A little rain falls and this happens.
The Hon. Duncan Gay: There was snow at Crookwell yesterday. It will all be flowing into the catchment.
The Hon. MICHAEL COSTA: That is what I love about these people. When the drought was at its worst, I kept saying, “It will rain”. But the Greens and idiots like Tim Flannery said, “It will never rain.”
The Hon. Melinda Pavey: He is the Australian of the Year.
The Hon. MICHAEL COSTA: You made him Australian of the Year, not me! Well it has started to rain and it seems as though it is going to rain forever. These people do not understand climate cycles. When it comes to the climate they are alarmists and cannot see beyond the end of their noses. They create division, panic and fear so that they can rustle up a few naïve people to vote for them at election time. Climates change. If there is one constant about climates, it is that they change. I do not mean that they are changing now; but they have changed over history. We will continue to see climates change, and rain cycles will vary from drought, to normality, to heavy rainfall incidents. That is the reality of the world and that is what we have to plan for. We do not plan on a day-to-day basis, as the Greens do. It is easy for them to make unaffordable promises and to come up with an economic model that could apply only in cloud-cuckoo-land. It is easy for the Greens to make policies that no-one need fear will be implemented. But that does not stop them putting up ridiculous propositions every question time. The Government’s policy is clear. We have a range of alternatives to secure our water supply, including capturing water for our dam system, recycling and, now, desalination.
I like an open mind. I’m happy to know the minister accepts that climate changes and continues to plan for a water poor future.
Is Costa as embarrassing as he appears to be from outside NSW? I mean, generally, not just on this issue.
Yes. The one thing you’ve got to give ex-Maoists is that they’re always pushing the envelope of being infuriating.
The standard joke is that when Andrew Stoner crossed the floor to punch Costa a year or two ago, the rest of the MPs were outraged—not because of the breach of Parliamentary standards, but because he jumped the queue.
More from Mark at stoush.net:
http://stoush.net/mark/586/climate-change-scepticism-is-on-a-par-with-creationism
I don’t have a problem with him expressing himself this way, I see it as more of a headkicking exercise, which he loves to do. I’d believe he was a real skeptic if he did absolutely nothing and said we should all pray for rain…..now where have I heard that before…….
Your tax payer dollar at work…….
I’m a New South Welshman, and I think Costa is a total *. Believe me, I could’ve been swayed Liberal at the last state election if the opposition hadn’t been led quite so far up the right wing garden path (and if we’d had a federal Labor govt). NSW needs a period of independent/minor party ascendancy to change the tone and get some scrutiny on these fellows.
Uh, when did Tim Flannery or the Greens ever say “it will never rain�, or anything that a remotely reasonable person could construe as a statement even half-way approaching such a sentiment?
Is this a straw Flannery I see before me?
(Of course, if Flannery has actually said “it will never rain”, I will happily stand corrected.)
I like an open mind too, but not so open that your brains fall out. So “Well it has started to rain and it seems as though it is going to rain forever.” Which begs the question - why then build the desal plant?
Iemma’s election promise - the desal plant will only go ahead with the dams at 30% capacity. So OK now they’re at 50% (& battling with huge contamination problems) but the desal plant goes ahead, bigger, brighter than before. & what recycling? where?
& he reckons the Greens are the problem? How soon is the next state election?
Adam, I agree with you, at the state elections, the only reason I was glad to see Labor returned was that the opposition were such an appalling lot. I guess it was a case of, well at least all the tyres aren’t flat on this mob, just worn out.Better than nothing.
Not a maoist actually, a one time Trot.
Costa has now completed the usual political cycle of the sectarian left, and is now devising an election strategy for the next state election where the ALP will push to the Right, taking over neoliberal positions on everything, in the hope that the liberal conservative rag tag bunch known as the NSW coalition parties will be pushed so far to the loony right, that the NSW ALP will get another thoroughly undeserved term of government. This is obviously merely a feint on the way to insurrection on a truly global scale. Trotsky, eat your heart out! I am taking wagers on who will achieve the moniker of the most widely despised ALP Minister ever to hold Office anywhere in Australia (nominations must ensure that said Minister was still a member of the ALP at the time of maximum hatred). Costa is not just a complete self serving boofhead, he is politically incompetent, and economically illiterate as well. He is fast set to be the single biggest liability in a government chock full of them.
I suppose that is a an achievement of sorts.
Don’t get me wrong, he is an absolute bastard, but given the opposition and lack of any alternatives far into the future he’s the bastard we’re gonna have to live with.
If I were a praying man I’d say god help us all, because we really need some guys to step up and do the right thing and it ain’t looking like anyone is prepared to do that.
Hear, hear, Phil. O for politicians with some vision and some courage, State and Federal.
Everything Adam Gall wrote!
I agree with Flannery’s reponse to Costa, as well
“My reaction is just lofty disdain”
“the most widely despised ALP Minister”
My nomination is Costa. Then again I can’t stand Tripodi either. How many nominations can I make because I’ve hardly even started on the current mob.
He did, however, make this seemingly contradictory statement:
i thought costa was a federal liberal minister, sure speaks like one
I’m a Labor supporter… but something must be really wrong with Labor’s selection processes when guys like that get to Treasurer. The obnoxious twit doesn’t have ANYTHING going for him. I can’t imagine him succeeding in anything except… Labor… or maybe the mafia.
On the other hand, I can’t figure out why everyone hates Joe Tripodi so much. He is clearly intelligent and seems well-spoken to me.
I am disappointed that there arent more kings to the throne of climate change expert. That way if Flannery had real competition,then the likes of Costa would have to blast effectively two kings.Whereas there is probably in what Costa says the confusing problem of what effectively to do,seeing the problem manifests itself in many ways,and, well is Flannery a super-dooper at coming up with solutions,or have the State Governments got many quite achievers who are already sticking in the boot via bureaus.They didnt go to the same University and I think Costa has tasted unemployment,has Flannery… Canberra based most of the time!? Which doesnt make Costa a great employer,but shit, not everyone wants to write books lecture and be seen on the teeve like clones of a couple of brothers of long ago now. It would be better to talk… scale of desalination,because the points a good one,what do you do with a massive thing if we are now entering a relatively normal cycle of rain!? The thing should be like a lego set,able to be built on quickly ,if necessary,and I for one think the less likely problem will be brine,but it could get shipwrecked. Why dont they buy the Pasher and use it instead of building a bloody desal job! Grrrrrr New Holland constructions!?
I think the scientific predictive models say there will be periods of concentrated very heavy rainfall, but the norm will be long drys and the former will be only in certain parts of the continent anyway. Overall temperatures will rise which will mean that that the effects of a long dry will be worse as will the extent, frequency and damage of bushfires. The remnant rainforests on the eastern coast of Australia will be gone in 50-75 years. Frequent bushfires will ravage biodiversity and the long dries will mean water becomes ever more scare and insufficent to sustain the growing human population.
Mick Costa is an enigma. It is true he was briefly a Trot, but that was a stepping stone, as it easily could have been for many, for a career as a union bureaucrat and then a bump me into Parliament scenario. Costa went for it. Who knows, perhaps he was a cop, plenty of them in the far left organisations then and now were, I bet.
Why he is tolerated and was promoted so quickly and repeatedly speaks volumes about Bob Carr and NSW Labor politics generally. Interesting that two novices, Phil Koperberg and Verity Firth are the two Ministers responsible for the Environment and Climate Change. Babes in the wood both, who are meant to pretend the NSW government is going to do something other than continue to fcuk the environment, mine that coal, devastate Botany Bay, build more roads, destroy more heritage.
The budget a couple of weeks ago cut Aboriginal support programs by a whopping 40 per cent. No wonder, Iemma was so keen to send a few coppers to the NT for Howard’s rescue mission. Hah.
Spot on jinmaro. The models clearly predicted periods of not just far heavier rain and cold periods in pockets around the world, including those areas where glaciers are actually increasing in size and average temperatures are dropping, but much greater periods or weather turmoil in between longer periods of dry and above average temperatures (i.e. more successive days of above 38°).
These severe weather events, as Victoria is now finding out and NSW had a few weeks ago, support the climate change global warming models, not dispel them. Flannery I believe made this point as well against all the naysayers who keep going on about all these abnormal weather events as being a part of natural cycles (probably more in desperate hope than out of any real belief).
Tripodi isn’t even in the same league as Costa for hatability. Tripodi’s just venal, sleazy and ignorant, Costa actively wishes harm for the cause of Labor. Interesting question though, about the most actively hated ALP Ministers: Billy Hughes would whip it without that caveat of being in the Party while hated.
My pick of the most popularly despised Labor Ministers (for right or wrong reasons):
1. Jack Lang
2. Ted Theodore
3. Brian Burke
4. Al Grassby
5. Carmen Lawrence
6. Gough Whitlam (in ‘74-’75)
7. Paul Keating
8. Rex Connor
9. Arthur Calwell
10. Andrew Theophanous
Costa wouldn’t even be in the historical top twenty, I don’t think.
The point of Costa’s head kicking was that Flannery said that Sydney would run out of water within 2 years. Storage levels are currently 50% and rising.
Perhaps Flannery will be a bit more circumspect about predictions in the future,but I doubt it, he is totally addicted to telling whoppers.
No, Costa is a coarse, crude climate change denier. I read the dispatches from Parliament on this. They pop up in my email box though I often rather they didn’t.
His crudity is amazing. Climate changes, he says, like a half-baked dialectician. And the economy is key. If the Chinese It will make us rich. You can see the ill-understood concepts being regurgitated and rotely used. Who cares about the rest of the world? It is almost funny, if it weren’t so serious.
if the Chinese burn our coal then it is they not us who are producing greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, they $ will make us rich.
chrisl, your corrective is welcome and correct.
Nonetheless, it does seem the right factions have gained a fearful hold on the ALP over the last fifteen years.
I rate it has happening since Beddall got the nod in front of Faulkner as to open slather on logging and woodchipping back in 94-95.
Social policy and environment have been on the receiving end across politics since the rise of the neoliberal push, and now the likes of Costa, Lennon, and so forth have isolated progressives in the ALP the same way that the Rightist libs got rid of or isolated their social liberals ( eg Brogden, Valder ).
I’ve spent the day reading (for the first time) The Latham Diaries and The Culture of Forgetting by Robert Manne. We live in a very strange country. Both books speak volumes about the political and cultural realities which today have produced to name just one outcome, the current NSW Labor Treasurer Michael Costa.
Jinmaro, if you want to understand Michael Costa by reading, you should check out Warhurst and Parkin’s The Machine and Graham Freudenberg’s Cause For Power. Both are essential reading to understand him and the Party which (in Shane Maloney’s immortal words) next to the worker, loves itself best.
Of course, as Amused noted, a re-reading of Permanent Revolution would probably be a good idea too. You’re quite right, A.—no Maoist deviation in Costa’s background.
So it rained in a few part of the states and maybe a few parts of the country. Does he think the drought’s over? What about the rest of the State? Or the rest of the country?
“i thought costa was a federal liberal minister, sure speaks like one”
Both federal and NSW governments have been in power for too long and are showing some of the worse excesses that can come about through that kind of stability. I’ve felt looking at the ministers at both levels, that they become more like caricatures of themselves as time passes.
An aside: I would perhaps give Howard more credit though, because Iemma is Premier-by-default.
“His crudity is amazing. Climate changes, he says, like a half-baked dialectician.”
Costa’s rhetoric reminds me of a passage from Michel Serres, where he depicts two warriors wrestling as they sink deeper and deeper into the mud.
No Costa is far too obnoxious and unpopular to have lasted in Howard’s government. Yes, far more obnoxious and unpopular than even Downer and Ruddock. The Howard government is a pretty smooth, popularity machine most the time.
ChrisL says:
“The point of Costa’s head kicking was that Flannery said that Sydney would run out of water within 2 years. ”
Methinks you are telling pork pies. Flannery said “could” not “would”.
melaleuca : Here’s a prediction …. Sydney’s water supply”could” reach 70% by the end of the year(currently 53%)
Flannery also warned that Brisbane and Adelaide could run out of water by year’s end. At the time of his warning, both cities had enough water to last until the end of 2007; Brisbane, in fact, had enough to last until October 2008.
The use of words and phrases in this way is discussed in the book ‘Crimes Against Logic’:
With all due respect, Tony, that is a wank. We all plan for contingencies that “could” occur. Anyone who doesn’t is rightly dismissed as a tosser. This is why you no doubt have insurance on your South Yarra digs.
Tony of South Yarra,
Flannery is completely correct, we could get more rain and still have a drier continent.
This is not necessarily due to more rain in some areas, less in others either.
There are two elements that come together to determine how dry a location is.
Precipitation and Evaporation.
In a significantly warmer world, evaporation rates will increase markedly. Soils will be drier. More water will be needed to fill the soil water profile. Everywhere water is exposed to the atmosphere will experience faster evaporation. Hence, more rain doesn’t neccesarily mean a wetter continent.
Before I read this thread I knew only two things about Costa.
He is very unforgettable, that is, see him once, and you will recognise him anywhere, even 20 years later in a dark alley in Kazakhstan, and:
He changed the name from the “NSW Police Service” to the “NSW Police Force”, a move which I backed to hilt, pity he stopped there.
Now I know a third thing about him.
Anybody who thinks Flannery is a dickhead can’t be all that bad.
“They create division, panic and fear so thay they can rustle up a few naive people to vote for them at election time.” Surely stating policy out aloud is against the rules.
I remember voting in my first NSW election (2003?) and knowing virtually nothing about NSW politics (or politics in general.) Nonetheless, something still moved me to exclude 1 politician from my grab-bag of Labor/Green senate selections. That man was Michael Costa. I have not regretted my decision.
BigBob: Please explain in your “wetter is drier world” where does the extra water evaporated go?
Easy steps (in Flannery speak)
1. It “could” get significantly warmer
2. Evaporation rates “could” rise markedly
3. Evaporated water “could” just disappear altogether!
Funny stuff, water. It moves around on the wind. Here we are back with the low rent chop logic of the denialists incapable of imagining a complete system, let alone understand the idea that extra energy disrupts existing systems in unpredictable ways.
Put the frog in the pot. Add water. Apply heat. Frog eventually notices that the liquid is bubbling away in all kinds of unpredictable ways. Of course, one very simple thing is happening - the frog is boiling. The argument is about the state of the water. No matter what the answer, the smart frog jumps.
We ‘denialists’ of course prefer our frogs not to jump, just so we may continue to enjoy our secret pleasure - Frog Soup.