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A cautionary tale…
Rudd and the rentseekers: climate for sale
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What commendable words from Kevin Rudd on Friday sticking it up the climate denialists at the Lowy Institute. Proof, as it were, that the Prime Minister could be a great leader on climate change if he wanted to be:
Dead right, PM. What a pity the CPRS is not a bad effort at “a political attempt to subvert what is now a longstanding scientific consensus” itself, but anyway. His taxonomy of climate denialism – the outright sceptics, those who profess to believe but oppose any proposed means of doing something about it, and those who want to wait until the rest of the world takes action – was particularly inspired. It’s the second category that incorporates Australia’s biggest polluters, all of whom, hand-on-heart, profess to believe in climate change and the urgent need to address it, but oppose any means of addressing it that might faintly affect them. If the Prime Minister is so angry about the efforts of denialists to derail action on climate change, then here’s a suggestion: stop giving them taxpayers’ money. Government funding flows through a variety of means to some of Australia’s biggest polluters and opponents of an effective emissions trading scheme. Blue Circle Southern Cement is a Boral subsidiary. Boral is one of the six companies about whom the Australian Climate Justice Program and the Australian Conservation Foundation complained to the ACCC about the disparity between the dire warnings made about the threat of the CPRS to their businesses, and what they were actually telling their investors. But in June this year, Martin Ferguson’s Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism gave Blue Circle Southern Cement $1.98m under the Asia-Pacific Partnership program, the discredited Howard-Bush-era program designed to forestall action on climate change by pretending a technological solution was around the corner. But normally it’s more subtle than that. For example, the Minerals Council of Australia, the most vociferous opponent of the Government’s CPRS, gets funding for its Minerals Tertiary Education Council program from the Department of Employment, Education and Workplace Relations. That sort of support, aimed at ensuring the minerals industry has enough skilled workers to call on, is particularly ironic given Council CEO Mitch Hooke was a strong Workchoices advocate and front and centre in the disastrous business-funded anti-IR reform campaign before the last election. Another mob of rentseekers prominent in the campaign to neuter the CPRS has been the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association. They too get taxpayer assistance. Both Ferguson’s Department and Geoscience Australia – also in Ferguson’s portfolio – were sponsors of APPEA’s annual conference this year, as they were in 2008. Then there are the handmaidens of the rentseekers – those economists and consultants who prepare the modelling demonstrating that tens of thousands of workers will lose their jobs and whole industries will close in the event there’s any sort of cost for carbon. While the now-defunct Concept Economics has been front-and-centre in these efforts, ACIL Tasman has also been busy on behalf of polluters, producing major reports for the coal industry, food producers and the LNG industry warning of the dire consequences of the Government’s no-polluter-left-behind CPRS. ACIL Tasman is a regular beneficiary of Federal Government contracting work. In September last year, for example, it scored a $189,000 contract from – you guessed it – the Department of Resources. Other Departments like Infrastructure and even the Department of Climate Change also use ACIL, providing business worth several million dollars in the last year alone. Then there’s the personal appointments. Mitch Hooke, king of the rentseekers, is – bizarrely – a member of the Government’s Oceans Advisory Group. And senior Greenhouse Mafia figure Brian Fisher, formerly of Concept Economics, who has prepared several reports attacking the CPRS, has a position on the statutory Council of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, which the Howard Government appointed him to in its dying days. For all Fisher’s regular attacks on the Government, he is apparently prepared to content to be paid to advise it. One could go further. Prime Minister failed to mention the key role of the media in promoting climate denialism. The home of denialism is of course The Australian, which will run any drivel, no matter how discredited or sloppy, as part of its ongoing campaign to attack mainstream climate science and undermine political efforts to address climate change. Right on cue, today The Oz gave Hooke the platform for an attack on Rudd and the CPRS. Yet the Government spends tens of thousands of dollars a week – probably more – running Public Service job ads in The Weekend Australian. Given The Oz’s shrinking old, white, rich, male readership, that in itself is illogical (why Public Service job ads are not consolidated on a single APS job site is a mystery), but even more bizarre given it is engaged in a flat-earther attempt to undermine efforts to address what the Prime Minister calls “the great moral and economic challenge of our time.” So, Prime Minister, if you’re serious about taking the fight up to the denialists and do-nothings, show them you mean business. Stop giving them support and credibility by paying them our money. |
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31 Comments
“His taxonomy of climate denialism – the outright sceptics, those who profess to believe but oppose any proposed means of doing something about it, and those who want to wait until the rest of the world takes action – was particularly inspired. It’s the second category that incorporates Australia’s biggest polluters …”
The second category includes the Prime Minister, does it not?
Perhaps that second category requires refinement: “those who profess to believe and offer a tokenistic solution designed to act as a lightning rod defusing all serious attempts to do something about it”
http://apsjobs.gov.au/
The rest is spot on! Love your work, Bernard.
I’ve been banging on about how a stiffer scheme would not get through the senate in any case, so why all the hand wringing and teeth gnashing? There’s stuff all Rudd can do about it.
But, neatly laid out before me here are things Rudd CAN do, that don’t require an educated and useful senate. Sharp article BK. Thanks.
Hear! hear!
Yeah, but he’s talking about industries underpinned by the CFMEU.
You remember them? They provide the ALP with a lot of funding, and gee they’re helpful come election campaign time.
Yes, we taxpayers should not be subsidising these industries, but we have done for a long time and it’s bit harsh to just yank it without notice. That sort of thing generally leads to the teapot impression known as the High Court challenge … and the judges dress up for those hearings. Cost us taxpayers lots of dosh, costs us consumers lots too because we fund the lawyers … and if they win and get a costs award … ouch is said in Treasury, and back they come to us with their hand out again.
Given the relationship between the ALP and the CFMEU, add the pressure from the Business Council … and it should be obvious that Rudd is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Help him solve that problem, Bernard!
Oh dear the usual suspects keep thinking humans can STOP climate change.
King Canute showed that humans cannot control the tides. It’s about time these so-called climatologists realised that humans cannot control the sun or its sunspot activity or the cyclical nature of climate change documented by geologists and entirely ignored by the computer modellers.
Aiming for energy sources to replace oil stocks which will certainly run out is however a worthwhile policy.
I’ve always wondered why we persist with government subsidies of the legacy media. Public sector job ads is one, but what about winding up a company and bankruptcy notices? Surely a government web site with feeds supplied to anyone who wants them (and major creditors could very easily write software to pick it up daily) would be much more logical.
ROBBI64: This would be the same CFMEU who supported Howard in Tasmania in the election before Rudd’s coronation?
A stellar piece of writing Bernard, together with a first-class suggestion about ceasing to give the offending companies our (tax-payers) money. Muchas gracias and all that jazz.
“…Then there’s the personal appointments…”
Hmmm Bernard, I don’t seem to see Heather Ridout’s name here anywhere?
Except here: http://www.crikey.com.au/2008/05/12/heather-ridout-the-21st-member-of-rudds-cabinet/
But that was sooooo long ago.
By omission are you implying that she is not a rentseeker?
What the hell? The Australian government is giving over half a million a year to the Australian newspaper to run ads it could simply put up on the web?
This is a %&$ing disgrace. The Australian is a free market paper - fair enough, stop getting government job ads that no longer need to be in print. Every Australian taxpayer should be demanding that these ads stop, forthwith.
If the Australian is going to preach one thing and then do another - well that just boils my blood.
No more government job ads for the Australian!
A wonderful piece Bernard. Upsetting, irritating and most enlightening. Will someone tell Kevin, or do you think he already knows?
@Kerry Lovering
I am guessing you are looking at the geological record and you’re convinced by the relative long equilibriums punctuated rapid change which allows you to conclude this sort of thing has happened many times before human walked the earth; so therefore we are flattering ourselves to think that we can bring about such rapid changes with our relatively small means of impact, compared with the forces that have shaped earth as we know it today.
As long as you deny the evidence that dangerous man made global warming is on its way, you bolster the image of the do-nothing minority, who just like yourself care nothing for the precautionary principle, care nothing for the headcount of scientists who are convinced vs. those that deny. You my dear, are the minority “usual suspects”. So called geologists and a few right wing extremists; you are engaged in the very common psychological display of ‘projection’, which is where one accuses others of the very thing they fear most being accused of themselves.
Re: Rudd and the rentseekers.
I propose some working titles for the typology that Bernard has relayed to us
1. Outright sceptics - could be called “Grieving pillocks”
2. Those who profess to believe but oppose any proposed means of doing something about it - “‘Wait on - the beer is still cold”
3. Those who want to wait until the rest of the world takes action “Goes to the toilet when the bill arrives”
Simon Rumble … yes, that would be the same CFMEU who supported Howard after Latham made the terrible error of being seen in public, being pleasant with Dr Bob Brown. And a tree too, I seem to recall. A growing tree in a native forest made it into the photo. That is never a good look, having innocently growing trees in a media photo opportunity … not if you wish to be seen as a good econorat.
So, the powers that be in the Tasmanian ALP didn’t feel like putting a good show for Mr Latham in Tasmania, and Braddon swung Liberal again. That bloody seat has caused so many upsets in elections over the decades (ask Malcolm Mckerras for an analysis), not just federally. It is usually Braddon who changes the Tasmanian government too.
What’s Braddon? Heavy industry, forestry, mining, farming … and religion. Great. They just about got Harradine up all by themselves. They also give us Christine Milne, so don’t be too harsh on them.
Evidently,
“…As long as you deny the evidence that dangerous man made global warming is on its way…”
You mean it’s NOT HERE YET???
Thanks again for the laughs in another fact-free stream of conscious rant.
I’m confused. Crikey prides itself on free, non-partisan comment on political affairs, yet you appear to be supporting that our political system should silence those groups who - legitimately or otherwise - disagree with the established view on climate change?
Doesn’t sound right to me. I don’t necessarily agree with the views of the ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ climate change skeptics - however I do support their right to disagree. As should Crikey.
Be unconfused Sam.
Crikey via Bernard is merely suggesting that taxpayers may not wish to generously fund climate change sceptics in order to help them publish their scepticism.
Many taxpayers here are agreeing with the sentiment.
Some would like to see them silenced, but Bernard did not suggest that. He just suggested they fund their own PR campaigns.
MPM
nice to have your comforting slagging back in my face after your sojourn testing your personality fit on other nom de guerre.
By the way typos do not maketh a stream of consciousness rant - thats more your style. OK here you go then pedant.
this….
“I am guessing you are looking at the geological record and you’re convinced by the relative long equilibriums punctuated rapid change which allows you to conclude this sort of thing has happened many times before human walked the earth”
should have been this….
“I am guessing you are looking at the geological record, and you are convinced by the relative long equilibriums, which are punctuated by rapid change, which allows you to conclude that this sort of thing has happened many times before humans walked the earth”
The reference is Steven Jay Gould “The panda’s thumb” - hardly a fact-free individual, a respected darwinian historian and anthropologist. Some of us get out of our pyjamas and do the quickest blogs they can.
and as for this twaddle
“…As long as you deny the evidence that dangerous man made global warming is on its way…”
You mean it’s NOT HERE YET??? “
Yes I believe it is, but Kerry Lovering doesn’t (have a read of the reference before you start shouting at me next time)
have another go at me - the laughs are on you, big talking mama
“Given The Oz’s shrinking old, white, rich, male readership, that in itself is illogical (why Public Service job ads are not consolidated on a single APS job site is a mystery), “
They are - at
http://www.apsjobs.gov.au/
Agencies can still advertise some more senior positions in the papers if they wish to pay for it.
Nicely & concisely explicated Bernard. Nuff sed.
Having endured-albeit with a fair degree of interest-Four Corner’s program on Malcolm Turnbull; and knowing the attitude of the coal-mining industry’s bloody-minded determination to be paid for polluting the planet. Their arrogance was revealed today in Victoria, where they’ve even told the Premier, John Brumby, he has to pay them a heap more money or they intend to build a new, fully-polluting coal mine within the next few months.
All of that, together with Rupert Murdoch’s rag the Oz which continues to pour the shit-can over anyone who even thinks the words Climate Change, makes me wonder if it might be possible to change the Australian Constitution. Whereby the ability to vote can be denied to huge corporate entities whose vested interests are in direct opposition to any major change which could affect the living standards of the general population. For good, or for evil.
By its very nature big business, especially the mining industries, are in perpetual questing mode. They have a built-in knowledge of producing not only the minerals, but the market as well.
When faced with the electorate’s decision, wisely or not, the mining companies will always seek out ways of meeting the market. To expect to be paid for NOT producing what the market wants flies in the face of what it is to be an entrepreneur. In fact, it is so far out of whack with the norm it is a farce.
For governments to support an over-weight mining industry does nothing more than encourage it to become uncompetitive, listless and supine. They will remain this way until such time as they extract their collective fingers and do what the electorate wishes them to do.
This is in no way meant to be a suggestion to socialise these industries: I seek merely to encourage them to abide by the wishes of the majority. After all, even the most obdurate company has to back-off from mining National Parks. It’s not as if mainland Australia tolerates companies like Gunns timber company.
“What commendable words from Kevin Rudd…” opines BK.
I could not disagree more. What a disgrace would be more like it.
Fortunately I am far from being the only one who refuses to live in the Disneyworld-between-the-ears of climate fanaticists like BK.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704402404574525031879821944.html
@Venise. Ian Macfarlane said emphatically last night that there will never be another coal fired power station built in Australia: “that’s the reality”.
80% of our electricity is presently comes from coal fired power stations.
Soon to be 35 million population. No nuclear power allowed. Where is it going to come from? Flannery’s geothermal projects and wind turbines?
I don’t think so.
“Man Made Climate Change” is a tool to induce a certain paradigm.
Confusion often precedes understanding…
Please elaborate on this Adam.
And of course chief amongst the handmaidens (a deliciously coy synonym for another traditionally female profession) ABARE formerly headed by Dr Brian Fisher. The program of ABAREs Outlook conferences seem to have avoided the whole tricky issue of coal.
Evan,
Let me explain it for you…
You so desperately want “Man Made Climate Change” to be real.
Much like the residents of Drumnadrochit who long for a glimpse of Nessie.
The confusion stems from your profound belief in this myth to the exclusion of reasonableness, rationality and understanding, despite myriad evidence countering its mythical entrapment.
Fear not however.
You are not alone….particularly in the Crikeysphere.
Enlightenment will come.
Thanks for putting words in my mouth Mama. Irrelevant and useless as always.
“What commendable words from Kevin Rudd” opines BK.
I could not disagree more. What a disgrace would be more like it.
Fortunately I am far from being the only one who refuses to live in the Dystopic-horror-anime-fantasy-between-the-ears of climate catastophists like BK and only when it suits KRudd.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704402404574525031879821944.html
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/11/australia-prime-minister-kevin-rudds.html
@Venise. Ian Macfarlane (ps he’s the Liberal) said emphatically last night that there will never be another coal fired power station built in Australia: “that’s the reality”.
80% of our electricity is presently comes from coal fired power stations.
Soon to be 35 million population. No nuclear power allowed. Where is it going to come from? Flannery’s geothermal projects and wind turbines?
I don’t think so.
Ahh, it’s good to be back - albeit temporarily. Venise, still (EDIT). Even, still praising Bernard for being, well, just for being him - well done!
Need I remind Robbi64 that not long ago, when climate change was not supported by the majority of taxpayers, it received funding for its research and PR. And I dare someone to say it didn’t - you would be a filthy liar if you tried that line, but then, that is the way of the left.
The point being, it is important to always hear both sides fairly - and not act like some crazed, cult following zealot who crucifies anyone with a different opinion, something which this blog seems to religiously practice. In fact, the intolerance displayed by those on the left is now of mind blowing proportions. But then, hypocrisy has always been their strength. It was after all John Howard who commissioned the report, and allocated funds, into a possible ETS - and he is a skeptic.
On another topic, it is most peculiar how quiet commentators, particularly Crikey commentators, have been regarding Rudds’ recent censoring of the oppositions’ newsletters.
Censorship has historically been a prelude / pre-requisite to a totalitarian regime, surely it must be worth a discussion. Or does this attack on our democratic society get excused because it is being done by left wing royalty – namely a labor Prime Minister.
We are surely heading down the path of a totalitarian regime with Rudd’s dangerous censorship of opposition criticism. Think I am wrong? Hitler did not appear over night. He power slowly grew, as did his influence. He took 1600 small steps, and before people knew it, he had taken a mile and was dictator of Germany and attacking Europe.
The key to his success - preventing criticism of his regime by controlling all opposition.
What is the use of having an opposition if they cannot criticise the government? What is the use of having elections if the government does not allow the opposition to be the opposition?
This should surely be a key discussion of an unbiased political website.
JamesK
“Soon to be 35 million population. No nuclear power allowed. Where is it going to come from? Flannery’s geothermal projects and wind turbines?
I don’t think so.”
You don’t think so, because you have no understanding of the subject matter. That’s okay, neither do the Liberals.
There are no technical reasons why Australia could not produce all energy from renewables by 2050.
Actually I’m going to agree with JamesK on this one, at least in the second half of his post where he calms down.
Meski made a good point the other day: Skeptics might have to accept greenhouse response as a necessary evil. The Left might have to accept including nuclear power as a necessary evil.
Just because the Left have the science on their side, doesn’t mean they get to dictate everything about the response. If you have to choose between nuclear power and runaway greenhouse, what’s it going to be?
You’ve got to choose your battles. And, if you throw the Right a bone by letting Australia make lots of money out of uranium, you might have a chance of talking them into relinquishing a portion of the coal profits.
@Pedro
yes I have been away too.
” not long ago when Climate Change was not supported by the majority of taxpayers it received money for it’s research and PR”
and you dared somebody to say that it didn’t, because if they did they woukd be filthy liars.
Now I going to use some tools from Karl Popper here, to take you to task with particular reference to the liar bit.
One. there is no such thing as a truth, only hypotheses that haven’t yet been falsified.
Two. Falsification comes in two major kinds a) fallacies of logic, where the argument does follow from the premise, or b. the structure is good but the content (evidence collected) disconfirms the hypothesis as posited.
Your argument is false on both of Poppers methods of falsification
a. The premiss that “in recent times Climate change was not supported by the majority of taxpayers” is false
See here from the Climate Institute’s independent research - I have summarised for you.*********
Climate change research on Australians revealed that in 2003 climate change was seen as “extremely important” by 38% of respondents; by February 2007, 78% of respondents believed climate change was a “major problem”. In March 2007 81% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that our Government should make Australia lead the way in finding solutions to climate change .
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Secondly the content is fallacious, as the climate change institute is a non-partisan, independent research organisation which is primarily funded by a donation from the Poola Foundation (Tom Kantor Fund), a bequest left by a man who tried to make a difference on the way out the door. Not a tax dollar to be seen.
So am I a filthy liar? And for that matter, where is your evidence to the contrary?