable rapport.
Moreover, he was supported by the New South Wales Right, which even in those days was pretty awful. I realised later that the perception that Whitlam was on the right of the party, like the idea that Calwell was on the left, was no more than an accident of geography. Whitlam, the internationalist free-thinker, was bound to his dominant state faction, just as Calwell, the conservative Catholic advocate of White Australia, was bound to his. But at the time I was inclined to be suspicious of the smooth-talking lawyer who, like me, had benefited (or otherwise) from a cosseted childhood and a privileged education.
Our first meeting changed my mind completely; I was won over to lifelong Whitlamolatry. In place of the sinister manipulator I had half-expected, I found an amiable, funny and rather shy man desperately eager to explain his plans to transform Australia from the smug backwater of the Menzies years into a model for the rest of the world. In those days, the idea that Australia could take a leading role in any field other than sport was breathtaking, yet Whitlam seemed to believe that it was entirely possible, provided a meticulously prepared program of public education and overdue social change could be carried out – and, listening to him outline it thirty-five years ago, there seemed no good reason why it should not. Certainly, in the rapidly changing times of the late ’60s, it was a cause worth embracing, and embrace it I did.
But I also embraced the man himself. While Whitlam, like Menzies, did not suffer fools gladly, he was not an intellectual snob; he was genuinely interested and concerned about people, not just en masse but as individuals. He took a personal interest in their affairs. When two opposition staffers married in Canberra in 1972, Whitlam interrupted a frantically busy election schedule to fly from Sydney to attend the ceremony. It was winter and Canberra airport was fogbound for several hours; his VIP aircraft could not land, but rather than return to Sydney, Whitlam waited until the weather cleared and made a belated appearance at the reception.
He became a secular godparent to one of my daughters, invited my extended family to the Lodge for a head-wetting, and maintained an interest in her welfare thereafter. He kept in touch with a huge round of colleagues, acquaintances and their families and was constantly performing small acts of kindness, although these too were frequently misconstrued by cynics. Once, after he had paid a private hospital visit to the child of a colleague, he was greatly distressed when an enemy put it about that he was just chasing an extra vote in caucus. The fact was much simpler: the boy had asked to meet his hero, and Whitlam, being a kind and generous human being, had obliged.
He was both a humanitarian and a humanist; he truly believed that if people were told the truth, were shown the possibilities for their future and given a genuine choice, they would behave sensibly, decently and even altruistically. In spite of repeated disappointments, he never lost that faith in people. It was this above all that made him such an attractive human being.
*This is an edited extract of Mungo MacCallum’s The Whitlam Mob, published by Black Inc
As Wran put it, ‘It was said of Caesar Augustus that he found a Rome of brick and left it of marble. It can be said of Gough Whitlam that he found Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane unsewered, and left them fully flushed.’ It was a line that delighted the elder statesman, whose epic visions – national, international and, some believed, interplanetary – had their origins in a firmly grounded policy of improving the quality of life: he began with the outhouse, and reached for the sky.
It is for this breadth of vision, for the unquenchable optimism of his ambition, that Australia’s twenty-first prime minister will be best remembered. He spent less than three years in office – less than a full constitutional term, although he won two elections in the process. But in Australian history his name outshines most of his predecessors; only Menzies and perhaps Deakin among the conservatives and Curtin and Chifley on the Labor side are similarly household names.
Edward Gough Whitlam truly became a legend in his own lifetime. But it was a different legend to different audiences. Most of the left saw him as a flawed genius and a political martyr well on the way to beatification, if not canonisation. The right regarded him as a monstrous aberration, a devilish warning to budding politicians of the awful fate that awaits those who overreach. All, however, acknowledged that he was the dominant figure of his times, a giant who bestrode the parliament in a way that few had done before him and none has approached since.
His achievements – the now legendary Program – were many and radical. Some, like Medicare (son of Medibank), consumer protection laws, the Family Court and of course the sewering of the outer suburbs, have endured. Others, like free university degrees, Aboriginal land rights, the Australian Assistance Plan (a scheme of grants to kick-start overdue projects in disadvantaged electorates) and the promotion of the arts as a national objective, have been axed, abandoned or severely watered down by his successors. But few would deny that the fall-out from the great social explosion of the Whitlam years is still spreading: Whitlam remains one of our few leaders who can be truly said to have changed Australia – not just for the brief period of his administration, but forever.
But change brings with it instability and insecurity, and the dark side of Whitlam’s legacy is that the cost of trying to implement a grand political and social vision is now seen to be unacceptably high. The runaway inflation, high interest rates and burgeoning unemployment of the latter half of Whitlam’s turbulent administration were not entirely his fault; the twin oil-price shocks of the early ’70s caught every government in the world by surprise, and all, with the possible exception of the Japanese, failed to provide an adequate response. But Whitlam seemed unwilling even to try: when he did make a grand economic gesture in the form of an across-the-board tariff cut, the cure, in the short term, turned out to be worse than the disease.
Economics was never his strong suit; it was something for others to worry about while he got on with implementing The Program. The trouble was that none of his colleagues knew very much either, and they were highly suspicious of the better-informed Treasury officials, most of whom they saw as leftover conservatives dedicated to subverting The Program.
As was his wont, Whitlam was determined to crash through or crash, and while there may be argument about how effective he was in terms of implementing his own policy, there can be no doubt that the economy suffered collateral damage in the process, damage which was ultimately to prove fatal to the government. Thus, all his successors in the Labor leadership – Hayden, Hawke, Keating, Beazley, Crean, Latham, Rudd, Gillard and Shorten – have had to live under the shadow of Whitlam’s supposed economic irresponsibility. The idea has since been refined into the great conservative lie that, whatever else happens, Labor is never really to be trusted with your money.
This doleful refrain, repeated at every election since 1975, is what the Tories would like to see engraved on Whitlam’s tomb: they would prefer to see his brand of carefree exuberance, the daring and ambition of those years, buried and forgotten. If people must have aspirations, let them confine them to their own backyards: let them wish for bigger cars, more prestigious schools, perhaps a holiday home.
Let them not dream of making real changes to society, let alone to the world; the upheavals can be too great, the triumphs too destabilising, the disappointments too crushing. Let them remain relaxed and comfortable, but just a little fearful of those who would shake their complacency. This mantra makes perfect political sense; it won John Howard four elections and even put Tony Abbott, a man once thought to be unelectable, into the Lodge.
And yet, and yet. Somehow the grandeur of Whitlam lingers on, even among the under-forties, the generation that has only heard the stories and never experienced the highwire act that was the reality. Somehow this unlikely figure, the Canberra-reared son of a public servant, the physically awkward, pedantic, legalistic, frequently self-righteous, often maddening and at times just plain boring preacher of reform, has become part of the Australian pantheon.
In part, of course, it is because he made his own myths. Much of what the public saw as Whitlam’s bombast was in fact a somewhat clumsy attempt at self-deprecation. Like King Canute, he thrived on flattery but did not take it too seriously, and his attempts to put his flatterers in their place were often misunderstood.
In retrospect it is easy to see how. On one celebrated occasion, the director of the National Gallery of Australia, Betty Churcher, informed Whitlam of a plan – fortunately kyboshed – to make him appear to walk across water to the opening of an exhibition. ‘Comrade,’ Whitlam replied, ‘that would not have been possible – the stigmata have not yet healed.’ His fans found this hilarious but it confirmed the worst fears of his critics. Here was Whitlam literally challenging the Almighty. But of course he wasn’t: Whitlam, though an agnostic, once described himself as a fellow traveller with Christianity and was a great respecter of religious belief. Rather than blaspheming, he was thumbing his nose, yet again, at the pretension, the pomposity and the hypocrisy of an establishment which all too frequently, in his view, failed to distinguish between God and Mammon. If the snobs didn’t get the joke, that was their tough luck.
But he was certainly no prude; indeed, there were times when he could be positively prurient. I treasure the memory of a VIP flight in 1970, which was diverted from Melbourne to Hobart by bad weather. The travelling press corps was seriously miffed; most of us had already made more or less sybaritic arrangements for the forthcoming evening, instead of which we were now to be deposited in the bleak south. The prospect was made worse by the memory of a former Whitlam visit, during which the Labor leader had been accosted by an eager young reporter with the demand: ‘Mr Whitlam, tell us what you will do for Tasmania.’ Whitlam had replied with devastating honesty: ‘What can I do for Tasmania – what can anybody do for Tasmania? I mean, the place is fucked.’ There was a feeling that a return visit might not be entirely welcome. But this time Whitlam had words of optimism. ‘There’s one thing about Tasmania,’ he reassured us. ‘With all that inbreeding, there’s always a chance of a bit of double-headed fellatio.’ The trip was made.
I first met Gough Whitlam in 1969, shortly after I arrived in Canberra. I had seen him in action often enough, and been impressed by his oratory and his knowledge, but like many on the left I was not yet entirely sure where he stood on the key issues of the time, especially the war in Vietnam. As the heir to Arthur Calwell’s noble but doomed anti-war crusade of 1966, Whitlam, while clearly determined to negotiate Australia’s way out of the mess to our north, seemed to me not to have the same fire in his belly.
Although he had only been opposition leader for two years, he had already survived a challenge from the charismatic king of the streets, Jim Cairns (masterminded, oddly, by the man who claimed to be Whitlam’s greatest admirer, Phillip Adams), and was clearly distrusted by some in his own party, notably the leader of the New South Wales Left, Lionel Murphy, with whom I felt considerable rapport.
Moreover, he was supported by the New South Wales Right, which even in those days was pretty awful. I realised later that the perception that Whitlam was on the right of the party, like the idea that Calwell was on the left, was no more than an accident of geography. Whitlam, the internationalist free-thinker, was bound to his dominant state faction, just as Calwell, the conservative Catholic advocate of White Australia, was bound to his. But at the time I was inclined to be suspicious of the smooth-talking lawyer who, like me, had benefited (or otherwise) from a cosseted childhood and a privileged education.
Our first meeting changed my mind completely; I was won over to lifelong Whitlamolatry. In place of the sinister manipulator I had half-expected, I found an amiable, funny and rather shy man desperately eager to explain his plans to transform Australia from the smug backwater of the Menzies years into a model for the rest of the world. In those days, the idea that Australia could take a leading role in any field other than sport was breathtaking, yet Whitlam seemed to believe that it was entirely possible, provided a meticulously prepared program of public education and overdue social change could be carried out – and, listening to him outline it thirty-five years ago, there seemed no good reason why it should not. Certainly, in the rapidly changing times of the late ’60s, it was a cause worth embracing, and embrace it I did.
But I also embraced the man himself. While Whitlam, like Menzies, did not suffer fools gladly, he was not an intellectual snob; he was genuinely interested and concerned about people, not just en masse but as individuals. He took a personal interest in their affairs. When two opposition staffers married in Canberra in 1972, Whitlam interrupted a frantically busy election schedule to fly from Sydney to attend the ceremony. It was winter and Canberra airport was fogbound for several hours; his VIP aircraft could not land, but rather than return to Sydney, Whitlam waited until the weather cleared and made a belated appearance at the reception.
He became a secular godparent to one of my daughters, invited my extended family to the Lodge for a head-wetting, and maintained an interest in her welfare thereafter. He kept in touch with a huge round of colleagues, acquaintances and their families and was constantly performing small acts of kindness, although these too were frequently misconstrued by cynics. Once, after he had paid a private hospital visit to the child of a colleague, he was greatly distressed when an enemy put it about that he was just chasing an extra vote in caucus. The fact was much simpler: the boy had asked to meet his hero, and Whitlam, being a kind and generous human being, had obliged.
He was both a humanitarian and a humanist; he truly believed that if people were told the truth, were shown the possibilities for their future and given a genuine choice, they would behave sensibly, decently and even altruistically. In spite of repeated disappointments, he never lost that faith in people. It was this above all that made him such an attractive human being.
*This is an edited extract of Mungo MacCallum’s The Whitlam Mob, published by Black Inc
Saturday, 25 October 2014
Bystanders Notebook April 13, 1895.
*THE
WORKER*
BRISBANE,
APRIL 13, 1895.
Bystanders'
Notebook.
THE
NEW MAN AND POLITICAL FREEDOM.
It
is seldom that a bushman sees a metropolitan paper, but I chanced to
find a Courier of the 16th march the other day and read a very
amusing article entitled the “New Man.” It is evident that the
writer of same graduated with the late lamented Ananias. In
commenting on the “new man” the Courier,
with
the usual coolness which generally characterises its utterances when
perverting facts and indulging in misstatements, says: “The working
man, from his own point of view at least, is the politically
emancipated man.” Of course we are aware that misstatements of this
description are historical. Now I assert that the workers of this
colony are not politically free. Ever since the inception of
so-called responsible government in Queensland the majority of the
people have been disfranchised, and it is an indisputable fact that
no person in any country can claim to be represented in the
legislature who has not had, with the rest of the community, an equal
voice in the selection of representatives. Yet, in view of the fact
that hundreds of property holders in the colony posses a plurality of
votes over less fortunate people, the Courier
has
the hardihood to inform us that we are politically free. Again the
Courier goes
on to say: “Now the new man has arrived, what has he done? The
franchise has provided him with the opportunity to establish a record
of beneficent deeds. But so far his career from this point of view is
a failure, and the new movement has not yet given Australasian public
life one politician who could be truly designated a statesman,”
The
Courier very
conveniently forgot to give its readers the meaning, as it is
generally understood in Queensland, of the term “statesman.” In
the common acceptation of the term a “statesman” is one who is an
adept in the art of misleading the people, and is ever ready to
prostitute his principle and pocket his patriotism with a view to
self-advancement. In the event of being physically incapable from
actively assisting and using his political position to bolster up
tottering financial institutions, he will continue to hold a nominal
position in a Ministry, take a trip to England, pocket a salary and
do nothing in return. Queensland has produced several statesmen. The
forward movement has produced none, nor is it likely to. It is
satisfied to plod along in the future, as in the past, and content to
stand sharply-defined before a wondering world, independent and
watchful (for in its independence lies its strength), patient and
courageous, political mediocrities if you will, but mediocrities who
will endeavour to use the partial political freedom they possess as a
lever to evolve order out of the present chaos, to substitute reality
for the lifeless image which now bears the in-appropriate name of
political freedom.
JAS. BREEN. Bulloo River.
* * *
THE LONGREACH DEPUTATION.
In the name of common sense what could have induced the
deputation from the workers to wait on Nelson at Longreach to ask him
to have the Electoral Act amened in order that the bushworkers could
record their votes at the general elections! Did the deputation think
for one moment that their request would be granted? What! To ask the
first lieutenant of the unspeakable M'Ilwraith to amend an act which
was made expressly to disfranchise the bushworkers! Verily, there
must be little to do about Longreach when men can be found to waste
their time over such folly. Stay! I may be unjust to the deputation.
The object may have been to show the bushworkers that there is not
the slightest prospect of their obtaining Justice while the present
unprincipled gang is in power. If that was the object in view, then
all I can say is that the deputation succeeded admirably.
T.B. Toowoomba.
* * *
THE PROBLEM OF THE FUTURE.
John Stuart Mill in his autobiography says respecting
his conversion to Socialism: “The social problem of the future we
considered to be how to unite the greatest liberty of action, with a
common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an equal
participation of all in the benefits of combined labour. Education, habit and the cultivation
of the sentiments will make a common man dig or weave for his country
as fight for his country. Interest in the common good is at present
so weak a motive in general, not because it can never be otherwise,
but because the mind is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells
from morning till night on things which tend only to personnel
advantage. When called into activity, as only self-interest now is,
by the daily course of life, and spurred from behind by the love of
distinction and the fear of shame, it is capable of producing, even
in common men, the most strenuous exertions as well as the most
heroic sacrifices.
TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE AT PARLIAMENT HOUSE: Renewable Energy Target
Date: 22 October 2014
CHRIS BOWEN, SHADOW TREASURER:
The Labor Party believes in renewable energy. We believe to get
renewable energy in Australia we need the Renewable Energy Target. We
also believe the Renewable Energy Target should be bipartisan. Just as
it has been now for many years. With both political parties going to an
election, to many elections, with a policy of the Renewable Energy
Target.
Since the election, the Government has threatened
to walk away from the Renewable Energy Target. That would be a disaster
for Australia. Also, even speculation about this is terrible for
sovereign risk, for investor certainty. We want Australian businesses
investing in renewable energy because it’s good for the environment and
great for our economy. It is important for manufacturing. It is such an
important part of Australia's economic future.
For this reason, we agreed to enter into
discussions with the Government to see if we could reach a bipartisan
agreement, continuing bipartisan agreement to ensure the continued
operation of Renewable Energy Target for Australia. It's important that
this Government and the Party that hopes to form the next Government of
Australia can try and see if they can reach agreement so the Renewable
Energy Target can remain in place and can continue to encourage
investment in renewable energy for the good of the economy and the
environment. Australia can't afford the investor uncertainty of a
Government considering walking away from the Renewable Energy Target.
The Labor Party has shown that we are more than
happy to be responsible, to work constructively with the Government in
the national interests when it comes to Renewable Energy Target. Now,
the Government today released their starting negotiating position. Let
me make it clear we do want to engage with the Government constructively
to see what can be done. I also make it clear that a 40 per cent cut in
the Renewable Energy Target, which is what would be a 20 per cent real
Renewable Energy Target in the language of the Government is completely
unacceptable to the Labor Party and we will not agree to it.
But we have said to the Government that we will sit
down and work with them to see if agreement can be reached. That will
be done as constructively as possible. We will not be agreeing to a 40
per cent cut but we will be working to ensure that if at all possible,
both of Australia's major political parties can return to a position of
bipartisanship in what is a very important area for Australia's economic
and environmental future.
So there will be further discussions between the
Government and the Opposition. We don't intend to hold the discussions
through the media. We will be engaging in good faith with the
Government. That is what the Australian people would hope and expect.
The Australian people would also hope and expect that the Labor Party
will work to defend and ensure a good and proper Renewable Energy Target
and that is not represented by 40 per cent cut which was the starting
position of the Government today as outlined by the Minister's
publically earlier today.
Happy to take some questions.
JOURNALIST: What is your starting position?
BOWEN: Our starting position is
that we want a Renewable Energy Target that is the right mix for
Australia and as the Government who started to walk away from the
current policy settings, we indicated to them that we need to understand
the arguments fully that they are putting. We have also indicated
publically that we do accept and understand some of Australia's
omissions intensive and trade exposed industries are needing of some
special attention. Aluminium has come in for some public discussion. But
we are not going to hold this discussion Lenore, with all due respect
to all of you, through the media. We will engage with the Government in
good faith and if and when an agreement can be reached, we will outline
it fully to you. If it can't be reached, if it can't be reached, we will
outline to you why it can't be.
JOURNALIST: Does that mean that your starting position is 41,000 -
BOWEN: That’s the starting position of the policy, that’s correct.
JOURNALIST: But how you can bridge
the divide. The government says the real 20 per cent is its position.
You are saying that's a no go area. How are you going to bridge that
divide?
BOWEN: With good will Sabra on
both sides. With good will on both sides. If both sides are really
genuinely interested in the future of renewable energy in Australia, we
have to try. We have to try. Now I can't tell you today whether we will
be successful or not. The Australian people want both sides to be trying
here, we’re up for it.
JOURNALIST: What’s your starting position on the Government’s, or the government’s position about exempting the -
BOWEN: That sounds remarkably
similar to Lenore’s question and the standing order against asking the
same question twice at these press conferences. But look, we will engage
in good faith with, I’ve already indicated to you that we accept there
are issues that need to be worked through. More than accept, we’ve been
saying that there are issues that need to be worked through for
Australia’s emission intensive energy exposed industries and aluminium
is of course the one which has received the most attention and that’s
for a good reason. But we’ll work those issues through, our position’s
been consistent here. We are outlining today publicly, we’ve already
outlined previously. Mr Butler has outlined, Shadow Minister Butler has
outlined on our behalf as to what we believe should be the position.
JOURNALIST: Do you accept there’s an urgency to get this dealt with this year or are you going to let it drag on to next year?
BOWEN: We would certainly like to
see this resolved sooner rather than later. We’re not putting an
arbitrary timeline on the discussions, we’re not setting a deadline but
we are working as quickly as is possible with the Government to see if
this can be done.
JOURNALIST: By indicating that
you’re not going to hold talks through the media so beyond this news
conference today it’s virtually a media blackout?
BOWEN: Well they’re your words
Sabra but we won’t be providing running commentary. We won’t be talking
about what the Government’s putting to us. I imagine they won’t be
talking about what we said in meetings as in good faith there needs to
be a proper discussion around the table and then we’ll obviously give
you a full update if and when we can talk to you about the result, the
positive result of the discussions. If it’s a negative result then of
course we would obviously brief you on why that’s the case.
JOURNALIST: Can I ask Minister Butler, Shadow Minister Butler -
BOWEN: Pining for the good old days Phil. That’s quite alright.
JOURNALIST: Mark, the Government,
superficially at least, has folded the tent on the small scale scheme,
[inaudible] your views on that. Are confident that’s going to be safe,
and on the large scale scheme will you cop a reduction target somewhere
in the 30,000s?
MARK BUTLER, SHADOW MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE:
Well, nice try but third time is not any luckier than the first two
times for us to outline our position. We thought it was very important
to outline our position – particularly in relation to the large scale
target, which was the centrepiece of Ian Macfarlane’s comments today at
the Press Club, the idea of a “real 20 per cent” which is in actual fact
a 40 per cent cut to the legislated target. We thought it was important
that we repeat the position we’ve had now for some time about that
recommendation from the Warburton Review but beyond that we’re going to
have discussions, in good faith, behind closed doors, with the
Government about all of the other aspects of this really important area
of policy.
JOURNALIST:
Do you see that as a good faith start to negotiations, given everyone –
the industry and yourselves – are firmly on the record that you
wouldn’t take a true 20, yet they’ve put this on the table. Do you see
that as an act of good faith, or bad faith, or just a sneaky ploy?
BUTLER: Well, look we’re a glass
half full party, the Labor Party and we accept that Ian Macfarlane, Greg
Hunt come to the table in good faith with a hope to restore
bipartisanship and therefore investor certainty to the Renewable Energy
Target because we all know that if there is not agreement between the
two major parties of government, there will be no more investment in
large scale renewable energy and all of the billions of dollars in
investment, all of the thousands of jobs that are before us, potentially
in the pipeline in the next few years, will just disappear. So, there’s
good faith on both sides. Whether we can actually come to an agreement
on all of the elements of the policy remains to be seen, but we accept
there is good faith on the part of Ian Macfarlane and Greg Hunt.
JOURNALIST: The Minister says the Government will negotiate with the cross bench if it has to, how do you feel about this?
BUTLER: Well that is simply not
going to work. We all understand, we’ve all heard very clearly from the
industry, that global companies making investment decisions over many
years will simply not make those billions and billions of dollars of
investment based on the ability of the Government, maybe, to get a 51
per cent vote in the Senate, that will only last, at best, a couple of
years. We’ve heard a very clear message, as I expect Ian Macfarlane has
heard it as well, the only way you’re going to continue to see
investment flow into Australia in solar power, wind power and other
areas of renewable energy is if there is a bipartisan agreed Renewable
Energy Target.
JOURNALIST: Mr Macfarlane’s
previously been able to work quite well with Government. Do you see that
as a good sign that he’s previous experience with the CPRS and so on, a
good sign that this could work?
BOWEN: Oh well, CPRS isn’t a great
example. Because while the discussions might have gone well, the
outcome wasn’t so good, but we’re engaging with the relevant ministers.
Because we see this as an economic policy, obviously I as Shadow
Treasurer engaged in these discussions. We see this as a very important
economic policy. We recognise and respect the roles of Ministers
Macfarlane and Hunt as the relevant line ministers and of course we see
this from the Government’s point of view is an important economic policy
as well. So, we’re dealing with the ministers who’ve been appointed by
the Government and as I’ve said before with good faith on both sides,
the national interest should be put first.
JOURNALIST: Do you think Ian Macfarlane has the full endorsement of Cabinet to get this deal or that Cabinet could be a block?
BOWEN: Well, you’ll need to ask
Minister Macfarlane how intends – and Mr Hunt – how they intend to deal
with the Government but we are dealing with the relevant ministers.
JOURNALIST: As Mark Butler just
said, if you don’t reach an agreement, there won’t be any more
investment, so don’t you get to a point where you really want more
investment in renewable energy where if the Government’s got something
on the table that will allow some new investment, is going to be better
than nothing?
BOWEN: No. No.
JOURNALIST: Why?
BOWEN: We want to see a proper
renewable energy target. If you’re asking us Lenore if we’re going to
agree to whatever the Government puts forward, the answer to that is no.
We’ve indicated to you that we won’t be accepting a 40 per cent cut to
the Renewable Energy Target. We are endeavouring to reach an outcome in
the national interest. If we think the outcome on the table is not in
the national interest then we won’t be accepting it.
JOURNALIST: You’ve got a position
on this as well, because originally you said you weren’t going to talk
to the Government until they discounted the major findings of the
Warburton Review. Now, a real 20 per cent is straight from the Warburton
Review.
BOWEN: And we’re rejecting that recommendation.
JOURNALIST: You’re still talking to them
BOWEN: Now, division bells are ringing, but given we’re just near the House we can take one more question. No? Well, thanks everyone.
ABBOTT GOVERNMENT PLAN WOULD RUIN RENEWABLE ENERGY
Mark Butler
Shadow Minister for Environment
Climate Change and Water
Date: 22 October 2014
The Abbott Government’s plan to cut the
Renewable Energy Target by more than 40 per cent will ruin the renewable
energy industry, cost thousands of jobs and see investment move
offshore.
Labor rejects this proposal.
The Abbott Government has tried its hardest to
destroythe industry with its politically-motivated Warburton Review and
its adoption of one of the Review’s recommendation stands to be
devastating news for renewable energy businesses.
Labor’s legislated RET of 41,000GWh by 2020 is an
overwhelming policy success. Jobs in the sector have tripled, there has
been more than $18 billion in investment and homes with solar panels has
increased to 1.3 million.
In September 2013, Australia was ranked in the top
four most attractive places to invest in renewable energy, with the US,
China and Germany. Since Tony Abbott’s interference with the RET,
Australia is now ranked 10th.
The Abbott Government’s own modelling shows the RET will drive down power prices in the medium term.
Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence of its
success, the Abbott Government is still looking to wind back the RET by
more than 40 per cent.
Tony Abbott shattered the bipartisanship the
industry has enjoyed for more than a decade when he walked away from the
RET after the election and appointed a climate sceptic to head the RET
Review.
We will continue to talk to the Government but
Labor will not be party to a plan that kills jobs and investment,
increases carbon pollution and forces power prices to rise.
Tanya Plibersek, Subject/s: Ebola, Gough Whitlam
THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
DEPUTY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
SHADOW MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
MEMBER FOR SYDNEY
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
SYDNEY
FRIDAY, 24 OCTOBER 2014
TANYA PLIBERSEK, DEPUTY OPPOSITION LEADER: Reports overnight that the Ebola virus has spread to Mali are of substantial concern. On the 1st of October, the World Health Organisation said that if we didn’t get Ebola under control within 60 days, the consequences of the spread of the virus would be completely unpredictable. There would be a situation that there were no plans for. We know that the virus is spreading quickly, about 4500 people have died so far, about 10,000 are infected. But reports suggest that the number of infections is doubling about every 20 days. That means that if the Ebola virus continues to spread in the way that it’s spreading, it will be very difficult to contain it to West Africa. We’ve had calls from around the world for Australia to send in personnel to help, we’ve had calls from the US President, from the Prime Minister of the UK, from the United Nations, from Medicins Sans Frontieres, from Oxfam, from our own Australian Medical Association and our own public health association all saying that Australia has highly experienced staff willing and able to go and that they should be sent. Today there are also reports that the Chief Medical Officer has joined in saying that Australian medical assistance teams should be sent to West Africa. Of course, any such mission is not without risk. This is a dangerous part of the world now with a virus that is spreading quickly. But what President Obama has said, and what our own health professionals are telling us, is that the best way of keeping Australia safe, of keeping Australians safe, is to stop this virus in West Africa. If this virus continues to spread in the way that it does, if it moves to other continents, if it moves into our own region, the consequences are potentially catastrophic. Indeed the World Health Organisation has pointed to the fact thata densely populated region like Asia could have very severe consequences from an Ebola outbreak. Any questions?
JOURNALIST: What do you [inaudible] Minister’s statement that you’re playing politics with Ebola?
PLIBERSEK: There’s nothing to be said about that. This is one of the most critical issues that he has faced as Health Minister. We heard in Senate Estimates this week that Peter Dutton attended the weekly meeting of chief medical officers for the first time last Friday. This is a group that’s been meeting since August. There has been a lack of clarity about Australia’s preparedness. In Senate Estimates we’ve heard different stories from the health department, from the Chief Medical Officer, from defence, all giving different accounts of the level of Australia’s preparedness. And we hear also that Scott Morrison has been after the job of Ebola coordinator. So I think it’s very important that the Health Minister focus on his responsibilities, which are ensuring that Australians are kept safe, that we are prepared domestically and that Australia does its share to halt the spread of Ebola in West Africa.
JOURNALIST: We’ve been told that careful consideration is being given to sending our medical personnel over to help. The thing is- it deserves careful consideration doesn’t it? You can’t rush these things.
PLIBERSEK: This is absolutely something that needs the most careful consideration and the most careful planning. What concerns me is that that consideration and that planning is not happening. We heard different accounts just two days ago about whether Australian staff were being trained and readied to go. It is clear that this Government has not put effort into talking to our allies like the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union to make arrangements for Australian staff, should they need medical back up or evacuation in West Africa. I’m pleased to hear that consideration is being given but I think that that’s rather late in the piece. As I said earlier, we heard from the World Health Organisation on the 1st of October that if we don’t get this virus under control within 60 days – and that means 70 per cent of people being treated in hospitals or a treatment centre, and 70 per cent of dead bodies buried quickly and safely – then we risk seeing this virus spiral out of control – this becomes a global problem. The estimate is that on the current trajectory 1.4 million people will be infected by January next year. We have to stop this in West Africa, and Australia must be a part of that international effort. If Ebola gets to Asia it is very difficult to guarantee Australia’s safety.
JOURNALIST: There has been a case of the New York doctor who has contracted Ebola. Doesn’t that underscore the serious danger of sending medical teams there and how would you explain that to Australians if there was a similar case here in Australia after sending medical teams to West Africa?
PLIBERSEK: There is no question that it is dangerous for medical staff to go to West Africa – no one has ever denied that there is a danger, and that we have to do everything we can to make it as safe as possible for our medical staff. But it comes with risks. What I say to people who are worried about this story of the doctor who has come back to New York is – I understand those fears, I understand those concerns. But we can’t protect Australia if this virus gets out of control. Medical staff who volunteer to go to West Africa know the dangers. The Nurses and Midwives Association have told us that within 12 hours they had 135 nurses ring them to volunteer, to say they were prepared to go to West Africa. Nurses know the dangers of going, doctors know the dangers of going. Why then are they going? They also know that the best way they can contribute to keeping Australia and Australians safe is to go to West Africa and fight the disease there. They have trained all of their professional lives to serve humanity and that’s what they are asking to be allowed to do. They’re asking for the support of their Government to do what they are trained and equipped to do, what they know they must do to help keep Australians safe. It is not without risk, that is clear. But we have medical personnel who are prepared to take that risk with their Government’s support – to keep not just Australians, but the globe safe.
JOURNALIST: You can’t knock the Australian Government however for being unwilling to send Australian personnel into dangerous areas – can you?
PLIBERSEK: I think it’s very important to say that if this virus continues to spread in the way that it has, it will become difficult to keep Australians safe. I’m asking the Government to look ahead to the worst case scenario. The Centres of Disease Control, a very authoritative organisation in the United States is saying on current trajectories we’ll have 1.4 million people infected by the beginning of next year. How does the Government keep Australians safe if that comes to pass?
JOURNALIST: In Senate Estimates, it was revealed that Australian diplomats have been talking to partner countries about treatment plans. Doesn’t that indicate the Government has been preparing a response [inaudible]?
PLIBERSEK: What was revealed in Senate Estimates is that in September we had official requests from the United States and from the United Kingdom – two of our closest friends and best allies, for Australia to send personnel. It shows that despite those requests the Government has progressed very little.
JOURNALIST: Can I just ask – there will be a state memorial service held for the former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam on the 5th of November. Obviously that will be an extremely special day for the Labor party and millions more Australians.
PLIBERSEK: Well I think you saw an outpouring of national grief on Wednesday for a great man who represented a great Labor tradition. The 5th of November will be a sad day for many Australians, and of course for our Labor family. But it will also be a day of celebration – celebrating a great legacy – a legacy that changed Australia for the better, and changed Australia forever.
ENDS
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)