In this episode we discuss:

The Carbon Club by Marian Wilkinson

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We need to talk about ideas, good ones and bad ones.

We need to learn stuff about the world.

We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking and entertaining

review of what the hell happened on this planet in the last seven days.

We need to sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Well, we get the Iron Fist this time.

No Velvet.

Glove.

You get Cho the tech guy.

How are you Joe?

I'm good.

And we've got Paul, the Canberra guy.

Paul from Canberra, greet from Country.

There we go.

So some of you'll be familiar with Paul already, who's grilled

me over Indigenous matters.

And tonight he's gonna apparently grill me over the book that we are

doing as a review, which is The Carbon Club by Maryanne Wilkinson.

So, so that's on the agenda for tonight.

Something a bit different.

I'm actually looking forward to seeing how this goes.

And I think, Paul, you are keen not to just have me rabbit on about

things, but rather chewing and froing and a a dialogue rather than

a monologue, which is a good thing.

So what, what's your plans for what we gonna do?

Well, yeah, what's your plans here?

What, how do you wanna approach this book, review, book club,

whatever we're doing here.

Well let me, let me ask you why that was on your book, your bookshelf or

sort of to read list on the first place.

A friend of mine, I was at a, funny enough, I go to dinner parties

and it was at a dinner party.

We're talking about stuff and he is, has worked in the environmental

area and in the reef and stuff.

He's recently retired but still does consulting work and.

, we just talked about stuff and he said, oh, if you wanna know

everything about Australia in terms of climate change and government

policy, then read the Carbon Club.

And so that's how I ended up getting it, was because of a

recommendation from somebody deep in the industry who recommended it.

Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and I guess I can see that, you know, people, especially sort of people in the

political side, reading that book and just seeing all of the, sort of the backroom

stuff that was going on, you know, why did, why did Tony Abbott suddenly do this?

Why did Corey Bernardi suddenly appear with this, you know,

host, that sort of stuff?

Yeah.

So my friend is a scientist, so he was looking at it from a scientist just.

. And the book demonstrates how the ugly sausage is made, I guess, and yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

. Mm-hmm.

. Curiously sorry, I just have to throw it a side note here.

Because my partner so my partner works at the Museum of Australian

Democracy, that old Parliament house.

Right.

And if you're, if you're, if you're ever down you know, drop in and, and say hi,

and we might I'm sure we can arrange a vaccines back of, back of the house tour.

But she was reading Judith Brett's book from the secret ballot

to Democracy Sausage, right?

Which is a history of how Australian democracy came to be.

And she was reading, she was, she was reading this because , two

chefs on SBS were interviewing her about democracy sausages.

Oh, okay.

Because that's a, because it's a cooking show and apparently that's like, yeah.

Collecting the sausage on election day is Yes.

So democracy, sausage.

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and that, that prompted her to then buy a book titled in Part Democracy

Sausage, which looks at the Oh, yeah.

But she works at the Democracy Museum, you said?

Yes.

So, okay.

So she'd have a keen interest anyway, when would've thought, yes.

She knows most of the, you know, at least the history and the people and

so forth that went into it, so, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's need to know.

We, on my, that's definitely on my reading list next, because I just

read the first like three pages and it was really interesting.

Mm-hmm.

Well, let's return back to this book.

So before we do, before we get into the meat of it a bit, I have to say

Just reading a book as opposed to reading articles is really valuable.

Dear listener.

I have to admit, like I've read quite a lot of books in the last

seven years, over a hundred of 'em, and just in the last month or two

I've probably got outta the habit.

Yeah, probably post Christmas.

Really?

And because of this book review, I was forced to, geez, I better finish

this book and , I'm gonna talk about it, which forced me to knuckle down.

But you know what, as soon as I finished it, I was like, okay,

I'm ready for my next book now.

And it's like a lot of things, I think painting is the same in terms

of like artistic painting where you just gotta do it and get into the

bit of the groove and you keep going.

And so if dear listener, you haven't read a book for a long time and you've

just been reading articles they're like fast food fairy floss, and.

A good book is just a good solid three course meal, and it's so much more in it.

So yeah, if you're out of the habit of reading a book, try and force

yourself through some mental trick of some sort to get back into it, because

I think it is a very valuable thing to, yeah, to read a book as such.

Mm-hmm.

. And, and I would also say the, you know, the, the way the chapters are laid out

and the way I thought, the way that, you know, the topics were introduced and the

people were introduced made it f like sort of, you could read a chapter and feel

like you'd read an article and then you'd pick up the next chapter and go, okay,

well now for the next three years, or, you know, now for a different take on that.

So I was in interested, like, it's interesting that your, you found it More

of a hard slog than reading an article.

Yeah, it, it, it did take me a while to get into it because look, it is really a

lot of facts of history running from John Howard through to Morrison of, of why

the government and the opposition took the stances they did, and the policies

they did and who were the players.

And it really is a lot of names and a lot of people and a, and a timeline

of, of people coming in and out.

It's, there wasn't a lot of analysis of it, I guess.

It was a case where you read all this and draw your own conclusions from it.

And the stuff I've been reading usually has more of the author.

Input of an opinion.

Opinion.

Yeah.

And this was kind of really devoid of opinion.

It was, here's the facts of what's happened and transpired and you'll

draw your own conclusions from it.

And so it was a bit different to what I would normally read in that sense, where

people are trying to explain concepts more so than just running through history.

And even the, the history books I read tend to try and put things in

context and explain stuff a bit more.

This was just a, a rundown, you know, at the end of the day, I'm not gonna say I

would recommend this book to many people.

I'd have to say . Yeah, because I was, I was gonna ask, did you find

it just depressing to get through?

Oh, it just brought up people like Howard and Abbott and Morrison, Corey Bernardi.

Yeah.

People that we've been able to just.

Discard and not have to deal with.

And it's, yeah, it was good to go.

Oh, that's right.

Not an asshole.

Right.

. So it, it wasn't, yeah, It was a little bit depressing, but a little bit, and

still fascinating the, the way things go.

So, so let's, well, dear listener.

Yeah.

It's, it, it starts with basically Howard in the Kyoto agreement and what Australia

proposed to agree to and why, and then running through the different leaders of

Kevin Rad, Julia Gillard, Rudd, again, Abbott, Turnbull Morrison, and just, and

just how personalities and also lobby groups and relationships factored in,

into into changing our, our position.

So, well, it was also Brinksmanship and a lot of the early stuff.

What do you mean by brinksmanship?

So, so we've got an agreement and then Yeah.

Everyone's ready to go in the next day and Australia goes, oh,

actually we didn't mean that.

Just, just the last minute.

Oh, we, we need this much more to get it across the line and all the

other countries going, what the fuck?

Australia.

All right, then just, just, yeah, you are inconsequential.

Just have it, yeah.

Yes.

You wanna, should we start there?

Should we start with Kyoto?

Is that because that's where we're sort of Yeah, that's the beginning, isn't it?

And it sets up really the rest of what happened because of the favors that

Australia sort of got in that agreement.

So, so sort of just briefly a ti allow me one tiny monologue

or No, no, go right ahead.

. Just to set things up, it's just, we are in 1997 and Howard's in

charge and we've got you know, world leaders getting together in Kyoto.

With the, with, you know, trying to strike a deal where everybody will at least make

some commitments that we'll all agree to in order to reduce carbon emissions.

And a lot of this stuff is, well, we'll only agree to X amount if we know that

also the US and China and India are also gonna agree to these amounts.

So people wouldn't just simply say, oh, no matter what happens,

we'll reduce our emissions by 20%.

Often was couched in, well, we'll agree to this amount, but of course if everybody

else agrees to a larger amount, then we'll consider agreeing to that larger amount.

So, it's not fair.

Yeah, we don't wanna be left out and no.

Well, and no one there was this real, especially with Australia, I

feel there was this real view that, you know, we, but we can't be left.

Worst off.

Yes.

Yeah.

We, we can't be made, no one should be made to suffer for, you

know, to decide to reduce carbon emissions or something like that.

Yeah.

So, so Kyoto was kind of the first where, where the countries got together.

And when you look at the final agreement, most of the developed countries,

the more wealthy countries agreed to reduce their emissions by around

about 5% or 6% or something like that.

That was a typical amount to reduce their emissions.

So, this was from their 1990 levels.

By 2012, they would limit their emissions.

So that was a typical sort of, and each country is a little bit different, but

Australia, Australia struck a deal that was extraordinarily generous to Australia,

and it was a case of John Howard being, Quite obstinate about this and because he

wasn't, he didn't call himself a climate change denier, but he certainly seemed

to be skeptical to at some level and certainly just unwilling for Australia

to, to pay any sort of economic price.

So he didn't see it as the threat that other people did, or if he

did, he, we didn't want Australia to pay sort of pay a share.

He wonder how many of these religious types quite, yeah, except the

science, but Jesus is coming back any day, so it doesn't matter.

I'm not even sure if that matters to some people because like, it's

not like the rapture needs to come.

It's just that when I go, when I die, I'm going to go to heaven

and then everything will be good.

Yeah, I'm sure Scott Morrison would think that way.

I don't know that.

That John Howard was, was on the rapture sort of thinking when it comes

to, I feel like Kevin Rogers more of a, a Christian than John Howard was.

Yeah.

In, in practice.

So anyway, the way the deal worked was that Australia instead of decreasing

our emissions from 1990 to 2012 by say 5%, we struck an agreement where we

were allowed to increase them by 8%.

Yeah.

And we were able to take into account in the 1990 levels that we

had done a, a massive amount of land clearing, which of course had emitted

a massive amount of carbon in 1990.

And so, . And in the few years following that, because Kyoto is in 97, so between

1990 and 97, we actually hadn't done much land clearing because of drought

and rain and, and other factors that sort of prevented us from land clearing.

So, so we had this huge 1990 carbon emission that overstated what

our emissions were at that time.

And then we had a natural period where we weren't doing land clearing.

So we, we, we had this twofold advantage.

We were allowed an 8% increase where everyone else is decreasing by 5%.

And we were allowed this land clearing bonus, which meant it was just dead

easy for us to agree to a target in 2012 of only an 8% increase.

And this was sort of thrown on at the last minute as Joe was indicating.

at the conference, and, and by the time people woke up to what Australia was

doing, they were sort of a bit outraged.

But America helped shuffle through that because we had helped

America in the negotiations.

So there was a bit of mutual back scratching there.

It seemed that Australia had had assisted the USA and, and that the deal making

George Bush senior, no, no, junior.

Junior.

Yeah.

97 would've been, no sorry.

Yeah.

No, that was George Bush Jr.

Yeah.

George W.

Bush.

Yeah.

W was at least there for 2001.

Yeah.

2012 though was Julia Gillard and Barack Obama.

Yes.

So, yeah, so relationships through this have a lot to do with it.

. So yeah, so John Howard with his wanting to basically just cozy up to America

all the time you know, it comes through in, in the book that part of the reason

of why he did things was because of, of the relationship with the usa.

So you interrupt with a, with a question at any point or head of

in direction you wanna go to Paul.

So, this, this is, this is all good sort of background material.

I think this Yeah.

Good to set the scene for, for the listeners.

Yeah.

Sets the scene that we, we kick off with an incredibly generous, easy target, which

is why you would've heard someone like Scott Morrison saying, oh, we're gonna

meet our targets in, in a canto, right?

Because they were ridiculous.

A deal that nobody else got, which yeah.

So that's, and and I really wondered at that point what other sort of

opportunities or diplomatic problems we might have had, because basically

we stepped on the rest of the world's toes by going through Kyoto that way.

Mm-hmm.

, you know, it, it's, it's obviously done it, it obviously did a huge

amount of damage in the, the Pacific with the Pacific Islands.

The not even, you know, Dutton and Angus Taylor and Morrison joking about,

you know, the, them, you know, being underwater, the water, at least they don't

have water lapping on their doorstep.

Yeah.

Just was just sort of the icing on the cake from what I can see.

And then they wonder why, why these countries are willing to listen to China.

But, you know, that's another matter.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, but in my, in my notes here, so in Kyoto, they, they're basically all agree,

yeah, okay, there's what we're gonna do, but they then have to go back to their

countries and pass legislation and get it through their different parliaments.

So just reaching an agreement at Kyoto is one thing, but then getting it

through their parliaments is another.

So, what I have here in my notes is that in 2001 George Bush.

So it's be junior, George W.

Bush, I guess.

Mm-hmm.

. He says that the USA is gonna pull out of Kyoto and in order to not

look bad, George Bush needs an ally.

And who's the ally who's gonna help?

He's the ally little.

It's John Howard and John Howard.

I thought Johnny Howard makes a captain call and says, yeah, well

we won't ratify Kyoto either.

Did he actually public call it a captain's call at the time?

Do you, do you remember?

He didn't.

But the public servant who's been largely interviewed in this book,

I think his name is David Kemp.

No, not David Kemp.

No, no.

He was the he was the new minister.

There's a, there's a Beal I think was the Roger Beal I think was the, the public

servant who's obviously been interviewed a lot and was heavily involved.

And he basically said, he said, you know, that's a decision that

that didn't go through cabinet to decide not to ratify Kyoto.

There was no process.

It was just John Howard just said, oh, well we're not gonna do it either.

Yeah.

And just announced it.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

So this is the sort of where personalities and friendships and just

have an enormous effect on, on policy.

Hmm.

I mean, what sort of democracy are we in when just one man makes these

captains calls on such a vital thing?

And well, also that's how it worked.

And also one of the big things that I see in the background of like, yeah,

that, that I think the carbon Club really reveals is Hugh Morgan and, and his role

in basically bankrolling and making sure that other people bankrolled the whole.

Climate denialism, climate skepticism, you know, the I p A, you know,

all these people coming over.

Did you, did you even know about Hugh Morgan before you read this?

Yeah, I'd read it in sacred De Secular.

He turns up a lot in that book as a Okay.

As a player in religious stuff as well.

, right?

Yeah.

So is he quite a religious man?

He certainly was backing a lot of non-sec stuff at the time, so, okay.

So he's a very conservative Yeah.

Figure by the, by my reading then.

Yeah, exactly.

So, yeah, so Hugh Morgan and his sort of speechwriter mate, Ray Evans

basically they're, they're outrage cuz he's, he's head of some mining company.

I forget what the name of it was.

And, and obviously yeah, against any sort of Emissions trading scheme.

So they decide that they're going to work as hard as they can

behind the scenes to, to, to get something like Kyoto not ratified.

By the way, I guess the reason why Howard could make the captain's

call was he knew that his government was full of people who didn't like

the idea of Kyoto and that mm-hmm.

his cabinet with it anyway.

Yeah.

They weren't gonna be kicking up too much of a stink.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I guess he was just also a good point.

Yeah.

He was just doing what he, what his cabinet probably would've done

and saved the embarrassment of having to, to go through a process

of, of justifying the decision.

He just, he just did it as a mate of US president.

Because, cuz I, the other thing that I see from the Howard

years is I, it feels to me like.

Like one of the things that the liberal party often said at the time is, oh,

you know, the Austral, the Labor Party is full of factions and all that sort

of stuff and, and you know, we are a broad church, but we all agree.

And I actually wonder how much of that was John Howard Abs.

You're basically having the Iron Fist behind, behind the scenes

with really rigorous discipline on who was speaking, who was speaking

out, who was allowed to say what.

And like, you know, you could have some free reign, but you, none of

those people ever crossed John Howard.

Well, they'd got rid of the wets by that stage.

They had the wets and the dries, and by the time John Howard took the reins, it

didn't take long for basically them to drive out the so-called wets who were.

, you sort of the moderates.

Yeah, yeah.

Moderate liberals.

The sort of people who would be a teal candidate today

is, is what was driven out.

So the, the sort of parliament took on, or the party took on the mold

that, that Howard was wanting there.

So guys, like Peacock, for example, was a wet and Yeah, anybody who was a

supporter of Peacock and when he fell over, then, you know, they'd all been

identified as such how I knew her all they were, and yeah, in that battle.

So he was able just to identify him and, and drive them out and Okay.

They just didn't hang around anymore.

So your, your take on that is, is is more that Howard just knew

he had, like, everyone agreed.

They were all in agreement.

It wasn't, you know what, mostly coercion.

Well, mostly in agreement.

And you know what, it's, it's the ones who were the skeptics.

Bit like, and they turn out to be all the Christians as well, don't they?

In a sense, funnily enough.

Yeah.

And these, I, I I object to the word skeptic.

I think denier is the correct term.

Yeah.

skeptics suggests they change their mind, shown evidence, true deniers.

But these people are the ones who are so rabid, vicious in their politics

that they will sink the ship they're on rather than give an inch, whereas

the others are kind of more reasonable.

What deal can we cut here or whatever yet when it comes to say, freedom of

religion stuff or when it comes to climate policy, these other people will

die on these hills and they'll take everybody down with them if they have to.

And so, so while there might have been factions and, and certainly

Turnbull probably had some supporters, they're never as loud or as vocal and

as vicious and just as, as, as Yeah.

As, as what these other guys are, they, they are, their power is, is

in disproportion to their numbers.

So noisy I think is part of it.

So yeah, probably factions there still, but different commitment because I,

because I think now one of the things is, certainly one of the things we saw

in, you know, the, the Morrison era in my, in my take was the, that the

liberal party just started splintering.

You know, you had the, you had the rabid religious people, you had the.

The people who were, you know, quite happily you know, capitalist but

weren't particularly religious and, you know, all these cracks started

appearing where you know, Dave Sharma is trying to keep Wentworth and he's

being undermined by other people who are trying to stir up anti-gay sentiment,

sorry, anti anti-Jewish sentiment.

Which was just, you know, to watch, watch people actively undermining people

in their own party was just unreal.

So, yeah.

So I'm just really sort of fascinated by how I feel like this really gives

us that view into a very determined, well organized group of people.

Yeah, certainly the, the book certainly identifies who the players were, who

were the deniers and what they did.

other than, and in the liberal party, the US influence, yes.

Yeah.

But, but, but within the Liberal National Party, it doesn't really deny,

it doesn't really shine a light on many players who are actively pro Kyoto and

pro doing something other than Turnbull, you know, name me one that comes to

mind from the liberal nationals, who was a Turnbull supporter in all this.

You know, I can't, who was backing them up?

I can't think of any, and I can't remember the names very well.

And I borrowed it from the library, so I don't actually have it here.

It's, I can't refer to it.

But there was the environment minister either under Howard or under, okay.

There was Robert Hill.

Robert Hill was initially under.

Howard and he got replaced by David Kemp.

And, and so Robert Hill was kind of middle of the road type.

Yeah.

Kemp was a denying skeptic.

So I dunno, I, I didn't find too many names that I could think

of that were working assiduously or anywhere near as hard as what

the deniers were working Yeah.

In, in the opposite way.

It just seemed to be Turnbull on his own with a few quiet supporters

who, who'd never really lifted the heads above the parapet that much.

Yeah.

Did you, do you feel like to Turnbull underestimated Tony Abbott then?

Oh, I dunno.

I mean, I, oh, Let's just, well, let's just make it a progression to get to

Tony, to Turnbull then a little bit.

Okay.

So we just, we just sort of give a little bit more of a timeline where we've set up.

Just interesting.

So while while Howard said we are not going to ratify Kyoto, he did

say, but we we're going to aim to meet our Kyoto target anyway, even

though it won't be a binding thing.

Yeah.

We won't have it in legislation, but Yeah.

But we're just gonna, why not?

We're just, we're just gonna do it anyway, so.

Yeah.

And what, as long as it doesn't get in the way of making money.

Yes, exactly.

But the problem was there is a sense in the community of people

wanting things to be done.

So Howard is finding himself in a position where an Abbott.

As well found himself in this position as well, where okay.

Their cabinet was quite happy with their decision.

It would be becoming increasingly apparent that the rest of the community

wasn't, which was causing a, an issue at, at the, in the popularity polls.

Hmm.

And it was interesting also throughout the book, they took about, while Hugh

Morgan and various other ones in the business council were, you know, climate

deniers, there was a real split in the business community because some of the

leaders from BP and from, well, BHP B.

Can't Yeah.

Different leaders of some of the other companies were saying, well, hang

on a minute, this is a real thing.

We've gotta do something about it.

And Hmm, yeah.

I mean, I think in the us I, one of the oil companies, their internal

scientists had basically said back in the seventies, Hey guys, this is a problem.

We need to do something about it.

and then they spent the next 20 years, 30 years denying the science

and their own internal people had said, we've gotta get outta this.

Yeah.

And and from what I can hear, yeah, they've been trying to move to green

energy in the background and, and fobbing off their carbon heavy to other people.

So they've been talking it up whilst trying to sell it off.

Hey Joe, you might need to turn on your air conditioning or shut down

another app or two cuz you froze a little bit just during all that.

So yeah.

So just give your computer a rest Right.

In some way.

But I, I also, we, we had to backtrack, you're mentioning Hugh Morgan and and

their activities with lobbying and stuff.

And they intentionally used the USA tactics.

And the USA tactics were to find scientists that were seemingly

well credentialed who were climate change deniers and to.

Give those people opportunities to speak and, and whatnot, and to cast

doubt in people's mind as to whether this was a con by this, by the

community, this climate change thing.

So that was, yeah.

At the very least tactic at, at the very least to pretend that there

is, you know, it's not settled.

Mm-hmm.

. Correct.

And, and this is something I wish I could find it, but I, I saw many,

many years ago, a brilliant the denialists deck of playing cards.

And it goes through all of the strategies that the tobacco industry used to prevent

any progress on banning smoking from, you know, just denying the science to

finding alternate, you know, , scientists withheld alternate views to funding

research that suited them to actually just attacking the scientists, literally

going after them and dragging their names through the, you know, through the papers

and, and hounding them and, you know, threatening, threatening them physically.

You, there's a book on a documentary, all of these valid tactics, merchants

of Doubt by Naomi Esque and Eric Conway.

And it's all about the players in the denial of tobacco causing cancer.

Hmm.

And how a lot of these major players were rolled out again to deny climate change.

Mm.

It's the same people and they said yes.

They're one, one of the key ones was I think nasa Second

World War was a physicist.

and, and basically he was very anti-communist.

And anything that was the government interfering with people's personal

liberty was communism and, and therefore shouldn't be allowed.

Yeah.

And, and it was, it was very much the, the politics of the person was

leading their attitude to the science.

They're libertarian ideology basically.

Yeah.

And we've seeing that all again with vaccines, aren't we?

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah, well, credentialed people.

I don't know.

Not so much like these guys are obviously paid by Hugh Morgan and others.

You could see why from a financial point of view, they would be tempted.

Although, although they were already in that camp.

Absolutely.

It's already crazy.

I don't think these people are selling their souls for money.

I think they honestly believe it.

Yeah, and it's, well, I, where I, I think there's a midpoint between those

two, which is that you might have some doubts and if someone comes along

with the equivalent of 10, a 10 year ARC research grant to confirm your

doubts and to conveniently go and, you know, get jetted around and give all

these lovely talks and all that sort of stuff, then it's really easy to

confirm what you already want to see.

Mm-hmm.

. Yep.

And you end up hanging around with all these people all the time and you're

in a little bubble, then it becomes very self confirming as to you're all

on the same page cuz you're, you're in the same green rooms together.

Go to conferences and talk and whatnot, so, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Actually I'll just read a little bit what an emissions trading scheme

is, or often called a cap and trade and put simply works like this, the

government sets a target or a cap on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions.

It allows a company covered by the scheme to emit and then issues them with only

enough permits to meet this target.

And companies include, in the scheme, must either buy permits or get free

ones issued by the government to cover their emissions each year.

That's the sort of rough idea of a, and that seems to be what the

current government has decided to do, where they've named a bunch of

industries and given them a target.

So, we'll get onto that.

But where was I here?

Just again, on the timeline, we get up to.

2007 and Howard appoints Malcolm Turnbull as environment minister

probably for the optics, I think in trying to say to the public, oh look,

we are trying to do something about it.

Yes.

Because look, we've got Malcolm here and he clearly cares about the environment.

And so he is a successful businessman.

Yes.

So, and Howard at that time, just before the election agrees to an

emissions trading scheme, but Kevin Rudd sort of matched everything that

Howard was then offering, and Rudd was saying, we'll sign Kyoto as well.

And so, so yeah, we get to basically Rudd defeats Howard,

and on the first day that he's.

Elected in charge.

He ratifies Kyoto.

So, yep.

That's where we're at in the timeline of, of, of Kyoto.

It's done and dusted, kind of, finally ratified when Rudd's there.

So really interesting to see the parallel between Rod in 2007 mm.

Promising everything that liberals would promise and saying, we are gonna do,

we're gonna fix the thing you care about.

And then as soon as he comes in doing the, you know, the, the thing that he really

wanted to get done, and Albanese basically doing exactly the same thing in 2020.

And what was that, that Albanese did?

First thing he did was a combination of every time that Morrison would

promise you know, tax relief or a Oh, I see, you know, a concession

or, you know, something like that.

Rud, sorry.

Albanese would just say, yep, we'll do that.

True.

Yes.

I see what you're saying.

Yep.

Didn't provide any conflict point.

Yep.

Which frustrated the hell outta Morrison.

Yeah, yeah.

As well, because Albanese and Rad, I think were prepared to, to promise things that

Morrison was, was definitely cagey about.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

And then as soon as Albanese comes in, like literally in

the speech, he just goes, yep.

And by the way, we're, we're going to push through.

We're, we're going to get, you know, the work done on the

Uluru statement from the heart.

Mm-hmm.

Which, which was like, . So completely not an election issue.

It just never even featured in the Alps election campaign at all.

Mm-hmm.

, right.

And suddenly here we are.

Yeah.

Oh, it's an easy one for I just, I just felt like there were a lot of,

you didn't, didn't see those parallels.

No, no.

I didn't have to admit, but you're right.

I do see the parallel now that you point out Yes.

In that he was Rudd was, Rudd was really, I'm just John

Howard, but a fresher version.

And you're sick of Howard.

But you really Yeah, that's what he was offering.

And in terms of policy, yeah.

Labor and Albanese didn't offer a lot.

They were just saying obviously these guys are scammers and you're sick of

them, and we're obviously nicer guys, but without a whole heap of policy difference.

Not even gonna change the tax rates that these guys have agreed to.

So yeah, there is a, I'll give you that, a similarity there.

It's all yeah.

So we then move into sort of in terms of the, the argument, the debate, the

campaign because it turns then into a reef versus coal sort of debate arises where,

you know, before it was all just pain.

It was, let's, let's just make people pay more for carbon.

Let's make life difficult and let's potentially cost jobs.

But the reef argument provides a different argument where people say, we love the

reef, we want the reef and it's a choice.

Coal or reef, which one do we want?

That was a.

Good argument for the environmentalist to sort of bring up both factually,

but also as a debating argument.

It's an appealing one.

And as well, I thought the big feature there was that you could

point to just how many jobs are in the Queensland tourism industry mm-hmm.

and say, you might say there's like 10,000 coal miners, but there's a

hundred thousand people that are making their living directly and

directly off tourism in Queensland.

That would lose it.

And, and we were ultimately placed or ideally placed to be

a hub for green energy research.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Had, had we got into solar, we could have been a leading research development

place like California was and be selling the technology offshore and

employing, God knows how many doing that.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Rather being dinosaurs, digging up dinosaurs.

Mm-hmm.

It, and it's one of the sort of central conflicts, I think in this whole debate

is the, in the whole sort of carbon club kind of thing is, is and is basically, you

know, we could make money doing old things or we could make money doing new things.

And I, I feel there's this very, where I really see this sort of divide happening

is the people who already own the money, like the, the industries that

are making the existing money are very much biased in keeping those going.

And that's always the hard part.

Yeah, sure.

We could make.

You know, billions out of fabricating solar panels or mm-hmm.

You know, producing green hydrogen, but no one is doing that.

And you know, and Hume Morgan isn't making any money out of it, and

therefore he's absolutely against it.

Yes.

And that entrenched power in those traditional carbon emitting

industries could only see downside from an emissions trading scheme.

And, and that's the big problem is rather than the government going, all right,

we're gonna have this migration here is funding for it, we're gonna increase

the tax on digging a shit out of the ground, and we are going to subsidize

new industry startups in green energy.

There was too much vested interest controlling the political levers.

Yeah.

And, and you might think to yourself, well, okay, there's a

split in the business council.

There's all these other businesses that are wanting.

To to recognize climate change and to do things about it.

Why is a government so stubbornly choosing sides with, with the other guys?

And one of the reasons is that Hugh, Hugh Morgan was in charge of the McCormack,

I think it was McCormack Group, which was basically responsible for funding

the liberal party MCC Voia group.

No SIA was the group of skeptics that he organized, but That's right.

It was let me just see here.

He launched the La Laia group, but there's the Cormack Foundation.

So Hugh Morgan was on the board of the Cormack Foundation, and it is

a group that provides most of the money, I think, for the liberal party

when it is running for an election.

So, When Tony Abbott's gonna run for an election, it finds 3 million.

When Malcolm Turnbull's gonna run for an election, it finds only 1.2 million.

Yeah.

And Malcolm Turnbull has to stump up his own 1.7, which incredible like that.

That's one reason why the liberal party would side with them.

And also there's a revolving door of staffers who work in those industries

and then work in parliament and workers advisors and government and and outside.

So they're quite, again, like the religious groups they're

in, their tentacles are in there and they're more entrenched.

Whereas I guess the solar farm people haven't had the chance to get their people

so, Embedded into the halls of power as the older, traditional businesses have,

I think is some of the explanation as to why they would choose that business

group ahead of another business group, for example, which is where I think

watching Twiggy Forest and Mike Cannon Brooks in various, you know, ventures

has been really interesting because that is a, a, a meeting of the old and

the new, and it's really hard to deny that Mike Cannon Brooks, you know,

like is, it's probably worth more than people like Hugh Morgan now, you know?

Mm-hmm.

. Yep.

So, so where are we up to here?

The, the next conference that comes up is in Bali.

And in Bali.

They're talking about, 25 to 40% reductions by 2020.

And that's a figure that's scaring Rudd.

And he doesn't want to commit to that if he can help it, because he just doesn't

think he can get that through politically.

So while he was in, while he was in opposition, he's all talk now he's

in power and he's at a conference in Bali and they're saying, oh, you

know, it'd be a really good idea, like 25 to 40% reduction by 2020.

And Rudd tried to say, oh, you know what, we'll make it 60%, but by 2050 knowing

full well that by 2050 he'll be long gone.

It won't be his problem.

Absolutely no need to be there.

Yeah.

So he, he's trying to, you know, pull tricks like that.

So barley, nothing was decided.

And it's it's all a bit of a lead up.

So, so Rudd then is trying to, fashion, some sort of emissions trading scheme.

And Penny Wong is the minister.

He doesn't wanna do a deal with the greens.

He wants to do a deal with the liberals with Malcolm Turnbull.

Hmm.

As the opposition leader.

And I think the reason he doesn't wanna do a deal with the greens is cause the

greens would ask for too much and he would find he couldn't probably agree to it.

He could feel he could get a more acceptable agreement

with Malcolm Turnbull.

Is that the feeling you had reading it?

I got the feeling that rad felt much more under pressure from the big end of town.

And, and it may have been as well, that the unions, the C F M E U and things

like that, we, you know, were like, it, it, I, it's very hard to know.

Who's, who's influenced by what unions in, in the Labor Party.

But, you know, there's it, it wouldn't surprise me to, to learn at that point

that the unions were, were strongly anti you know, resisting doing a lot

of work, you know, work on things that would mean they'd lose jobs

in coal mines and things like that.

Yep.

And power stations.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

So if I, the impression that I got was just that Rod really wanted to see a

sort of a consensus form where everyone came to him and said, Kevin, we want 22%.

And he'd go, okay, that's the decision.

And it just wasn't ne was never gonna happen that way.

Mm.

Because they were always gonna fight tooth and nail the, the interest

that it was working against.

So in all of the negotiations with this cap and trade stuff and these

permits, it's the case of the, the, the brown coal power stations in Victoria

were basically sort of threatening and saying, well, we'll just shut down

and you'll have, you'll have power blackouts and that's not gonna look good.

So they were really threatened with having to offer those power companies

School toilets over again, isn't it?

It is.

School toilets again.

It is, it's, it is, but a much more money.

Good analogy.

Good analogy.

Joe.

It's Mother Celeste and the Goldman toilet block all over again.

Mm-hmm.

saying, we'll just shut it down and, So the Rudd is having to fashion an

agreement where he's basically gonna give these power stations a lot of

money to help them out for the first few years, or a lot of permits to help

them out, free permits to help them out for the first year, few years.

And the real pain won't kick in for a few years and they're having to make

these concessions to these groups and it's they're not enjoying it, but

they're figuring we've just gotta get a deal done of some sort of emissions

trading scheme and we can tweak it later.

But if we can just get something through the parliament, then

we can always improve it later.

Doesn't matter how ugly it is, but it's something is better than nothing.

And yeah, that's the sort of dilemma they were in.

Meanwhile, while they're, while they're trying to appease some

of these groups, , you've got an enormous backlash coming from, well,

you mentioned Corey Bernardi mm-hmm.

As a leader in the arguments against or was a leading climate denier.

Did you, I'd like, there's a good line in there about, he was like a cross between

a financial advisor and a preacher, and, and his wife said, his wife said, we were

fortunate in our marriage that, that both of us were in love with the same man.

Yeah.

The classic line.

That was a really good line.

I hadn't heard that one before, but, yeah.

So you got Corey Bernardi, who's been to America, done some training

over there on the Tea Party style system of grassroots, rabble rousing.

You've got the Institute of Public Affairs, you've got the Murdoch papers,

you've got a lot of vested interest with a lot of money and a lot of entrenched

power and a lot of reach in the media.

Just kicking up a shit storm of suggesting that it's gonna cost us an enormous

amount of money that the science has not settled and really making it difficult.

Um hmm.

But life wasn't meant to be easy.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Thoughts on the media's role in all this gentleman with Alan Jones?

Murdoch.

Andrew Bolt, usual suspects.

Yeah.

Well that, that was the strange that, and Hugh Morgan felt like the strange

constant throughout all of this.

Mm-hmm.

. Yes.

Do you know the other constant?

The other one who pops up in this, dear listener, the other name that pops up

as supporting Corey Bernardi and Tony Abbott and all these people in their

climate change denying Is George fucking Pell was also making, making speeches.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He was a invited to this stuff.

Yes, it's the Catholic church as well.

Mm-hmm.

. Very interesting.

That was very interesting.

I found that fascinating.

Yeah.

I was reading that about the time of Pell's funeral and I was like, wow, that

was , that was an interesting coincidence.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, so they're always looking towards what's the next goddamn

meeting of the UN on climate change?

And the next one is gonna be in Copenhagen.

And so you've gotta try and figure out in advance what you

can agree to at that meeting.

And so Rudd was basically going to offer a 25% reduction, provided the USA

and China agreed to something similar.

And he, and he had to, Obama was now in, yes.

Obama came in 2008.

Yes.

and he had to do that because China and India had basically told the rich

countries, if you don't, guys don't agree to something like 25%, then when we are

doing nothing, I'm not gonna do anything.

So China and India have virtually forced countries like Australia to

put up a, a proper reduction figure.

Otherwise, Copenhagen was gonna be, nothing was gonna happen.

So if Rudd wanted something, they're more or less told by China and

India, what would be a starting point before they would begin negotiations.

So that was interesting.

Which, which was also like, you know, the, the other side of what

you said there is important that they were saying, we will sign on, but

you guys have to sign, sign it too.

We're, we are not going.

Sign up and let Australia still slack off on nothing.

Yeah.

Because we've seen him do it before at Kyoto.

Enough form.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The other part about all this of course is, you know, and I strike this, I can

remember with right wing Tony, I think I had this argument was you know, the

developing world has an argument when they say, well, we're making all of your stuff

here in our factories, and you want us to have emissions at your level where you

are now developed serviced industry based economies where the manufacturing economy,

you guys had all the benefits of cranking out carbon to create where you are now and

you want to deny us the chance to do it.

You're not gonna recognize the value you got from your previous

carbon emissions and, and Mm.

And our chance to do that.

and also the fact that we are doing your burning on your behalf because Right.

We're making all this shit and it's so disingenuous.

Yeah.

When people on the west say, oh, well, you know, whatever we do,

China needs to do exactly the same.

Like, not when they're doing the world's manufacturing.

I don't think that's a reasonable approach.

Well, and, and I think the, this is where the, that idea of this, you know, scope

one, two, and three emissions really comes in because at that point, it's not good

enough for a company to say, you know, the only thing we, you know, expanded

in the t in, in having this t-shirt is the energy that we put in in our office.

it's gotta include where the, you know, where that cotton came from,

how it was processed, how all of that in, all of the energy and all

of the fuel that went into that.

I, you know, where, where, I guess I see where I'm really interested

in your sort of view on this is that it's kind of come, to, come

back to that China and India point.

All of this has, has to do with everyone has to take action in their

own way and whether or not China is doing the same amount as Australia.

Same percentage, same.

You know, how some, you know, every, everyone's gonna have a different

metric of how, how they measure.

But no one gets to say, oh yeah, it's great that you are all

doing that because we are not.

Mm-hmm.

. Yes.

Yep.

So you are also, your video is just pausing temporarily

there, Paul, hopefully.

Okay.

You, I'm sure you've got super internet in Canberra there, so I'm watching

the output, like the, and you're okay.

Receive and send and it's well within.

Okay, no worries.

It might be just restrained, so, but we got you there.

So that's all good.

So just in the timeline, turn, Turnbull makes a trip to London,

comes back really wanting to do a deal, really keen on climate.

You might remember he came back from London all going home.

He wanted to do a deal with Rudd and he was particularly worried

about a double dissolution.

He thought that would be a bad result for them.

But in any event, he was very keen on doing something and his liberal

party colleagues in the parliament were terrified at the prospect of it.

So Tony Abbott took over, rolled Turnbull.

And so essentially Turnbull really lost his leadership at that

point because of climate change, cause of his keenness for it.

That's essentially what cost him his job as opposition leader at that time.

There was one other thing that I thought was left, actually left

out of the book at that point.

Mm-hmm.

. And that was that I recall hearing a a something about I think it was when

one of the Yeah, it's a podcast anyway.

That Rod, at some point in that lead up to the 20 20, 20 10 election had been really

hammering Turnbull and really embarrassing him for not wanting to commit and not, you

know, not being willing to, to, you know, accept what, you know, labor wanted to do.

And Turnbull was already suffering a little bit of, you know, in the,

of, in the in the polls negative popular, less popular in the polls.

And that at particular Attack by Rad led to Tony Abbott challenging, but

there was a particular circumstance where there were like five people that

needed to be there that would've backed Turnbull that happened to be away.

Okay.

During the ballot.

Yeah.

And it challenge, yeah, like there was some question, I can't remember

how it played out, but it was, it was something like, you know,

it was, he only lost by one vote.

Tony Abbott, basically Shanghai, those, those people and kept them away

from the vote or something, you know?

Ah, I think I might have read something like that.

Like took him out and got 'em drunk somewhere or something.

Maybe.

Or, I dunno.

Yeah.

I can't remember that.

It was, that does sound vaguely familiar.

Something like that.

Yeah.

And it, and it was, it was not just that.

To, like Tony Abbott wasn't particularly popular either.

Yeah.

But you're, you are right in, in on that particular issue.

The, the conservatives were very afraid of Turnbull.

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

They, if they, they maybe should have gone a bit easier on Turnbull, the Labor

party in order to get something done, because he was clearly gonna be the most

amenable, much easier deal with Yeah.

Than any other potential leader that might have cropped up.

So, so Abbott's in charge.

There's a Copenhagen meeting, which is a dud.

Nothing happens.

It's a disaster.

It's all about then trying to get some sort of agreement

at the next one in Paris.

Meanwhile, in Australia Rudd's facing Abbott, Abbott and Barnaby

Joyce are just calling this great big tax, which is getting very

good traction in the media and.

His popularity is, is plummeting as well.

He's dispirited, he drops the whole plan for emissions,

trading scheme gives up on it.

And that and that then triggers Gillard as making her challenge.

So again, partly Rudd lost his leadership, partly because he dropped

the ball when it came to pursuing this and kind of gave up on it.

He was so dispirited.

So Gillard comes in.

That's one of many reasons cuz he was also an asshole and everyone

hated him, but part of it as well.

And that's where I guess I was interested because I, I felt there was a similarity

in the way that Rudd and Turnbull.

Seem that they're both business people.

They've come from running small to medium sized businesses where the board

can get around the table and agree and they know that the job is to agree.

And so they get on and do things and then they come into politics and

they expect things to work that way.

And they're surprised when there's disagreement and you just have to say,

okay, no, we are just going to go with 12% that, you know, yes, majority says this.

Yeah.

Did you sort of, did you feel that there was a sort of similarity in

the way that both Turnbull and Rod were sort of flailing around looking

for options there towards the end of their, you know, campaigns?

Cer certainly just really, Turnbull was just.

on this particular issue, just in the wrong party.

Like he's just, he was just surrounded by people in his own party who just wanted

nothing, didn't want any of this stuff.

So they're happy to have him on other issues, but this one was just poisonous.

So, you know, he came in from the, had he paid enough dues in the liberal party to

really understand politics, probably not.

Ru Rudd had spent a lot of time in the state Labor party.

He worked for Wayne Goss, he'd been in, in and around the traps

and knew how politics worked.

So he had the experience.

He probably was just, he should have known that.

So full of arrogance.

You know, we'll talk another time about, I've been.

I just read this little excerpt again about China.

Everything comes back to China, China, China.

But , it, it, it was talking about what you have to do to get to the top of the

tree in China, and it includes all of the leadership that's current and fast,

is start at the bottom in charge of a little community, get to the top, become

mayor of a town, run it successfully, then become in charge of a province,

run it successfully, score goals, then get into the next level in charge of

some industry, sector or other thing.

Kick goals, get stuff done.

By the time you reach the top, you are such a seasoned veteran of working

a system and getting shit done.

Whereas in say, the US system, a Donald Trump can just fly in from nowhere with

zero political experience and . just an advantage again that the Chinese system

basically creates some experts in, in dealing in government, cuz they've got a

lot of experience by the time they've got to the top, which they may not necessarily

have in the case of a Donald Trump.

Although someone like Biden has obviously been in politics all of his

life, so it's not always the case.

But someone like Turnbull kind of parachuted in from the side.

Someone like Boris Johnson was a journalist and whatnot.

I mean, in the periphery and all while, and he was mayor.

He was mayor of London.

Yeah, maybe.

So some of that is in there.

So anyway, sort of Yeah, yeah.

I'm, I'm with you on that general idea.

Mm-hmm.

. I've heard another view of how, sort of, how the system works in China which

is kind of like charts the same course.

But involves basically knowing enough dirt on other people that if something

looks like it's gonna go sour, you can backstab them before they backstab you.

Right?

And you just keep on doing that and basically saying, look, you might think

you've got a bit of dirt on me, but I know much worse about you, and so we are going

to get in just fine, aren't we partner?

That's maybe a, an exaggerated take, but, you know.

Yeah, that's, that's his since I got, yeah.

So we've got Gillard has taken over and you, I did get like in a tough

Parliament where she was having to work with the Crossbenches.

She did get stuff done and she did get a, an scheme through and a deal was done.

Ah, where carbon was gonna be $23 a ton.

Now I mentioned before those brown coal power generators who are kicking up a

fuss and saying, we'll all be ruined if we have to pay this sort of money.

So initially the thought was well, we'll give was, was when there's a permit

system, we will, we will give them some free permits for the first few years

in order to get them through until they can make the necessary changes.

So under the Gillard agreement though, in order to get it done, they basically

gave cash upfront to these brown coal power generators in Victoria, like

two years worth of cash upfront and give to them to say, here you are.

Put that at the bank cuz you're gonna be spending money at $23 a ton

in the submission trading scheme.

Hmm.

Well guess what?

Gillard gets rolled at the election.

Abbott wins first thing he does.

Cancels the emissions trading scheme, and they get accused why they, and they

get, and they get to keep the money and nobody asks them to return it.

Mm-hmm.

That's the part that, that's, that's how good the, the liberal party are

at managing finances and transferring money outta the pockets of the

taxpayers and into the pockets of Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, both of them labor in the first place handed the money over.

Mm-hmm.

, I mean, at that point it says in the book that the executives were just amazed that

they'd been given the money in advance.

So labor at fault for actually giving them the money in advance rather

than giving them the tax credit.

And then the liberals in a kind of a practice run for what happened with the

with the COVID 19 you know, arrangements then just refused to, didn't even ask.

For the money back and said, well, you're not paying this.

We'll have that money back.

Thanks very much.

And again, the executives were amazed that they weren't even asked to refund it.

But, but like I I, I assume to recall at that point as well, the coal executives

knew that at that point they were going to roll out a massive attack campaign mm-hmm.

even though they'd just taken the money.

Right?

Yes.

Did that Well, is that my, my memory?

Remember that in the book?

That sounds all right.

Because Or was it for something else?

No.

Cuz Kevin got rolled because of the mining tax, but it wasn't cold tax.

Hmm.

Dunno.

So, I don't remember what Gillard was, but obviously Abbott was

complaining about the $400 roast Sunday roast or whatever it was.

. Yeah.

AB Abbott.

Abbott.

And you know, and you can see that real score from Corey be Bernardi of, keep

your slogans simple and direct mm-hmm.

and make it all about fear, you know?

Mm-hmm.

. Yep.

I'm, I ne I never got the whole, well, yeah.

If you carry on using electricity like you currently do, you're

gonna end up paying more money.

Mm-hmm.

, that's the whole point of the carbon tax is to make you use less

electricity, but, but the whole point of politics is to be able to say

to certain groups, except for you,

Well, that's true.

Yeah.

And, and the other thing that always strikes me is sort of odd there is

that that's also how capitalism works.

Or that's, sorry, that's how markets work.

No, absolutely.

Prices.

If something goes up in price, someone decides to make more of it or supply an

alternative so that, They can make money.

Right.

And that cap, cap and trade is a, the, the price comes down again, cap.

Cap and trade is the market way of regulation.

Yeah.

Yes.

It, it's, it, it's the it's the right wing way of introducing it.

You, you don't tax you cap and trade and, and that way you are not as a

government dictating what people do.

You're letting the market decide.

Mm sure.

So, yeah.

Interesting.

You say it's not a tax because Gillard got in trouble cuz she said there'll

be no carbon tax under my government.

Oh, absolutely.

And then, and then later on she said, well, I don't care

if you call it a tax or not.

And then they argued, well, a tax is something that you have to

pay whether you like it or not.

Whereas with this, if you rearrange the way you conduct things,

you won't have to pay this fee.

So anyway, that caused her political problems and we end up with a, and it was

set up to be able to trade with Europe.

So the whole point was that yes, Australian farmers who were

creating carbon credits could sell 'em on a European market and

get huge amounts of cash for it.

Yes.

Yep.

Yes.

Yep.

Which nationals would be all for.

Yeah.

Nationals are not for farmers.

They're for miners, aren't they?

It looks like it.

Yes.

And again, there's this relationship between them.

Yeah.

I, I, I tend to see the, the farmers as being more just pure

conservative in that, you know, we don't want to change anything.

We don't want to learn anything new.

We just want things the way they used to be.

And, you know, that suits farming because, You know, the theory is

you just keep on doing what you, you've always been doing, right?

Mm-hmm.

Anyway, I think farmers would disagree, but anyway, yeah.

You know, I'm, I'm, I also think that that's where the National Party

and the farmers partway, right?

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

I, I heard a story from somebody who was deeply involved in media dealing with

farmers on a national program, and was often disgusted in how, how uninterested

farmers were actually in new technology.

And they kind of did, but it just, a majority of 'em, a lot

of them, way too many of them just wanted to keep doing things.

The white.

But we'd digressed a little bit.

So now we're at a position where we've got we've got gillard's

let me just lost the election.

Lost the election, right?

Tony Abbott's come in.

Tony Abbott's come in and is eating onions.

. Yes.

And remembering Australia's, I think it's absolutely worse in that video, is the

way he's staring while he does it anyway.

Yeah.

And we've got basically where we had sort of John Howard and George Bush

of the same mind, and that was great.

And where Abbott was dealing with George Bush of the same mind.

Great.

But in comes Obama who clearly has a different climate change agenda.

So from Abbott's point of view, it was, oh shit.

Like now we're actually, rather than feeding off and helping each other

USA and Australia in terms of battling against climate action, he now had

Obama who on the face of it was.

not gonna be helpful for what Abbott was wanting to do.

And Obama ends up in Australia at an APEC conference and starts making noises about

needing things to be done for climate change because they've got a, a bit of

an eye towards Paris, which is looming and trying to work out what can the

world agree to at the Paris Conference.

And so, Abbott was basically told by his advisors that he could agree to a 26 20 8%

reduction by 2030 from the 2005 baseline, and it wouldn't be too difficult.

Okay, so he is basically told a 26 to 28% reduction.

by 2030 from the 2005 baseline, which sounds like a reasonable figure of

reduction and you sort of figure why would that not really be difficult?

It sounds like it would be difficult.

And the reason was that we had such a good deal from Kyoto.

Remember, dear listener, in the first part of the conversation here, we described

what a crazily good deal it was that we end up with meeting that Kyoto deal easily

and exceeding it, thereby earning credits, which we could then apply the 2020 target

that would make it easy to achieve.

So that's why Abbott could do the sums and go, yep, well, because of such an

easy Kyoto agreement, leftover credits.

meant that that this figure for for Paris potentially was

not gonna be too difficult.

Mm.

And and that's kind of what they entered in, you know, in the leading into Paris.

They were sort of prepared to do that sort of figure, but for that

sort of reason, coming back to that original crazily good Kyoto agreement.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah, and interesting to see as well the, the fact that both I seem to recall the

newly minted Xing Ping was came to the G 20, was it the G 20 summit in Brisbane?

Yeah, I think so.

Obama and.

She basically got up and said, well, we are doing something about climate

change and here's, here's our proposals.

And Abbott, who was hoping to be able to say we are not going to do anything about

climate change because it's all fine.

Thanks very much was forced to actually do something.

Yes.

Yep.

And so he is forced to do something and then he was given the figures

that said, well, we can get this, we can do this because it's actually

not gonna be that hard for us because of a previously generous agreement.

So, although I did read about the number of coal fired power stations that

China has built in the last two years.

Right.

And I think it's something like five times the number that Australia

is running at the moment they just built in the last two years.

Yes.

I'd heard.

Slightly different take on that.

In that it, that number basically included a whole bunch of things, like

things, plants that have been approved but haven't actually started work.

Plants that have been built but have no coal you know, things that

aren't even connected to the grid.

So I'm still, I dunno how much of that is actually burning coal and producing power.

Right?

Yeah.

But it's still, it's still worrying, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And my notes just get a little bit shaky for the end part here.

But basically Tony Abbott made the mistake of losing 30 poles in a row

and deciding to Knight Prince Charles.

No, it was, it prince Phillip wasn't it?

Phil Greek.

I mean, and that was enough for everyone to go, oh my goodness sake.

So Turnbull comes back in.

That's why I was, I was wondering because, because of that very specific

language of captain's call that Abbott used there I wondered if that was like

some internal liberal party jargon.

Yeah.

Might have became the jargon in since then when the Prime Minister was things.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah.

I mean it's incredible.

What is a captain's call going to war is really almost is a captain's call.

Yeah.

It's just crazy.

So, tur came back in but didn't last long at the end of the day cuz he just ran into

the same party full of climate skeptics.

And even though he thought he had agreement from the from the party room

Bernardi and others just worked in the background and knocked him off.

And Morrison of course, who had gone into parliament holding a lump of coal

and saying, don't be scared of this.

Ended up being prime Minister in his place.

And we also had the whole thing with the Galilee Basin in Queensland and

Clive Palmer getting involved and Clive Palmer spending a shitload of money

and directing preferences in Morrison's direction, which helped him get in.

And obviously Clive Palmer owned a big coal potential coal

area in that Galilee basin.

And I didn't, I forgot to mention in the whole mix of that, that Gina Reinhardt of

course got involved in it, in it as well.

So, so the book is The Carbon Club and it's definitely a clubby atmosphere

of entrenched old school money in fossil fuel industries with deep

tentacles in the liberal party.

Really directing the liberal party and just people in the liberal party by their

nature being determined to favor that industry cuz that's the one they knew and

loved and they didn't know and love the new solar industry that might crop up.

They didn't know one loved the new tourism ventures that might come up.

You wonder how Scotty felt with the solar panels on Carelli house?

Well, yes, because Malcolm, Malcolm actually put solar panels on, didn't he?

Right.

The the, and the thing to remember and, and was a great comfort to me through a

lot of that was that the a c t government.

Has for a long time.

Well, you know, I think it was before Turnbull even has done deals power

purchasing agreements so that the a c t, all of the power going into

the a c t is from renewable energy.

Even when Joe Hockey was complaining about, you know, wind farms near Lake

George, you know how ugly they were.

It was like, well Joe, you can turn off your lights then because your office

and everything that you do here in Canberra is powered by renewable energy.

Yeah.

Yep.

Speaking of solar panels on Jimmy Carter, I don't think has passed

away yet, but he's in his final days it seems, and he had solar panels.

Installed on the White House.

Mm-hmm.

and Ronald Reagan, late seventies.

Yeah.

He, he got 'em installed because as soon as he got into power,

Ronald Reagan hadn't taken off.

Right.

Yep.

As you as, because there's nothing like the Republican Party for spite mm-hmm.

. That's it.

Yeah.

Interesting.

So, so that's a run, that's, you know, now we can talk more generally or, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But that's kind of the basics of the story of the book is a forensic rundown

of that history in, in all of its detail.

Yeah.

She doesn't spend a lot of time analyzing it.

It's up to us to sort of draw all that out as conclusions from the facts.

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

And I, I guess, I think I'm interested to know whether you feel like that was.

A good tactic to take when this, when the book was written, when it was still 2021,

I think because the book doesn't cover it, it talks mentions very briefly that

the, there's an election in 2022 for the federal government, but it doesn't make

any real sort of attempt at speculation or look at policies of the upcoming labor.

No, it doesn't government at that point.

So do you think it, it, the book is actually trying to

avoid controversy by doing that?

No, I think, I think just the nature of this style of book, it

sort of, she brought it right up to the present time of when it was,

when she was and finished there.

And yeah, because it wasn't a book that with any analysis really in that sense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I, I guess that's sort of what I'm overall wondering if, if you think it's good for a

book like this, especially if it's trying to appeal to more than just, you know,

the, the rabid climate change agrees.

That to, to not pass judgment on some of these things to not deliberately

criticize or, you know, because it's still possible to, I think, to read

the, the book and come to the conclusion that these people are denying climate

change and they, they're wrong.

The science is out, is is in, and you know, they've been proven wrong.

Yeah.

She doesn't spend any time on that.

I mean, it's fine.

I think she just achieved what she wanted to achieve in it and.

You can't be all things to all people.

That was the style of book she set out to do.

I think she just set out to put on the record and account of what happened.

And then people can argue about how do we avoid that or what should we do in future?

But I think that's a fair enough objective that she achieved.

The scientists have always said their job is not to set policy.

Their job is to say, this is what's happening.

This is our evidence for it.

And you know, effectively this is what we need to do, reduce the

amount of carbon we're emitting.

How you go about reducing the amount of carbon is a policy decision,

whether you tax it, whether you, I like I feel it's still a science

decision because there's no point.

Like you can't say, you know, pass a law that stops anyone

from, you know, Emitting carbon.

Mm-hmm.

, you know, that's . Well, no, no.

Can't disobey the law of physics.

Right.

You, you can pass a law that says it's a fineable or a jailable offense

to emit carbon more than through standard respiration or whatever.

Or that, you know, you, you can't burn fossil fuel.

Sure, sure.

So it's not for a scientist to say nuclear is better than solar, for instance.

They can go, these are the costs of each.

Mm-hmm.

But at the end of the day, it stands at the government to

go, we're gonna implement this.

Mm-hmm.

The thing that, from this book, the thing that strikes me is so much of this was

that politics outweighing good policy.

It wasn't mm-hmm.

, it was always, what can we get away with?

What can the other people allow us to do?

We want to get to this point, but what.

with all the other competing interests against us, what can

we get away with successfully in juggling competing interests?

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

It, it was also always about short-term gain.

Mm-hmm.

It, it's not, you know, for the, we're gonna Yeah.

Yeah.

We we're gonna fuck over the reef and long term this is gonna

hurt Australia in a major way.

Yeah.

If, if we can just kick this can down the road, we will.

Yeah, exactly.

And then things would crop up and say, well, no, you can't.

Like, and things have been saying, you know, 82% change at the beginning of

this would've been relatively painless.

And now we've left it so long, we're gonna have to do a 80%

change in a five year period.

And the longer we leave it, the more painful the change.

Mm-hmm.

. . Yeah.

Yeah.

And it really strikes me that the, like the no, no one worse off policy that

Howard started where, you know, they wouldn't agree to anything, which would

mean that any company would lose money or be fined or, you know, taxpayers would

be worse off because they were having to pay higher prices or anything like that.

Yep.

And I guess I'm, one thing I'm wondering is, do you think that

is still alive in politics today?

I, I think so.

I mean, realistically in terms of building standards building

standards here are laugh.

com compared to Europe.

You go to a house in Europe and you see how they build.

Compared to here, we're building huge drafty houses, and then we

are sticking great big fucking air conditioning units on it to cool it

down in summer and heat it up in winter.

Hmm.

Rather than building sensible houses to the climate as, as someone who has

a double glazed house retrofitted.

I'm completely with you on that, . There you go.

Yeah.

But yeah.

As soon as there is a, you, you wanna run a new law that's going

to apply negatively to some group.

Mm-hmm.

, you gotta be prepared to sell the story.

Like Bill Shorten couldn't do it when it came to dividends.

Negative minor group of, minor group of elderly pensioners who might have

lost something in share was just crazy.

That whole argument.

And we've, we've seen, although successfully with the

superannuation for people with amounts over 3 million, 2 million.

Yeah.

Where the government is successfully Oh, they're streaming now.

Yes, but they're not succeeding, I think.

Oh, I don't know.

Yeah, because this is gonna affect up to 50% of taxpayers if, if

it's not index linked by Yeah.

Yes.

2,500.

That's right.

That is, you're right.

Like Yeah, they're saying by 20, by 20, 50, 10% of people,

it'll be affected by this.

Like, say, and, and of course nobody between now and then

will have the opportunity to index it if we don't do it now.

You're right.

Yes.

I mean, they're howling like Banes, but and, and I, and I.

, if I, if the news story that you're talking about is the one

I've seen the assumption about the rate of tax, of, of wage rise.

Mm-hmm.

for ordinary Australians is just heroic , right?

Yeah.

So, yeah, it's not easy to pass a law that will negatively affect a particular

segment of the community because the people on the opposition party will adopt

that group as their own and just run a scare campaign and, and beat it up.

So that's politics, isn't it?

So, well, and, and, or, or will.

Yeah.

You will pretend that these new taxes, these new laws will impact the, the

average person when generally they don't.

They're aimed at a very specific sector of society.

Who do rather nicely.

Thank you very much.

Out of the taxpayers.

Yeah.

And, and another parallel that I saw with the two superannuation arguments,

back to some of the stuff that, you know, people like Corey, Ben Bernardi

or Tony Abbott with the $400 roasts were saying is that, you know, I remember

very clearly in the 2019 election where, or the, the liberal party were suddenly

experts on Labor party policy and they were telling people that the Labor

Party was gonna introduce a death tax.

Yes.

And it was complete fabrication, like a utterly untrue, again, an inheritance tax

is the norm in most parts of the world.

Yeah, yeah.

That and, and I, and they succeeded there.

And, you know, you can see them trying now to say, you know, what's next?

Taxing your own, you know, the, your home for superannuation which

is again, completely made up.

Not a labor policy at all.

But, so I'm really, I'm really wondering where are we ever going to see a, a, a

move in any sort of federal government or state government that, that does

more than effect, like 0.05 of, or, you know, 0.5 of a percent of people?

Well, there's such a gutless mob in charge.

I dunno that we will, I mean, they really have to take the view that,

look, why are we worried that we're jumping through all these hoops

not to offend this small group.

Because even if we jump through these hoops, the Murdoch press will still.

Just make absolutely a complete lie to say that we've done outrageous things,

so we might as well do some things because they'll make it up anyway.

So, so let's at least get something done.

I, I think the R r t though had them running scared Mr.

The what?

The, the minerals resource Rent tax, yes.

Yes.

So the mining tax, yeah.

Yeah.

Which rolled Kevin Rudd.

Yes.

The reason.

Yeah.

And, and unless the average person was not impacted in, in any way, shape, or form,

why the hell were the voters going, oh, we're really worried about the mining tax.

Hmm.

Well, there, I think, and again, it's interesting to see how, you know,

things like the, the boss of B H P changing sides on this in, in the book

has really influenced some of this, the, the, the Mineral Minerals Council.

I think was the big player in the, the, the tax there and sorry,

in the attack on the M O R T.

And the thing that I recall strongly there was basically something that

came out of that was that they basically said we are going to pass

this on to every single supplier.

We are not going to pay it out of our PO pockets.

We are going to make sure our profits stay the same and we are

just gonna pass that down the line.

In other words, blackmail.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Yep.

So I'm, what else you got?

What else you got on your list there of questions?

Sure.

You need to think about wrapping this up and bring it back to this book.

Yep.

What are the, the compelling ones?

So do you think that people like Corey Ban Bernardi are still big players?

Has he lost his seat or is he still in, out there somewhere?

I think he lost his seat.