Category Archives: Climate change

Ooops Greenpeace!

Posted by Drag0nista on

This week I attended a public affairs conference entitled True Spin, held by the Walkleys/MEAA.

There were conflicts, inconsistencies and knowledge gaps that struck me during the presentations at the conference, but one thing that consistently stood out was the consensus that Shell had badly dealt with Greepeace’s Let’s Go! arctic campaign.

Disappointingly, while several presenters were happy to pile on Shell for their lack of issues management savvy, not one suggested a course of action that could have proved successful for Shell.

I have to admit that the answer does not come easily to me either, which is why I’m less prepared to damn Shell for their inadequacy.

Since then I’ve been pondering what I would have done, and have come to the conclusion that I would have advised Shell to take out full page ads with the text provided below, backed up by a good old fashioned media release that includes a Shell estimate of how much a slick website like that would have cost to establish and run.

I chose MSM rather than social media because corporate messages on Facebook and particularly Twitter can be too easily highjacked: there’s a greater chance that your message will remain undiluted if it’s distributed by the mainstream media via new media platforms than if you do it yourself.

Similarly, the call to action is through email and not Facebook or Twitter where the message can quickly be highjacked and distorted.

So, this is the text of the full page I think Shell should have placed. What do you think they should have done?

About these ads

Fear mongers belittle politics and humanity

Posted by Drag0nista on

Here’s my latest piece for The King’s Tribune…

Fear is a fascinating thing. It’s fairly easy to initiate, can sometimes be used to motivate, and can bring out the best or worst in any of us. Right now, it’s being used against us for craven political purposes.

Fear motivates some people to wear a seat-belt, insure their house, take their medication, run from a person brandishing a knife, or perform heroic feats to save loved ones. It can also cause people to be prejudiced, belligerent, aggressive, or perhaps even trample others while trying to escape danger.

Fear is a powerful emotion, and it’s used daily by companies, governments, political operatives and the media to influence our behaviour.

While the tabloid media are best known for playing the fear card, politicians now seem to be trying to trump them. The Greens proclaim that devastation will soon be wrought by dangerous climate change; the Coalition foretells the doom that will befall us from the carbon tax; and the ALP warns about the apocalypse that will come with the ascension of Prime Minister Abbott.

Added to this, we’re cautioned about mining magnates, asylum seekers, newspaper proprietors, rabid Christians, vampiric bosses, a burst housing bubble and another global economic meltdown.

It’s no wonder the Australian citizenry has become anxious and seeks solace amongst the glittering halls of Westfield Plazas scattered thoughtfully around the country. Perhaps the public’s whinging and wringing of hands, attributed by many to our selfish sense of entitlement, actually arises from our confidence being battered by fear-mongers on a daily basis.

Click here to keep reading….

A surprising omission from Tingle

Posted by Drag0nista on

I was disappointed by Laura Tingle on Friday. Tingle is one of the few journalists writing from the Canberra Press Gallery that we usually can depend upon to be consistently rigorous in research, forensic in analysis and objective in reporting.

There was however a piece of information missing from her Canberra Observed column that surprised me.

Tingle was commenting on the poor prospects for long-term policy debates due to distractions such as the obsession with “process” or insider stories rather than “outcomes” stories.

She held aloft as an example the case of Jillian Broadbent AO, the esteemed business woman who chaired an expert panel looking into investment for clean energy.

An eminent panel headed by Jillian Broadbent reported to the government this week on the structural problems of getting investment in clean energy.

Broadbent is a member of the Reserve Bank board (appointed by the Howard government), and a director of ASX Ltd and Woolworths. Such an obvious Labor stooge, in fact, that the Coalition accused her of engaging in “partisan activity and partisan criticism” simply for observing that the Coalition “haven’t been very interested in speaking to me, despite my preparedness to brief them”.

Anyone trying to contribute to the current public policy debate, as opposed to anticipating where political fortunes might go next, is smeared in the process.

Any reasonable reader would conclude from this analysis that the Coalition had snubbed and smeared an experienced and independent business leader simply because she wanted to brief them on clean energy investment.

However, Broadbent has an important and relevant role that Tingle did not include in her column. Broadbent is in fact Chair of the Government’s $10bn Clean Energy Finance Corporation, an entity that the Coalition has vowed to scrap on the attainment of government. So why would the Coalition agree to a briefing from the head of such an organisation?

Broadbent chaired the expert review in her capacity as chair of CEFC. In fact, it is called the Chair’s Review in the media release which announced it:

The establishment of the Chair’s Review is intended to assist the Government in framing the enabling legislation, associated instruments and determining what operational issues can be left to the CEFC’s Board after the corporation has been established. Following consideration of the Chair’s Review, the Government will introduce legislation for the establishment of the Corporation in sufficient time to allow the CEFC to fully develop its systems and products before it commences operations from 2013-14.

Amongst other things, the Chair’s Review ultimately recommended ways to prevent, or at least make extremely difficult, the Coalition’s scrapping of the CEFC. It’s hardly surprising then that the Coalition would be disinclined to receive a briefing from Broadbent.

So, in reality, that which was depicted by Tingle as the smearing and snubbing of a dispassionate expert was in fact pragmatic politics.

Politically, there was nothing for the Coalition to gain from meeting with Broadbent. Any such meeting would have sent mixed messages and could have been beaten up by the media as hypocrisy or potential wavering on the part of the Opposition.

By agreeing to chair a government entity, Ms Broadbent has, in fact, “taken a side” and opened herself to reasonable criticism of being partisan. Other business leaders who’ve taken on government-appointed roles have suffered the same fate; although I hasten to add, not all have been tarred with the partisan brush.

None of this was mentioned by Tingle yesterday. In fact the additional contextual information would have diminished the impact of the example she was making of the Coalition’s treatment of Broadbent.

I raised this omission with Tingle on Twitter. She said I was being deliberately obtuse and missing her broader point. In fact, I agree with Tingle’s broader point – that political inside gossip and smears attract more attention and divert resources from considered reporting of political outcomes. It was the selective information used to illustrate a point that troubled me.

The prickly nature of our Twitter exchange prevented me from asking Tingle why she did omit the fact that Broadbent is chair of the CEFC.

The Lost Tribe

Posted by Drag0nista on

Moir, SMH 4 Apr 2012

There’s a group of Australians that I’m beginning to think of as the lost tribe.

They’re average people in most ways. They earn average incomes and have vanilla tastes. They worry about servicing their mortgages, getting their kids through school, and funding their retirement. They do their bit for the environment by getting a smaller car, installing a rainwater tank or using re-usable shopping bags.

The focus of this tribe is home and hearth; while they might be active in their own communities, they don’t have the time or inclination to focus on the big issues that loom beyond their back fence. They generally are well-meaning, hard-working and kind-hearted, but right now they feel disenfranchised, abandoned and lost. This is because they’ve been alienated, even demonised and cast adrift by contemporary politics.

The tribe are the people variously called Howard’s battlers, middle Australia and working families. They embody a grab-bag of political philosophies. They support capitalism to the extent that it guarantees food on the table and a secure future for their children. They support socialism to the extent that it provides universal health care, free education and a safety net for the disadvantaged. Their inner libertarian supports the right to have a drink, a smoke and punt. Their inner egalitarian wants their wives and daughters to be treated with equality and respect.

But these people no longer feel an allegiance to any one political party because their values have become fragmented in a way that does not match what is being offered. It is because of their lack of tribalism that I see these people as a tribe; a tribe that is lost in the wilderness, anxiously looking for a political home.

This tribe bears no allegiance to any one party, because they believe every party has let them down. While Howard made them feel secure for a decade, he pulled the rug from underneath them with WorkChoices. While Rudd assured them he’d be a better version of Howard, he lost their faith when he lacked Howard’s knack of reflecting the tribe’s views back to them. Despite their antipathy towards Rudd, the brutal nature of Gillard’s ascendancy led them to see her as untrustworthy and illegitimate.

The tribe now feel they’ve been cut adrift by the major parties and are wary of what the minors have to offer. They’re searching for security and certainty, but encounter only negativity and uncertainty. Most importantly, they hold the next federal election outcome in their hands.

Successive governments have courted the tribe and benefited from them feeling relaxed and comfortable. In doing so, both parties have actively demonised the other side as the harbingers of doom – higher living costs, soaring unemployment and increased social dislocation. Now the majors are reaping what they have sown; their negative messages have been so successful that the tribe simply doesn’t trust either of them any more.

Nor do they trust the minor parties who tell them they’ve never had it so good and now is the time to for sacrifice.

This is a difficult message for the tribe to accept. Having worked hard to get and maintain their comfortable lifestyle, they’re resentful of political efforts to make them feel guilty for it. Even if these efforts are for the greater good.

Equally difficult are the epithets that the tribe have to endure in the name of political discourse. They’re called racist when in fact they fear what is foreign to them; ignorant because they do not participate in scholarly debate; and selfish because they’re protective of the middle-class lifestyle they’ve worked so hard to achieve.

Future elections will not be won convincingly, nor broad public agendas be progressed successfully, without the support and participation of the tribe. Their current alienation and non-alignment are the main reasons why the next federal election is still up for grabs. It is the tribe that is dissatisfied with both party leaders, who have tentatively parked their protest vote with the Liberals, and who are shunning the Greens.

The tribe’s loyalty may be hard to win, but it will be well worth it. The party who succeeds in winning back the lost tribe will be the one that makes them feel secure again, and the one who will next enjoy the spoils of government.

This piece first appeared in The Kings’ Tribune. It also appeared at ABC’s The Drum.

Exposing Rudd camp’s attempt to rewrite history

Posted by Drag0nista on

Australians have witnessed considerable rewriting of the political rulebook over the past decade.

Mark Latham ran an unconventionally hokey campaign in 2004 that almost got him elected. He focussed on populist issues such as MPs’ superannuation and reading to children, when the rulebook says that oppositions should stick to the big policy issues like the economy and health.

That same election, John Howard unashamedly and un-ironically used “trust” to beat Latham. The rulebook says he should have avoided this political battleground when the community clearly had their own trust issues with the then-PM.

New rules were written in 2007 when Kevin Rudd barnstormed the election with his “me too” campaign, promising to be Howard-lite with added features like the ratification of Kyoto and the scrapping of WorkChoices. Never before had a politician offered to be “the same, but better” than his opponent. It was however the perfect pitch for Howard-weary voters looking for another safe pair of hands to run the economy.

And now, Tony Abbott is defying all known rules on negative campaigning by running the longest anti-campaign any of us have ever witnessed. The success of that strategy is yet to be borne out.

Perhaps the most “bent but not broken” rule in the political playbook to date, is that which says history is written by the victor. I mention this because of the concerted effort being made by the Rudd camp to re-play the Howard trust card, and claim that Julia Gillard lost the trust of the Australian community by wresting the Prime Ministership from Kevin Rudd in 2010.

This narrative might suit the combatants’ purposes, but it’s not backed by the facts.

Support for the Labor Government increased after Julia Gillard became leader, from 52% before the change in Prime Ministership, to 53% after the change and 55% two weeks after that. Similarly, support for PM Rudd as preferred Prime Minister was 46% prior to the change, and then for PM Gillard was 53%, increasing to 57% two weeks later.

So, up to three weeks after the “coup”, the Australian people were swinging back to the Labor Government and Julia Gillard as PM. Surely if there was outrage or resentment about the way in which Kevin Rudd was dispatched, it would have emerged in the opinion polls. But no, it did not.

The polls did dive three weeks after the change in leadership, but not because of any perceived poor treatment of Rudd. The polls dived because the Australian community realised they’d be sold a pup. Not once, but twice.

I’ve written before that people lost faith in Rudd because his promise to be Howard-lite proved to be empty. Rudd created the expectation but did not deliver. While he promised to be a man of action, he proved to be a man of indecision, committees and reviews.  Rudd proved to be nothing like Howard, showing none of the former PM’s ability to provide a narrative to give meaning to the government’s efforts. Nor could he speak like Howard to the community, in a language they understood.

So, in June 2010 the Australian community were well on the way to understanding that they’d been conned by Kevin Rudd. That’s why there was no uproar when he was deposed. Instead there was a cautious optimism that maybe the Labor Party had made a necessary course correction.

The shattering of that optimism is the reason why Julia Gillard no longer has the faith of the Australian people.

Julia Gillard became Prime Minister promising to resolve three issues: Australia’s response to climate change; the battle with the mining industry over the Resource Super Profit Tax; and a more humane approach to sea-borne asylum seekers.

On 2 July PM Gillard announced a resolution to the mining resource tax that was reported by the media as being a backdown. Then on 6 July 2010 the PM made a strong speech to the Lowy Institute committing to solve the issues relating to boat-borne asylum seekers. Even though her asylum-seeker solution was scuttled shortly after, the public remained optimistic and the PM registered her highest approval rating (57% on 16-18 July 2010).

But on 23 July 2010 PM Gillard announced that her government would create a citizens’ assembly of ”real Australians” to investigate the science of climate change and consequences of emissions trading, under a plan to build a national consensus for a carbon price. This proposal was widely derided as setting climate policy by public opinion instead of science, and a further repudiation of the emissions trading scheme shelved by Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister.

This was the point at which the penny dropped. Voters realised that they’d not only been gypped by Rudd, but also by Gillard, and so the opinion polls began to fall.

At the time of the citizens’ assembly announcement, PM Gillard’s rating as preferred Prime Minister fell from 57% to 50% (23-25 July) and the Government’s standing from 55% to 52%. A week later, the parties stood at 50% each.

The rest, as they say, is history. On this occasion, the facts are borne out by the numbers and can’t be bent to show anything other than the truth. Attempts to recast them for political purposes should be exposed for what they are – blatantly misleading and condescending to all of us.

(All opinion poll data is sourced from Newspoll).

This piece also appeared at ABC’s The Drum

Think tanks: Independent does not mean objective

Posted by Drag0nista on

Somewhere along the way, in the debate of public policy issues, we seem to have forgotten that “independent” does not necessarily mean “objective”.

Think tanks in particular are the guiltiest in using this sleight of hand. In stressing that they are independent scholarly organisations, think tanks attempt to lay claim to a higher moral ground that comes from academic objectivity.

With a sage nod and the dispassionate tones of an academic, think tank representatives refer us to the word “independent” in their Wikipedia entries in a Jedi-like attempt to distract us from the partisan players who sit on their boards or fund their activities. They MAY be independent, in that they’re not formally affiliated with political interests, but most think tanks are NOT objective by any stretch of the imagination. Generally, this is because political interests created them in the first place.

This deception is by no means a new dimension to the battle for political influence. Nor is it the only illusion inflicted on the mostly unaware populace.

The flourishing of think tanks indicates the evolving nature of public trust; articulate and organised “third parties” almost magically blossom from whichever groups the community trusts most. And when that trust moves from one group to another, then new “independent” voices spring from that group too.

It’s a classic lobbying tactic, to which the name astroturfing no longer fits because of its broader scope. I call it the creation of friendipendents, that is, the active establishment by partisan interests of third parties which claim to be independent but actually push their creator’s agenda.

There have been several different manifestations of this tactic. When the community vested its trust in non-government organisations like environment groups, these proliferated. Business interests set up their own NGOs with pro-environment names to muddy the waters. As NGOs lost their gloss, and academics consistently outpolled them on trust, then lobbyists (of all political persuasions) swathed their agendas in academic garb by establishing “independent” think tanks.

And let’s not forget the classic astroturfing tactic which arises when the most trusted voice in a community is “one of us”, resulting in the fabrication of grass roots support to influence the debate.

Sometimes, because of the disparity of public opinion on a broad or complex issue, lobbyists use a combination of these approaches to influence the key demographics. The most evident example of this is the Say Yes campaign, which combined green NGOs with the “independent” think tank The Climate Institute, and faux grass roots organisations such as GetUp!.

The Climate Institute’s prominent involvement in the Say Yes campaign seemed to me to be the first time a self-described independent think tank had publicly displayed such political activism. It caused me to question whether this was appropriate. My judgement was no doubt coloured by The Climate Institute’s close association with one political party; TCI was established by The Australia Institute, which has Bob Brown’s current Chief of Staff on its Board and is headed by a former Greens’ staffer.

I was told that TCI’s activism was appropriate because the Say Yes cause was just and also consistent with the think tank’s area of expertise. I wondered nonetheless whether political observers would have been equally sanguine if the Institute of Public Affairs, which has some prominent Liberals on its Board, had participated to the same extent in the No Carbon Tax rallies.

That’s not to say the IPA doesn’t pursue it’s interests just as vigorously. By identifying, grooming and touting a bevy of articulate “independent” commentators, the IPA has assertively imposed its free market perspective into all major public policy debates including that on climate change.

This brings me back, then, to where I began. Independent does not mean objective, although think tanks (and their creators) depend upon us not making that distinction.

Think tanks have agendas and the justness of those agendas will differ in the eyes of each beholder. Think tanks have too long hidden behind the cloak of independence and should be subject to more scrutiny. They should be recognised as active players in political debate, and not the dispassionate observers that they pretend to be.

This piece also appeared at ABC’s The Drum

Less smirk, more political analysis please

Posted by Drag0nista on

I should be surprised at today’s “nah, na, na, na” piece by Lenore Taylor ridiculing the Coalition’s dire descriptions of the Greens’ influence in Australian politics, as evidenced by this week’s passage of the clean energy package.

My surprise would have sprung from the memory, around the time of the Kyoto negotiations, when one only had to read Taylor’s articles in the Financial Review to know on an almost daily basis what the Australian aluminium industry thought. Usually it was what they didn’t like about the climate change position being negotiated at the time with industry by the Howard Government. Similarly, Taylor could be relied upon to report from international climate change meetings what the aluminium sector thought was wrong about the negotiations.

There was a cynical view amongst observers at the time that the aluminium lobby’s spinmeister, John Hannagan, had somehow managed to tap directly into Taylor’s cognitive processes. In reality, he ensured that the ambitious journalist had a steady flow of exclusives to keep her engaged and open to the views of Australia’s most energy-intensive industry.

It’s hard to reconcile these memories with the journalist who is now strongly supportive of the need to tackle climate change and the Australian Government’s plan to do so. Yes, the simple explanation is that Ms Taylor saw the light, accepted the overwhelming scientific evidence that demands urgent climate action, and no longer sees merit in the views of her former sources. I don’t doubt this is true.

But it seems that while she was once less than critical of the aluminium sector’s spin, Taylor now looks with rosy lenses at a different group of vested interests. And it is for this reason that I’m more disappointed than surprised at today’s piece.

Sure, we all change our minds from time to time. Even on monumental and seemingly intransigent issues like climate change. But while it’s okay for Taylor to change her mind on the need for climate action, it appears it’s not okay for the Coalition to change its mind on using a market mechanism to do so.

Or so one would infer from the article’s rationale that the Greens’ are not all-powerful or influential because the best they could do was to negotiate a climate action package similar to that previously advocated by two assassinated party leaders.

And what exactly have the faith-destroying, soul-selling, dog-wagging, party-capturing, suicide-inducing, agenda-running Greens forced the stupid, powerless Labor Party to legislate? Well, a policy very, very similar to the one Kevin Rudd tried, and failed, to legislate during Labor’s first term.

And that means it’s a policy very, very similar to the one that 49 of the 95 Coalition members and senators, who gathered to consider the deal former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull struck with Rudd in November 2009, agreed to support. Well they agreed to support it until the other 46 struck back, overthrew the leader and installed Tony Abbott. After that, and the breakdown of the Copenhagen talks, they all agreed it was terrible and ”toxic”.

Yes Lenore, parties change their minds, usually after realising that their policy is a dog that needs to be put down.

The thing that disappoints me the most about this piece is that instead of ridiculing the Coalition’s breathless predictions of a Green apocalypse, why isn’t Taylor casting a more critical eye on the matter? Surely it’s more meaningful to know WHY the Coalition is doing so. While it’s fun to suggest that Coalition members are all like Barnaby, railing against the wind, there are some good strategic political minds at work amongst that group.

In short, the painting of the Greens as extremists is a medium-term political strategy designed to ensure that soft or swinging voters stick with the major parties when they ultimately gravitate to the one for which they will vote at the next election.

This is the real story, as suggested by Michael Gordon in his piece this morning:

What is clear from the polls, aside from the fact that Gillard and Abbott are deeply unpopular leaders, is that neither the Coalition nor the Greens (despite their triumphalism this week) have capitalised on Labor’s woes. Both have a primary vote that is roughly where it was at the last election.

The impression is that a sizeable Labor vote is parked elsewhere and Keating has suggested a storyline to get it back – one that paints Labor as the party that has managed the great transformations in Australian history, from the postwar migration program to the modernisation of the economy.

I don’t mind colour in a political piece, in fact I quite enjoy it. But I do expect working journalists to bring their critical faculties to the task and provide an analytical perspective. This is not too much to ask. The digital news revolution will be shaped by the things that we customers will pay for. And smirks from behind rose-coloured glasses is not one of them.

Do you really know when they’re faking it

Posted by Drag0nista on

It’s a sardonic line but a cautionary tale: the internet is the place where men are men, women are men, and 14 year olds are the FBI.

It’s indisputable that we should be alert to and protect ourselves from online fakery. Much effort is devoted to safeguarding our privacy, our finances and our children from this risk. Others cast the net more broadly. Some suggest the use of anonymity or pseudonymity online, particularly in the online exchange and debate of ideas, can distort or even stifle free speech.

There is, however, another type of online misrepresentation that concerns me. They’re the people and organisations that seek to influence political and other public debates but aren’t quite what they claim to be. I call them Synthetic Supporters and Friendipendents.

Synthetic supporters are an extension of astroturfing, or fake grassroots support. Both are based on the principle that the public are more likely to believe someone from their own community or peer group than a politician, businessman or activist.

Astroturfing was created by canny campaigners who saw the success of community groups like Landcare and Rotary, and established faux local interest groups to support and promote their own interests. Synthetic Supporters extend the concept of orchestrated support even further.

An example is the activist group GetUp!, which claims to have 580,000 members. This is in fact the total number of people who’ve encountered GetUp in some way, by either signing up for the organisation’s newsletter, putting their name to a petition, or liking their Facebook page. It’s not a realistic indication of the number who actively support GetUp’s campaigns. Even taking into consideration the low threshold of engagement on Facebook, GetUp has garnered only 20,000 likes, which may be a closer indication of their true support base.

Similarly, Say Yes Australia’s partnership project of ‘leading civil society organisations representing youth, workers, the environment and the community’, claims to represent over three million Australians. Yet they too have only 30,000 supporters on Facebook, and only 5000 people have left a message on the SayYes website to show their support for the carbon price legislative package.

Confected support is by no means restricted to one side of the carbon price debate. Despite the promise that thousands representing ‘the silent majority’ would pour into Canberra as part of the Convoy of No Confidence, only two hundred vehicles and 3000 real supporters appeared on rally day.

While it might seem unfair to quibble about the number of active supporters (what’s a few zeroes between friends) the point is that the vast majority of these supporters are synthetic. They’re a fabrication specifically designed to exaggerate an organisation’s true reach and influence, and to elicit a bandwagon response in target groups: progressive Australians in the case of GetUp; young Australians by SayYes; and older conservative Australians by the Convoy.

Perhaps this is where another old saying comes into play: who needs real friends when you have money? Particularly when you can buy them.

So who’s made it their business to buy friends? It seems that several of the groups that use synthetic supporters are funded by organisations that claim to be independent but actually are supporters of one political stance or another. I call these groups Friendipendents.

While industry, advocacy and pressure groups are reasonably transparent about whose interests they serve (ie. their members or constituents) most of the think tanks that operate in Australia proudly claim to be independent of any vested interest. A member of the public could take this to mean that, having weighed up all the relevant factors, a think tank would objectively determine which is the ‘best’ policy on a given topic.

Perhaps independent does not mean what I think it means. Apparently it does not mean objective. Someone from the other side of the political spectrum to me, Simon Banks, explains it this way:

Concern is also growing about the role of think tanks and whether they are ‘independent’ or not. These concerns have been expressed about think tanks occupying the political spectrum, from GetUp! and the Climate Institute to the Centre for Independent Studies and the H.R Nicholls Society.

Most think tanks claim to represent an intellectual or philosophical perspective and thus assert their opinions cannot be bought. We all hope that is true. But even if you accept that the views expressed by these think tanks are genuine, their focus, size, research capabilities and influence in the public debate are all inevitably linked to how much money they have.

A great deal of attention has already been given to the free-market Institute of Public Affairs and their lack of transparency when it comes to funding sources, which undermines their claims to independence/objectivity.

While progressive think tanks like The Australia Institute and The Climate Institute are more transparent about their funding sources, academic Guy Pearce recently questioned the independence of environment groups who are inter-connected and funded from a small number of philanthropic sources.

Pearce reports that two wealthy farmers and the philanthropic funds they administer have variously been the Australian Conservation Foundation’s principal donor for many years, given millions to the World Wildlife Fund, established the Climate Institute, support the Australia Institute, and fund the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, the Total Environment Centre and Climate Action Network Australia. They’ve also sat on the boards of World Wildlife Fund Australia, Climate Institute, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Australia Institute. Five of the groups they fund are amongst the nine that comprise Say Yes Australia. GetUp is another.

So, as Pearce points out, while it might seem that a diverse range of green groups support the federal government’s carbon price package, they’re largely funded by two people. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as long as the groups remain as independent as they claim to be.

The appearance of independence in some think tanks, if not the practice, is not helped by the composition of their boards and personnel. Former politicians of all persuasions, and in one case even a current political staffer, sit on the boards of prominent think tanks and have an influence on their strategic directions. Many former MPs and staffers feature on the staff lists.

Does this affect their independence? How can it not? Tellingly, Guy Pearce says that in the case of The Climate Institute, a former insider ‘tells me its unofficial mission when established was to ‘get rid of John Howard’ and that post-Howard, the CEO is said to have defined its new role as being Labor’s ‘mine-sweeper’. That’s certainly not independence in my book.

So, what does this mean for those of us who seek objectivity and independence in political analysis and commentary? To use one last cliché: be alert but not alarmed. Never take anything at face value. Follow the money. Scrutinise the board. And demand real supporter numbers. Then you’ll always know when they’re faking it.

This piece originally appeared in The Kings’ Tribune

Ellis & Hamilton – defrocked priests muttering on the edge

Posted by Drag0nista on

I read the views of two men today that were diametrically different but strangely the same.

Both writers opined on issues of the day, and both were once considered high priests in their respective spheres. One was witheringly sanctimonious while the other was simply lecherous. One decried humanity while the other sought to excuse its depravity.

But my response to both men was the same – I concluded that they are embarrassingly out of touch with contemporary community views and perhaps even with sanity.

I don’t accept the suggestion that Bob Ellis’ appallingly misogynist piece was in fact a mirror held up to shock an Australian community desensitised by morally-bankrupt television shows and ethically-challenged paparazzi.

Nor do I accept Clive Hamilton’s denunciation of everyday Australians as an important wakeup call to those supposedly duped by shock jocks into changing their views on climate action.

I’m not going to declaim the many ways Ellis made lame excuses for voyeuristic and sexually predatory behaviour. He is more than adequately scrutinised here and here.

However it appears Hamilton’s latest sermon received much less attention. While it is not sexist like Ellis’ pontification, it is similarly disdainful if not bordering on misanthropic. And unlike Ellis, who seems only to want to put sexually-active women in their “rightful” place, Hamilton has upbraided the whole Australian community.

Hamilton denounces those who “have transformed themselves from a citizenry worried about global warming, and asking for something to be done, into an outraged mob indignant to discover that their noble desire to protect the future means they must pay a bit more for petrol and power.”

He accuses Australians of being selfish, superficial and environmental wreckers:

What do Australians want? The answer is clear. We want symbols of action but not action itself. We want to hear words that make us feel good about ourselves but none that ask us to make any sacrifice. We care about climate change, but we hate the idea of having to do anything about it.

Give us leaders, says the great Australian public, as long as they do not ask us to follow. So the public gets what it wants – hollow leaders who will go through the motions, massaging their sense of entitlement to make them feel secure.

So we may safely write the epitaph of this sad and flabby nation: “Built by resolve and stoicism; destroyed by self-indulgence and timidity.”

Both Ellis and Hamilton are out of sync with the Australian community.

As I have written elsewhere, Australians are motivated by winning, not by losing.

We are rarely motivated by guilt.

If indeed Bob Ellis was trying to shame the Australian community into facing up to its double-standards on the acceptability of certain sexual behaviours, then he failed dismally. All Ellis generated was derision and outraged rejection of his article.

Similarly, there is no point in Clive Hamilton trying to shame Australians into taking climate action. Telling us that we are the worst (per capita) climate polluters or flabby and self-indulgent will generate a reaction no less dismissive than that received by Bob Ellis.

In their different ways Ellis and Hamilton were once considered bold idealists and prophets; now they are nothing more than defrocked priests, muttering on the extreme edge of their respective congregations.

Both are out of touch and discredited. No-one should pay either of them any attention any more.

Prime Ministerial half-truths will not save the climate

Posted by Drag0nista on

Not that long ago I wrote that Julia Gillard could regain control of her carbon price campaign by adopting a four-part strategy. While I don’t think for a minute the PM actually read my advice, it seems someone within her camp independently came up with a similar strategy.

At least that’s how it first appeared on Monday night when the Prime Minister gave a confident, polished and personable performance on Q&A.

The first part of my strategy required the PM to be honest – to admit her broken promise and explain the constraints she had to work with in the minority government that Australian voters had imposed upon her.

That’s pretty much what she did:

“Now, I did say during the last election campaign – I promised that there would be no carbon tax. That’s true and I’ve walked away from that commitment and I’m not going to try and pretend anything else. I also said to the Australian people in the last election campaign that we needed to act on climate change. We needed to price carbon and I wanted to see an emissions trading scheme…. Now, if I’d been leading a majority government I would have been getting on with an emissions trading scheme. It’s what I promised the Australian people. As it is, in this minority parliament, the only way I can act on climate change by pricing carbon is to work with others and so I had a really stark choice. Do I act or not act? Well, I’ve chosen to act….”

It was an exciting moment; I thought the Prime Minister had taken a huge step in rebuilding her bond of trust with the community.

But then, two mistruths shattered the illusion.

Firstly, the PM claimed the carbon price would make renewable energy-based products cheaper, that consumers would react to this price signal, and this would drive innovation. She said:

“When you come to buy things, products that are made with relatively less carbon pollution will be cheaper than products that are made with more carbon pollution. So you’re standing there with your household assistance in your hand. You could still keep buying the high carbon pollution products if you want to or what you’re far more likely to do is to buy the cheaper, lower carbon pollution products. That means that the people who make those things will get the consumer signal, gee, we will sell more, we will make more money if we make lower pollution products. That drives the innovation. So I want you to have that household assistance in your hand but I also want you to see price effects which make cleaner, greener things cheaper than high pollution commodities. That’s why it works.”

This is patently untrue. Firstly, if the carbon price is set low (eg. $20/tonne as suggested), renewable energy-based products will still be more expensive than the coal energy-based products. As explained by renewable energy advocates Beyond Zero Emissions the carbon price would have to be set much higher to make the low emission products even price competitive with the high emission ones, let alone cheaper.

“Due to the nature of technology and the energy market, we would require in excess of $70/tonne even for wind power, the lowest cost renewable, to compete in the electricity market [without subsidies]. For baseload technologies such as concentrating solar thermal, the game changer we need to replace coal and gas, you would need in excess of $200/tonne for initial plants.”

If the low carbon price doesn’t make low emission products cheaper, then the Prime Minister is relying on the green consciousness of consumers to drive green purchasing. This won’t happen either; while people claim they buy green products their actual behaviour shows they don’t. In the absence of consumers changing their purchasing patterns, there will be little or no incentive for the “big polluters” to move to lower emission inputs.

This is also recognised by activist green groups such as Friends of the Earth (Australia):

“The demand for a carbon price is widespread in the climate movement. The Greens support a low carbon tax, leading to a fully fledged emissions trading scheme. But just as rising petrol prices have not lead to new investment in public transport, a carbon price will not in itself see renewable energy built. At best it is likely to make gas more competitive with coal.”

So, on the capacity for the carbon tax to change spending patterns and drive innovation, the Prime Minister could be said to be disingenuous, but I’d say she was deliberately misleading.

Similarly, the PM intentionally misled Q&A viewers with her comment about China. While scolding us for being climate recalcitrants, the Prime Minister misrepresented China’s climate actions to emphasise our tardiness:

“You know, China [is] closing down a dirty coal-fired power generation facility at the rate of one every one to two weeks.”

In reality, China is replacing its old coal-fired power stations with new ones. China is a long way from abandoning coal in the way suggested by the Prime Minister.

The International Energy Agency says China’s economic and social growth is so vast and so rapid that the nation will continue to use coal for electricity generation until at least 2035.

“The IEA estimates that China, which generates more than 70% of its electricity with coal, will build 600 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power capacity in the next quarter-century – as much as is currently generated with coal in America, Japan and the European Union put together.”

Also according to the IEA, China overtook the US in 2009 as the world’s largest energy user. The organization says:

“…the country’s energy demand is foreseen to surge a stunning 75% between 2008 and 2035, when it will account for 22% of world demand. China will lead the surge in electricity generation growth, and power demand in the country is expected to triple between 2008 and 2035.”

China is doing what‘s best for its people while it grapples with global issues such as climate change. The Gillard government is attempting the same, but doing a poor job of it.

Sleights of hand and half-truths won’t engender the community respect that the Prime Minister needs for us to follow her lead. Without such trust and willingness, there will be no effective climate action.

As I’ve said before, if the Prime Minister wants to bring Australian voters along with her in pursuit of a low emission economy, she must treat us like adults and start telling us the truth.

The truth, according to the International Energy Agency’s latest World Energy Outlook, is that global power generation is expected to grow by 75% between now and 2035. The truth is that fossil fuels will continue to dominate even though the proportion of renewable energy sources will grow.

The truth is that it’ll be tough to wean Australians from our country’s natural strengths, such as plentiful and affordable energy, and the comfortable lifestyle that comes with it.

And the greatest truth is that this process will require a transformation of the economy and of our lifestyles that we will have never seen before.

The full transcript of the PM’s appearance on Q&A is available here.