For nearly twelve years Australia was ruled by a Coalition government with John Howard as Prime Minister and Peter Costello the Treasurer. After their defeat in the election just last November, Mr Costello decided to write his memoirs.
He said at the Quadrant Dinner that I attended tonight in Sydney, and it is written in the beginning of his now published memoirs,
“In Australia the writers of contemporary politics come overwhelmingly from a left or ‘progressive’ perspective. In their accounts Labor usually emerges as the hero and the Liberal Party as the villain. Because some will try to make this the story of the nearly twelve years of the Howard-led Coalition Government I want to record what actually happened – to describe the achievements as well as to acknowledge the failures.”
Indeed I gather ABC journalist and Labor friend, Fran Kelly, has been involved in the construction of a soon to be released ABC Television series on ‘The Howard’ years.
But back to the new book: I purchased a copy this evening and, after getting it autographed, turned to the index to see what I could find under ‘climate change’ and to my surprise the two words are not there, nor global warming. The index, under ‘g’, does though include ‘globalisation’, ‘GST’, ‘gun lobby’ and ‘General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade’. So, I looked for Kyoto, found it, and duly turned to page 302. Mr Costello writes that,
“Cabinet had discussed the idea of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol many times, ever since it was negotiated in 1997. Robert Hill had done a sterling job at the Conference in negotiating a target for Australia that frankly looked impossible at the outset. At the time I was surprised that, after investing so much effort in getting such a good outcome, we did not ratify it. The reason was that the protocol, by leaving out huge emitters in the developing world, was going to have little impact on global climate change. The protocol was flawed by the fact that it covered only the developed world.”
I wrote in a piece published in the IPA Review earlier this year that John Howard would be remembered as the Prime Minister who did not ratify Kyoto, but perhaps Mr Costello has things more in perspective in his Memoirs and that in the scheme of things, history will not remember ‘climate change’ and ‘Kyoto’ as counting for much.
Interestingly tonight Mr Costello said that he was “most proud” of Chapter 11, which is about indigenous Australia includes issues of reconciliation, the integration of indigenous Australians into the “economic mainstream”, and the Northern Territory intervention.
Indeed the index includes a long list of aboriginal related topics, but under ‘a’ another issue of much interest to me is missing, ‘agriculture’.
Mr Costello was the Treasurer for most of the last 13 years, and much of his memoir is about economic issues and perhaps not surprisingly it is in this context, in particular the introduction of the GST, that he makes mention of the Australian Greens. He is scathing. He writes,
“The name of the Greens Party leads people to think that it is principally an environmental party. In fact, it has economic, tax and international relations policies on the far left of politics that it holds just as dear.”
It was clear from the talk this evening that Mr Costello believes the primary job of government is to manage the economy and that with economic prosperity comes an opportunity to do more for the environment. In contrast, many environmentalists would argue that economic prosperity inevitably brings unnecessary environmental destruction.
If you want to find out what an insider thought about the Howard-years, I suggest you grab a copy of ‘The Costello Memoirs’ (Melbourne University Press, 2008). And if you want to know what Mr Costello thought about key environmental issues – reading between the lines it would seem not very much.
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For my short perspective on the twelve years of coalition government you can read ‘John Howard Environmentalist’, IPA Review, January 2008, http://www.ipa.org.au/publications/931/john-howard-environmentalist
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Somehow, I don’t think Howard will be remembered as the PM who didn’t sign Kyoto.
If AGWing doesn’t happen, the complicit liberal media and academia will be too embarrasssed to ever bring it up again.
If it does happen, the industry which sets us apart from middle ages subsistence farmers, will cop the attention, not little Johnnie.
{And Peter will be remembered as that conservative pollie, who looked just like that wacky, liberal priest.}
Who remembers Menzies’ treasurers?
Well he’s right of course. The greens are a hard left rabble of lunatics and anyone who votes for them is a goose or a total loon themselves.
Interesting to the people that remember Ms Belinda Neal and Iguanagate, in the seat of Robertson on first past the post voting:-
Jim Lloyd – Liberal 39792
Belinda Neal Labour 37437
Mira Alphabet Greens 6279
Giving 2 party preferred win of 184 votes to Ms Neal 43697 Lloyd 43513
So Ra’s “hard left rabble of lunatics” gave us Ms “anger management” Neal
Bird is The Word (http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1842929/family_guy_bird_is_the_word/).
Ra is a Bird God (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra).
Spangled Drongo is a bird (www.birdphotos.com.au/spangleddrongoweb/ ).
Costello is an urban Liberal. So why would anyone be surprised that agriculture didn’t get a single mention?
Yet, every environment Minister under Howard was a f@#$& urban Liberal. Most of them were absolute shockers who never got more than 20% of the brief.
At least Costello had the good grace to say nothing about that which he knew jack $hit about.
Ra “The greens are a hard left rabble of lunatics…”
I wouldn’t count on them being leftists. Here’s in Canada they vary from hard right to hard left.
I agree they are lunatics, but as Michael Crichton points out, they are urban atheists who have adopted environmentalism as a religion. As you know, churches are not leftist institutions and neither are the Greens.
One of the Green leaders up here had it pointed out to her in a debate that many people would be forced out of work in coastal towns by her policies. She looked at the guy as if to say, “what’s your point?”, and went on to completely ignore the question. A leftist would have been concerned about people losing their livelihoods. I know she is a right-wing Yuppy.
May be Howard won’t be remembered as the PM who wouldn’t sign Kyoto, but K Rudd will most definitely be remembered as the bl@@dy idiot who did, long after it was known to be BS.
don’t miss tonights TV:
A highly entertaining documentary which follows agriculturalist Dr Ken Street as he hunts for the wild chickpea which could save the world from mass starvation in the event of global warming.
Gordon
Over here is Australia the Greens are a far left bunch of lunatics and people haters.
Anyone voting for them ought to be strait jacketed and sent to an institution for the mentally impaired.
Kyoto was all about the West developing a Carbon Trading model and showing leadership to the rest of the world. But I can see why Costello wouldn’t understand the concept of leadership.
Don’t be a dipshit, SJT.
From the very first, the ” leaders” – the european countries- started faking it until the European contracts dropped to a few centimes from 32 euros.
that’s some friggen leadership you blind oaf.
Kyoto was all about redistributing the wealth from the West to the rest of the world. Canadian politicians stated so explicitly and even admitted the science was shonky.
Ra; the left’s policies of assimilation mean that most of the mentally impaired walk the streets.