Read part one of Australia’s worst individual climate culprits here, part two here, part three here, and the full list of corporate culprits here.
Crikey’s list of criteria for determining Australia’s worst climate culprits encompasses their role in setting climate policy, the level of emissions they’re responsible for, how much political influence their companies wield to undermine climate action, and how they can influence public debate and political reactions. Today, we round out a dirty dozen of climate culprits:
Jennifer Westacott
Read the publications of the Business Council of Australia (BCA) — where Westacott has been in charge for a decade — and you’d think it enthusiastically supports climate action. But the reality is it has actively sabotaged and campaigned against every significant climate initiative in Australia, cheering on Abbott’s repeal of the carbon price and declaring Labor’s 2019 election emissions target “economy-wrecking”, all while insisting it supports climate action “in principle”. Why? A quick look at the membership of the BCA — about 40% of which are foreign companies — will show: AGL, Ampol, BlueScope, BP, Energy Australia, Origin, Shell,
Matt Canavan
The coal-addicted National backbencher lacks direct power but is the hard-charging mascot of the denialist rump of the Liberal National Party, which wags the dog of the National Party, which in turn can dictate climate policy to the Liberals. Canavan is convinced he can realign regional politics in Queensland and switch blue collar votes in dying industries into lifelong LNP supporters — if he can secure enough taxpayer funding to support his coal-fired vision.
Nev Power
Once head of Fortescue Metals, now a WA fossil fuel industry executive, Power is the architect of Morrison’s “gas-led recovery” plan, a policy crafted not within the public service but by hand-picked industry figures like Power, who insists massive government spending to prop up and expand the gas industry isn’t a “subsidy”.
Canavan can be relied upon to say something outrageously stupid on a weekly basis.
I think you need a place for Keith Pitt in there…how can a minister of integrity propose a $250 billion in government (tax payer funded) loans to the coal mining & gas industry – utterly stupefying, the Coalition is totally corrupted by their donors (honestly the same applies to the ALP)…how we’ll ever fix this issue and how long it will take to fix who knows – it’s a worry!
Pitt’s had a late run along the rails with the suggestion of those loans for the FF industry in te last couple of days. He can go on the list; similarly Canavan should be promoted (see my other comment).
Oh yeah your right definitely can’t forget Matt the coal and gas addicted prostitute
You are shaming the oldest profession in the world by calling this fool a prostitute . He is just a common fool and a puppet of the fossil fuel industry.
Indeed he’s more of a lap dog/puppet to his owner-donors…
Worse are the environment hypocrites. Twiggy, emoting about “scope three” emissions, and jetting off to Glasgow to big-note himself. Kean, doing net-zero victory laps, while protecting feral horses not koalas.
Canavan is a protege of Barnaby, and like Barnaby, has fashioned an image of a straight-shootin’, no bs aussie bloke who “tells it like it is”. He is utterly fake, but such a deep fake that even he probably doesn’t know where the real MC ends and the manufactured MC starts.
He’s seen an opportunity to foment a Trumplican-like divisiness in society, and like a genuinely caring and compassionate human being who loves his country, he’s decided to dive right into the fissure and see if he can turn it into a gaping wound, complete with rebellion plots, violent loons and crazy misinformation.
There’s a time when sh*t stirring crosses the line into dangerous activity, and like all good wannabe Trump-replicators, Canavan doesn’t know or care where that line is. The possibility of serious consequences from all this doesn’t matter to Matt, as being a champion of free speech and liberty, he can wipe his hands of any real life consequences, on the basis that just because he exploits his public profile and political platform to amplify his message, that doesn’t mean it’s anything to do with him if people actually act on what he spruiks.
Big mouth, no responsibility, 100% pseudo-working class hero.
‘Pseudo working class’ imagery is important for conservatives to peel or pare off old Labor voters; replicating the US GOP and UK Tories preying on ageing electorates.
Canavan is also a metaphor of radical right libertarian tactics and strategy i.e. proposing socialism for the top end of fossil fuel or mining town, but constraints and restrictions on everybody else; hopefully without them realising.
The latter voters are compelled to adopt ‘libertarian’ white-anting of their well being e.g. employment conditions and agency or rights of workers and/or unions to organise, if they are of working age (less likely in regional areas).
Quite an Orwellian performance as for many wealthy middle class MPs of the LNP who try to present themselves as having normal Australians’ interests at heart, fighting for the same and sharing their ‘values’….. then again many retired voters seem to think the same and adopting the worker/battler imagery….
I disagree. I don’t think pseudo working class imagery is appealing to old Labor voters – ageism if ever there was evidence. I think it is being used to appeal to younger Labor voters and blue collar constituents. Most of the true blue old Labor voters are deceased or to set in their ways to vote anything else. It is the younger working class and tradie constituency, self employed or not, who are most likely to vote for the conservatives. I am a bit dubious of all this “blue collar vote Liberals now” theme. It used to be factual that in the aftermath of the environmental battles of Tasmanian forests and particularly the fight over the Franklin-below-Gordon River Dam in the early 1980s that disgruntled forestry and hydro workers voted Liberal completely switching sides. Just like in the cities and regions mainly of NSW, Qld and Victoria, it is the younger working class who might and many do allie themselves with conservative forces due to the limited scope of their experience and education, just as surely as a typical uni educated white collar or academic or professional who is worried about climate change never knows the interior of a workshop, a factory or a farm shed or a warehouse and is likely to get a reasonable job with a family in tow and not have to worry too much about mundane day to day issues of survival or mortgages or crime or long term unemployment. Independent tradies will always vote Liberal and are only working class because they don;t work in an office or talk nicely and wear workmen’s clothes. It is the younger working class that are deserting Labor in droves and I know for a fact they certainly won;t find a home in the Greens whose first priority is to relocate Sydney Airport to a undetermined location!!
There is no point in the LNP appealing to younger voters, except for spoiling or PR, when they are outnumbered by a ‘bubble’ of older or above media age voters who are more likely to vote LNP.
Our permanent population (starting to look like an inverted pyramid), hence, electoral rolls, are aging with retirement age fast becoming the median in many regional seats.
However, this does not preclude a change of policies with future demographic change balancing out electoral rolls and above older or median vote is less influential.
We should hang our heads in shame at the environmental disaster we are leaving our brilliant young people who will have to clean up the mess the most corrupt coalition in our country’s history will leave. The last election win was a miracle purchased by tainted fossil fuel preference votes and here we go again.
Sadly this is true!
Why does Matt Canavan always look like he used to be in a gay, ‘Eighties synthesizer band before he found his true calling?