Thank you for signing and especially to those who regularly SHARE this Petition and updates with Friends, Family and on Social Media.
We will need a LOT more signatures before those Politicians who are dead-set against a STRONG and Retrospective #FederalICAC - will feel concerned ENOUGH to warrant them thinking about supporting a Bill for an anti-corruption Commission that they don’t feel is in THEIR best interests!
So WHY are our Politicians unable to commit wholeheartedly to - and so PLAN how our nation and its workers will transition as painlessly as possible - from our high-carbon emitting economy to one that is in step with the REST of our WORLD?
WHY are they burying their heads in the sand – hoping they will be able to LEAVE politics BEFORE they have to do the HARD WORK of leading and guiding a country through MASSIVE change?
As an eminent and wise Leader once said:
"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today." ~ Abraham Lincoln
During 2019 and early 2020 Australia had catastrophic bush-fires which all those who lived through them and fought them – had not seen in THEIR life-times.
Farming families had been saying for DECADES that their land was changing – becoming hotter, drier and less productive in comparison to the record-keeping their fathers and grand-fathers had meticulously kept over GENERATIONS.
Fire Chiefs and Scientists had tried to talk with the Federal Government worried that Australia was NOT prepared after a much drier than average Winter for what was expected to be a dry, hot Summer. But the Prime Minister CHOSE not to listen.
But it’s not just THIS Prime Minister! Our Politicians have known about THIS for DECADES yet they’ve ignored it while even the Tories in England in the 1980s LISTENED – choosing NOT to make Climate Change a POLITICAL issue and so decided the BEST OPTION was to PLAN.Not massively but at least they had the framework!
But in OUR country it BECAME PARTISAN and a ‘luxury we couldn’t afford’!
The APH web-site has a good explanation and dates of Climate Change policies in the world and Australia and how BOTH MAJOR Political parties have oscillated over time:
Annabel Crabb also gives a great summary of the Seven Killings of Australia’s Climate Change journey starting from 1997 with Howard - which is attached to the bottom of this update
I found an interesting article on WHY Rudd's CPRS was terrible Policy
https://www.floodmedia.org/articles/the-cprs-was-a-terrible-policynbsp
In an ANU Publication called: ‘Global Warming and Climate Change: what Australia knew and buried’ tells the story of the sad reality of the ‘game’ that was played on the Australian PEOPLE - and MORE cruelly OUR CHILDREN!
This is an unconscionable travesty:
“Indeed, 1990 was a highpoint for environmental politics in Australia, with federal Labor looking forward to an election supported by environmental votes, the release of the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on climate change, and federal ‘interim planning targets’ for controlling CO2 emissions put in place, based on the global Toronto target of 1988.
The recognition that global warming/climate change science required a policy response coincided with the Labor government under Bob Hawke sponsoring roundtable policymaking under the banner of ecologically sustainable development (ESD) in 1990. This unusual effort in democratic decision-making brought environmental, business, government, and labour leaders to the same table. The task was to determine more sustainable economic strategies and include environmental costs in the analysis. A joint taskforce was then asked to recommend how to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector.
Overall, there is good evidence that there was a window of time—following the Franklin Dam fight in 1983 and peaking in 1990–1991—during which environmental issues were brought into the policy mainstream. It was an attempt to close the national argument between economic and environmental priorities. Unfortunately it was about to end. Former science minister Barry Jones said in a 1992 World Meteorological Day address:
Green issues were extremely important in the 1980s and contributed to the Hawke government’s electoral success in 1983, 1987, and 1990 … [but]
What happened in the 1990s? Most dramatically, the fossil fuel and allied industries got into gear. The momentum to support and expand the existing fossil fuel economy was boosted by neo-liberal think tanks and insistent sceptics, in sympathy with free market economic ideology. They mounted a potent and high-level lobbying campaign aimed at federal politicians. Coal, oil, natural gas and other extractive industries, along with other multinational corporations, such as the energy-intensive aluminium smelting industry, got organised and exerted considerable influence on government, particularly after 1995 (Hamilton 2001; Pearse 2007).
This was made easier by a revolving door of policymakers and economic advisers switching in and out of senior government and business group positions. They formed a like-minded elite network directing Australia’s response to the science after 1992. A picture emerges of how the focus on growth and resource extraction industries—long-standing drivers of Australian politics and the economy—undid the early good public understanding.”
If you would like to read more:
https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p303951/html/Chapt05.xhtml?referer=&page=10
It was a CONCERTED effort to undermine the ‘good public understanding’ which has not happened by accident!
In the next update – I will post links to articles about how Fossil-Fuel Lobbying and donations in Australia has influenced and destroyed Climate Policy in Australia..
And how BOTH sides of Politics are beholden to them..