EcoRadio

Category: News

Add your news
You can add news from your networks or groups through the website by becoming an author. Simply register as a member of the Generator, and then email Giovanni asking to become an author. He will then work with you to integrate your content into the site as effectively as possible.
Listen to the Generator News online

 
The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
As well as Giovanni’s articles it picks up the most pertinent articles from a range of other news services. You can publish the news feed on your website using RSS, free of charge.
 

  • Gulf of Mexico oilspill spreads all the way to Capitol Hill

     

    The rig that suffered the catastrophic blowout was owned and operated not by BP but by Transocean, the world’s largest specialist, which may have lulled investors’ fears. When the legal bills are finally settled, that may limit the financial impact on BP. But the company, in the regulatory wording, is the “responsible party” for the field (it owns 65%) and that could be a key factor in the inevitable blame game.

    Unfortunately for BP, its political stock in the US can hardly be described as high. As recently as last October, a US government agency declared that BP still had “systemic” safety issues at Texas City, the refinery where 15 people were killed and 170 injured in 2005. Relations with the relevant agency are said to have improved since then but it’s not the best starting point for BP.

    As far as we know, its reaction to the latest incident has satisfied US officials. With 76 vessels trying to contain the spill, the company’s chief executive, Tony Hayward, has called the scale of the response “truly unprecedented”. That helped to create the impression that BP was ahead of the game. But news that the rate of leakage from the well could be five times worse than feared, and that the slick is reaching shore, has prompted the City to rethink. President Obama was only stating a fact when he said that BP is “ultimately responsible” for the cost of the spill and clean-up, but it was a reminder to BP’s investors that oil is always political.

  • There are lessons for Rudd in our forgotten election

     

    The house of review has been transformed into a house of obstruction. We should not be diddled into the belief the Senate somehow is more or even equally representative than the House of Representatives.

    The Senate represents the states, with the tiniest state having the same sized representation as the most populous state. The lower house represents the people. At least, that was the conception.

    Obstruction of the government’s legislation led one political and constitutional figure to observe, in those circumstances: ”A Senate opposition whose party had just been completely defeated at a general election would be in command of the nation. This would be absurd, as a denial of popular democracy.” (Bob Menzies.)

    The rorting of popular democracy really got up a head of steam after the election of the Whitlam government in December 1972. The leader of the opposition in the Senate, Reg Withers, said the arrival of a Labor government after 23 years of conservative rule was ”temporary electoral insanity”. The opposition was determined to destroy the newly elected government and its program of reform, and thereby purge the insanity.

    Rudd and co never strike one as great readers of history. However, they might cast their minds to the Whitlam era and the lessons of the May 1974 double dissolution election, and the subsequent first and only joint sitting of the unrepresentatives with the representatives.

    The House was passing vast amounts of legislation and the Senate was failing to pass it at a rate not seen since Federation. By April 1974, 10 government bills had been twice rejected by the Senate. Another nine had been rejected once.

    It took a misplaced punt by Withers and his troops to force a lower house election by monkeying around with the government’s supply bills that enabled Whitlam to ask the Governor-General, Paul Hasluck, to dissolve parliament and call a double dissolution election for May 18.

    The government was returned with its House of Representatives majority intact and increased numbers in the Senate; in fact, equal numbers with the opposition – 29 each, with two independents. In this ”forgotten election”, the voters expressed their unhappiness with an opposition that recklessly sought to trash the program the government was elected to implement less than 18 months earlier.

    This prompted the opposition leader, Billy Snedden, to proclaim the coalition had not been defeated, it ”just didn’t win enough seats”.

    Whitlam then sent to the Senate six bills that had been twice rejected and they were rejected again. They dealt with the establishment of a universal health insurance scheme (Medibank), electoral measures designed to give each vote the same value, and for the territories to have Senate and House representation.

    There was also a measure to regulate the exploration and development of natural resources, the Petroleum and Minerals Authority Bill.

    The scene was now set for an historic joint sitting of both houses of parliament to handle a ”stockpile” of legislation. There had been previous double dissolutions, but never a joint sitting of the parliament. All the bills so vehemently opposed by the Coalition were passed by 187 MPs sitting together.

    In Overland, Professor Jenny Hocking from Monash University argues that the joint sitting confirmed the political primacy of the House of Representatives in the formation and operation of government.

    The Liberals had also gone to the High Court to challenge every step of the way the process of the joint sitting and the bills to be considered there. They were unsuccessful with the exception of the resources legislation, which was struck down by the High Court.

    Importantly, the 1974 double dissolution election gave the government enough upper house support to subsequently get through two of attorney-general Lionel Murphy’s most hotly contested pieces of law, the Trade Practices Act and the Family Law Act. Both pieces of legislation were opposed by special pleaders, the opposition and even sections of the Labor Party. Yet they passed, thanks to Whitlam having the gumption to pull it on in 1974 and thanks to Murphy’s skilful manipulation of the Senate committee system and a determination never to give up.

    Fat lot of good it did the Labor Party in November the following year. But don’t you just wish Rudd had the balls to call the bluff of Abbott and his wreckers?

    justinian@lawpress.com.au

  • Rudd retreats on web filter legislation

     

    Senator Conroy’s spokeswoman said the government was not deterred by this criticism.

    The government was still consulting with internet service providers and considering public submissions; once that process was complete, it would introduce the legislation into parliament, the spokeswoman said.

    Australian Christian Lobby managing director Jim Wallace was disappointed.

    “The minister has done an excellent job on this . . . and I would like to see it legislated because it was an election promise,” he said.

    Opposition communications spokesman Tony Smith said Senator Conroy should come clean on when he would release the legislation.

    NICOLA BERKOVIC

  • Poor political skills doomed Rudd’s climate policy

     

    As opposition leader Rudd embraced the ratification of Kyoto as his climate change talisman and successfully forced John Howard, under public pressure and from within his cabinet, to cede ground on an ETS.

    Encouraged by climate scare campaigns on a global scale, which cast the Coalition as climate change deniers and environmental dinosaurs, Rudd relentlessly politicised the issue and exploited the overwhelming goodwill of the public.

    While political strategists attested to the power of using climate change to divide the Coalition and portray Rudd as forward-looking and modern, the Labor leader latched on to the ratification of Kyoto as the defining difference between him and Howard, who refused to ratify the protocol because he considered it to be against Australia’s economic interests.

    Rudd, while accusing Howard of delaying action on climate change, brought forward the implementation of his proposed ETS scheme to 2010 in contrast to Howard’s 2012 start date because “inaction cost more than action”.

    Only days after becoming Prime Minister, Rudd flew to Bali and ratified the Kyoto Protocol at a climate change conference amid much fanfare. People felt good something was being done.

    But the action was purely symbolic, an empty gesture designed to get Australia a place at the table of international climate change negotiation. But it led nowhere. Indeed, according to Oxford University research just published in the journal Political Geography, the embracing of the protocol “suggests that the symbolic power of Kyoto has created a veil over the climate issue in Australia at the expense of practical legislation and implementation of projects to physically reduce Australian emissions”.

    Oxford researchers Nicholas Howarth and Andrew Foxall argue that the “veil of Kyoto” actually hid much higher emissions than the Rudd government was admitting to and has led to an international failure. “The Kyoto Protocol has framed the politics of greenhouse gas mitigation in Australia. While we find it has exhorted a powerful international symbolic norm around climate change, its success at encouraging environmentally effective policy has been limited,” the two write.

    “The lesson from the 2007 election and subsequent events in Australia is a caution against elevating the symbolism of Kyoto-style targets and timetables above the need for implementation of mitigation policies at the nation-state level.”

    Rudd moved in the opposite direction, using inflated language about challenges to our children and grandchildren, the greatest moral and economic challenge of our time while inflating the role of international bodies, meetings and agreements.

    To delay passing the CPRS into law until after the Copenhagen UN climate change conference last December was, in Rudd’s words, “absolute political cowardice”, “absolute failure of leadership” and an “absolute failure of logic” that should not prevent Australia from leading the world on climate change.

    Unfortunately, between ratifying the Kyoto Protocol at the Bali climate change conference and preparing to be “a friend of the chair” at the Copenhagen conference Rudd had failed to convince a willing Australian public about the need and justification for an ETS, a scheme that would push up the price of electricity and transport and that would threaten jobs.

    The closer the government got to actually implementing a scheme that cut greenhouse gas emissions, the less convinced the public became about the costs and effectiveness of the CPRS. As Howarth and Foxall write: “As the inconsistencies between symbolism and policy become reconciled, Rudd faces the risk of alienating Labor from groups [that] favour strong action on climate change and those more worried about short-term prosperity being damaged by mitigation policies.”

    The Rudd scheme neither achieved greenhouse gas cuts nor convinced consumers and workers the risk they faced of increased household costs or job losses was worthwhile. Instead of systematically explaining the scheme and justifying the need for cost increases, Rudd turned climate change into a moral issue and got tied down in intricate, legislative detail and was distracted by foreign baubles. His penultimate failure was pushing then leader of the opposition Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition over the political brink before he had a deal last year and his ultimate failure has been to just drop the CPRS without a fight or conviction.

     

  • Not dealing with climate and not dealing with the Greens

     

    Penny Wong, minister in charge of the steering the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, or CPRS, through the Senate, was happy to negotiate amendments with the Liberals’ Ian Macfarlane last year. Although she is courteous enough to meet with the deputy Greens leader, Senator Christine Milne, she has refused to enter into serious negotiations about changes to the scheme to deal with Green concerns. The Greens believe Wong’s behaviour is understandable, given her background: before entering parliament she was a union official in the forestry division of the CFMEU, whose members stand shoulder to shoulder with the loggers and pulpers against the Greens. Wong later became a staffer to Kim Yeadon, then Minister for Land and Water in the NSW government and definitely not a friend of the Greens.

    Now, Labor has broken the most important promise of all – early action on climate change. The government has shelved the CPRS legislation until some time after the next election later this year. Yet only last week the prime minister told the Sydney Morning Herald that “on the question of climate change policy, our policy hasn’t changed. We maintain our position that this [the CPRS] is part of the most efficient and the most effective means by which we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions with least cost to the economy.”

    Brave words, but the prime minister has not held a double dissolution election, the logical way to break the Senate deadlock. In the meantime, support for his position on climate change has eroded. A new Climate Institute poll shows that the percentage of voters trusting Mr Rudd most on climate change fell from 46 per cent last year to 36 per cent in April. Those believing there was no difference on climate change between Mr Rudd and Mr Abbott rose from 37 per cent to 40 per cent.

    The Greens will hold the balance of power in the Senate after the next election and Rudd may have to rely on them to pass a climate bill. After another election defeat, of course, there could be a change of heart among the Liberals. Tony Abbott will be dumped and the next leader (perhaps Joe Hockey or, if he reverses his decision to retire, Malcolm Turnbull) would accept the government mandate for the legislation. (All this presumes Labor would win the election, which is highly likely, but not certain.)

    But there is a broader problem with Labor’s approach to climate. Although some may say that it is better than nothing, the CPRS legislation is badly flawed. Its unconditional target for emissions reductions – 5 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020 – is way too low given that the science calls for a 40 per cent cut. The Greens say the bill should stipulate at least a 25 per cent target, and they prefer Ross Garnaut’s interim approach in the absence of a decent emissions trading scheme. Professor Garnaut suggested setting a carbon price beginning at $20 a tonne (in 2000 dollars) rising to $24.50 in 2011 and $26 after that. Polluters would be taxed on these levels, and Garnaut suggested compensation to householders could flow from revenue collected. This would also mean a quite light tax for a low-polluting industry such as car manufacturing but a heavier tax for high polluters such as coal-fired power-generating plants and oil refineries.

    In the past week even more criticism has been heaped on the CPRS for its generous handouts to polluters by way of compensation. The Grattan Institute’s new study shows that the compensation handouts to “trade exposed industries” would be “a $20 billion waste of money.” It assembled evidence that only two industries – cement and steel – would deserve assistance. Alumina, liquefied natural gas and coalmining would remain internationally competitive without assistance; granting them free permits would amount to supporting two industries that are likely to leave Australia anyway.

    The Grattan Institute’s energy research fellow, Tristan Edis, estimates free permits cost about $59,000 per employee on average, soaring to $161,100 in the aluminium industry and $103,300 in liquefied natural gas. The institute’s CEO, John Daley, explains that most of the proposed compensation would be wasted because most of the industries are unlikely to move offshore and will remain very profitable with or without a carbon price. Given that the institute’s founders include BHP Billiton and the federal government, this is telling criticism indeed. Mr Rudd’s authority and credibility in the parliament and the Labor caucus have been greatly diminished. •

    Rob Chalmers, editor of Inside Canberra, is the longest serving member of the federal parliamentary press gallery

    From the archive: Richard Dennis on the deal the government should have struck earlier this year >

  • The Great Moral Backflip of Our Time

     

    Penny Wong has spent the better part of Labor’s first term in office formulating, negotiating and trying to legislate for an emissions trading scheme. The Garnaut Review dominated policy considerations through 2008 and early 2009, and the eventual bill Labor proposed, the CPRS, was its major legislative goal last year. Kevin Rudd gave a series of major speeches about it in the lead-up to the UN climate conference in Copenhagen. And the CPRS was of course one of Labor’s major triggers for a double dissolution election.

    What’s changed? It’s tempting to say, simply, “the polls”. And there’s no doubt that the electorate’s former ardour for climate action has cooled somewhat since 2007, as a time-series of Lowy Institute polls on the issue shows.

    To some degree, climate scepticism has had an impact. So too has the ceaseless campaigning by the Murdoch media, and by the active proselytisers among the conservative plurality who are viscerally opposed to climate action, seeing it as a plot by radical lefties to “de-industrialise” the world (Nick Minchin’s term, not mine).

    But the polls on climate are not really that bad for Labor. Most polls still show a majority in favour of an emissions trading scheme. In fact, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that strong action on climate change would still resonate with many parts of the electorate, including the women voters in marginal seats who will probably decide the election result.

    No, the real issue here is not the electorate. It’s Kevin Rudd’s failure of leadership. Faced with an issue which he himself painted in phrases of high principle and moral clarity, the Prime Minister has failed to screw his courage to the sticking point.

    That “sticking point” would have been a strong emissions trading scheme, one strong enough to have won the support of the Greens. Refusing to negotiate with them was a major tactical blunder.

    With a policy that embraced reasonably strong emissions reductions targets, Labor could have won Green support, isolated the Opposition and applied the screws to the cross-benches. Xenophon could have been bribed with more money for the lower Murray. As it was, history records that three Liberals voted for the ETS anyway: Malcolm Turnbull in the House plus two Liberal Senators, Sue Boyce and Judith Troeth. Those two Liberal votes, plus the Greens, would have equaled victory. It’s the great “what if” of this term of government.

    For reasons entirely to do with the vicious hatreds of sectarian politics, Labor likes to paint the Greens as dangerous extremists. In fact, experience and common sense suggests the Greens would have gladly negotiated on the ETS, given the chance. Instead, the Government tried to do a deal with Malcolm Turnbull. We all know how that tactic played out.

    Strategically, Labor’s next error was to abandon climate as an election issue. Unlike Barack Obama, who, when faced with a difficult healthcare bill and sliding opinion polls, decided to rally the troops and press on for a redoubtable victory, Rudd played safe. Climate was taken off the public agenda, to be replaced by health reform, which party strategists have decided is home turf.

    The result has been an amazing waste of political capital. Quite apart from delighting the Greens, who can now campaign as the only party serious about climate change, the backflip is a gift for a struggling Opposition. This decision plays into all of the Coalition’s talking points: that Kevin Rudd is all talk, and no action; that’s he’s ultimately a weak leader; and that the Liberal policy of waiting for the world was the right one all along. Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt looked positively jubilant as they gave their reactions yesterday. Today, they are even taunting the Government to bring on the double-dissolution.

    Labor will now struggle to win support from the left in its second term. Socially liberal, environmentally minded voters are already drifting away to the Greens, and Labor should not assume that it will always receive their second preference, as the developing strength of the Liberal Democrats in Britain all too clearly demonstrates. In time, this decision could cost Tanya Plibersek and Lindsay Tanner their seats.

    Finally, the backflip has eroded Kevin Rudd’s moral authority. It will be almost impossible for Labor to regain the high moral ground on climate. The Prime Minister has begun to look more and more like just another grubby politician, willing to break promises and compromise his principles to get elected. Labor has already abandoned its principles on refugees. Now it has caved in on climate change too.

    The way this decision leaked was telling. As Laura Tingle pointed out on Sky News last night, the announcement was badly mishandled. The Prime Minister’s performance in his doorstop press conference was terrible. He looked tired and irritable. He mumbled. It was a far cry from the confident, pleasant persona of Kevin07, or even the recent health debate with Tony Abbott.

    Paradoxically, this decision might just be good news in terms of Australia’s future climate change policies. The Greens will almost certainly control the Senate in the next Parliament, meaning Labor will have no choice but to negotiate with them on each and every bill it needs to pass. So if Labor does move an ETS bill after the election, the resulting policy will have to be stronger, featuring tougher targets than the risible reductions proposed by this CPRS.

    That is, assuming Labor wants to pass a emissions trading bill at all. Perhaps it doesn’t.

    In the meantime, Big Carbon is laughing all the way to the bank.