Monday, December 17, 2007

Oh - how the worm turns

Prior to November 24th, the Liberal party was so out of touch on climate change that one of their most informed insiders – Guy Pearce felt compelled to blow the whistle in his book – High and Dry. Here is an extract from Guy’s website.

“Paul Keating put it well on November 27th: ‘Saturday night's victory was not just a victory for the Labor Party; it was also a victory for those Liberals like Malcolm Fraser, Petro Georgiou and Judi Moylan, who stood against the pernicious erosion of decent standards in our public affairs.’ No-where was the erosion of decent standards more pernicious than in the Howard government’s response to climate change. For over a decade, in the face of the greatest threat humanity has seen, the short term interests of a handful of this country’s worst greenhouse polluting industries were put ahead of the interests of the planet, the country and future generations. It will come to be viewed as the most shameful aspect of the Howard legacy.”

But the quite amazing thing is how the “new” Liberal party under Brendon Nelson has also backflipped and are now “climate change” friendly. Listening to the ABC Breakfast program this morning I almost choked on my weeties – here is an extract.

“The Federal Coalition has come out in support of the crucial part of the Bali road map -- the encouragement of developed nations to attempt, as a group, to reduce emissions by 25-40 per cent by 2020. So are we seeing the beginning of a major shift from the Coalition on climate change? The surprising announcement was made by new shadow environment spokesman Greg Hunt, who joined Breakfast to discuss the federal opposition's new policies on climate change.”

The serious question though is: “what will become of all those people who blindly supported the Howard agenda and actually believed that he knew something about the subject?” He created a small army of deniers who have now blindly followed their leader over the cliff like lemmings – just as we thought they would. Even now we can still see the odd “rusted on” sending petulant missives to “The Australian” in the vain hope that it is all a bad dream and soon things will return to normal.

For those who are interested in a little hilarity I recommend the letters page of the ex Government Gazette on a few occasions a week, when one is feeling a little low.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Finally - A Competent Government

It might be that my relatives will not hold the same view that I do but I am personally very happy with our new Government.

For the first time in a decade we have a government, executive and ministers that are acting in the interest of the nation – instead of their own narrow self important agenda.

For the first time in a decade we have a Prime Minister who – is actually participating at a significant climate change meeting – and who is pressing Australia’s position and interests in a way that will ensure change while taking account of our interests, the bigger picture and a global agenda.

For the first time in a decade we have substantial intellect at the helm of our Government and that makes me feel good. Actually better than good – it makes me feel great.

We now have substantial, quality leadership and that can only result in good outcomes. It took a decade to get there but it did happen – a big relief for thinking Australians who thought the nation had been hi-jacked by bigotry, ignorance and self interest.