Category: Australian politics

Climate change sceptic turns to prayer

19th April 2007

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Image source: news.com

History will judge John Howard as the Australian Prime Minister who fiddled while his country burned. With the exception of the very principled stance he took when he exerted his authority to change Australia’s gun laws following the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania (something no US President would have the balls to do despite the plethora of school shootings in recent times), Howard has shied away from hard decisions throughout his tenure, opting instead for short term electoral gain. This sunburnt country-continent has been contending with drought ever since white settlement, as farmers have attempted to transfer their European farming practices to an environment that simply isn’t suited to such activities in the long term. In the early days, it didn’t matter because water and land were in abundance, and when one source dried up, there was always another to tap into. With the onset of climate change, aided and abetted by recalcitrant governments like Howard’s, the situation has just got a whole lot worse. The tragedy is, that this government has been producing budget surplus after budget surplus, and rather than seize the opportunity to restructure the Australian economy away from its reliance on fossil fuels and an ecologically unsound farm sector, it has given tax cuts to its ‘fat cat’ mates instead. And John Howard’s solution to this imbroglio? We must all get down on our knees and pray for rain. Very strategic John … especially as the number of Christians in Australia is at an all-time low.

The man who lost the Great Barrier Reef

28th August 2006

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Image source: www.abc.net.au

ABC news reports today why John Howard will go down as the most famous of Australian Prime Ministers. Paradoxically, having avoided making difficult decisions with spectacular consistency during his tenure as Prime Minster, he will surely have his wish to be remembered as one of the most readily identifiable of Australian leaders. Unfortunately for Howard, it will be for all the wrong reasons: all appalling record on the rights of indigenous Australians, an obsequious relationship with the imperialist US Bush administration and–to cap it all–a blatant disregard for the welfare of future generations of Australians on account of his refusal to manage environmental issues.

Anzac Day 2006

29th April 2006

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Kranji War Memorial Cemetery, Singapore

On Tuesday, before dawn, I made my way to Kranji cemetry once again to pay respects to the war dead. I always find this a very humbling and moving experience, but at the same time very annoying. I’ve blogged about this before, so I won’t go over old ground in detail, but it was a repeat performance of last year. The priest and the Australian High Commissioner seemed to go through the motions, while the Turkish Ambassador stole the show with his moving rendition of Kemal Ataturk’s poem now inscribed on a memorial at ANZAC Cove. Most surprising was the Australian High Commissioner’s failure to mention the Australians that have been killed in Iraq. The fact there is only a small number (two according to the latest Iraq Coalition Casualty count) is hardly an excuse. All the other conflicts in which Austalians have been involved since Gallipoli were mentioned except this one. Maybe it was too politically sensitive for him to mention. Anyway, I plan to write to him to ask why. Watch this space.

Introducing Senator Canute

7th January 2006


Image source: Sydney Morning Herald

Some time ago, I blogged about the plight of low-lying Pacific islands like Tuvalu and the ultimate economic cost of global warming; namely, an economy disappearing off the face of the earth. Astonishingly, it was reported in the The Australian yesterday that this is really no big deal, at least not according to Australian Federal Government which claims their is no “imminent danger”. Senator ‘King Canute’ Campbell has declared it “absurd” to suggest that Australia should accept environmental refugees, while a spokesman for the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, stated that sea level rise was a “long-term issue and it is too early to provide an accurate assessment of regional trends”. The sad truth of the matter is that while Kyoto Protocol signatory New Zealand has already agreed to accept any displaced people, Australia has now knocked back two requests from the Tuvalu Government to take in those displaced by rising sea levels. The likes of Senator Campbell may prefer to put this on the ‘back burner’, but it is a very real here-and-now problem. Late last year a UN study revealed that there could be as many as 50 million environmental refugees around the world by the end of the decade. Not all of these refugees will be a result of rising sea levels, of course, but the same study estimates that as many as 100 million people live in areas that are below sea level or liable to storm surge. As this Earthwatch Radio podcast [2 mins] points out, this is a creeping a problem that doesn’t the get the same ‘air-play’ as the problem of environmental refugees created by tsunamis and hurricanes yet, potentially, it is far more catastrophic.

Lest we forget

30th April 2005

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Kranji Cemetery, Singapore, 25 April 2005

I made my annual pilgrimage to the ANZAC Day dawn service on Monday morning, my second here in Singapore. Some of the pomp and ceremony makes me feel a little ill at ease, especially the religious aspects of it — or the institutionalised religious aspects do, at least. The words used by these people always seem so hollow and insincere. I also baulk at the singing of the national anthem. Not that I’m unpatriotic, it’s just that some people look upon this as a nationalist symbol, which is a little ironic given that nationalism has been the source of so many wars. Anyway, these personal hang-ups aside, ANZAC Day is always a special day for me, and this year was no exception. It was a very moving occasion, and the highlight was the halt in proceedings when, after all the dignatories had laid their wreaths, an old digger came forward to place his bunch of flowers in memory of his mates. This is commonplace in Australia, of course, but not in Singapore. Having read The Naked Island (by Russell Braddon) recently, I imagined to myself he might have been one of the inmates at Changi during the last war.

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The Minister for Greenwash

9th April 2005

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The Rt Hon Ian McFarlane, MP
Image source: http://www.abc.net.au/rural/ outlook2002/image.htm

I had to smile the other day when I read that the Australian Energy Minister, Ian McFarlane, was reported to have told a conference organised by the coal industry in Sydney that they should clean up their publicity act, saying the future fuels issue had been taken over by a so-called green media machine. Meanwhile, his buddy, Ian Campbell, the (so-called) Minister for the Environment is trying convince Australian business that it isn’t losing out from the non-ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. As The Australian reported at the weekend, Australian businesses are having to resort to joint ventures with companies from New Zealand (a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol) in order to participate in the Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism project. (See below if the hyperlink is broken.)

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Missile defence systems and the politics of fear

26th January 2004

I’ve been stewing on this for a week or two now, and reading Phillip Adams’ piece in the Oz at the weekend, In Fear We Should Trust, it has reminded me just how Orwellian the world has become post-September 11. Gary Sauer-Thompson’s analysis of the Australian Government’s decision to invest several billion dollars of tax payers’ money on a missile defence system, Boys and Their Toys, provides evidence of this. Just exactly who are these missiles going to be pointing at? Leunig’s cartoon (also located at Gary’s blog) sums it up rather nicely. Another article on the topic – a personal favourite – is located here.

“Please explain…”

11th November 2003

Just back from a week in Australia attending conferences. It was my first trip ‘home’ in four months and a thoroughly pleasant experience catching up with mates and talking ‘Strayn’ knowing it would be understood and acted upon with an ‘oh yeah mate’ or a ‘no worries’. The big news was the release from prison of Pauline Hanson.

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Nice one Jacko!

12th August 2003

Great piece from Jack Robertson in Margo Kingston’s web diary today, When black is white, it’s easy being Green, which presents an optimistic vision of the future for the Greens in Australia. It encapsulates very nicely the evolution of my own thinking in recent times.

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