Local Labor keen to draw Gillard link

The Northcote Leader has run with a story suggesting a close relationship between new prime minister, Julia Gillard, and local State and Federal MPs, Fiona Richardson and Martin Ferguson. I left the following comment on the story, and it will be interesting to see if it gets up:

With Martin Ferguson behind the "meteoric rise" of new prime minister, Julia Gillard, what hope do we really have either for urgent climate action or for a robust resources tax that won't be just a backdown in the face of a powerful mining lobby? After all, Martin has been on a listening tour to the mining magnates.

As for Fiona Richardson, she may well try to wring out a few votes by association with Australia's first female prime minister, but why not ask the two other women known at this stage to be running for State and Federal Parliament what it means for them to have a woman as prime minister? Could it be because they are running for the Greens?

We should also remember that the Richardson association cuts both ways - it ties Gillard to the factional apparatus of the Victorian Right. Surprise, surprise.

Comments welcome.

Julia Gillard and a consensus on climate

I was at a climate event last night when one of the presenters, David Spratt, announced to the gathering that he'd received a text to say a challenge was on for the Labor leadership. It was a bombshell, and, as we saw this morning, Julia Gillard - always potential prime minister material - fulfilled that ambition in rather sad circumstances.

This morning's press conference, with only the odd false note, was coherent, focused and eloquent. Yet there's an immediate question mark over our new prime minister's stance on the resources tax and on climate action.

On the first, I thought it was a masterful stroke to cease the resources tax campaign with the accompanying proviso that the mining industry follow suit as a sign of good faith. Though I think the ads - however poor in execution - were justified, it's good to be able to avoid the charges of political advertising, provided the mining industry isn't thereby offered free hits with the continuation of its own propaganda.

However, the test will lie in what Julia's "open door" policy for the mining industry really means. If it turns out to mean a spineless watering-down of the resources tax (as happened with the ETS), then the leadership change will rightfully be seen as a massive win for the tactics of the mining industry. If it means a sensible approach to creating a clear and workable tax that recognises the strong case for the mining industry to pay (a lot) more, then that may be a good thing.

On climate there was also cause for concern. Julia spoke of the need for a strong community consensus before a price was put on carbon. In the context of her admission that she was a party to the decision to shelve the emissions trading scheme, this statement was worrying. She clearly wasn't talking about the obvious consensus that exists on the science, but on the public will to tackle the problem.

In that sense, the pressing question is what she is going to do about achieving that consensus within a timeframe that addresses the urgency of the science. She surely can't mean only the $30 million for better climate change communication drawn from the existing funding of a climate change department expected to find savings of $200 million?

I've argued before that the justification for the resources tax campaign would also justify a campaign on climate change, but that a truthful campaign on climate would force the government to acknowledge that its currently proposed measures are totally inadequate.

As David Spratt pointed out at the climate event I attended on the fateful night, the promises on the table at Copenhagen point to four degrees of warming - easily enough to push us past catastrophic climate tipping points.

It's now up to Julia. To a powerful case for election built on workplace relations, health and education, our first female prime minister can add climate action. Kevin Rudd ratified Kyoto; Julia can finish the job - as long as she recognises science as the benchmark of her success, or failure.

Comments welcome

Reply to Turnbull on the RSPT and climate

Malcolm Turnbull has published on his blog the full text of last Saturday's Deakin lecture speech on the politics of climate change, where he made the copiously reported comments about Kevin Rudd's "political cowardice" over climate change.

After my Twitter exchange disagreeing with Malcolm over his "support" for climate action coupled with his rejection of the resources tax, I left the following comment on his blog post. It will be interesting to see if it stays up, and if he responds. I'd also like to see this issue dealt with on next Monday night's Q&A, where Malcolm will be a panellist. Here's my comment:

I was there for your presentation, and I have to say you had the best jokes ("Kevin has always said such nice things about me"). However, you're wrong to support climate action - if only a weak version of it that doesn't reflect the science - and not support the resources tax. I am fully aware that the RSPT is not intended as a climate tax, but the fact is that, missing from this debate is a range of unacknowledged costs of the mining industry - from environmental and climate impacts, through to health impacts on local communities. You will never hear the mining industry acknowledge these costs, because they view them as external to their own narrow commercial self-interest. Sure we don't yet have an appropriate carbon price, but I'm willing to support the RSPT as a down-payment on the day when the true costs of the industry are accounted for and the wealthy mining barons are called on to pay up (I might have said "cough up", but that is done in the Hunter Valley and elsewhere). Of course, I also support the RSPT on the basis of Australians getting a fair share of profits in the meantime. Mining royalties have been declining as a percentage of mining profits, afterall.

 Comments welcome (you too, Malcolm).

Turnbull "supports" climate action, rejects resources tax

Today The Age published my letter responding to Malcolm Turnbull's remarks on emissions trading at Saturday's Deakin lecture on the politics of climate change. My response referred to Clive Hamilton's excellent opinion piece on the Resources Super Profits Tax and the newspaper's strong editorial on Australia's quest for oil in deep water in the context of the Gulf of Mexico disaster. As usual, here's the letter as published, followed by the version I submitted:

CLIVE Hamilton (Comment, 14/6) rightly identifies the mining industry as the self-interested common enemy of the resources tax and the emissions trading scheme.

Unfortunately, Malcolm Turnbull (''Calls to get ETS back on agenda'', The Age, 14/6) fails to acknowledge the common element of climate in these two vital initiatives.

I was at Saturday's Deakin lecture on the politics of climate change, where Turnbull spoke. Skirting his own party's climate denialist position, Turnbull attacked the ''political cowardice'' of the Prime Minister in failing to go to a double-dissolution election over the ETS, while decrying a resources tax he said nobody could understand.

In a later Twitter exchange with me, he claimed: ''rspt has nothing to do with climate - its [sic] just a big new tax to raise additional revenues.''

While the Rudd government is indeed guilty of cowardice for not taking science-based action on climate, or even proposing it, the resources tax would be a small down payment to address the damage wrought by the mining industry.

Mining can have a direct and catastrophic effect on the physical environment, as well as contributing strongly to carbon emissions and global warming. How Turnbull can ''support'' climate action but reject the resources tax is beyond me.

Now the very similar version submitted:

Clive Hamilton (Comment & Debate, 14/6) rightly identifies the mining industry as the self-interested common enemy of both the resources tax and the emissions trading scheme.

Unfortunately, Malcolm Turnbull (News, 14/6) fails to acknowledge the common element of climate in these two vital initiatives as he calls to get a flawed ETS back on the agenda.

I was at Saturday's Deakin lecture on the politics of climate change where he made the comments reported in your newspaper. Skirting the climate denialist position of his own party, Turnbull attacked the “political cowardice” of the prime minister in failing to go to a double-dissolution election over the ETS, while decrying a resources tax he said nobody could understand.

In a later Twitter exchange with me, he claimed: “rspt has nothing to do with climate – its (sic) just a big new tax to raise additional revenues”.

While the Rudd government is indeed guilty of cowardice for not taking science-based action on climate, or even proposing it, the resources tax would be a small down-payment to address the damage wrought by the mining industry.

As shown by your excellent editorial on Australia’s continuing quest for for oil in the face of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, mining can have a direct and catastrophic effect on the physical environment, as well as contributing strongly to carbon emissions and global warming.

How Turnbull can “support” climate action but reject the resources tax is beyond me.

Comments welcome.

Deakins focus on prosperity without growth

Last night I went to see Tim Jackson's outstanding Deakin lecture on his recent book, Prosperity without Growth. Just what Jackson is up against was bleakly but amusingly illustrated when I sought out his book a while back and had to ask a shop assistant. "Prosperity without growth?" she asked. Enough said.

For a man jet-lagged and awake since at least 5.00am, Jackson moved swiftly to the substance of his argument in a succinct 30 minutes followed by questions. The dilemma we face is that we either continue growing our economy, and thereby exhaust our finite planet, or we negotiate the perils of "de-growth", including the loss of jobs. With the relentless drive to ever greater efficiency, Jackson explained, more can be done by fewer people, and so the only way to keep people in jobs is to grow the economy. The trouble is, this process is resource and emissions intensive, and attempts to "de-couple" growth from its impact on the planet are unlikely to succeed.

It was worth going for this clarifying insight alone, and the idea that we can limit growth in some areas so that it can occur in others where it is truly needed. Jackson thinks we need to return our focus to human flourishing, and away from the psychology of envy that characterises our current consumption, which he says is not an inherent feature of human nature.

I will write further on the detail of Jackson's presentation, but there's no need to rely on brief blog posts, as the Wheeler Centre has already made the video available on its website, where you can leave comments. I've started the ball rolling by asking how Jackson might view the current debate over the resources tax, a key defence of which has been that it will in fact be good for the industry. With all its hidden costs, however, we should ask whether the growth of the mining industry is really good for us:

Great presentation, and fantastic work to have the video up so quickly. What I wanted to ask Tim was what he makes of the current resources tax debate. One of the key government defences is that it will ultimately be good for the industry and lead to expansion. Yet nowhere in the debate is there any accounting for the climate, environmental or human health cost of the mining industry, which will only worsen with any expansion - especially in the absence of an effective ETS or strong carbon tax. I support the resources tax, and would do so even more so if it served to put a brake on damaging and excessive mineral extraction. What says Tim?

Comments welcome

Costello would have us eat the miners' dust

Peter Costello is at it again in yesterday's edition of The Age. This time his sweeping arrogance has it that the Government has lost the argument on fairness over the resources tax. An interesting world view this may be, but lacking on any objective measure of the true cost of the mining industry to this country and the world.

Any business enterprise that left out significant costs in its project budget would ordinarily be looked on with scorn by the hoarders and graspers of profit – unless of course, the costs ignored are to the climate and the environment, and to the health of communities affected by mineral extraction. While on economic grounds alone there is a strong case for the tax, we are seeing – with global warming, the US Gulf Coast oil disaster, and the health impacts of coal mining on local communities – just some of the horrendous costs that have escaped any proper public reckoning.

Costello also claims that the mining industry "has withstood a misleading campaign and turned it around". It's true the Government has committed substantial funds to countering the miners' self-interest, which has been relentlessly projected on our screens and the nation's news pages. However, I suggest those who oppose the Government's public interest campaign consider the secret but massive expenditure of the miners' as they try to persuade us to eat their dust.

Picking which "emergency" to advertise

There’s something oddly out of focus about the controversy raging over the Federal Government’s $38 million advertising campaign explaining tax changes including the contentious Resources Super Profits Tax (RSPT). The campaign has been cast by some as back-tracking by the Rudd Government on political advertising, a hypocritical regression to the kind of obscene expenditure by the former Coalition Government on the GST and WorkChoices campaigns.

The charge has stemmed from the exemption granted the campaign by Cabinet Secretary, Senator Joe Ludwig, in apparent accordance, it must be said, with guidelines announced in 2008 and most recently published in March this year.

The guidelines give the Cabinet Secretary power to exempt campaigns from compliance “on the basis of national emergency, extreme urgency or other compelling reason”. Argument should proceed, then, not on the fact of the exemption, but on whether it qualifies in these terms.

If it does, then a further pertinent but more awkward question for the Government is what other issues ought to have qualified on the same grounds, but have not been seen to warrant a similar campaign – climate change being a strong contender.

Dealing first with the exemption, on its face this campaign ought to qualify. The tax changes are significant, with major implications for the public interest. The first evidence I have seen of the campaign – a full-page advertisement in Melbourne’s The Sunday Age – includes the simple claim that “before the last mining boom, the Australian people received $1 in every $3 of mining profits through royalties and resource charges. By the end of that boom, our share had fallen to just $1 in every $7”.

A factual claim, it would seem, capable of verification or otherwise, and consistent with recent comments by former Minerals Council head David Buckingham on ABC Radio National, that royalties have declined as a percentage of miners’ profits. Economists have also come out in support of the tax, while Treasury Secretary, Dr Ken Henry, has questioned the miners’ assertions of the broader economic impacts of the tax, and the role of the resources industry in seeing Australia through the global financial crisis.

Though the campaign has been granted an exemption, the closer it is seen to adhere to the guidelines, the stronger the case for its acceptance. In addition to requiring the stakes to be high and the expenditure large enough to warrant scrutiny (over $250,000), the kinds of tests the guidelines include relate to information, education, and the encouragement of the “informed consideration of issues”. They also refer to campaigns “informed by appropriate research or evidence” that “clearly and directly affect the interests of recipients”.

Despite the exemption, then, there is scope for ongoing testing of the campaign against the guidelines to assess through public debate how justified it really is. So far, there has been little that has echoed anything like the propagandistic tones of the “Unchain my Heart” GST campaign, or the readily falsifiable campaign mounted in support of WorkChoices, the acceptance of which was decidedly not in the interests of the campaign’s recipients – as judged by them at the November 2007 Federal election.

If we could posit the perfect public interest campaign, it should not be disqualified as “political advertising” simply due to alignment with the policies of a Government seeking to act in the genuine public interest. That would leave the Government fighting with one hand tied behind its back against the well-funded campaign of any lobby group attempting to paint as detrimental a measure undermining its own narrow self-interest but not resulting in any broader, national disadvantage. Without the RSPT campaign, this was the scenario threatened by the Minerals Council of Australia.

In the Council’s feigned altruism – in its disputed claims that the industry saved Australia from the global financial crisis, that it contributes appropriately to the nation’s coffers, and that the RSPT will have innumerable flow-on impacts for investment, jobs, businesses and prices – the lobby group seems to be making a case based on the public interest rather than its own profit margins. Yet where is the accountability for its campaign, resourced at a likely governmental but secret scale? Where are the requirements for veracity, information, education and research placed on it?

Where the lack of focus enters this issue, lies instead with the awkward question prompted by reasoned acceptance of the Government’s RSPT campaign. Why have we not had a similar campaign, subject to similar strictures, based on climate change?

I am deeply struck by this question having raised the idea of a public interest campaign around climate in an April meeting with Martin Ferguson, energy and resources minister in the Australian Government and, as it happens, my local federal MP.

Ferguson was being challenged over his support for fossil fuels and the climate inaction of the Rudd Government. He claimed that the Government had taken a climate position it thought would “bring the community along”. Yet when might there have been a more truly urgent time to campaign on the need for strong climate action – far stronger than the now-shelved emissions trading scheme (ETS) – than in the lead-up to the November 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen, and during the Senate’s deliberations on the legislation?

While climate has fallen off the Government’s agenda, the climate clock hasn’t stopped ticking. Commitments under the Copenhagen Accord have, for example, been estimated to lead to warming of more than three degrees Celsius, substantially above the levels where further dangerous impacts will be locked in. Surely this argues for a public interest campaign “on the basis of national emergency, extreme urgency or other compelling reason”.

“We’ve made it very difficult for ourselves with political advertising,” Ferguson commented at the meeting. Yet, less than two months later, we have another campaign – with which I admittedly agree – justified on a basis that also applies to our climate emergency, where international leadership by Australia might well influence stronger international action.

It’s true that the recent federal budget provides $30 million over two years for better climate communication, but the funding is to be drawn from a climate change department expected to find savings of $200 million (1). There is also the question of what an effective climate campaign might look like, in contrast with what the Government might be willing to say.

Whether or not such a campaign were granted an exemption from the advertising guidelines similar to the RSPT, it would need to be based on verifiable research that stood to inform and educate the Australian public on the need to take strong climate measures due to the highly likely serious impacts on the Australian (and world) population if this were not done.

A claimed defender of the science of climate change, the Government must concede that the body of peer-reviewed scientific research supporting strong action far exceeds any factual basis it is now giving for its resources tax. Nor has there been a clearer example of a well funded and pervasive misinformation campaign than has been orchestrated by the deniers of climate change, who remain unaccountable for the impacts they would allow.

The trouble is that any truly honest campaign around climate would demonstrate the dishonesty and ineffectiveness of the Government’s own climate measures, that it is indeed closer to the Coalition and the climate deniers than it is to policies that would support a safe climate.

In essence, a better critique of the RSPT campaign is not that it is unjustified, but that the Government has been political in its picking of emergencies to advertise. If the RSPT controversy serves as a grand distraction from this fact, dangerous climate change may tax us all to far greater consequence.


1. The savings expected from the Department of Climate Change are discussed by Katharine Murphy in “Of backflips and backchat”, The Age, Insight, p.5, 15 May 2010.

Comments welcome

Mine tax defence makes case for climate campaign

Today The Age published my response to Saturday's page one story, "Taxpayers fund mine tax defence". Essentially, I argue that if a resources ad campaign is justified, a climate campaign is justifiable on the same grounds, but it isn't in the offing – why? Here's the letter:

I support Labor’s campaign to explain the Resources Super Profits Tax. While any exemption of a Government campaign from political advertising guidelines should be questioned, the mining lobby’s “active campaign of misinformation” identified by Wayne Swan calls for an urgent and honest response.

A further question we should be asking, however, is why an “emergency” exemption should be granted for a public interest campaign about a tax, but not one to address the even more pervasive misinformation directed against the scientific reality of climate change.

The resources tax campaign will cost $38 million. The recent budget announced $30 million over two years for better communication on climate, but expects this funding to be drawn from the existing resources of a climate change department called on to find savings of $200 million.

If the Government is going to honestly claim exemptions for its advertising, a public interest campaign on climate change based on the latest science should be one of the first cabs off the rank. The trouble is, a truly honest campaign on the climate issue would show that the Government’s current climate measures simply don’t stack up when it comes to ensuring a safe climate.

Comments welcome

Resources tax may help climate

Today's edition of The Age carries my letter responding to yesterday's page one coverage of the reaction by the mining industry to Kevin Rudd's proposed resources tax.

Here's the edited letter, followed, as usual, by the letter as submitted:

RIO Tinto chief Sam Walsh thinks he's making a case against the new resources tax when he says that $7.5 billion of iron ore, alumina and coal projects are on hold as a result (''Miners step up for fight with Labor'', The Age, 6/5).

However, there's a significant climate upside with any slowing of the emissions-intensive resources industry - particularly when Australia is too reliant on coal for its energy, is the world's largest coal exporter and is among the top-10 worst nations for its environmental impact. If we map the resources industry to its impacts on the planet, we may finally realise that this should be a fundamental measure of business viability, and therefore place greater emphasis on sustainable industries, such as renewable energy generation.

As for Tony Abbott saying the government must be changed to stop the tax, we should note the converse of his argument: we must keep the government to keep the tax.

The submitted letter was slightly longer:

Rio Tinto chief Sam Walsh (News, p.1) thinks he's making the case against the prime minister's new resources tax when he says that $7.5 billion of iron ore, alumina and coal projects are on hold as a result.

However, there's a significant climate upside to his argument with any slowing of the emissions-intensive resources industry - particularly when Australia is too reliant on coal for its own energy, is the world's largest coal exporter and, as your newspaper also reports (News, p.11), among the top-ten worst nations for its environmental impact. If we map the resources industry to its impacts on the planet, we may finally realise that this should be a fundamental measure of business viability, and therefore place greater emphasis on sustainable industries, such as renewable energy generation.

As for Tony Abbott saying that the government must be changed to stop the tax, we should note the converse of his argument: we must keep the government to keep the tax. Thanks for the clear market signal to voters, Tony. Provided Rudd does not water down his proposal with loopholes that allow industry to escape payment, this is a strong move by the Labor government.

I was in two minds about this letter. I certainly didn't want to convey the message that the resources tax was anywhere near sufficient as a climate measure, or a substitute for a strong price on carbon. Nor did I want to exclude the possibility that, in keeping the current government, voters might well like to alter its composition with a few climate progressive independents or Greens. On the other hand, I thought that Tony Abbott deserved a measure of scrutiny as I made the broader point about sustainable industry.

Getting back to Labor, today's edition of The Age carried news that Batman MP and energy and resources minister, Martin Ferguson, was set to embark on a "listening tour" of resources companies. I find it hard to believe that he's somehow missed all their lobbyists over the years! He'd do better to go on a listening tour of people already suffering climate impacts fuelled by our addiction to burning and exporting coal.

Let's hope the resources tax does put some sort of brake on our emissions-intensive resources industry, but we must still hold the Rudd Government to account on renewable energy and effective, science-based climate measures that include a strong carbon price.