There is still some juice in the day, but alas, there is none in me.
But don’t worry – we will be back early tomorrow morning to bring you all the events of the second last day of this sitting and all the insanity and disappointment that will come along with it.
Yay!
A very big thank you to everyone who came along and spent some time with us today – you are the reason we do it, and we don’t take your support for granted.
See you tomorrow for another day of the 48th parliament, and the continuing spiral into the abyss.
Foreign minister Penny Wong will meet with the Prime Minister of Tuvalu, the Hon Feleti Penitala Teo a little bit later this afternoon.
This is the same day as members of Pacific Island nations and communities vulnerable to the more immediate impact of climate change have come to Canberra to try and lobby for more ambitious action from the Albanese government on climate. Or you know, to properly take note of the science and to stop opening up new fossil fuel sites.
A reminder that the 17,000 names of Palestinian children killed by Israel is massively understating the actual number of children who have been killed. These are just the names that were recorded before Gaza’s health and civil infrastructure services collapsed. There are still thousands of children and their family trapped under rubble, some suffocating to death as you read this, who have not been named.
The Coalition still don’t know where they are going, so they are going through the back catalogue – aged care and Medicare. Nothing wrong there, and there should be more focus on services people deal with every day, but there was no actual point to the Coalition’s question strategy and certainly no goal, so it didn’t go anywhere.
Once again the crossbench went for meaty issues -climate and sanctions on Israel, which the government doesn’t have answers for. But there will be no cohesiveness there, because the Coalition are a bigger mess than me on a Sunday morning after a Saturday night at The Beat when it comes to climate policy, and couldn’t serve up a proper question on that if they were drafted.
And when it comes to Israel, well Michaelia Cash is still putting out statements claiming BUT HAMAS whenever someone points out one of Israel’s multitude of plausible war crimes, so good luck there.
That means that the government gets away with the least they can do.
Madeline King replied to a question from Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown, asking “Will the Government stand up to coal and gas corporations and phase-out these dangerous fossil fuels thatare supercharging the climate”
Madeliene King stood up for gas and coal and in her answer waffled on about how vital gas is for us, but that we will get to net zero easily due to our advantages of renewables but that “That is not the case for our friends in Japan and Korea and countries like them where they simply do not have those abundance renewable resources. So in the meantime we will support them through our export industry and that will be what is really important part of Australia’s participation in regional energy security.”
This however is total bunkum.
Earlier this year at the Climate Integrity Summit, Yuki Tanabe, a Program Co-ordinator from Japan Center for a Sustainable Environment and Society spoke on the topic and exposed the myth that Japan’s energy security depends on Australian LNG imports and reveals that the energy “security” narrative by policymakers serves commercial interests rather than reflecting genuine energy vulnerability or regional instability. Far from addressing regional concerns in good faith, Australia’s efforts to justify and perpetuate Australia’s fossil fuel exports, undermine regional decarbonisation and human security.
Elizabeth Watson-Brown asks whether Australia will sanction Israel like it has Russia:
Your government has placed over 14,000 sanctions against Russian individuals and entities. As well as sanctioning trade with Russia for the invasion of Ukraine. Netanyahu’s genocidal assault on Palestine now means that more than two people that 2 million people are at risk of starvation, will you commit to applying equivalent sanctions to Israel as you imposed on Russia?
Anthony Albanese takes a breath and then gets up:
I thank the member for her question and of course you do not sanction a state, you sanction individuals and my government has sanctioned individuals, we have sanctioned the Minister for national security and we have sanctioned the Minister for Finance.
We have done so in part to some of the comments that have been made by them as ministers, people who were on the fringes of the Israeli politics but are now a part of the Netanyahu government.
The Minister for national security said this on the 27 July: ‘The only thing that should be sending to Gaza shells to bomb, conquer, immigration and win the war’.
That is what they had to say. The range of comments that have been made including by a soldier who killed a young Palestinian boy are reprehensible, the comments of the Minister for Finance were, he said ‘Gaza will be totally destroyed, the Palestinian population will leave in great numbers to third countries’.
On the 6 May he said… ‘We need to eliminate the problem of Gaza’. The 5 February he said,’ we have to work to promptly bury the dangerous idea of a Palestinian state’.
We do not take … these issues lightly. And what we do not do also is try to secure some domestic political advantage and damage social cohesion in this country. Through some of the actions which frankly some of the Greens political party actions have done.
What we do is act in principle why in a way is consistent.
We condemn Hamas for their actions and we condemn what is occurring in Gaza in breach of international law. (By who? Who is breaching international law in Gaza? Is it Israel?!)
That is the way that responsible adult governments act, it is a way that middle powers can have influence. That is the way we can have a constructive role and what I want to see which is an and to killing whether it is of Israelis or Palestinians.
And I want to see the creation of a two state solution where both Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and prosperity and security and will continue to work with other leaders around the world of like-minded countries with the objective of that.
I do say that Australians want to see, they want innocent people to stop losing their lives, the second thing they want and I say this directly to the member at her party, is they do not want conflict brought here in order to secure some sort of Potters and political advantage and they also do not want the agency of those people who are responsible for wrongdoing to be dismissed by suggestions which are said simply untrue and to gain a short-term domestic political advantage. (I think he is referring to the outrageous claim by Israel repeated in the Australian press that there is no starvation happening in Gaza)
I’m a friend of Israel and I’m a friend of the Palestinian people. That overwhelmingly has been the position of Australia for a long period of time. With our bipartisan support for a two state solution, I will continue to do what I can as Australia’s prime minister to achieve that.
OK, but we have all moved beyond the ‘political gain’ argument here. There is nothing to gain from calling for action against a genocide. There is something to gain from seeing your government properly stand up against one though.
The Minister for Climate Change, Chris Bowen, was asked by Zali Steggall about the government’s emissions target.
She rightly asked “the ICJ has confirmed nations have a legal obligation to prevent climate harm and productivity and economy has been battered by success of climate fuelled events, despite this the government ‘s defining action so far as to recklessly accelerate warming by approving new gas extraction to 2070, this negates any other policy, minimum target of 75% by 2035 of methane abatement is urgently needed, will you be ambitious?”
She is referring to the Climate Council, which has stated that “The science is clear. To do our fair share to hold global warming to well below 2°C, Australia needs to reduce climate pollution to 75% below 2005 levels by 2030, and reach net zero by 2035.” And that the CSIRO “pathway to reduce emissions by 75% on 2005 levels by 2035 and reach net zero by 2040. Under this scenario, average real GDP growth from 2020 to 2050 would only be 0.03 percentage points lower than the net zero by 2050 scenario, a cost significantly less than the economic, social and health benefits of cutting emissions.”
So the Climate Council says we should aim for net zero by 2035 but at least (AT LEAST!!!) net zero by 2040 and 75% cut below 2005 levels by 2035.
Back in September 2022 the government introduced a target of 47% cut by 2030 – if we continued that out to 2035 we get to a 55% cut target, and it almost would get us to net zero by 2050
The problem, as you can see is we are not on the way to even the 47% cut. Instead since the end of 2022 we are going the wrong way:
But even worse is that we are not even close to the 75% cut by 2035 and net zero by 2040 (let alone 2035)
In his answer Chris Bowen said “it is very important a target be able to be achieved, it is not a useful contribution to the debate to set a target without outlining how the country can actually achieve that target. Yes, ambition is very important but so is achievability”.
That suggests this government when it releases its 2035 target will not even be setting a target of the very least we can do given the science, but instead will be a target that will do very little to alter the current trend.
Australia is the world’s second biggest exporter of global emissions after Russia, last week the International Court of Justice made it clear that Australia has international legal responsibility for its fossil fuel production, regardless of where the coal or gas is ultimately burned. Will the Government stand up to coal and gas corporations and phase-out these dangerous fossil fuels that are supercharging the climate?
Madeleine King takes this one:
I would just like to point out the importance of Australia’s role in the regional energy security. This is something that is perhaps not as well understood as it could be or even should be. Australia-India does export gas and it does export coal, comment also exports iron ore, Exmouth Gulf, explores lithium, exports a great many things that are essential to our economy and, indeed, the three greatest exports of this country are iron ore, coal, and gas, which are to prosperity, support regional communities, which people on this side of the house do, as you do people on the other side. It will remain integral to the economy for many years to come and it will remain very important to hundreds of thousands of families around this country as the breadwinners and sometimes their partners go and participate in this industry, whether it be in fly-in fly-out communities or drive-in, drive out communities right around the country
Watson-Brown asks about relevance and Milton Dick says she is being relevant.
King continues:
In relation to gas, it will remain a very important part of Australia’s economy for some time to come. You will have seen and everyone in this house will have seen a future gas strategy which the Government will pursue. It’s an important part of our role in not only providing fuel and security to Australians and Australian industry, but equally for ensuring we play our role in helping to provide the energy security for the region* and, I might add, that countries in this region, Japan, Korea, and many others adopted net zero targets well before this country did, well before those opposite when they were in government eventually sort of got there and now of course they’re trying to move back from that, but nonetheless this government on this side is committed to net zero emissions, just like the Government of Japan, like the Government of Korea is and many others. And the ALbanese government feels that we export to those communities will be really important part of their transition. Transition pathways are going to be different for every country. In Australia we will be able to transition more quickly because of the natural resources available to us through wind and solar. The vast basis we have enable that. That is not the case for our friends in Japan and Korea and countries like them where they simply do not have those abundance renewable resources**. So in the meantime we will support them through our export industry and that will be what is really important part of Australia’s participation in regional energy security.
*And here is the great news – we can actually do that without opening up new gas fields! ISN’T THAT GREAT? We can meet our contracts, serve our domestic needs and actually uphold our responsibilities to emissions reduction – actual emissions reduction, rather than accounting tricks – if we just acted now.
**Lol. Japan is literally building a gas empire of its own from our gas. They are on-selling our gas to other Asian nations, because they take more than they need for their domestic needs and then on-sell enough to create a whole industry out of it. And South Korea is getting in on the action through ship building.
How has the Coalition managed to run out of steam just four question times in?
There is PLENTY to criticise this government on (I mean I do it every day, and not even when I’m being paid) and yet the Coalition somehow has run out of actual issues to hit the government with after less than four hours of questions.
