Going (the Clean Energy Finance Corporation) … going (the Climate Change Authority) … gone (the Climate Commission).
Tony Abbott’s in charge now, and everything must go. At least in terms of the bodies the former government set up to deal with climate change.
Bureaucratic consolidation makes sense; it was Labor that scrapped the Climate Change Department earlier this year. And the Coalition believes in the science of climate change and has agreed to do its fair share to reduce emissions … right?
But if the Climate Change Authority goes, who will give Tony Abbott frank and fearless expert advice on how much Australia should reduce its emissions by? And the Climate Commission had its flaws, but at least it was interested in the scientific evidence on climate change. Who will keep tabs on that now the Commission has been shut down?
“I must say,” chief Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery said after being sacked yesterday, “I really wonder where the independent authority on climate change is now going to come from … As global action on climate change deepens, propaganda aimed at misinforming the public about climate change, and so blunting any action, increases.”
Propaganda from the likes of the federal government, which is promoting an outrageously expensive and fundamentally flawed “Direct Action” plan on climate change. With nobody left in government to set the record straight.
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The axe is out in the public service. But are Tony Abbott’s secretarial sacrifices fair game or a spiteful act of a new government? Crikey Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane joins editor Jason Whittaker to look at the first days of a Coalition government: the departmental shake-up and the policy challenges ahead. Stream it or download here.
All this silly talk about where’s Toady going to get the Right advice from?
As he said himself, Australia is open for funny business again. So it’s business as usual. He’ll sauce all the advice he needs from Murdoch & Blot’s “Frank & Fearless Advice R’ Us”? Why change now?
Wwho will give Tony Abbott frank and fearless expert advice on how much Australia should reduce its emissions by? Methinks, maybe god, mr Pell, Barnaby, Rupert and his fearless opinion media, and perhaps the now unemployed Sophie
The big sale at “Firewalls ‘R Us”?
[And now Snott Reith-Morrison, a fortnight shy of 12 years after the studied wilful blindness, that manifested itself in the prevarication and obfuscation of Children Overboard – to commemorate that political plimsoll mark – is “stopping the boats” by pretending they’re not there?
“These smugglers wouldn’t know what each other is doing” – phones and all?]