Blogs & Ecology

It’s been noted a few times - in comments and in direct emails to the moderators - that there has been quite a lull in the use of GreensBlog recently. This is sad but true, and I just wanted to briefly explain it.

As well as working with the new Senators and their teams and preparing for the avalanche that is about to come with the shifting balance of power in the new Senate, a fair chunk of our time recently has been dedicated to preparing a new website for the 5 Greens Senators that will encompass each of their sites, an umbrella site, newsroom, galleries, videos, parliamentary archive and, of course, the blog itself.

The Senate Inquiry into Christine Milne’s Private Member’s Bill for a national, comprehensive, gross feed-in tariff for renewable energy is closing its call for submissions this Friday, August 15.

Those of you who would like to see a strong, supportive policy framework for renewable energy in Australia, I would strongly recommend that you put in a submission to the inquiry as a matter of urgency.

This piece was originally published in today’s Crikey email.

In the coming months before the emissions trading legislation comes before the Senate, the Rudd Government needs to think hard about what it is trying to achieve.

Does it plan to buy into the lowest common denominator populism of the Coalition? This approach drags the debate backwards, undermines the global climate fight, and risks alienating a significant portion of Labor’s own base who voted for leadership on climate.

ABC TV watchers amongst you may have seen the promos already for Christine Milne on the newish Q&A program this Thursday night, July 10, at 9.30 pm. She will be on the panel, focussed on ‘Welcome the new Senate’, with Senator Helen Coonan, Minister Craig Emerson, author Linda Jaivin and everybody’s favourite opinionated columnist, Andrew Bolt.

As well as watching the program, please think about asking questions of Christine and the other panellists - about the Senate and balance of power, about the Garnaut Review, about appropriate responses to climate change, peak oil and the trasnport crisis, or anything at all that interests you!

Wonderfully uplifting news today that Colombian Green presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, has been freed! Betancourt, who had been taken hostage by FARC revolutionary guerillas 6 years ago, was finally released in an apparently extraordinary operation with no loss of life or even injuries.

As we say a sad farewell to Kerry Nettle and the Democrats (you can read Bob’s valedictory speech to the Dems here and we’ll post Kerry’s soon), we saw a fascinating signpost today to the interesting place that the new Senate will be when we come back from winter recess in late August.

An edited version of this piece appeared in today’s Crikey email.

Not long ago I wrote in Crikey giving the Climate Institute a very hard time over their positioning on geosequestration. While I still think they are utterly wrong on that, I write today to support their excellent report which the Federal Opposition yesterday dishonestly and disingenuously abused in Question Time.

The Senate Environment Committee is calling for submissions to an inquiry into my renewable energy feed-in Private Member’s Bill, which we negotiated and were successful in having referred earlier this week.

I think Liberal Backbencher Chris Pearce may have done us all a big favour by taking the petrol price populism just that little bit too far this morning. He went out on a limb calling for his own party to double its ridiculous 5c fuel excise cut to 10c and promptly got smacked down by members of his own party as well as others.

You know the message is starting to get through when Kerry O’Brien on ABC’s 7.30 Report opens an interview with the Prime Minister by saying “isn’t it time to look Australians in the eye and tell them the news is only going to get worse on oil?”

What a pity that the PM continued to ignore peak oil and blithely claimed that no-one can know what will happen to oil prices. Just because ABARE is so bad at it doesn’t mean everyone is!

The Chief of Defence Force (CDF) Air Marshall Angus Houston, told the Senate Estimates hearing today that the war in Afghanistan may last another ten years. Not only that, but the CDF said that without a lot more troops on the ground, we face “strategic failure” in Afghanistan.
An uncomfortable Minister Faulkner sat stone [...]

As the team at Hansard are struggling valiantly to catch up on the huge quantity of transcribing work coming out of Senate Estimates, it’s going to be a little while before we’re up to date here on what’s been happening, but I thought I’d post a few key climate and oil-related transcripts now.
The one that [...]

This has taken a while, but we finally have Christine’s Budget Reply Speech up on YouTube and postable to the blog. Those of you who have enjoyed reading or listening to it may be interested in watching it.
In five parts.

We’ve seen three significant steps in the last 24 hours in the campaign to save Australia’s solar industry.
Last night in Senate Estimates hearings, Christine plugged away at Penny Wong over the ludicrous decision to means test the rooftop solar rebate at a family income of $100,000. She succeeded in getting the Minister to acknowledge that [...]

This piece was published today on Crikey’s daily email. Also see my media release from this morning on the issue.
I have to confess myself quite flabbergasted by the extent to which our governments, oppositions, economists, planners and media claim to have been caught unawares by the rocketing global oil price and imply that no one [...]