We are seeing history repeat itself in the government. The same small group of climate deniers who killed off the National Energy Guarantee in Turnbull’s years are now holding Australia back from confronting what the great majority of Australians, and people across the planet, see as our biggest existential threat: climate change.
The NEG was welcomed by nearly all industry and community groups including the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, Business Council of Australia and Australian Industry Group. Unions also welcomed it. Many groups wanted more done but were just pleased that something would finally happen, allowing business and society to plan and act with more assurance about the future.
But a handful of people in the government decided they knew better — and set about destroying the government unless the NEG was removed. Ultimately this group won. Society and democracy lost.
Now we again see these recalcitrants at their destructive and self-righteous best as they try to stop Australia joining the rest of the planet confronting this challenge with targets on net zero emissions.
There is no need to go into the facts around climate change — the facts are there for anyone who has an objective bone in their body. Like all sectors of society, there are some in the small business community who deny climate change and get annoyed with me for promoting action, but they are very much in the minority.
What I have observed is that many who deny climate science also appear to be those who deny COVID is real, or that vaccines are necessary. These minority groups are entitled to their opinion — we live in a working democracy. What they are not entitled to do is to prevent action that’s consistent with the wishes of most Australians. That is a failed democracy.
And so we come to the role of our elected politicians in general and the Nationals in particular. Does Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce support such a destruction of democracy where the wishes of the minority take precedence over those of the vast majority? Joyce may deny he supports them, but he is one of those who killed off the NEG and has consistently pushed against the tide of the majority opinion on climate change and derided the scientific evidence of same.
That is not to say there aren’t valid economic and employment issues for regional Australian communities that rely heavily on coalmining and associated activities. But surely the first step is to agree on the need for action — as is now being asked — and then set about determining how to support those communities in a smooth and fair transformation to alternative industries.
Closing coalmines and power stations overnight, or without proper planning and process, is not possible and would be socially and economically irresponsible. There will also continue to be a demand for good quality Australian coal in the near to medium term, but we — as the coal industry is doing — must explore how best to achieve net zero emissions in line with the aspirations of most Australians.
Just like our big electricity companies, our coal enterprises must seek to progressively and responsibly reduce investment in high-emissions activities and increase investment in net zero emissions activities — that is, after all, what investors in these companies expect.
In the past Australia has responded well to changes in industry (e.g. textiles, clothing and footwear, car manufacturing, dairy farming and steel production) due to initiatives by various governments, the Fraser and Hawke governments in particular, such as tariff removal or reduction.
The regional New South Wales economies of Wollongong and Newcastle, for example, were particularly impacted by the downsizing of steel production in their economies, but have successfully reduced their reliance on this industry over many years with positive and well-targeted government support.
The point is that change sought by the majority should be supported by government — not opposed by it. Based on past actions, such assistance can include:
- Assistance to companies going through change, whether that be growth, downsizing or closure
- Working with affected workers and their families on managing information, communications and priorities
- Working with the largest companies to identify communities where change is occurring and developing joint responses as part of the general adjustment package
- Support for local small and medium businesses experiencing change
- Retraining programs for those to be retrenched or wishing to change jobs
- Funding for Local Economic Development (LED) activities and community support including: recognition of new business opportunities, import replacement and export development, skills analysis and relocation support, and other activities included in a strategic plan.
There is an opportunity — and a need — to develop similar responses to the current situation. Action could include:
- Developing a tripartite Coal Industry Restructuring* Authority (CIRA) or a similar organisation; this would also encompass energy, but politically and socially coal is seen as the issue
- Develop pilot activities with selected communities
- Develop short term and long term plans for the industry based on information from those affected and on micro and macroeconomic analyses
- Funding to be in partnership with energy and mining companies.
There are more actions that can be undertaken, but we must first confront and defeat the few, the very loud and belligerent few, who care nought about the future and only about themselves and their beliefs.
We should listen to those affected or potentially affected: the workers and their families, the small business owners in those communities and industries, and to the leaders of the communities — not to climate deniers and the noisy minority.
“These minority groups are entitled to their opinion — we live in a working democracy. What they are not entitled to do is to prevent action that’s consistent with the wishes of most Australians. That is a failed democracy.”
Depends on what you mean by ‘democracy’. As Orwell pointed out decades ago this word has been so abused it has no specific meaning any more. It’s just used to describe whatever political arrangement one approves of. I’d say our political system, regardless of whether we call it democracy, is working as one would expect given its design and the role that parties have been given. There is no democracy in the sense of citizens debating and deciding each issue directly. This is absolutely not a system of majority rule (and I’m not suggesting that simple unfettered majority rule by citizens would be entirely wonderful). Citizens only participate by electing representatives. Because of the way this is done, the so-called representatives are subject to all manner of corrupting influences and typically are more concerned with themselves and their party than anything else. When a party is in government with a small majority it can be held to ransom by any faction or junior partner that chooses to exercise that influence for its own reasons, as we see now. It’s exactly what anyone would expect from a system designed and operated this way.
So this is not a failed democracy. It’s a system of government that was never capable of delivering rule by the majority of citizens, and probably never meant to, which is delivering rule by a feckless cabal of politicians working for themselves, their party and their paymasters, because that’s the output to be expected from this constitution under current conditions.
Well said SSR.
There was a program on ABC TV last night. It was simply presented. Which I felt was good, for helping the understanding of a lot of our citizens.
It showed very visually how our version of “Democracy” operates.
“The Big Deal”
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/big-deal/series/0/video/DO1914H001S00
And there’s more to come (next week). Definitly worth a look – a laugh (or a cry).
When the Nationals with less than half the national vote of the Greens get 10 seats in federal parliament to the single seat gained by the Greens, we are certainly living in a failed democracy
We should reject any use of the word “net”. While we talk of “net zero”, we are allowing the wobblies in our midst to imagine that we can get away with a little bit of positive emissions because it will be offset with an equivalent bit of negative emissions somewhere else. Not true! Any emission whatsoever will worsen climate change forever, so it will remain unforgivable regardless. When the treacherous term appears in conversation, we should only ever reply in terms of plain “zero”.
Agreed, Roger.
“ but we — as the coal industry is doing — must explore how best to achieve net zero emissions in line with the aspirations of most Australians.”
The only way to get to net zero emissions from the coal industry is by preventing it being burnt. Better still, leave it in the ground. There are still large groups of consultants advising this government that think we will still be digging up coal in 2050 and somehow sequestering the CO2. CCS can’t work, ever. If we can get genuine credits from storing carbon in soil then that must be done on top of ceasing all coal (and petroleum) mining.
The idea that we might extract one litre of petroleum, or one bucket of coal, after 2050, is crazy. From my perspective it should be 2040 at the latest, and all real measures for storage to be ramped up, which means soil, forests, plants, seaweed and other established and real measures, plus any bright new tech, but not CCS.
I’m not sure how much people are entitled to their own opinion. There are certain shared facts that if someone fails to hold they are mistaken.
While these might sound trivial and obvious, that’s the point. Anyone arguing otherwise isn’t entitled to their own opinion except in the meaningless sense that they can hold those beliefs privately. Any appeal to opinion doesn’t take away that beliefs generally aim at truth, and the implication of that is the standards of truth are always going to be able to be evaluated in that light.
If people say “I’m entitled to my own opinion”, it should be reasonable to point out that most things really aren’t matters of opinion, and that we should be able to evaluate the content of the belief. One cannot hold that one has the right to profess a belief publicly (either by idea or behaviour) without it impacting on others.
Yeah Kel, but!
Under current rules (In the so called Western World) EVERYONE is entitled to their own opinion.
No matter how wrong it may be.
It’s the implications of “entitled” I’m speaking to. It’s trivially true that we won’t be arrested for beliefs that get facts wrong, but it doesn’t follow that the entitlement means beliefs are beyond scrutiny. At best, what we have is a use of entitlement that keeps the peace by avoiding bringing up difficulties on emotionally-charged topics.
It’s equivocation between two different senses of the word entitlement, glossing over an important point about the relationship between what we believe and what is. Unfortunately the ambiguity of the word “entitled” means that the equivocal use allows a lot of nonsense to go unchallenged that really should be.
As someone said,”You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.”
The Guardian’s comment / opinion pages are always headed by a quotation from CP Scott, 1921 Guardian editor, “Comment is free… but facts are sacred.”
That idea becomes quaint in a world where large numbers of people are aligned with the infamous claim of a senior advisor to Dubya Bush, reported by Ron Suskind in October 2004,
The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore.” He continued “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
For everyone who is signed up to this, that is, those who have liberated themselves from the pitiful limitations of the reality-based community, there is no objective reality. By believing something you make it real. Empirical or historical evidence is irrelevant, a distraction, a waste of your precious time. So whatever you believe about vaccines, about covid, the result of the last US presidential election, lizard people, the Deep State and QAnon, the rights of sovereign citizens, pixies, the way the climate works… it’s all true. No matter what it is that you believe, either for or against. And no matter if you contradict yourself or change your mind completely tomorrow. It’s all true. When you believe it, you make it true.
SSR.
You nailed it again.
And much food for thought from Kel.
I,ll be awake all night now thinking it over, and over repeatedly.
Yeah, I loved that piece SSR. I hate to say it but the guy is probably right, reality is the one we create (in our minds) much more than mere substance, matter, science etc. I remarked numerous times on these pages wondering about how people were sucked in during the dark ages to believe whatever fairy story was being peddled by the powers that be. Then came the enlightenment, and sill old me thought we would never go backwards, as a society, what with how educated and connected and intelligent we all are.
And here I find myself witnessing a slide back into the dark ages which parallels nicely with the age of peak technology (so far).
We could all go backwards, mightily, as a species. At the moment that looks inevitable, almost.
That civilisations peak and decline is a given – in antiquity they seemed eternal to those involved but collapse can be surprisingly rapid.
My favourite has always been the Indus cultures, exemplified by Harappa & Mohenjo Daro – their existence not even a rumour or myth for two millennia until discovered in the 1920s.
Shelley’s Ozymandias ought to be recited when Parliaments sits, rather than prayers.
In our hubris we suppose that our current, fossil energy dependent and supremely rapacious, western societies will not have our collective collar felt by Nemesis.
True Kel, except when the solstice is on the 21st December. 😉
The question for me is whether we allow such important public policy to come down to what the most reluctant will tolerate. Whatever happened to evidence-based policy. Even Morrison in urging Australia taking action, was basing it on international relationships rather than taking steps to avoid the planet being fried. But in the end it will come down to what Canavan Christensen and Pitt will allow to happen if sufficiently bribed.