While the media was obsessing about personalities within the National Party and sifting through Barnaby Joyce’s word vomit for evidence of a position on net zero by 2050, things were happening in the real world.
On Friday, in a meeting that attracted virtually no coverage from the mainstream media, state and territory ministers, led by Victoria, NSW and the ACT, smashed up Angus Taylor’s plans to impose a tax on every household to support the Coalition’s coal-fired power donors. All Taylor got was a face-saving commitment to “progress further design work on a mechanism that specifically values capacity in the NEM”, based on principles that include states being able to “meet their energy and emissions reduction objectives”.
As Giles Parkinson at RenewEconomy — the team doing the hard work of energy journalism that the mainstream media doesn’t seem interested in — noted, another anti-renewables mechanism backed by Taylor, a congestion management model, was also sent off into the never-never.
The states and territories are already far ahead of the Commonwealth on climate action and the transition to net zero — a fact that seems to escape the Canberra press gallery obsessed with which National said what about Scott Morrison’s grand distraction of net zero.
That distraction is cover for the Morrison government’s ongoing efforts to look after its fossil fuel donors. Taylor’s “CoalKeeper” tax was a key mechanism for that. Taylor will keep trying it on and, if the states block it, will look for other mechanisms to support fossil fuels. The government is already supporting the carbon capture and storage scam, approving coal mine expansions and spending $15 billion on subsidising coal exports via the inland rail.
Meanwhile the Democrats in the United States are investigating a carbon tax, with direct payments to households as part of the mix — and they wouldn’t need to bring Republicans on board, because it would be a budget matter. A domestic carbon tax would inevitably see the Americans impose one on imports as well — thus ensuring that both the US and the EU establish carbon tariffs.
Australia has no leverage left with the Europeans on anything, after we killed the Naval Group subs deal in exchange for an 18 month study of which nuclear submarine the Brits or the Yanks could offload on us. Nor are the Europeans likely to look upon us too kindly if we seek to hinder commitments to stronger climate action in Glasgow.
Glasgow is now the framing device for the 2050 distraction, with the focus of the mainstream media on what deal Morrison can cut with the Nationals to get them over the line in time for the conference, if any. It fits perfectly within the way most of the press gallery likes to report politics — with an emphasis on personalities, and analysis confined to who wins and who loses from each encounter.
What would the coverage look like if it focused on policy substance and the actual drivers of the parties involved?
It would start with noting the extent of fossil fuel donations to the federal Liberal Party (over $2.4 million since 2010), the WA Liberals ($440,000), the Queensland LNP ($1.4 million) and the federal Nationals ($560,000), the role played by former fossil fuel industry executives in senior positions within the government, and the role played by senior former politicians, staffers and public servants in fossil fuel companies, and their capacity to shape policy. It would note the kind of board positions and executive roles within fossil fuel companies, and the bodies that lobby for them, that will be available for current politicians in the future.
It would note the comparatively smaller, but still important, influence on the government of exporting industries, such as farming and manufacturing, which would be subject to carbon tariffs on Australian exports. It would consider what leverage Australia would be able to exert on key governments against international decisions to impose carbon tariffs. And it would explain that in two of the biggest areas of emissions in Australia, energy and agriculture, it is state and territory governments that have primary regulatory control, not the federal government.
And it would note the array of Commonwealth measures intended to support the fossil fuel industry despite whatever words its political leaders might utter, and that net zero by 2050 for one of the world’s most carbon-intensive economies will be far too little to encourage other, bigger emitters to adopt a more rapid transition, given rapid cuts by 2030 are what are required.
That would require some diligent research, though not that much, and a reluctance to be distracted by personalities or fake targets. Most of all, it would require a different understanding of how power works in Australia, and the soft corruption that enables vested interests to purchase decisions and dictate policies. It’s a kind of journalism that, seemingly, most of our media is incapable of.
I picked up a lot more than the first commenter from the article.
Putting politics to one side and focussing on performance by the past three governments on Climate change I see only one way forward.
The current government should not be returned at the next election.
Their ‘damn the torpedoes’ attitude to climate change, their poisoning of various forums both government and industry based goes to the heart of their disdain for positive action.
Voters should ignore any promises about positive action emanating from Murdoch or Morrison in the run up to the next election.
This is not about Albo. It’s more to do with lost opportunity and recalcitrance from the past and current government (s).
You have succinctly summarised the complete abrogation of MSM to hold Morrison and his cronies to account on anything, BK. The apparent lack of cut through of Albo, whether he is the right guy or not, vs the daily fawning at worst, and non-criticism at best, is absolutely damaging our ability to get a balanced approach. We will end up rocketing down the USA model country, where inequality, privatisation and constant looking out for mates and donors is the norm….
We had a carbon price under Labor and Australia’s first female PM, it had to go and was an easy task for the likes of Betty’s favourite gong wearing liar Crudlin. Now America under Biden is looking at a carbon tax.
Vote minor party and independent? Only if you’re a political illiterate. Look what they gave us in 2016, Hanson and a further entrenched pro coal parliament!
The Greens have resisted intense pressure from Labor to delay senate voting reform. They have announced a new optional preferential system will have a start date of July 1.
Just in time for a July 2 double dissolution election. You can put your money on it.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2016/03/05/tony-abbotts-party-room-broadsides/14570964002959
And so it came to pass.
You’re asking a little too much to expect our media to investigate. Their business model is one straight out of the Nationals – if it’s not tied down it’s there to be ripped off. And we are the fools being ripped off.
Looking at most of our media – it’s like a string of bug-eyed, snot-nosed toddlers with their noses stuck to the window of “Scomo Claus’s Workshop” copping a snow job?
“Net zero” – as decreed by Scotty “meeting our commitments in a canter” Morrison; ably backed with “Gas Guslin'” Taylor as his “Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction”, and in Coalition with Cousin Jethro and his “Fossilsed Frat Party”? – “Why not?”
….Then along comes Albanese and the Labor Party – and it’s out with the ice picks and vinegar?
Murdoch owns The Australian, the popular dailies in Sydney and Melbourne and the only dailies in the other state capitals except for Perth where it is run by Kerry Stones who also runs Channel 7. I think he is a Liberal supporter as well? Then Channel 9 which runs the SMH and The Age is run by the Liberal Party. Murdoch bought up a lot of rural and regional papers and then closed (all of?) them down and now beams Sky News to the regions.
If by any remote chance the Labor Party can get any positive airtime and win the election, its first task should be to de-monopolise the MSM.
And fund public interest journalism.
Inject a massive shot into ABC funding, remove the Coalition appointees.
Rinse and repeat next time round.Seesaw.
Bu ,but we already have one the ABC ,the flaw with this is the ability to control the money by the sitting government and appoint members to the board of the right political persuasion.
If Morrison decides to dodge attending Glasgow it will be interesting to see how News Corp spins his excuses.
Morrison knows the Emperor Has No Clothes despite News Corp reporting that he does – however, aside from the US & UK, no other country is riddled with Murdoch propaganda. The rest of the world, Murdoch-free, can see through Morrison & he’s painfully aware of it.
Well given that it was the Labor government of Keating that led the charge to further entrench the Murdoch and co media monopoly, I can’t see that happening. Attempts to undo Keating and Howard’s media monopoly machinations have come to nought despite:
”In 2011, with Julia Gillard as prime minister, the Labor government attempted a root and branch rethinking of regulation to try to take into account a media environment that now included the internet. The Convergence Review attempted to come up with a way to address powerful emerging media while also creating some commonality in regulation, so that the same standards would be applied, for example, to a print newspaper story and the online version of that story.”
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/the-history-of-media-ownership-in-australia/6831206
What would proper reporting look like? Well, instead of typing out meaningless LibLab or state “commitments”, the media would scrutinise the half-assed history of UN “net zero” itself. And report on the obvious holes in the concept. Like, it papers over the humans’ total war on the environment. It makes heroic assumptions about decarbonising energy, and emissions reductions. And ditto carbon-capture possibilities. (The natural carbon cycle captures barely half of human emissions.)
It’s true, many scientists are reluctant to write frankly about this. But you can look at Dyke et al – Conversation 22/4/21; McLaren et al – Front. Clim. 21/8/19; Glikson – on Pearls & Irritations; my own summary – Ind. Aust. 14/2/21.
Albanese – or, as the Beetrooter disrespectfully calls him ‘Albaneez’. This was a similar jibe to the one he gave Richard di Natale, previously leader of the Greens, with pride.
Funny-sounding furrin names? Can’t pronounce ’em, can’t be arsed.
The current Federal Government’s attitude to climate change is to promise more reviews, more debates, and more goals with fluid outcomes. Morrison is rather like a stripper who subtly puts on more clothes than they take off, and never lets you see anything interesting.
I wonder how big his man boobs are?
I doubt he has anything interesting to show us in any case.