Terri and Bindi Irwin thank the premier, after he announced that Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve would be protected. Photo: Amy Remeikis
Premier Campbell Newman announced the reserve "will be protected for all time as a vital environmental reserve" as a "strategic environmental area".
Terri and Bindi Irwin were at parliament for the announcement. Bindi, who was unaware of why she was there, said it was "probably the greatest day of of my life".
"This is so exciting, it is completely incredible and we are totally thrilled," she said.
"The Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve was truly set aside in honour of my dad and the legacy he had, to mark all the incredible work that he achieved during his life for wildlife and conservation. It is the most pristine land on planet Earth and we are just thrilled."
Different to a national park, which is owned by the people, a strategic environmental area designation is a planning instrument and will restrict land use to the ones considered appropriate.
In the case of the Steve Irwin Reserve, the only land use which will be permitted is an environmental one.
Which means Cape Alumina's $1.2 billion bauxite mine project, previously granted significant project status by the government, is out.
"This has a very direct impact on their proposals," Mr Newman said.
"They wanted to go into this area and that won't be feasible in this location.
"There will be no mine, on this location, on this designated land, on this reserve. The government has made this call and we have advised them of that."
It also spells the end of Labor's Wild Rivers legislation, which the government promised to repeal during the election campaign.
"The vital environmental areas on the Cape are going to be protected, the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve is a prime beneficiary or example of that, there will be economic opportunities for Aboriginal communities on the Cape, which is the other thing we promised," Mr Newman said.
"We said we'd get rid of Wild Rivers because it is a fundamentally flawed way of doing business. This new approach gives greater certainty, also opportunity, as well as protecting the vital areas of environmental interest."
The Wenlock River will also be declared a Strategic Environmental Area, but the Stewart, Archer and Lockhart River basin's will not.
Deputy premier Jeff Seeney will introduce the legislation in parliament on Wednesday afternoon.
AN outbreak of diseased fish in Gladstone Harbour coincided with a toxic algal bloom that may have been fed by a leaking rock wall used to contain dredge spoils from the $33 billion Curtis Island LNG projects.
Dead fish in Gladstone Harbour. Photo: Gladstone Conservation Council
Gladstone Ports Corporation has known about the algal bloom and increased sediment from its infrastructure works for more than two years but only in recent weeks has it made the reports publicly available.
It said it still believed that heavy flooding was the primary cause of the outbreak of fish disease in 2011, as established by a scientific review.
However, the just-published 2011 report says it is "possible that harmful algal blooms may have been a possible contributing factor in the fish disease syndrome".
Veterinarian Matt Landos, who has investigated fish health in Gladstone, said the newly published material provided a convincing alternative point of view.
"Scientists can only work with the data which is provided to them," Dr Landos said.
"The full data now seriously contradicts the conclusions of the state and commonwealth that floods were to blame.
"Given the serious nature of the 'new' information that is now in the public realm, another independent review of the science around causes of Gladstone ecosystem crisis seems warranted, in addition to an inquiry into the decision-making around information control during the project."
The head of the scientific panel for the state's review, Ian Poiner, confirmed that the algae reports were not available at the time of its review into fish health and said he had not studied them in detail to determine whether they contradicted the official finding that the marine-health issues were related to flooding.
Dr Poiner is now chairman of Queensland government's Gladstone Healthy Harbour Panel.
A spokeswoman for GPC, whose dredging project is essential for the development of the Curtis Island liquefied natural gas plant, said the reports were made available to the federal government's independent review panel, which was requested by UNESCO.
The Weekend Australian revealed plans by GPC to dump 12 million cubit metres of dredge spoils into the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area have been blocked by Canberra. The spoils from the dredging of a second sea lane will now be used to reclaim land in Gladstone Harbour.
GPC has previously conceded environmental problems caused by a "leaking" bund wall designed to contain dredge spoils.
Gladstone Harbour was closed to fishing in September 2011, following reports from commercial fishermen in August that many fish were showing signs of disease. The ban was lifted but commercial fishermen continued to report high numbers of turtle, dugong and dolphin deaths.
GPC said it commissioned the special water-quality report in October 2011 after higher turbidity readings were recorded during this period, "due to extreme tidal movements, high wind conditions and the porosity of the bund wall".
The report finds "highly turbid waters were most likely created in September/October 2011 due to the addition of fine sediments derived from the overly porous bund wall and dredge-related operations".
It said organic matter comprised a large proportion of the total suspended sediments measured in October 2011, suggesting an algal bloom, particularly in the Western Basin area of the harbour. "Several potential harmful algal species were identified, which have previously been associated with fish kills."
An analysis of the algal bloom by Larelle Fabbro, from Central Queensland University, found three algal types, including Chaetoceros, had previously been associated with fish kills.
"There is scientific evidence that concentrations of Chaetoceros of more than five cells per millilitre can kill fish," Associate Professor Fabbro writes in her report. She says "concentrations of Chaetoceros were as high as 300 cells per millilitre in a sample taken on 12 October, 2011".
"The spines of this diatom spear into the gills and can result in significant damage," the report says.
"The sequence of injury is by initial penetration of the silica spines into the fish gills, capillary bleeding or the production of excessive quantities of mucus leading to death by suffocation."
Associate Professor Fabbro told The Australian it was a condition of her research that she not make any public comment.
But the 2011 report says "the finding of potentially toxic algal species was also of note in light of the fish disease syndrome which was being concurrently investigated in Port Curtis".
"A number of fish, particularly barramundi, had previously been presented in Port Curtis with lesions, rashes and excess mucous production with the syndrome being the focus of a separate independent investigation," it says. "Therefore it is possible that harmful algal blooms may have been a possible contributing factor in the fish disease syndrome."
GPC has confirmed that the water quality reports for September and October 2011 were not made publicly available until September this year.
But it said all relevant reports had been made to all government departments and relevant agencies.
It said the key finding was that research indicates an algal bloom was present in August 2011 prior to the start of dredging with the cutter-section dredge.
"Several potential harmful algal species were identified, which had been previously associated with fish kills," it said. "The algal species identified were not uncommon for the Port Curtis area, for that time of year."
It said an independent panel had concluded that, based on all data available, the most likely cause of fish health issues were flood-related.
Australia’s aquaculture industry now accounts for almost half of the nation’s fish production.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) Australian fisheries statistics 2012 annual report shows aquaculture has increased its share of fishery product earnings from 30 per cent to 46 per cent over the last decade.
Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Richard Colbeck, said most of the increase could be attributed to the fast-growing farmed fish sector.
“Farmed salmonids became the largest species group produced and increased earnings by 20 per cent in 2011-12. It remains Australia’s highest earning fisheries product at a value of $513 million.”
Senator Colbeck said the growth in the aquaculture industry vindicated the government’s plan to work with industry to develop a national aquaculture strategy.
“We want to further develop the aquaculture industry in Australia because there are huge opportunities to be had.
“The fisheries sector is vital to regional economies and the tens of thousands of people employed in the industry. Our national aquaculture strategy will create employment in regional areas and support the sector so it continues to grow into the future.”
Senator Colbeck said the report showed the total gross value of production of Australian fisheries increased three per cent to reach $2.3 billion.
Organisers say 60,000 people attended rallies across the country today calling for stronger action on climate change.
Protesters gather during the National Day of Climate Action rally in Brisbane. The rallies were held in capital cities and more than 130 towns and regional centres. Photo: Kate Donnelly, AAP
The National Day of Climate Action was organised by activist groups including GetUp, the Australian Youth Climate Coalition and the Australian Conservation Foundation.
GetUp says 30,000 people gathered for the Melbourne event while 10,000 defied the rain to rally in Sydney.
The rallies were held in capital cities and more than 130 towns and regional centres.
National director of GetUp Sam Mclean says the rallies prove Australians believe climate change is a serious issue.
"From remote country towns to the big cities, Australians have come to their own conclusions after our hottest year on record. And they want action," he said.
At the Sydney event, Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek was among the speakers.
She criticised the Coalition for not sending a senior Government representative to this week's climate talks in Warsaw.
"Was a trading emissions scheme working? Yes. Electricity from old brown sources of energy down, renewable up by 30 per cent in the first year of its operation," she told the crowd.
"Australia can't go backwards in the face of global action."
'Politicians should listen to people around the country'
At Melbourne's Treasury Place, campaigners donned board shorts, bikinis and sunscreen to highlight their cause, calling on politicians to act on climate change.
The Australian Conservation Foundation's Tony Mohr said it was time politicians started listening.
"Australians want to make sure that we continue to reduce emissions," Mr Mohr said.
"So politicians should listen to people around the country today - don't repeal the laws that we've got, and actually increase them, make them stronger, make them reduce pollution further."
The Climate Council's Tim Flannery also spoke at the Melbourne rally and called on the public to further embrace renewable energy.
"The simple truth is this, that we cannot leave a matter as important as climate change to the fickleness and whim of Australia's politicians," he said.
At the Adelaide rally in Elder Park, chief executive of the Conservation Council, Tim Kelly, said recent events did not bode well for cutting carbon emissions.
"One of the most disturbing things has been the moves to wind back the carbon price, to abandon the clean energy finance corporation, to cut funding to the Australian renewable energy agency, and getting rid of the climate change authority," Mr Kelly said.
"We're really heading in the wrong direction to tackle climate change."
More than 500 people in Darwin marched from the Rapid Creek bridge to the Nightcliff pool in support of the event.
Chanting "Aim higher, we want climate action" and holding placards that read "Climate science is not a croc", the group demanded the Federal Government change its policy on climate change.
Stuart Blanch from the Northern Territory Environment Centre says a price on carbon is the best way to address climate change.
"We think they need to listen to the many people in big business who want a carbon price," Mr Blanch said.
The campaign has been strong on social media, with hundreds of people sharing photos and videos on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Karen McNamara is reporting from the Warsaw Conference of Parties for The Conversation.
Climate impacts are at the forefront of Warsaw climate talks. Photo: Jakub Kaminski, EPA
One of the most hotly-contested issues on the agenda for the current round of climate talks in Warsaw is “loss and damage”, an attempt to compensate for impacts of climate change that we can’t mitigate or adapt against. Throughout the talks the international gathering will debate how much to contribute to funding for losses and damages, particularly for developing nations.
So far we’ve seen a number of perspectives in Warsaw. News of the unprecedented destructiveness of super typhoon Haiyan provided a sombre setting for the opening ceremony with Naderev Saño, the head of the Philippines delegation, making impassioned statements on the reality of climate inaction: “What my country is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness. The climate crisis is madness”.
Philippine delegate Naderev Saño makes a plea for climate action
Saleemul Huq, Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, argued in an interview that:
These kinds of things are beyond adaptation and the developed world needs to understand that and needs to step up. Australia, along with other Annex I [including all OECD and transitional nations] countries, have to stop trying to deny the fact that there is real loss and damage due to climate change happening and will continue to happen.
The current talks are the 19th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP). The conference has seen slow progress in enacting the objective of the Climate Change Convention to stabilise “greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.
Since the first conference meeting in 1995 in Berlin, the focus on “solving” climate change revolved around mitigation – a logical and straightforward focus to prevent climate change. Unfortunately, wrangling over mitigation commitment targets from countries has seen huge delays and under-whelming progress.
By the mid 2000s, adaptation entered the international stage. This was pushed along even further by the release of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 that made a strong case that mitigation would not prevent all climate change impacts. In recent years this shift towards managing the problem has only magnified, even if emission trajectories were to be lowered substantially.
Unfortunately, adaptation too, is only part of the collective response needed. Adaptation is not the panacea to climate change. In some places, vulnerability to climate change will not be reduced by adaptation strategies — there will be limits to such action.
In some corners of the globe, socio-ecological systems will reach tipping points and places will become uninhabitable. In other places, thresholds for maintaining sustainable livelihoods will be reached as a result of limited financial or technical support and intervention, or high levels of exposure to climate stressors and limited adaptive capacity.
Regardless of our collective actions on climate change today, there will be irreplaceable losses and acute damages.
In an attempt to address these realities, an emerging discourse around loss and damage has unfolded at the climate change talks. It was first documented in a negotiated text in 2007 at the 13th conference in Bali, and then re-appeared three years later at the 16th in Cancún with an agreement to a work programme on loss and damage.
At the 18th conference in Doha in 2012, parties agreed for institutional arrangements to address loss and damage as a result of climate change to be established at the current meeting.
Fast-forward to the current round of talks. A decision on loss and damage is expected, but the make-up of the arrangements is uncertain and will be fervently debated behind closed doors in the coming days. For developing countries, establishing an international mechanism on loss and damage is a pivotal stepping-stone.
More specifically, Munjurul Hannan Khan, the Spokesperson for the group of Least Developed Countries, stated in an interview that: “An international mechanism could actually consider insurance, compensation and rehabilitation in order to help climate vulnerable countries to address issues of loss and damage”.
These inclusions are likely to be at odds with the desires of a number of developed countries, particularly when it comes to issues of compensation and financial support for assessing and responding to loss and damage. Time will tell.
Karen Elizabeth McNamara does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
Australia’s refusal to support developing countries’ efforts under a new climate change agreement or the new UN Green Climate Fund will further undermine its claims to being a good international citizen.
Australia is preparing to step back from climate action in front of a pretty huge audience. Photo:Radek Pietruszka, EPA
According to mediareports, Cabinet has authorised negotiators at the current UN climate talks in Warsaw to affirm our target to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 5% between 2000 and 2020.
The government’s own Climate Change Authority and other expert analysis agree that the current target is inadequate. Failing to lift our domestic effort despite the moderate costs of doing so will damage Australia’s claim to be pulling its weight internationally.
But Cabinet’s reported decision that Australia “will not sign up to any new agreement that involves spending money or levying taxes” will further tarnish our citizenship credentials. It will also damage our national interests more directly.
Australia is a country with high emissions per person and one which is also vulnerable to rising temperatures. We have an obligation to support poorer and far more vulnerable countries, not least our Pacific island neighbours.
At the same time, Australia rightly wants to see a new global agreement that involves all major emitters, including developing countries in our region such as China, India and Indonesia. Committing substantial funding will be critical for getting those countries on board.
In addition, many of the low-cost opportunities to reduce emissions worldwide are located in poorer countries. Climate finance, like international emissions trading, enables wealthy countries to harness those opportunities far more cost-effectively than “direct action” at home.
This was an insight recognised by ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt. During the Howard era they boosted Australia’s efforts to help reduce emissions from deforestation in tropical countries.
Encouragingly, Hunt remains enthusiastic about tackling global deforestation. But unless his plans for a major summit on this issue are backed up with funding to support practical action in our region, they will fail to take root.
Countries will not sign a new global climate agreement till 2015 at the earliest. But reaching a widely acceptable deal will require trust between wealthy and poor countries. That trust takes time to build up but is quickly lost. For this reason, a key priority at Warsaw will be for wealthy countries to dispel growing concerns that they are backsliding on funding commitments that they have already made.
In 2009, Australia joined a collective pledge by wealthy countries to mobilise $100 billion a year in climate funding by 2020. Since coming into power, the Coalition has not formally rescinded that pledge. But it has not announced any plans for how much it will contribute following a three-year “fast-start” pledge of $599 million that ended earlier this year.
We have previously estimated that Australia’s share of the commitment will require a roughly tenfold increase on its annual fast-start finance to around $2 billion a year by 2020. Much of that increase will need to come not from public coffers but from leveraging private investment for clean technologies.
While the Labor government relied on the aid budget to meet its fast-start commitments, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop — in a rare point of common ground with the Greens — has stated that “climate change funding should not be disguised as foreign aid funding”.
But if Australia wants to avoid relying on the aid budget without reneging on its 2020 pledge altogether, it needs to be part of an internationally coordinated effort to harness new sources of funding. For this reason, Australia is painting itself into a corner by backing away from the Green Climate Fund, which aims to attract private as well as public investments.
The notion that pledges to multilateral funds simply siphon away taxpayers’ hard-earned cash to distant bureaucrats intent on creating a world government is a preposterous but regrettably common refrain. Independent analysis has found that multilateral funds are generally more cost-effective and transparent than bilateral aid programs.
Australia’s previous role in co-chairing the Green Climate Fund has helped to ensure that it will provide value for money. Now that the Coalition has taken an axe to the aid program’s ability to administer funds, it does not have the luxury of ruling out the best available alternatives for channelling climate finance.
Climate finance is not, as insinuated by the internal summary of Cabinet’s discussion, “socialism masquerading as environmentalism”. Statements such as these are just sloganeering masquerading as policy-making.
What they disguise is that a commitment to shoulder our fair share of climate finance makes sound policy sense for Australia, as well as helping countries far less fortunate than our own.
Jonathan Pickering has previously consulted for the Australian Government on climate finance through the Australian National University.
The Queensland government will deploy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on missions to more accurately drop payloads of herbicide on noxious weeds including prickly acacia, mesquite, parkinsonia and rubber vine to help halt their spread across the state.
Yamaha's RMAX UAV, to be used in tactical weed control in remote Queensland infestations. Photo: Gizmag
Commonly referred to as “drones”, the machines better known for firing lethal payloads at enemy combatants in the Middle East are now being deployed domestically because they can to cover one hectare every eight minutes in the air and can hit targets within one metre of accuracy.
The robot aircraft offer the government a distinct advantage over traditional weed control measures like crop dusting or sending in crews in land vehicles because pests can be more precisely targeted in often inaccessible areas. At the same time, non-target plants are spared, thereby reducing the amount poison needed to get a kill.
The UAVs are being used as part of the Campbell Newman government’s new Area Management Plan (AMP), which was established to not only allow for more effective weed control but to untangle rural landowners from the previous Labor government’s “mountain of red tape”.
Minister for Natural Resources and Mines Andrew Cripps claimed these landowners under Labor were “drowned in paperwork” attempting to carry out the most routine property management tasks such as weed control.
“Now they will be able to get on with the job of killing weeds to maintain the productivity of their pasture lands,” Mr Cripps said.
According to the state government, the AMP will cover shires in Western Bioregions code areas prescribed under the Vegetation Management Act 1999.
These areas will include the Mt Isa, Richmond, Cloncurry, McKinlay, Flinders, Barcaldine, Winton, Boulia, Longreach, Blackall, Tambo, Murweh, Quilpie, Diamantina, Barcoo, Bulloo and Paroo shires.
Mr Cripps said these sites have been problematic in the past because of varying topography, very high density weed infestations and the presence of native species.
To combat this vegetation menace, the government announced that community-based natural resource management body Desert Channels Queensland (DCQ) will use the drones to be operated by local aviation company PBE Services.
DCQ chief executive officer Leanne Kohler said DCQ would develop five-year property-based weed plans with property owners to ensure long term control of the target weed species.
“It is expected that 250,000 hectares per year will have reduced impacts from weed species as a direct result of work carried out by DCQ through the AMP,” Ms Kohler said.
She said reducing these weed infestations will improve the biodiversity of regional ecosystems, promote suitable conditions for growing native species and improve the water quality and habitat of waterways and wetlands.
Original story by Barry Jones, University of Melbourne at The Conversation.
There is no better example of the debasement of Australian political discourse and process than that which has surrounded action on climate change. Photo: Alan Porritt, AAP
We live in an age of unprecedented prosperity, in which the major influences have been secularism, materialism, utilitarianism, urbanisation, remoteness from nature, institutional failure (especially in churches) and an emphasis on immediate economic self-interest.
The rise and rise of managerialism has displaced community engagement in ideas and values. The impact of mass media has been profound, with its emphasis on immediacy, the cult of personality, promoting sensation, entertainment and an often vicious and destructive political agenda, in which the truth of a proposition (interest rates are always lower under the Coalition, for instance) is irrelevant. Greed, drugs, problem gambling, domestic violence, child sexual abuse, covert and overt racism all distort our moral compass.
Churches, like political parties, are losing numbers. Commitment and moral authority have been shaken by the apparent institutionalisation of child abuse, where the reaction has been to protect the institution and disregard the victim.
Some political leaders act as if all values have a dollar equivalent; that forests are essentially woodchips on stumps; and that the value of a tree is as lumber, disregarding aesthetic factors or the contribution to clean air. The current obsession is that if a project will make money for somebody – for example, grazing in national parks, oil drilling near the Great Barrier Reef, or the export of live animals (often under unspeakable conditions) – it should go ahead.
The appeal of money and growth in the gross domestic product is irresistible, with a refusal to contemplate the downside. In the case of duck shooting, state power is entirely behind the shooters, and against the ducks. The need for more cars on more freeways outweighs the values associated with Melbourne’s Royal Park.
Blessed are the aspirationals, for they shall be rewarded, whatever the cost.
Much of the mainstream media (especially the Murdoch empire), emphasises advocacy, entertainment, shock factors and reinforcing prejudice, rather than providing information or carrying out investigative reporting.
Toxicity in Canberra
Political life in Canberra has become toxic. With a breakdown in personal relationships, recourse to personal attacks, wild exaggeration and the endless repeating of slogans, the practice of debating with ideas and sentences with verbs having been abandoned.
Politics and political life in Australia may be currently broken - but how can we fix it? Photo: shutterstock
Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson’s mantra “whatever it takes” has become standard operating practice for both the ALP and the Coalition. The truth of a proposition no longer matters – in the era of retail politics, the only question is: “will it sell?”
Electability is central for the major parties (not, of course, for the Greens, which is part of their appeal for many former Labor voters). The role of the media - and the impact of the 24-hour news cycle - means that policies which need to be carefully thought-out are prepared as “announceables”, presented at a news conference by party leaders, often wearing hard hats and fluorescent vests, invariably with nodders standing behind.
Politically, elections are now won or lost by appealing to the bourgeoisie, not by marshaling the proletariat. There is more emphasis on higher levels of consumption – and, in education or health care, invoking the mantra of “choice”, rather than a bottom-up approach.
This phenomenon was even more marked in Australia than the United Kingdom. Labor was very uneasy (the Gonski schools funding reforms notwithstanding) about restricting access to private schools or private health programs, and certainly unwilling to raise income tax levels to, say, Scandinavian – or even British – levels.
In the 2013 federal election, despite widespread unhappiness with both Labor and the Coalition, around 79% cast their votes for the two major parties, sometimes with pegs on their noses. But while people retain loyalty to the major parties (for whatever reason), they have no enthusiasm about joining them.
More people are in the waiting list for the Melbourne Cricket Club than are members of all Australia’s political parties. A recent survey indicated that members of AFL clubs currently total 800,000. The Geelong Football Club has 43,000 members, exactly the same as the number claimed for the ALP.
The ALP’s primary vote in the 2013 election was 4.3 million, so its notional membership, by a neat coincidence, is exactly 1%. Because party memberships are so small – often remote from the community-at-large – power almost inevitably is seized by factional warlords. The ALP has become a transactional party, primarily concerned with dividing up the spoils of office. Even in opposition, these are significant.
Factionalisation essentially represents the privatisation of the party. Factions, no longer primarily ideological, are essentially executive placement agencies. Loyalty to the faction is primary, and it is rewarded, in the end, by delivery. Faction members will maintain allegiance so long as rewards are delivered.
What issues draw people to join political parties now?
In the Whitlam and post-Whitlam era, people were drawn to political activism because of specific policies that they were desperate to change. These included abolishing the death penalty, getting out of Vietnam, ending conscription, establishing Australia’s national identity (including constitutional reform and the republic), ending the white Australia policy, entrenching rights for Aborigines and promoting affirmative action, preserving the environment, universal secondary education – and more universities.
It was in the Whitlam era that many in Australia were first drawn to politics. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
So, do people get involved in politics because of refugees and asylum seekers? I don’t think so. Both major parties are locked into a cycle of dehumanisation and repression.
Climate change? The Coalition is beyond belief and Labor’s actions, while crazy brave in a way, have never been fully understood and were woefully explained.
Same-sex marriage? Both parties are divided.
The republic? The 1999 referendum was defeated by an odd combination of monarchists, people who were indifferent and direct-election republicans. After that, the issue died of anaemia. Our new prime minister is a passionate monarchist. Patriarchy is back in force.
Climate change and collateral damage
Climate change is a powerful demonstration of how Australia’s political process has gone wrong.
The debate about the impact of human activity on climate change has been conducted at an abysmal level. The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government comprehensively lost it by getting the politics wrong, failing to understand the fatal conjunction of inertia, self interest, corporate power and media saturation.
The relentless negativity (and simplicity) of the Coalition assertions – strongly supported by the Murdoch newspapers and shockjocks on talkback radio – attacking the pricing of carbon ignores or derides the science and appeals to immediate economic self-interest. In the News Corp’s Herald Sun tabloid, 97% of comment articles were hostile to – or sceptical of – climate science.
Dithering over action on climate change helped to end Kevin Rudd’s first stint as prime minister. Photo: Lukas Coch, AAP
With climate change, it proved to be easier to sell the message during a period of prolonged drought. Breaking the drought in 2008 proved to be a political disaster for Kevin Rudd in his first incarnation as prime minister.
Rudd promised too much. Then, depressed by failure at the Copenhagen climate change summit and strong opposition in the “Gang of Four” from Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan about doing anything, failed to call a double dissolution on the issue, which he would probably have won. Turnbull’s loss of the Liberal leadership then destroyed the (vain) hope of a bipartisan political solution on climate change.
The science of climate change was not in Gillard’s repertoire (or, as we say these days, “in her DNA”), and her explanations were awkward. This contributed to the impression that she had only reluctantly supported putting a price on carbon use because of pressure from the Greens and independent MPs Andrew Wilkie, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott: that it was the price she had to pay to remain as prime minister.
To make it worse, it was asserted that pricing carbon meant adopting a policy which she had specifically rejected during the campaign. This was a policy position she would have maintained, I suspect, if she had won the election narrowly in her own right.
Gillard could have justified her policy change by saying:
Further close examination of the evidence has persuaded me that it would be against both the national and the global interest to maintain my earlier position and I am convinced that Australia should set an example.
Sadly, she failed to do this. Her policy shift was central to what was denounced as a policy “u-turn” and became a war of attrition, marked by a long sequence of appalling personal attacks.
During the 2013 election, climate change was essentially a background noise, never specifically addressed by name, let alone analysed. The discourse, such as it was, had been appalling - mendacious on the Coalition side; feeble on Labor’s side. Sustainability was also a word that dropped from the political lexicon.
Redefining politics
We must redefine politics and grasp its importance, not just at election times. Here is my attempt, rather long-winded but I think it captures the essence:
Politics is the fault line between tectonic plates in society. The electoral struggle is an expression of – or a metaphor for – unresolved, often unspoken, divisions within society, including race, class, gender, religion, region, language, education, sexuality, consumption patterns and time use, self-definition and the expression of individual differences or aspirations (both positive and negative), offering a choice between different moral universes.
This is the underside of politics. We see only the tip of the iceberg. Journalist Mungo MacCallum commented:
Politics is the most important invention of the human race, because it is the only way we can resolve our disputes without killing each other. How well we make it work is, in the end, down to us.
The victory of Cathy McGowan in the federal seat of Indi was an encouraging indication of how intense political involvement at a local level can beat a major party. It’s fair to point out that the retirement of Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott led to overwhelming victories for Coalition nominees, and that in Indi the community forces targeted a dream opponent.
The victory of independent Cathy McGowan in the rural Victorian seat of Indi could offer hope for a ‘new politics’ to emerge. Photo: Alan Porritt, AAP
Given the level of professional expertise in Australia, it is a matter for concern - bewilderment even - that the range of issues in the 2013 election was so limited, and discussed at such a banal level. Australia has 39 universities and more than four million graduates. What impact did they have in shaping the campaign? None, that I could observe. The words “universities” and “research” were never uttered in the campaign.
Oddly, there was some discussion about apprenticeships, which total about 450,000. This may reflect the preoccupation by focus groups with the western suburbs of Sydney.
It is amazing that the climate change debate has been so badly informed because large numbers of Australians are skilled observers in relevant areas. There is still some confusion between “climate” and “weather”, but farmers are acute observers of changes in the seasons. Gardeners – millions of them – can report that flowers are blooming earlier in the season. Birdwatchers keep detailed records. So do bush walkers. There was no attempt to enlist them in an information campaign, nor did they volunteer.
Tackling complex problems demands complex solutions (notably refugees and climate change), which cannot be reduced to parroting a few simple slogans (“turn back the boats”, “stop this toxic tax”). “Retail politics”“, sometimes called "transactional politics” - where policies are adopted not because they are right but because they can be sold - is a dangerous development and should be rejected.
We must maintain confidence that major problems can be addressed – and act accordingly. This involves reviving the process of dialogue: “explain!, explain!, explain!”, rejecting mere sloganeering and populism. Whitlam often drove his colleagues mad because he could not stop explaining. We need evidence-based policies but often evidence lacks the psychological carrying power generated by appeals to prejudice or fear of disadvantage.
Most of all, we need a higher level of citizen involvement in the whole process of public debate, not leaving it all to the professionals.
This piece is based on the speech “A values deficit, toxic politics, and the climate change debacle”, delivered by Barry Jones at the Geelong Interchurch Social Justice Network on October 30.
NOTE: This piece was amended on November 11 to read that “97% of comment articles were hostile to – or sceptical of – climate science” to more accurately reflect the author’s intentions.
Barry Jones is a member of the Australian Labor Party, was Minister for Science in the Hawke Labor government (1983-1990), and was a former National President of the ALP (1992-2000; 2005-06).
Fishers are being reminded that barramundi will be off limits in the Gulf of Carpentaria from noon 7 October 2013 until noon 1 February 2014.
Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol district officer Owen Witt said the closure was in place to protect barramundi stock during their vulnerable spawning season.
"Barramundi typically aggregate in one area to spawn, making them more vulnerable to predators and fishing pressure,” he said.
“Closed seasons allow stocks to replenish to ensure there are healthy fish stores for current and future generations of Queensland anglers,” he said.
A barramundi closure will also apply in East Coast waters from midday 1 November 2013 to midday 1 February 2014.
For more information on closed seasons for fishing in Queensland, visit www.fisheries.qld.gov.auor call 13 25 23.
Follow Fisheries Queensland on Facebook and Twitter (@FisheriesQld).
IN the next few months the Queensland government will release for comment a new regional plan for Cape York. It is the intent of the Newman government that this plan will remove a raft of conservation protections provided by existing "wild river" declarations and will open up large areas of Cape York to mining and development.
Public comments about Queensland's wild rivers at the Wilderness Society.
If successful, the revocation of the declarations will be a win for vocal opponents of wild river protection, including the mining industry and Noel Pearson. But will it be a Pyrrhic victory, particularly for Pearson?
Proposals to protect wild rivers were first put by the Beattie government in 2004, with legislation passed unanimously by the Queensland parliament in 2005. Wild river declarations are in place on rivers on Cape York, in the Gulf Country and in the Channel Country.
The rivers protected under the act are some of the last truly healthy river systems left. A study in Nature in 2010 found that about 65 per cent of the world's river systems are "highly threatened" from over-development and that global efforts to reduce and manage these threats are limited. The magnificent Wenlock River on Cape York, protected under the act, but again threatened by strip mining for bauxite, is home to more species of freshwater fish (48) than any other river system in Australia.
Under a declaration, conservation occurs through the regulation of a small number of highly destructive developments by ensuring a setback away from waterways and wetlands (the "high preservation area"). The protection of river systems this way is a departure from more conventional approaches to conservation that rely on the creation of a small number of strictly protected national parks and nature reserves to protect a "sample" of nature.
The wild rivers approach protects those areas that are sensitive to the most damaging developments such as dams and mines, and supports a vast range of development opportunities outside those sensitive areas including mining, pastoralism, aquaculture and agriculture. In the case of the Wenlock, 80 per cent of the catchment remains available for the full range of development purposes while the most sensitive wetlands, springs and waterways are protected.
This is precisely the sort of conservation approach, which protects values and encourages multiple use of the landscape, that has been promoted by critics of the environmental movement who accuse us of trying to "lock up" the entire landscape. This is why the protection of wild rivers in the Channel Country and the Gulf Country has been uncontroversial.
The same cannot be said for the rivers of Cape York. It is on the Cape that debate has raged fiercely, with traditional owners divided between pro and anti-wild river camps.
Yet even the most passionate opponents of the wild river declarations support the protection of the Cape rivers. Interviewed in 2008, Pearson said: "And when it comes to the protection of rivers, there's absolutely no disagreement on our part that those rivers should remain in the way they've been managed by Aboriginal people for thousands of years and for the past 200 years."
Even Queensland Environment Minister Andrew Powell, who ultimately may be responsible for stripping away river protection, said in September last year that the government was committed to the protection of pristine waterways.
The issue is not the protection of these rivers. Rather, it is the way in which the rivers are protected and the process in which traditional owners decide what happens on homelands.
In 2009, the federal government became a signatory to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples following years of opposition by the Howard government. Enshrined within UNDRIP is the concept of free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples in respect to all decisions that affect their communities and rights and interests.
In March 2011, Pearson cited the failure of the wild river process to obtain consent from traditional owners consistent with UNDRIP as a chief reason for opposing the protection of rivers on Cape York.
In November 2010, Tony Abbott said that the motivation for his failed bid to introduce a private member's bill to overturn wild rivers protection was to ensure the "absolute necessity of consent by Aboriginal people for a Queensland wild rivers declaration to apply over their land".
Of course consent as defined under the UNDRIP is not just the right to say yes or no to conservation measures. Article 32 clearly states that signatory states should obtain "free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilisation or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources".
A transparent consent process that empowers communities to truly decide the future of their homelands would be embraced by most Australians. Now that Abbott has the ability to put his words into action, and now that Pearson has friends in high places in the Queensland government, the opportunity to deliver a true consent-based process is in their hands.
To achieve this, The Wilderness Society would support further review and reform of the Wild Rivers Act 2005 at state level and reform of the Native Title Act 1993 at commonwealth level to fully embrace the concept of free, prior and informed consent for conservation and development.
This principle would apply across the board: to mining, agriculture and other development as well as environmental protection.
The alternative, to which the Queensland and federal governments appear committed, is to strip back environmental protections, fast-track development proposals and turn their backs on their previous lofty works of support for the principle of consent by traditional owners. That certainly seems a long way from the halcyon days of 2010.
Lyndon Schneiders is the national director of The Wilderness Society.
