Politics, both good and bad

Twenty years since the Wall fell – it feels like just yesterday. I remember the time well: between 9/11/89 and a point some time after the release of Mandela, it felt as though the world was at least growing up and nations were acting better. Nice work, Gorby, you were a class act, as were so many others at that time.

On the bad side, I am watching a TV special on the Australian conservative parties negotiating their response to climate change, and I have my smacking trousers on again for many of them. Ian MacFarlane, you and I don't agree, but I respect your pragmatism and willingness to have your mind changed based on science, so you will not be smacked. Tony Abbott, on the other hand ...

Tony Abbott is a man who, propelled by his absolute Catholicism, used his position in parliament to attempt to restrict Australian women's access to abortion (a legal procedure) again and again during his party's time in power. Nevertheless, he has the audacity to declare that climate change scientists are 'evagenlical' in their zeal, and to imply that the science is full of holes. 'If you look at the figures,' he says, 'you will find that the Earth has actually been cooling since the late 1990s.' Well, yes, because 1998 was the hottest year on record.

So, what he is saying is that since the hottest year on record, things have not been quite as hot. This is true (well, largely, figures are still being collated and 1998 may be bopped off as the hottest year soon). Nevertheless, the last decade has been hot well beyond what we consider 'normal'. Take a look at the first graph on this page to see the Australian figures alone. To give an analogy, since July 1998, my right foot has had lowered pain levels. This is because in that month, I shattered my foot and then spent a week hopping around on a pair of crutches with just a bandage on it thanks to a mis-read X-ray. My foot is still manky and it still bloody well hurts, which it did not before that date. Such a smacking for you, Tony!

Barnaby Joyce is in for one hell of a smack. He is a National, the Australian rural party, and believes that work to stop climate change must be stopped at all costs. Not only is he damning his constituency to continued drought, increased catastrophic bushfire, and no work in planning to shift agriculture to a lower-carbon-emitting system (something which represents LESS of a change than the Green Revolution of the 1950s), but he is destabilising his own party in a bid to have his own way.

I am reminded of the words of Gough Whitlam, a former Australian Prime Minister of chequered legacy, but good quotes.

When a Joyce-like figure stood up in Whitlam's parliament and declared: 'I am a country member!', Whitlam's sonorous tones rang out, saying: 'Oh, we remember.'

Politics, both good and bad

Twenty years since the Wall fell – it feels like just yesterday. I remember the time well: between 9/11/89 and a point some time after the release of Mandela, it felt as though the world was at least growing up and nations were acting better. Nice work, Gorby, you were a class act, as were so many others at that time.

On the bad side, I am watching a TV special on the Australian conservative parties negotiating their response to climate change, and I have my smacking trousers on again for many of them. Ian MacFarlane, you and I don't agree, but I respect your pragmatism and willingness to have your mind changed based on science, so you will not be smacked. Tony Abbott, on the other hand ...

Tony Abbott is a man who, propelled by his absolute Catholicism, used his position in parliament to attempt to restrict Australian women's access to abortion (a legal procedure) again and again during his party's time in power. Nevertheless, he has the audacity to declare that climate change scientists are 'evagenlical' in their zeal, and to imply that the science is full of holes. 'If you look at the figures,' he says, 'you will find that the Earth has actually been cooling since the late 1990s.' Well, yes, because 1998 was the hottest year on record.

So, what he is saying is that since the hottest year on record, things have not been quite as hot. This is true (well, largely, figures are still being collated and 1998 may be bopped off as the hottest year soon). Nevertheless, the last decade has been hot well beyond what we consider 'normal'. Take a look at the first graph on this page to see the Australian figures alone. To give an analogy, since July 1998, my right foot has had lowered pain levels. This is because in that month, I shattered my foot and then spent a week hopping around on a pair of crutches with just a bandage on it thanks to a mis-read X-ray. My foot is still manky and it still bloody well hurts, which it did not before that date. Such a smacking for you, Tony!

Barnaby Joyce is in for one hell of a smack. He is a National, the Australian rural party, and believes that work to stop climate change must be stopped at all costs. Not only is he damning his constituency to continued drought, increased catastrophic bushfire, and no work in planning to shift agriculture to a lower-carbon-emitting system (something which represents LESS of a change than the Green Revolution of the 1950s), but he is destabilising his own party in a bid to have his own way.

I am reminded of the words of Gough Whitlam, a former Australian Prime Minister of chequered legacy, but good quotes.

When a Joyce-like figure stood up in Whitlam's parliament and declared: 'I am a country member!', Whitlam's sonorous tones rang out, saying: 'Oh, we remember.'