Read this and weep (with laughter) Australia’s electricity and gas transmission industry is calling on the Turnbull government to implement a form of carbon trading in the national electricity market by 2022 and review the scope for economy-wide carbon pricing by 2027. Energy Networks Australia warns in a new report examining how to achieve zero... Continue Reading →
It’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for… or “Gaudy versus powerful”…
So, imma try to join dots between The Last of Sheila, Australian climate politics and Bobby de Niro as Louis Cypher, with a little Clarice Starling, 'Parker,' Gene Hackman and Julian Rathbone thrown in for good measure. It all starts with this, from my PhD thesis research - The incredible Lenore Taylor wrote a piece in... Continue Reading →
Podcast on #Australia #climate policy #auspol
The very cool people at Beyond Zero Emissions, on 3CR (community radio in Melbourne) interviewed in November. Here's a link to their page about it. (it's cut and paste below) BZE radio talks to Marc Hudson: Marc is studying the strategic responses of the Australian coal industry to the challenge of climate change. He is... Continue Reading →
Guy Rundle decides to caste aspersions… #Auspol #Australia
Guy Rundle is a dude, a mensch. Never met him, but his by-line is always an invitation to intelligent, incisive analysis with a fearsome background knowledge. This, from his Quarterly Essay on Clive Palmer, nails it, imho - But there is another, and more important, reason why the now sclerotic apparatus of Australian government is... Continue Reading →
The next Australian Prime Minister… Josh Frydenberg?
Update: Mr Frydenberg has backflipped clumsily on a carbon price. Oops The soap opera that is the Australian Prime Ministership goes on. In the 32 years between December 1975 and November 2007 we had four prime ministers (Fraser, Hawke, Keating, Howard). In the five years between June 2010 and September 2015 we had five (Rudd,... Continue Reading →
First draft of history? Gaia help us all
It is way too easy, as a historian of the present, (cough cough) to get seduced by newspapers. They're detailed, not infected with the memoirist's ability to fit the events into a convenient/coherent narrative - and in theory the journalist doesn't have a dog in the fight. ... Except, no. If there ever was a... Continue Reading →
What do we want? Grumpy old men at the National Library of Australia (book launch!)
Last night at the National Library of Australia two grumpy old men talked about social movements and protest. That doesn’t sound too enthralling, does it? But the event – hosted by the NLA, and the launch of the book “What Do We Want: the story of protest in Australia" was a thoughtful, passionate and... Continue Reading →
Directions on misdirections at the Festival of Ideas
Phillip Adams and Barry Jones are two of the grand old men of Australian culture (and I know some people will have sniggered at that phrase; to one I say ‘see you in the divorce court, love’). For over fifty years they have fought the good fight – against the death penalty, against censorship, for... Continue Reading →
But which BIT of big business gets its way in which circumstances, eh?
The State is merely the committee for managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie, innit? The evil moustache-twirling CEOs get together and tell their political meat-puppet underlings what to do. Simples. Well, sometimes, but every so often maybe it is more complicated. I’m collecting examples of these every-so-often moments for my PhD thesis. I have quite... Continue Reading →
Getting your head around other people’s heads. Phenomenologically, tingle-ing-ly good
Can we ever really know what is going on in someone else's head? Meh, there's one way to piss someone off and that's to say “I know exactly how you feel, the same exact thing happened to me.” Because, of course, there's events but they have to be interpreted, and even the same person's interpretations... Continue Reading →