I’m not passing judgement on the substantive issue, about which there was a big debate here a while back, simply because it’s not one on which I’ve investigated the merits, but Peter Garrett’s call for an “urgent working group” after a meeting of state Environment Ministers failed to agree on any scheme for phasing out plastic shopping bags is pretty pathetic. Much more difficult issues - such as the Murray/Darling - have been resolved between the Commonwealth and the states since the election of the Rudd government. After a gaffe prone campaign, Garrett had the sharp end of his portfolio given to Penny Wong. Maybe we’re starting to see why - it may well be that state ministers are too close to commercial interests or given to soundbite populism like Verity Firth apparently is, but the whole point of the co-operative process was surely to produce results on issues of national importance and not to defer decision-making endlessly.
Given that Garrett copped so much flak for his move into Labor politics, it would be a real pity if his much prized seat at the Cabinet table proves to be just that rather than the chance to actually make some runs. Down the track, and I suspect it won’t take stormy political weather to prompt it, it’ll be interesting to see whether Kevin Rudd really follows through on his statements before and after the election about carefully evaluating Ministers’ performance. Perhaps because the government as a whole is travelling so well, this has dropped off the radar of commentary. But I have no doubt it’s still on the PM’s mind.
Cross-posted at PollieGraph.
I’m happy to call it now. Peter Garrett is a dud. It’s obvious (in hindsight of course) that all he ever contributed to Midnight Oil was quirky flailing arms and a shiny head. That’s it. If that’s all he’s going to contribute to government, he’s still doing better than Peter Reith but that isn’t exactly saying much.
Ditch him and move on. Cut Macklin loose at the same time.
McLelland’s my number one pick to be chucked overboard at the first opportunity. Useless rubberstamp for Keelty and the rest of the incompetent anti-terrorist crew, and the Ruddock era dills in his department whose main mission is attacking civil rights.
Promote Debus.
And, yep, lose Macklin.
Well if we want to play the I Can’t Believe You’re A Minister! game, both Fergusons deserve to be kicked to the depths of the backbench (no you can’t have a parliamentary secretariship) and thence to obscurity before Macklin, Mark, as does the Senator Conroy. There’s low-hanging fruit for everyone if you want to go looking for it. We’ll see about the new Seeeenatorrr Cameron, but my hopes aren’t high.
You may be right about Debus, but I think you’re quite unfair to Firth.
Only judging on the basis of tonight’s clip on Lateline, Liam, so willing to concede that. Note that I wrote “apparently”.
Forgot about the Fergusons. But, yep!
Ruddock era dills - crikey, is the department still staffed by the undead? If George Romero is right, we need to cut off their heads and pronto! Then again, if Romero was wrong, burning the bodies in a crematorium near a graveyard during the rain will also turn out badly, other than to generate some righteous Linnea Quigley nudie dancing on tombs.
Actually, even that would be better than empty fear mongering.
In conclusion, I’ll concede McLelland is a bigger dill than Macklin, but there isn’t much in it.
I’d also like to think Gough Whitlams old seat is now cursed.
Miles Jordana, Howard’s former henchman, is a Deputy Secretary.
According to Bernard Keane in Crikey:
And the Secretary, Robert Cornall, apparently was the brains behind the anti-terror legislation.
On the subject of environmental impacts of supermarkets practices, I’d like to see a ban on open air refridgerators and freezers.
If Garrett can’t do plastic bags, what can (or will) he do? Its a no brainer to do something about the landfill and environment problem. He says he is worried about the economic impact on low income households? Has he forgotten he is Environment Minister? Surely he can find a way to mitigate that impact AND do something to protect the environment.
All those waiting for him “to do good things now that he is a minister” - I hope you are not holding your breath.
Ferguson did a good Ian MacFarlane impersonation on tonight’s 7:30 report - “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. Funny how he didn’t mention his desire to burn native forest woodchips for energy too!
Wot Liam said. Nice to see you’ve come round on the Verity factor
. Future NSW Premier material I reckon, left faction or no - anyone care to wager?
And can I just send a wrist-slap and wag of the finger round to everybody for the tall poppy comments on Garrett??
How many records have y’all sold, and how many times have y’all been elected to Parliament?
I think the jury is still out on Garrett, but it would be a big call from Rudd to drop him in a political sense. The remotest skerrick of street cred is like gold to the major parties today. Rudd got his pound of “cool” flesh from Sunrise. Comparatively, the Liberal Party is almost completely lacking in it.
Given all the environmental problems and issues we face, worrying about plastics bags is a bit like applying aromatherapy at a 50 car pile up on a freeway.
“Help, help” you cry, with your left arm 5 meters away, your legs crushed and you’re bleeding out. Don’t worry, the paramedic will save you: “here smell this essential oil it will help your optimism and sense of well being”.
Give Pete a break - if you don’t have a bundle of money to wave around getting the states to reach agreement is like herding cats.
It should be noted that the previous government has been trying to get a resolution on this issue for 5 years.
One of the side benefits is that we now will have a chance to observe the outcomes of differing policy approaches to solving the issue.
I favour a discount/refund for not taking a plastic bag. An incentive rather than a dis-incentive. Anyway why should we pay for bags we don’t take.
oo kevin, good call!
In two minds about Garrett. This plastic bag ban issue is hard for the pollies because it will impact on every voter, and despite everybody saying plastic bags are a bad thing and we got to get rid of them there’s a lot of people out there are going to get annoyed at having to pay 15c per bag or whatever. And even more people who use them to get rid of their kitchen garbage who would consider ouyr grandparents’ practice of wrapping up kirchen rubbish in newspaers irksome. Not hat I have any sympathy for them. Don’t know about Macklin. She doesn’t show up well beside Labor’s bright young women,or that political genius, our Julia, but I think she’s competent. Not sure.
And Ferguson - oh, yeah, he was so f—ing Liberal on the 7.30 Report last night I had to put the mute button on before I started screaming at the TV the way I used to in the Howard era. (Is that the real face of the Rudd Government?)
Wasn’t going to turn the TV off, because I wanted to watch the comedians at the end of the 7.30 Report, the science programme, and especially the one on the Incas. Loved it.
What a doofus. If Peter Garrett thinks the cost of plastic bags will “pinch” Australian communities, wait till they get going on CO2 emissions trading.
Now, remember this?
- Kevin Rudd, 26 March 2008
The new era in Commonwealth-State relations.
I wonder why they couldn’t organise an outcome like the Murray-Darling Basin Reform?
Oh, that’s right. Howard’s mob already did it for them.
People like Combet, Shorten and McKew will be looking for a seat in Cabinet eventually. There’s a few people who should be very nrevous.
It’s the same problem as with most environmental issues - everyone wants ’something’ to be done, right up until the second we have to pay anything for it or change our own behaviour. It’s only if its (a) right in their face here and now, and (b) backed by major (and honest) campaigns explaining why its needed - like water restrictions perhaps - that there’s likely to general public acceptance. I can’t see that happening on plastic bags because its not seen as a big enough issue and also there isn’t even consensus about how big a problem it is.
Witness the drawn out pondering about a carbon trading scheme and the long running debates about putting more government money and support into renewables, public transport, etc. Everyone wants ’something done’ about climate change, but few are really willing to pay more or consume less - meanwhile the clamour about climate change is nothing compared to the public pressure about rising fuel prices.
See how well Penny Wong goes selling the merits of higher fuel and electricty prices before you beat up too much on Peter Garrett for not being able to sell a plastic bag fee.
I’d still rather have Peter Garrett as Environment Minister than most other choices on offer, but having said that I agree that he hasn’t done a lot to date to make one confident he is going to substantially improve things in the way that is needed. How much of that is his failings and how much is due to the ‘pragmatic’ constraints upon him by Rudd Labor I don’t know - the end result is what matters and people are certainly right to demand a lot better.
(I think the judgement about Peter Garrett’s contribution to Midnight Oil is rather harsh too, but that’s a different matter).
A few points in response to Mark’s statement that the Murray-Darling Basin issue has been resolved between the states and the Feds since the election of the Rudd government. This is questioned by a number of environmental scientists and NGOs, even those who agree that the most recent COAG meeting resulted in valuable progress.
There is a general concern in these quarters that the current MDB crisis requires urgent action which the proposed National Plan doesn’t guarantee.
Specific concerns include that:
* States retain control of their water and of water allocation decisions.
* A catchment-wide Plan won’t be produced until 2011.
* The Plan won’t replace State plans until they expire (as late as 2019).
* The Plan doesn’t provide for immediate buy-back of excessive allocations or fundamental reform of allocations and entitlements regime to ensure sustainability.
* The deal to bring in Victoria is too generous to irrigators and inadequate for environment.
Paul, again I’m not adjudicating on the merits of the decisions taken about the Murray/Darling, but pointing to the contrast between the fact that agreement was reached on that issue and not on the issue for which Garrett had responsibility.
I’m glad I’m not the only person who thinks Marn Fersn should just be quietly put down. Either he’s a brilliant actor, or he’s pig-ignorant and as dumb as a bag of hammers. The only way I could live through the interview last night was by playing my guitar in the gaps between Red Kezza’s attempts to get him to say something sensible or coherent.
David: “…as dumb as a bag of hammers.”
LOL
Yes, Ferguson tried to “stay on message” but didn’t seem to realise (or care) that the message was not relevant to all of O’Brien’s questions.
And he said the Govt has “committed $800m to solar”. I think this is was a clanger. They (along with the Liberals) have committed $450m to coal via the LETD, but nowhere near this amount for solar (only the rebate for panels is in place).
He really didn’t seem to know what he was talking about. As if emissions trading in 2012 will have any short bearing on solar uptake, R&D and commercialisation . . .
With drongos like him apparently in charge, I don’t hold out high hopes for real action on climate change to ensue.
But Marn Fersn is an eminent doyen of the Federal Labor Party. Wasn’t he under Keating and Hawke, too? Clearly, one of Rudd’s most experienced team players. As opposed, say, to Peter Garrett and other “fresh new talent”.
Andrew says:
How does “stagflation” sound to you? Once that sets in big-time, then it will be Midnight Oil meets The Whitlams in a grizzly re-run of the seventies nostalgia craze.
They’re probably attaching the electrodes to the bolts in Jim Cairns’s and Rex Connor’s necks already. “It’s alive! It’s alive!”
Fine says:
Home owners, motorists, wage-earning employees, small business operators, self-funded retirees….
Doug says:
The hardware chain Bunnings confirmed it had reduced bag usage by 99 per cent by imposing a charge, and was moving to an outright ban.
[link]
What to do? What to do? So, hard….
Point taken, Mark.
Paul Burns said:
What if you don’t buy newspapers? I reckon a daily newspaper would do far more environmental damage than a nearly weightless plastic bag every second day. It wouldn’t surprise me if the just the fuel used to deliver the paper was greater than that to create the bag.
Perhaps there should be subsidy to get everyone to put in an ‘insinkerator’ or whatever they are called. This would get rid of most of the smelly stuff. A subsidized garbage compactor in every house would compress the rest down to a very small size thus requiring fewer bags.
Eliot, I may be misremembering, but I don’t think either Hawke or Keating trusted Marn Fersn with anything important. I hope Rudd realises sooner rather than later that he shouldn’t either. The man’s a fool, and hence belongs with the Libs.
The Elephant Man wasn’t in parliament during the terms of the Hawke and Keating governments. He was a Miscellaneous Workers Union official who became an ACTU official and ultimately an ACTU President, and was a prominent member of that section of the ACTU leadership which believed that the relationship between the trade unions and the environmental movement should be as hostile as possible. He was parachuted into the seat of Batman in 1996.
“McLelland’s [sic] my number one pick to be chucked overboard at the first opportunity … Promote Debus.”
McClelland hasn’t done much wrong, bearing in mind that a lot of what he has been dealing with had (and has) bipartisan support. Much of the A-G’s portfolio is process rather than policy and his big ticket items, like a Charter of Rights are still on the distant horizon. As for Debus, my sources tell me that he has been a very unhappy camper and has been talking about resigning from the Ministry altogether.
Swan still doesn’t look like he’s in command. His stocks are not high in some important quarters. Latham’s comments about Gillard scanning the press gallery when Swan’s on his feet in question time are on the money.
People they ain’t no good.
I think its well understood
You can see it everywhere you look
People just ain’t no good.
I feel a certain compulsion to counter this by saying something ’sunny’. But I can’t think of anything.
Just ban the bloody things. What harm could possibly come of it?
Peter says:
I cannot look at a Sydney Morning Herald without wincing at the thought of the other 211,990 to 355,750 (Audit Bureau of Circulation) copies trundling around on the backs of truck and in aeroplanes every single day!
And it’s filled with utter crap about obscure pop groups, plugs for poncy restaurants, twaddle about third rate art galleries, inane film reviews, imported car guides, syndicated crap about overseas travel destinations you’d not visit even as a hostage, and mountains of classified ads that could just as easily go on-line.
Except I recently saw that computers are responsible for about 40% of the energy consumed by office equipment in the United States.
[link]
There is a simple, long-term solution for replacing the current plastic shopping bags and the polypropylene ‘green bags’ which are also difficult to degrade.
Primary industries Minister, Ian MacDonald recently announced that farmers will soon be able to grow ‘legal’ hemp for oil seed and other uses. He also said that the ’system could pave the way for new industries’, see: [link]
Hemp makes an excellent paper that unlike the paper from wood pulp can be recycled many times over. Hemp paper is also very strong, having been used in the manufacture of bank notes in many countries.
Hemp fibre can also be used to make very strong yarns (hemp was used for rope for centuries) and a very tough linen-like fabric.
My suggestion is that Australia start manufacturing its own bags from hemp fabric and hemp paper.
Shopping bags made of Hemp fabric could replace the present ‘green bags’ and would last for years and be fully biodegradable.
Likewise supermarket bags made of hemp paper would be stronger than the present plastic ones, could be re-used by shoppers many times over, and when they finally reach the end of their life could be re-pulped to make 2nd generation hemp paper.
Are there any enterprising farmers and manufacturers around?
Actually - I reckon the best solution is the one taken. ie Do nothing. The so called problems of plastic bags are vastly overrated. Hysteria whipped up by the usual suspects, mainly.
One of the reasons the Brits were persuaded to send convicts here in the first place was because of the hemp believed to be growing at Norfolk Island. Like the pines there the hemp turned out to be useless.
About 1968 some misguided hippies who somehow had got round to perusing Phillip’s Instructions misinterpreted this piece of information, unaware that hemp was a major requirement of 18c British naval stores, and concluded one of the reasons for founding a convict colony at Botany Bay was to grow massive amounts of marijuana.
Just sayin’.
Ban the small supermarket plastic bags and you will see a huge rise in the use of the large green and black industrial strength wheely bin bags.
Jim Bendfeldt has the most obvious solution.
“POUR ENCOURAGER LES AUTRES” - to encourage the others
Sideways from Marn Fersn to the delicious Pwue Goward, NSW MP. Last Friday, she was heard (on ABC radio in Victoria no less) berating the NSW Minister for not having a policy on plastic supermarket bags. The reporter challenged her to enunciate the NSW Opposition’s policy.
“Oh we don’t have one. But we don’t have to, the Government should have a policy on this and should have advocated it [at the meeting with Pete]. Our job is to ENCOURAGE the Government.”
Now this I thought was a rather neat sidestep. But it may also be (at last) a contribution to developing a non-macho politics, IMHO. Could it be that under Ms Goward, an Opposition might prefer to be constructive, to encourage and massage a flailing Government? To ease it’s thought-burden. To come up with bright suggestions….? She didn’t, but it sounded as if she jolly well wants to.
Go Pwue!
He’s tall, he’s bald, he has a sweet voice and he’s tooo nice for the bast’ds. Gangly Peter is too lean and serene to kick as’s in Canberra. The point is if plastic bags go we’ll need paper bags. That means trees and forests, logging, paper mills. Millions and billions of paper bags. The cardboard boxes currently recycled by supermartkets will be used for shopping then thrown away.
Why can’t we have fast bio-degradable plastic bags. We were promised them decades ago.