Tag Archives: Climate failure

Australian Politics

Angus Taylor – running dead, or not as bright as we thought?

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Angus Taylor was the previous Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, and he is arguably one of the best educated people in our parliament, with degrees in Economics, and Law, and a Master of Philosophy (Economics) from Oxford. Each of these degrees is necessarily reliant on the use of facts, and figures, real evidence, and mature reasoning.

There is nothing as disappointing as the failure of clever people, because it signals one of two possible reasons for the failure: An inability to handle really difficult tasks because they are ‘clever’ in a bookish way, but when the going gets hard, they squib it, and come up short.

The other reason is when they are captured by ideology, and/or ambition, and they tailor their contribution so that they fail in their allotted task. This is a form of intellectual self-sabotage, for personal gain.

Morrison’s cabinet was grossly under-resourced, staffed by drones valued for their loyalty to Morrison, rather than for their ability. However, individuals like Greg Hunt, and Angus Taylor stood out, at first glance, as genuinely talented, and yet they both failed in their allotted tasks. Sadly they failed our climate, which later generations will not forgive.

Greg Hunt co-wrote a thesis at Yale titled “A Tax to Make the Polluter Pay“. It was apparently brilliant, and it made a very strong case for a ‘carbon tax’. I could not get past the first page, but it had a catchy message: “it (a carbon tax) better ensures that the polluter bears full responsibility for the cost of his or her conduct”. It seems that as soon as cabinet preferment beckoned, he threw his thesis out with the bathwater.

Similarly, Angus Taylor’s abject failure on reducing emissions came after a stellar education, “the best part of two decades in management consulting”, and yet on reaching parliament he devoted three years to undermining and (pardon the pun) gaslighting Australians on our progress to carbon neutrality.

He even stated, at a rally against wind power in 2013, “I am not a climate sceptic. For 25 years, I have been concerned about how rising carbon dioxide emissions might have an impact on our climate. It remains a concern of mine today. I do not have a vendetta against renewables.”

His failure is so mysterious. Ben Potter from the Financial Review believes his opposition to wind power dates from when a wind farm was built next door to his family’s property in Cooma.

I can understand that may have annoyed the family, but this is a past Minister of the Crown with such an illogical and unreasoning hatred for a form of power generation that perhaps, instead of continuing to vandalise Australia’s response to climate heating, he should have engaged the services of a competent psychiatrist, or even a life coach.

The least he should have done was to step aside from his portfolio, and allow a competent person to step up and actually ‘do the job’. I know, we are talking about the former Coalition government, and there was not one competent person to put up.

Which brings us to his new job. He is now the Treasury spokesman. Considering his demonstrated difficulties with numbers, one wonders how competent he can be in such a position. The botched stitch-up on Clover Moore sends a message that he struggles with the basics, and he looks to be a poor match for Jim Chalmers.

On the matter of trust, in March 2022 Roy Morgan published the results on polling undertaken that placed Angus Taylor as the 7th least trusted politician in Australia, placing behind Dominic Perrottet (6th), Craig Kelly (5th), Pauline Hanson (4th), Barnaby Joyce (3rd), Peter Dutton (2nd) and Scott Morrison (1st).

He has struggled with public perceptions that he has put his own, and his family’s, interests before the public interest. We all know that Morrison has damaged the Liberal brand, possibly irrevocably. We know that Peter Dutton had a limited field from which to choose when allocating shadow portfolios.

That does not make Angus Taylor a hopeless choice, but it illustrates the lack of front bench talent, and the question to ask is, is Angus Taylor up to the task? Did he lack the ability to do his last job properly, or was he running dead, to sabotage the transition to renewables? That is the question we must ask ourselves.

As to the Coalition attempting to put together an alternative government, I would question whether Peter Dutton as alternative prime minister, and Angus Taylor as the alternative treasurer, really cuts it. I wouldn’t vote for them in a fit.

Australian Politics

Australia’s lost decade on everything, including climate

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Scott Morrison has had a tough few years. First there was The Great Bush-fire Debacle. He went on holiday in Hawaii. Nothing wrong with that, you might say. Except that he tried to hide the fact that he was away. When he was sprung, he made all sorts of excuses, but in his own special way he made a statement that we will always remember: “Mate, I don’t hold a hose.” That was exceptional in many ways. It showed his narrow, superficial mind, with all its smugness, and complete lack of self-awareness. During a catastrophic bushfire, everybody holds a hose.


The country then discovered that, just before the election, and possibly even after the election was called, he had been using our money to try and buy coalition seats, and also lots of marginal seats they wanted to win. Scott Morrison was caught in the headlights of the sports rorts affair, and in an act of utterly callous self preservation, he threw his Sports Minister, Briget McKenzie, under the proverbial bus. Considering his narrow win in the 2019 election, how many seats were retained, or won, because of the calculated misuse of taxpayers’ funds?


The global pandemic struck next. He talked a lot about following the scientific advice, but his resistance to lockdowns, and his reluctance to provide financial support proved very unpopular. Like a dog after a bone, he sniffed the electoral wind, calculated he was on a losing trajectory, and promptly changed direction. He then pinched Boris Johnson’s JobKeeper idea, at Labor’s suggestion.


None of us knew then that the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, would do such a lousy job on the program’s design. Ripped off by thousands of companies, many of which paid bonuses to their already overpaid executives. Some even used those taxpayers’ funds to pay dividends to shareholders. That is some form of middle class welfare! Frydenberg now says it would be unfair to ask for the money back. There is only one word necessary to explain this Government’s moral bankruptcy – Robodebt.


Robodebt, where the might of the Federal Government was turned against often helpless, certainly powerless, welfare recipients. Ten year old debts, calculated using a dodgy averaging algorithm, and subsequently found to have been unlawful. The Government denied wrong-doing, as Evangelical far-right governments always do.


In June 2021, Justice Bernard Murphy approved a settlement worth at least A$1.8 billion, payable to those who had been harassed and vilified by their government, calling it “a shameful chapter” and “massive failure in public administration” of Australia’s social security scheme. Wikipedia.


The Ministers who have had their hands on the program include Christian Porter, Scott Morrison, Alan Tudge, Stuart Robert, Marise Payne. There are very few geniuses in that little group. And so far, not a word of apology.


Of course after the horrors of the pandemic, there was great optimism about the arrival of the vaccines. Produced in record time, they did not appear in Australia, for several months. Outbreaks in Sydney, and then Melbourne, took hold. Hundreds of deaths followed, and Scott Morrison then made another of his astounding pronouncements: “It is not a race.” He repeated it, ad nauseum, many times over.


But it was a race, and Morrison and his hapless Health Minister, Greg Hunt, tried hard to cover up their sheer incompetence. But even Blind Freddie knows you don’t just buy one vaccine, when there is a worldwide shortage. And you don’t announce at a late night press conference, that the only vaccine you have on hand, is suspect. Morrison actually destroyed the AstraZeneca vaccine’s credibility, because he panicked. Lately he has been trumpeting how well he handled the vaccine rollout. Really.


Morrison is now on his way to attend the Glasgow climate summit, on our behalf, representing us on a world stage. He will smugly claim that he has an agreement in his back pocket, of net zero by 2050. The only problem is that up to a quarter of the Nationals do not agree, and he cannot legislate the target, because he will lose the vote in Parliament. So he is going with nothing in his pocket, except an unenforceable promise, redeemable in 29 years, by which time the whole Parliament will probably be retired, or dead.


He and the Coalition have been sabotaging our response to climate change since 2009. Morrison expects us to believe that he has done a complete U-turn, in a month, and to now put our faith in him. Sorry, not a believer, Scott. Up to a quarter of the junior Coalition partners, the National Party, does not agree, and have had to be bribed to stay silent. He has not lead anyone, anywhere. He was dictated to by the likes of Barnaby Joyce, Matt Canavan, the former Sports Minister Briget Mckenzie (she who went under the bus), and George Christensen.

We must also remember the sterling efforts of the Minister for Meaningless Climate Statements, Angus Taylor. Angus delivered his sales pitch with passionate fervour, but as we all know, Carbon Capture and Storage does not work, and most of us think bribing the Nationals is actually worse than a carbon tax, because it is using our tax money to support the coal and gas industries. We want to reduce our emissions, not increase them, Angus. Angus is going to Glasgow also, but he is going to spruik for the fossil fuel industry. They might as well take Tony Abbott along with them.


So the sum total of the Government’s achievements on climate change is essentially in the eye of the Prime Minister – Government by press announcements, which are believed in by no-one, and which are as flimsy as feathers. You have to admire Morrison’s sublime disconnect from reality, and his faith in his own ability to gaslight world leaders, like he tries to gaslight us. Welcome back, Scotty from Marketing, and you, Angus. Top job on all your efforts. How embarrassing. People around the world might think he represents how we think and feel about the planet’s health.

Australian Politics

Our so-called leaders in the ‘Bush Capital’

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The Australian population deserves better than to have its alleged leaders re-cycling discredited ideas and conspiracy theories to anyone who will listen. Our democracy has been hijacked and our country has become more divided than ever.

Our media

Our newspapers are mainly owned and ‘run’ by a foreign citizen, whose list of favourite politicians includes Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. Our broadcast media has become so degraded that it is difficult to distinguish between the channels, except where Murdoch is involved. Sky News is a pale imitation of Fox in the U.S. with a bunch of presenters who would be entertaining, if they weren’t so tragic. Their faux outrage is embarrassing and pointless.

Of course there is always ‘old faithful’, aka the ABC, if you want a reasonable facsimile to the facts. Of course the ABC is now running scared, because they are just as likely to suffer another funding cut, if one of the ruling junta decides they don’t like their dirty dealings made public.

Our education

Our education system has been destroyed by neglect, and the starvation of funds, so that the right to a free and secular education is largely meaningless. Schools in the regions make do with sub-standard conditions, while the wealthy private school sector continues to ‘steal’ funds from the pot. Is it a surprise that the gap between the private and the public sector continues to widen?

The Catholic system, which was once seen as espousing the Christian values of social justice, happily admits to re-directing funds from the neediest of their portfolio of schools, to such as St Kevins College, buried in the heart of Toorak. Other examples abound.

Gonski’s reforms have been bastardised to the point of caricature. Apparently the wisdom of the bush capital goes like this: Latham lost an election because he had a hit-list of very wealthy schools, which he intended to give a funding haircut. He would then put the saved funds back into the public sector.

I would argue that Latham’s abrasive personality, his bullying handshake with Howard, his attack on a taxi driver were more damaging to Latham’s election chances than any ‘hit-list’. Anyone who has watched Latham’s career since then would really feel that we collectively missed a bullet there.

Look where we are in mitigating climate change

Global warming is happening, because we all watch weather reports, and we know the difference between climate and weather. We know there is almost no ice now in the Arctic, and that even glaciers in the Himalayas are melting away. The largest iceberg in history has separated from Antarctica, and large parts of Australia’s coastline is being regularly inundated by rising seas.

We are now a pariah internationally, and our emissions reduction minister thinks gas will be the magic bullet, with which we will power out of the coronavirus recession, and re-build a low carbon economy. He seemed to once believe that each wind turbine “built today” (2014) would receive “half a million dollars or more of subsidies every year for its life”. He also believes that electric vehicles (EVs) are unsuitable for Australia, and backs a hybrid version of EVs. Taylor has had a life-long aversion to wind turbines, which makes him a strange choice as our climate change minister.

We all lived through last year’s bushfires, and we saw those in California. A level of devastation never seen before. Speak to any wine-grower. They are harvesting their grapes six weeks earlier. But we have a posse of climate science deniers, led by past Prime Ministers (Tony Abbott), to prevaricating current Prime Ministers, to the entire right wing rump of the Liberal Party, to most of the National Party, to the self-interested Joel Fitzgibbon, who thinks coal employs many more people in Australia than it actually does. Note to Joel F: According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics coal mining employs 37,800 people. I think we could, as a country, manage a sizeable investment into the coal mining parts of the country, so that suitable jobs could be created, to alleviate the pain. Look what we started, but never finished, with our cane-growers. It is doable.

What about our economy, coming out of the pandemic?

Josh Frydenburg is an enthusiast for ‘trickle down theory’, although it has also been discredited by the vast majority of economists, world-wide. Does he believe in austerity, or is he just following orders? Well, in Josh’s own words, he is particularly drawn to the policies of Thatcher and Reagan, which resulted in a massive increase in inequality and reduction in public services. He believes that they were both very successful, because they were re-elected.

That is a strange way to evaluate economic success. As a leader of an Australian Government I would think that he would be more interested in improving the lives of Australians. Driving Australians into an induced depression is not the way to improve our lives. And when considering his obsession with a deficit, consider Thatcher’s words anew: “It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.”

Vaccines really are beneficial, for you and your children. All we need do is check the history books. They tell the tale of small pox, measles, rubella and the annual flu. Those diseases killed millions until our scientists came up with vaccines. Any politicians or community leaders who think otherwise should be shunned, and de-platformed. Their opinions are dangerous to the rest of us.

Some of those views are so ‘out-there’ that it is hard to believe anyone really believes them. Craig Kelly’s views on hydroxychloroquine as a cure for the coronavirus, is difficult to evaluate, especially when it has been so effectively debunked. Is he sincere in his beliefs, or is he just trying to be noticed? Even Facebook has removed some of his recent posts. “Even Facebook”.

The first step is to stop electing idiots to Parliament. It is embarrassing. And some of them rise to the top. That is dangerous. At some point a discerning public has to draw a line in the sand, especially when the stupid and the misled continue to spout rubbish. If you look carefully, you will be able to spot the stupid ones, but can you spot the canny contrarians?

Australian Politics, History essays

Catastrophes need drastic remedies and lots of cash

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Australia has been through four natural disasters this year; the drought, the bushfires, the pandemic and the global climate catastrophe . Each of them has provided us with varying degrees of physical exposure, but if you were not directly and personally exposed to any of them, your mental health was probably affected.

Big government is an idea which allows governments the capacity to respond to natural phenomena such as economic depressions, recessions, wars, cyclones, fires, floods and pandemics. It utilises elements of Keynes’ theory that governments have a role to play when markets are not enough, such as times when catastrophes occur. It generally means government investment replaces private investment, if the market is unable, or unwilling, to invest. 

Notable examples of governmental intervention are Roosevelt’s New Deal, which helped to end the Great Depression, and the Marshall Plan, which re-constructed Europe after World War 11. The rebuilding of Darwin after Cyclone Tracy is a notable local example.   

At times like this we are often sustained by our families and friends, by our communities, and even by the kindness of strangers. But there is a level of assistance that we are unable to provide for ourselves. That is provided by the mechanisms and the solidity of our governments. 

We often speak disparagingly of our being over-governed. We complain about paying taxes, about regulations, about the nanny state. In Australia we have so many layers of officialdom it can feel stifling. But during such times as these, that infrastructure can be comforting. It is why we all quietly blubber when we see the kids singing “We are Australian”. 

We survived the bushfires 

The bushfires of 2019 were devastating and terrifying. Although it impacted mostly in regional areas we all had some form of connection. It might have been through a visit to Mallacoota, or Broadford’s near-miss in 2009, or as a survivor of the Ash Wednesday fires … You might be a volunteer firefighter, or your niece is. We were all affected, because Australians are way too familiar with bushfires. 

We would not have come through so well if not for all of our governments acting on our behalf. Of course there were stuff-ups and mistakes, some of which are still causing people to be living in tents seven months later, but the governments responded, with the defence force, with firefighters, with evacuations and food drops. Our kindergartens and shire halls were available, and there was shelter provided. Our citizens are resourceful, but we can’t have a navy ship waiting off the coast, or supply helicopters. The hospitals were open and staffed, and no-one was counting the cost. We as a society would accept nothing less.

The drought is breaking (maybe) 

2019 was very dry. By July, a climatologist at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology stated that the drought was now officially the worst on record in the Murray–Darling Basin, and “had now exceeded the Federation Drought, the WWII drought and the Millennium drought in terms of its severity through the MDB”. Drought in Australia

This year (2020) much of the drought stricken country has had, or expects, above average rainfall for the winter months. This is wonderful news. It will not immediately rescue those whose incomes have been slashed, or those whose mental health has suffered. It will not comfort those whose loved ones have taken their own lives, because of the stress and the perceived hopelessness of their situation. Many farmers have had to sell or shoot stock, or go into more debt to buy feed, or lost the opportunity to sow crops because of the intense drought. 

During the worst of it the public has participated in charity drives to buy and send hay for livestock. Many have donated funds to struggling rural families. Food parcels have been delivered to farmers who have thus far lived proudly independent lives. All of us know where our food comes from, and many of us want to be a part of any push to help.

Thankfully we also have a Government which has had the wherewithal to assist. These were trying times, and once again federal and state governments stepped into the breach. Of course the situation is only going to repeat, as climate change continues its inexorable march. 

“Every federal budget and update since 2002-03, when the millennium drought was just starting to affect parts of the country, has been forced to set aside money for drought relief.” The cost of drought – and it’s just going to grow  This obviates the need for governments which do not allow markets to determine outcomes. Farmers, like their families, and the communities which service them, operate as crucial elements of our society; we prefer to stand as one. 

The pandemic rolls on

As Victoria teeters on the edge of a second wave, Australia is having to look seriously at a  second, perhaps total, lockdown. As we concentrate on the physical health of the nation, some are demanding a re-opening of the economy. As if the idiocy of the Trump response is not enough, we are debating if we can afford to continue the stimulus packages in place. It is not a matter of choice. We do not allow people to starve in a country brim full of food. We do not have people thrown out into the winter streets, when we have thousands of empty houses.

We have constructed a society which has withstood the worst that nature can bring, and we have stood united. We do not treat the national accounts like a grocery list, striking out what we think might be a luxury. We look after our own, and if the Government needs to go into debt, we should be fine with that.  

The continuing saga of climate change stupidity

Climate change underlies the bushfires and the drought’s severity. It continues to be an open wound in our society. If there is an issue which has unified our young people, this is it. It is also the Morrison Government’s most notable failure. This week, in the midst of the pandemic, we hear that Craig Kelly is ‘investigating’ whether the Bureau of Meteorology is fudging temperature data for nefarious, presumably ‘green’, propaganda purposes. 

Angus Taylor continues to assert that black is indeed white, and our renewables industry battles manfully, while facing the headwinds of Taylor’s bluster. 

Scott Morrison has managed to overturn his disdain for science by largely following medical scientists’ advice on the Covid-19 pandemic. We can only hope that he decides to put Australia’s needs before his own, by changing his course on climate change. Choosing his personnel better would send a message that he believes in a society which wants to pull together. He needs to lead.

We need to stick together

The continuing argument between the left and right in politics seems to be one which boils down to whether or not we believe in the power of big government to cushion the blows of nature, and to maintain our social fabric, in the face of steep odds. 

It is a moot point, as Morrison, through the power he holds, will eventually decide which way we jump. He needs to step away from his ideological straight jacket, and study some history. Great leaders, such as Clement Attlee of the U.K. and our own John Curtin, consciously set out to build inclusive societies in their respective countries, after the damage done by World War 11. 

We have been agreeably surprised with Morrison’s seeming acceptance of Keynes’ roadmap for recovery. Let us hope it continues. It is the only credible way forward. As the Nobel laureate Robert Lucas, an opponent of Keynes, admitted in 2008: “I guess everyone is a Keynesian in a foxhole.”

Australian Politics

The Climate is now Personal for All of Us

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When the last tree is cut, the last river poisoned, and the last fish dead, we will discover that we can’t eat money. Cree Native American Prophecy

Like most non-scientists with an interest in knowledge I defer to science, which is derived from the Latin word “scientia” meaning knowledge. So when serious groups of scientists join together, and tell us that the earth’s climate is changing, for the worse, I believe them.

When I do so I expect that I am not alone. I do not fear a conspiracy wherein all the climate scientists have forged an unholy alliance, and are busy buying shares in renewable energy companies. I cannot understand much of the science, but I know that insurance companies worldwide accept that sea levels are rising. I know the Arctic is losing ice at an alarming rate, and that the average temperatures in Australia are going up, year on year.

That confounds many critics, but the main thing to note is that we are talking about 1 degree, on average, over the space of years, and more days of extreme temperatures can be expected. That does not mean Canberra is going to be balmy in winter, but it will have slightly higher temperatures, in winter and summer.

Similarly to the tobacco industry in the past, energy companies have been sitting on the facts of climate change for years, for reasons of base profit. So when I am faced with what appears to be a looming catastrophe I turn to my government for solutions. One cannot rely on the good will of for profit multi-nationals.

Australian Governments have, almost universally, failed me. As far as I can remember, Julia Gillard is the only leader of this country who actually put a price on carbon, which is believed to be the most effective method of reducing carbon use. And we know what happened then.

But let us take a look at the other, so-called leaders. Remember that this is an existential threat to our country, and our planet:

John Howard: “…I instinctively feel that some of the claims are exaggerated.”

Kevin Rudd: “the greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time”. That was before he retreated from the challenge.

Tony Abbott: His description of the relevant science in 2009: “absolute crap”?

Malcolm Turnbull: Has been rolled as leader of the Liberal Party twice because he is a believer in the science, but allowed the climate science deniers to dictate policy to him, and when he defied them, he was deposed.

Scott Morrison: Considering he has come to power twelve years after John Howard left office, he has had time to become informed about climate change, and as a marketing person he is aware of the concerns held by a majority of Australians. Even those who voted for the Coalition recently believe in climate change. So you would expect his choices for ministerial office in this challenging area of concern, would be appropriately focused, and committed to searching for solutions.

Not so. Angus Taylor is a climate science denialist, and a self-described believer in renewables, as long as they are not powered by wind. That is because his grandfather worked on the Snowy Scheme, apparently. So he claims some sort of genetic greenness, apart from his aesthetic objections … We suspect his attitude to water buy-backs is more favourable, because they are so, so very profitable. He is also in favour of coal powered power stations, and against electric cars. Read about him and his fanciful ideas, here https://askbucko.com/2019/06/08/a-tale-of-mighty-winds/

Sussan Ley is the new Environment Minister. She has stated that she will be an environmentalist as the Minister. Her first thought has been that nature has got spare water hanging about, and so farmers should be allowed to ‘borrow’ it for farming, as long as they pay it back. I would say tell that to the millions of dead fish which littered the Murray-Darling basin last summer.

Scott Morrison has chosen these two as his front line defence against environmental degradation and climate change. I consider the choices to be disgraceful, and contemptuous in the extreme, when he well knows the overwhelming desire of Australians to ‘do something’ for the environment, and also to pull our weight internationally.

If and when the full effects of global heating become evident, where will these people hide? I for one, want my government to do the decent, sensible thing, follow the expert advice, and deliver solutions. But what we get is smoke and mirrors, and a bunch of old white people in power, too blinded by their own importance to heed the will of the people.

The day after Bob Hawke’s memorial service, we discover just how degraded the political system has become, where no side has the courage to act on our behalf.