August 2016, The Monthly, The message was clear. Brexit, Trump and the federal election show how the old categories of left and right are crumbling. Pauline Hanson is back in parliament, the United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union, Donald Trump wants to build a wall along the United States’ border with Mexico, and the neoliberal agenda is failing badly at ballot boxes around the Western world. The old world order of the Washington Consensus has broken apart more quickly than a new one has been built, but the lack of a clear path forward in no way diminishes the significance of the collapse in public support for free trade, trickle-down economics and the privatisation of essential services. The new “right-wing” populists are hostile to all that the neoliberals held dear. The extent of the shift in public sentiment has been concealed by the chaos of new parties and new paradigms, which are being blamed, or credited, for the tumult. But it is not democracy that is in chaos, but rather the futile attempt to cram rapidly changing political alignments into the centuries-old categories of left and right. Take Brexit, for example. One of the Leave campaign’s most prominent voices, Nigel Farage, best known for his anti-immigrant politics, shamelessly argued that the UK’s financial contribution to the EU should be spent instead on improving publicly funded health care. This “left-wing” priority resonated across the political spectrum, and the political establishment spectacularly underestimated the potency of the issue. It was of symbolic importance, as was Britain’s migration program. The population voted for the promise of a national government that protected its people as well as its borders. Was Brexit a win for the “conservative right” on the issue of sovereignty, or was it a loss for the “libertarian right” on free trade? Read More here
Tag Archives: Fed Govt
11 August 2016, Renew Economy, Frydenberg to push ahead with repeal of ARENA grant funding. New environment and energy minister Josh Frydenberg says the Coalition government intends to go ahead with its plan to strip $1.3 billion of funds from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and end its grant-funding mechanisms, and says he expects Labor to support it. In an interview with RenewEconomy on Thursday, Frydenberg also canvassed other policy areas under his new combined portfolio. Among the highlights: He repeated his pledge that the current renewable energy target is “set in stone”, despite a big push from some in the fossil fuel industry to have the target weakened further. He will seek “co-ordination” from the states on their climate and energy policies, although he did not say whether he would be insisting that individual states abandon their own targets. (Three states – South Australia, Victoria and Queensland – and one territory, the ACT, have renewable targets that are more ambitious and longer lasting than the federal target, which is equivalent to a 23.5 per cent target by 2020). In a response that will disappoint many in the climate policy arena, Frydenberg insisted that next year’s climate policy review will be a “sit-rep” – a situation report that will assess the ability of current policies to meet existing targets – and will not look at longer-dated targets (such a zero emissions by 2050), or as an opportunity to set more ambitious targets. He says the price of gas is the key component of future electricity prices, and he will be bringing “many” of the recommendations by the ACCC and the AEMC to the COAG energy ministers meeting next week. He said he was monitoring the progress of solar thermal with storage plants, such as the new $1 billion plant in Nevada, although he did not mention any specific policy or initiative to bring the technology to Australia. The tone of the interview – which you can read in full here – was one of caution. Frydenberg shows no sign of deviating from Coalition policies, even if he does recognise that a lot of effort needs to be thrown at climate and clean energy policies to avoid an economic and political train crash. Read More here
5 August 2016, The Conversation, One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts is in denial about the facts of climate change. The notion that climate science denial is no longer a part of Australian politics was swept away yesterday by One Nation Senator-Elect Malcolm Roberts. In his inaugural press conference, Roberts claimed that “[t]here’s not one piece of empirical evidence anywhere, anywhere, showing that humans cause, through CO₂ production, climate change”. He also promoted conspiracy theories that the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology are corrupt accomplices in climate conspiracy driven by the United Nations. His claims conflict with many independent lines of evidence for human-caused global warming. Coincidentally, the University of Queensland is releasing a free online course this month examining the psychology and techniques of climate science denial. The very first video lecture addresses Roberts’ central claim, summarising the empirical evidence that humans are causing climate change. Read More here
4 August 2016, The Guardian, CSIRO cuts: Turnbull government orders U-turn on climate science research. Only 20 climate science positions will be lost from the CSIRO, down from an initial 96, after the Turnbull government intervened, issuing a ministerial directive to the independent agency. Guardian Australia understands 35 climate scientist will still be sacked, but there will be 15 new hires. It is also understood there is no new money for the appointments, but must come from existing CSIRO funding. The cuts were first announced by the CSIRO in February this year. The decision was made by the CSIRO, which acts independently from government, but were a result of cuts the government made to environmental research funding. Greg Hunt, who replaced Christopher Pyne as minister for science and innovation in July, said on Thursday there would be 15 new climate science jobs and $37m invested in climate science research over 10 years. First reported in Fairfax Media on Thursday, Hunt said he made the changes by issuing a ministerial directive to the CSIRO. When the CSIRO first decided to make the cuts, the plan was to cut about 100 climate scientists. After a public outcry, the numbers were quickly reduced to just 70, and by April the number had reduced to about 35 jobs. Speaking on ABC’s AM program, Hunt said the move indicated a new government with a new focus. “It’s a decision that the prime minister and myself have taken. It’s a new government and we’re laying out a direction that climate science matters,” he said. Read More here