The Greens are running Clive Hamilton in Higgins.
As Andrew Norton observes, Hamilton criticising seems to be a politically ecumenical practice in the blogosphere.
Guy Rundle puts a contrary view.
I’m by no means enamoured of some of the ideas Hamilton has put forward over the years, but I don’t know that judging him on that basis is necessarily the most appropriate mode of evaluating his prospects as a political representative. I was also struck by Guy Beres‘ comment:
It’s all a bit incestuous when you think about it. The Greens famously courted Peter Garrett on numerous occasions before his controversial decision during the (pre-explosion) Latham era to join the Labor Party. In years past, high-profile players within the Labor Party organisation seriously entertained the idea of Malcolm Turnbull joining the ALP’s ranks. One does wonder whether Clive Hamilton would be considered an asset as a candidate by the Labor Party. Clearly his strong views on the nature of modern capitalism, climate change and stringent opposition to nuclear power paint him as more of a natural Greens candidate. Leaving aside the much debated travails of Peter Garrett for a moment, just what sort of impact could a few high-profile leftish intellectuals have on the parliamentary Labor party?
My other observation would be that I’m not sure that high profile candidates necessarily fare better in by-elections, where the name of the game isn’t really to attract national media attention, but grass roots campaigning on the ground. I have no knowledge of the degree to which Hamilton has or has not been involved in community politics and campaigning on a local level in the suburbs encompassed by Higgins, but my general view would be that such a candidate would be a good bet for an increased vote. In light of the commentary around the Higgins by-election as a barometer on climate change policy, The Greens might have been thinking that’s the better tack to take.
It’s going to be an interesting contest, whichever way it pans out.
Previously on LP: A couple of earlier posts on the Higgins contest.
Update: Legal Eagle.
Update: Hamilton on Hamilton.
Update: En Passant.
Update: Since this post has largely focused on Hamilton rather than electoral strategy and the likely outcomes in Higgins, I’ve put up a new one on that topic, linking to a recent analysis from Antony Green.
I thought Hamilton lived in ACT. Presumably in a grass hut without a big flatscreen tv.
I doubt he’s a grass roots Higgins dude.
Higgins is not a grass-roots kind of elkectorate, except perhaps the Prahran, alternative end. Grass roots? Manicured lawns? Toorak tractors? Yes, if Clive can persuade the voters to install solar panels and solar PV and leave the 4WD at home and use the tram and take in the homeless and persuade the Libs to go green, i’ll have been worth it.
Why, one day he could be Deputy PM material.
Plotting against the first Green PM…..
He is a real red, will be a laugh.
I have no knowledge of the degree to which Hamilton has or has not been involved in community politics and campaigning on a local level in the suburbs encompassed by Higgins
Hamilton sez:
Like Jim Cairns before him,the poor clod could stand somewhere on the street selling his books.But if he feels a dangerous young man with a beard is marching by and must be a right-wing militarist poofta because of the Riechian body armour analysis,rather than his neglectful memory of being uniformed himself[and not everyone is interested in who Jim Cairns thought he wass]. No!It will not be me!It will be Garrett after his Gym training on the way to Armadale-Malvern, with Kiwi Shoe polish in his stubble and hair!
I must say, I’ve always had mixed feelings on Hamilton. When he opens his mouth I hold my breath until I hear what passes his lips.
If you want to actually hear how Hamilton performed in the interview, Robert links to, go here. It is towards the very end. (Nice work giving Faine stick on “gotcha”.
He trys that on most people, except for Howard, who he adores to this day).
http://blogs.abc.net.au/files/hectic-26-10-09.mp3
Environmentalism might be all very well, but I very much doubt Affluenza is something that the residents of Higgins feel that they suffer from.
Frankly, I reckon this was a dumb call by the local branch of the Greens. Why pick somebody who’s made a career out of bashing money-making to run in one of Melbourne’s wealthiest electorates?
“Frankly, I reckon this was a dumb call by the local branch of the Greens.”
Frankly, I am surprised that there is a local branch of the Greens in Higgins and what is her name?
I am inclined to think that Hamilton was a good choice just to get home the global warming message, at a critical time. What a great opportunity for those in Higgins to call a pox on both houses; the major parties are mucking around, so let’s show them something!
He will get that the kind of publicity that Joyce and Fielding regularly receive because the press really love the ‘out there’ position to get their juices flowing. The spittle factor, on keyboard, will be at sticking point around Newscorp. Glenn Milne will be seeing “leftist elites” marching down the bar room walls.
All Clive needs to do is stay on message and not mention his wish to censor the internet. It will definitely be an “interesting contest” and I can’t wait to see who the other novelty candidates are. As large a field as The Cup, is my bet.
Joe2, but even he makes his best efforts to stay on message, he’ll spend too much time having to talk about issues other than climate change. I’ll bet Kelly’s campaign staff are pulling out copies of Hamilton’s books and other writings right now to find choice quotes that Hamilton will have to rebut.
If they’re good enough, Hamilton comes across looking like a radical interfering busybody (which he seems to be, by the way), and the doctors’ wives – who might have been prepared to vote for a Green candidate – will be disinclined to vote for Hamilton.
Because the Greens are a small party, it’s easy to argue that Hamilton’s personal views matter a lot more in determining Greens policy (were he to win) than in the majors.
I I were the Greens powers-that-be and my goals were to a) maximise the vote in Higgins, and b) maximise positive publicity, They shoulda picked a cleanskin. A science teacher, perhaps, or even maybe another lawyer, who could have made the contest all about the majors, particularly the Conservatives, and their dangerous denialism and determination to funnel billions of dollars of taxpayers money from, well, taxpayers (they pay a lot of tax in Higgins) to polluters.
None whatsoever. That’s just not how politics works these days.
“I I were the Greens powers-that-be and my goals were to a) maximise the vote in Higgins, and b) maximise positive publicity, They shoulda picked a cleanskin.”
Over at Possum’s, the Green’s anointed blog commenter, Tim Hollo, seems to imply that this is not the Party’s goals in Higgins. I’m inferring that Hamilton is being used as a ‘loss leader’ in this by-election to advance the Party’s goals around the CPRS going into the next general election.
d
Darryl @ 13 and others, it would seem that Hamilton’s profile is more about the national agenda being played out in liberal heartland but like Bill, I don’t think a few left wing intellectuals in parliament will have any substantial impact on policy. I share joe2’s amazement that there is a green branch in higgins, branch meeting must be a hoot
Wasn’t it Hamilton who was quoted as saying that the need for action on climate change might “demand the suspension of democracy”?
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that that quote will do the rounds during the campiagn.
Courtesy Andrew Bolt, here’s what Hamilton actually said:
Clive’s argument was made in the context of trying to dramatize just how serious climate change is. That said, it is unfortunate (and, his opponents would argue, indicative of the lack of priority he places on democracy) that he chose that particular way to make his point.
I wonder if they would not have been better to grab Guy Pearse http://www.guypearse.com/index.php?pageid=1698 – an economic conservative, ex-Liberal, recently joined the Greens (late 2008) after becoming more and more alarmed about our woeful response to Global Warming.
It’s possible or course Guy wasn’t available of course and/or it was thought Hamilton may garner more attention to Global Warming.
I quite take your point Robert. Anything cited by Andrew Blot calls for return to the source.
Of course, election campaigns rarely pass without out of context quote mining …
The latest Essential Report has 30% of those who responded [38% said 'dunno'] saying that the proposed ETS favours big business too much.
Only 17% thought it favoured the environmental movement [COALition voters mainly?] and only 16% [ALP voters mainly?] thought it was balanced about right.
So strong criticism of the proposed ETS seems to be the main block of opinion out there in voter land in general.
I wonder how far that opinion penetrates in Higgins?
Dave @17: Yep Pearse would have been a good choice for Higgins.
I agree that such views won’t go down well in Higgins (or anywhere really) but Clive is probably right. The implications of 3C are horrible, and democracy clearly isn’t delivering an adequate response.
OTOH, Bolt gets away with calling Greens Nazis and asylum seekers terrorists, and he’s still got a strong readership!
I of course regard the CPRS as currently configured as being worse than nothing.
And, of course, I cannot imagine Liberal voters caring too much about democracy when it came in the way of what they really wanted. It’s always struck me as being more about proper branding issue, to them, than reality.
Latest from twitter : Liberal candidate for Higgins will refuse a twitter debate with Greens candidate Clive Hamilton. So Liberals are now running scared LOL
No offence, Joseph, but a candidate’s debate run via twitter is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard of. Is that an actual suggestion or is it just rumour?
As joe2 pointed out, Clive Hamilton was one of the principle apologists for Government’s plans to impose Communist-Chinese-style mandatory Internet Filtering. I wonder if Greens Senator Scott Ludlum, or indeed, any ordinary members of the Greens were consulted about this?
I actually had a lot of respect for Clive Hamilton before that for his pro-environmental views. Indeed, I once defended him at length on a forum on this web-site.
A Twitter debate.
I am quite ambivalent about Hamilton running for Higgins – maybe it’s a clever move, maybe not. That said, I’m now going to ’swinge’ off topic for a moment:
Can we please, please, drop the “doctors’ wives” cliche? I mean, eighty percent of the MDs at my local medical centre are women, and ditto for the one I used to go to previously. It’s embarrassing, people. Let’s leave the crap cliches to Andrw Bolt. /end rant
Can we call them dentist’s wives instead, Tim? (runs away)
What about “kept toyboys”? It is Higgins after all, darlings.
I’m curious, just how many ppl here seriously believe we can come up with a democratic solution that delivers a real result in terms of carbon?
Thanks, Tim McNay. I was about to make that very point, but you beat me to it. It’s completely disrespectful. Yes, it may be a white middle-class well-off constituency, but the “Doctors Wives” thing is a putdown, it deliberately nods to stereotypical views of mature women as ignorant people with too little to do (!), and who are dependent on their husbands’ occupation for their identity. Please, don’t use it. Mature women voters aren’t idiots, at least not in any greater degree than the mature male voters in any given electorate.
Back O/T, I think that the Greens adopting Clive Hamilton is a disaster. The combination of advocating less consumption (with which I do agree) in combination with being a very, very highly paid individual may just be unfortunate, but he doesnt’ seem to have any credibility with anyone. Or maybe it’s just what I have been reading and he does have a support base somewhere out there?
I’d wager $100 that the ALP are jumping for glee at his preselection by the Greens. For many reasons.
Helen, fair enough. It wasn’t my intention to disparage women voters; I was using the term to describe a group that are in a nutshell, well-off economic liberals who care about things like the environment, civil liberties, asylum seekers and so on. I’d imagine that that group includes reasonably equal numbers of men and women, to be frank.
P’raps Clive isn’t as “radical” as he thinks he is? Could be interesting with Copenhagen gaining more attention in the next few weeks.
“Doctor’s wives” may be a putdown. How about “matronly-middle class-busybodies-and-do gooders” Any better??
There should be a solid Green vote in trendy Prahran. Higgins isn’t just Toorak. Some renters in Toorak and nearby aren’t wealthy.
Despite my earlier flippant response, helen, you’re spot-on. My recollection is that it was originally applied by the Right (as a deliberate put-down) to mature women who, although normally part of the Libs’ constituency, were voting against them on moral or environmental grounds. (I’m prepapred to admit my memory may be faulty, though.)
Also my spelling :\
I see the “suspend democracy” quote has been seized on by the usual suspects and the “Greens=fascist” right wing prayer wheel has been given another spin. THANKS CLIVE. NOT.
I thought it was applied by election pundits to describe a tiny group of well-heeled women “activists” taking up political causes seen in the light of morality (esp. treatment of asylum seekers by the Liberal Govt.)
But my recollection may be faulty. Perhaps some commentators thought it had a certain ring to it and took it up with gusto….
Somehow they never realised the Labourer’s Wives, the Contractors’ Wives, and the Part-Time Workers’ Husbands and Kids were a larger voting bloc, and just as exercised over Workchoices as the Medical Spouses were, over several issues.
And yes, you are right David Irving (No Rel). And Ambi, ““matronly-middle class-busybodies-and-do gooders”” was the meaning behind the “Doctors Wives” dog whistle.
Sorry RM, back on topic.
Dentists’ Wives or Dental Nurses’ Husbands woulda been nastier, as most plain folks just HATE visiting the dentist.
Meanwhile, will Clive be visiting Higgins soon?
It’s just occurred to me – my late mum, who was divorced and had a PhD in biochemistry, was a “Doctor’s wife” (back in about 1970 – well before the term had been invented). The only times in her life she voted for the ALP was at the height of the Great Military Adventure in Vietnam. I’m not sure if it was totally on moral grounds, or partly because I was at risk of being conscripted, but she helped elect Norm Foster, so it’s all good.
Helen #32:
Mark Latham had learned to love Clive and downshifting by the time he wrote his diaries (after having previously denounced Clive as a purveyor of “rabbit food”.
But is the seat named in honour of a lesbian?
Loved by Mark Latham? Gets worse and worse, doesn’t it?
Obvs the Greens have the same kind of suicidal tendencies as the Dems. And here I was thinking they might come to be a genuine alternative.
I can’t but wonder why they couldn’t find anyone better.
What about that charming Peter Cundall? Everyone likes him.
Is it named after Justice Higgins? the harvester of the proletariat…..
affdh @ 30, of course we can: the people have to change their attitudes though! The lie, that freedom is for the individual alone, is all that has to be seen through! The more houses take out of the weekly pay packet the more people come to realise that there is no such thing as free-markets and that the free-market liars are in fact not worth voting for! The more electoral grip they lose then Labor can afford to do more but electorally they have to occupy the centre which dictates baby steps! It’s not at all unhealthy when you think about it: science does need its critics I will have you know… not forgetting that economics is some kind of discipline!
TM @ 27: good call, my Auntie is a Doctor so I suppose it is a dated and also purely wrong terminology. Lol, these Libs are so up the creek with bad language and attitude problems displayed so gratuitously it is almost something to be scoffed at- ha, the toffee noses, [snort!]
Update: Legal Eagle.
Never liked Hamilton much but if he’s driving Demidenko/Dale/whatsername that batty he must have something going for him.
Wrong blogger.
Update: Hamilton on Hamilton.
I didn’t write the post. I don’t live in Higgins, for a start. Legal Eagle does, and can thus be said to have a legitimate interest. I live in the UK, and have done so for some time.
I think it’s great that he’s acting on his passions by moving into electoral politics – I just wish he was running for an electorate with which he had a more direct connection. The implication seems to be that local representation and national politics do not run together.
Or is it an acknowledgement that the representative aspect of the lower house is meaningless?
Update: En Passant.
@54 – it was also a fairly unnecessarily graceless comment by Bill Posters.
@55 –
That’s a view he’d quickly have to modify if he won! Backbenchers, on the whole, spend an enormous amount of time attending to electorate matters, and if The Greens were to pull off a coup, he’d have to put an epic effort in to have any chance of retaining the seat.
Thanks Mark; I didn’t see your correction until I’d hit ’submit’, alas. Funnily enough I find myself feeling sorry for the Greens over this, simply because they were very good during the whole internet censorship to-do. Now they’ve gone and endorsed the loudest puritan of the lot!
Re 57: Peter Garratt seems to enjoy the representative aspect of his job. It’s such a shame he didn’t have the opportunity to be a back-bencher for a while – to get a feel for that job – and for the Labor machine. Hamilton would have been better as a Senate candidate, given that he’s a big-picture sort of fellow. If I lived in Higgins I’d vote for him – but only because I’m already a green voter.
Here’s hoping that this advertising stunt has the desired effect. So far, much of the publicity I have seen has been negative.
Hamilton will do well in Higgins. 40+%.
It’s the perfect time for a well-credntialled Green to run in a nationally focussed electorate.
The ALP isn’t running in Higgins. Clearly this is a payback to the Greens for earlier preference deals. The Greens won’t win the seat but the Greens will get more votes without an ALP candidate. Which means more public money flows to the Greens. About $2 for every vote. The cheque is in the mail.
Hamilton running in Higgins is an excellent idea. These are the people who own the planet and at some point it is going to occur to them that global warming is the single biggest threat to inflated property values that they will ever face. It is necessary to start to play faction and fraction within the class structures and we need significant fractions of capital to start forming alliances. We need to isolate the share holders of coal, for example, real fast and pen them in as anti-life parasites. Hamilton may be able to drive a wedge on this. Good luck to him. On the subject of the suspension of democracy – anyone who doesn’t imagine that this is a real possibility within the lifetime of someone currently 20 years of age has not faced the scientific facts with any sort of sociological imagination at all.
heh. While on the topic of doctor’s wives, I thought I would quote Possum’s comment from his thread on this same subject.
Maybe it’s just me but I always kinda liked the term. I know it was a disparaging remark aimed at delegitimatising activists and the refugee movement couched in dog-whistle gender and class terms (Look! elitist chix care about rights) but I don’t think it was particularly subtle. It said more about the sayers and their inability to make an argument and when voiced with different opinions from their own political class; they saw it as betrayal. And I totally dug the image of the womens organising the refugee movement while the men were at work no matter how untrue it was.
Most of the women organising the refugee movement had jobs as well.
I can’t see the citizens of Prahran etc, deciding to think of themselves as global citizens instead of concentrating on local issues, as Hamilton would like. He rubs me up the wrong way. It’s not that I disagree with his opinions, I just don’t like his hectoring style. I think parachuting the high profile candidate in is a recipe for failure.
Trouble is, it keeps being used by people who should know better (pace, Robert M – I noticed Guy Rundle also did it).
On Hamilton, if he succeeds in making climate change and the inadequacy of current policy regarding it (particularly the Libs, but also Labor) an issue during the by-election, it will probably have been worth it. As others have noted, whether he can or not will depend on how effectively the Libs drum up noise about his wowserism and his ill-considered remarks concerning democracy. He’s made himself something of an easy target.
Terje, the only reason the ALP wouldn’t be running a candidate in Higgins would be because they realise it’s a waste of money. Far better to have the Libs win it (inevitable), with the Greens and the various novelty candidates making it look like the Libs are losing support. That’s exactly what happened in Mayo, after all.
Yep.
I think the problem he has is that while his comments regarding democracy can be glossed and explained away, they can also be read together with a whole lot of other stuff to reinforce a belief that his politics are rather stentorian and authoritarian.
Mark:
“his politics are rather stentorian and authoritarian”.
Such as?
Henson’s photos, the net filter, criticising everyone else’s lifestyle, etc.
He appears to have a strong streak of puritanism. He also goes beyond polemicism in intellectual debate – I really don’t think he grants his opponents the slightest doubt that they might be right.
There’ll be a fair few left and Labor votes looking for a home in Higgins, I suspect. It could get very messy for The Greens if a viable independent candidate enters the race.
More generally, I think his desire to stipulate what people should and shouldn’t do is the New Labour/”nudge” ethos taken to its reductio ad absurdum. One of the more attractive features of The Greens as a party is a left liberal stance. I doubt whether I’d vote for Hamilton if I lived in Higgins.
Very odd, the fears expressed on this thread (and others) that Hamilton has a potential to suspend fundamental “democratic” processes and” liberties.”
Yet our “democratic” processes have plunged the world’s ecosystems into chaos which has resulted in the fastest mass extinction in Earth’s history.
The rampant polluting of the planet, is the underlying cause of the “Sixth Extinction,” referred to by eminent palaeontologists.
Yet we humans remain bulls in a China shop even though the fossil record attests to the human destruction of the ecosystems on which all life depends.
The unregulated grim reapers in pollutant industries in the West(including the “big Australians” though they’re not really Australian) continue on a path of destruction with impunity and are revered by a society (now accustomed to untold luxuries) whose major concern appears to be the censorship of the internet – a mere bagatelle compared to the climate chaos which threatens all humanity.
And while Australia’s state governments are handing out licences to pollute like lollies, Messrs Rudd and Turnbull (sycophants to corporate power) are anxious to reward the grim reapers at the top end of town too, for depriving society of its basic right to clean air, soils and water – much of it now on life support.
Messrs Rudd and Turnbull are sufficiently deluded in believing that regulation by “persuasion” is the solution to climate change. Huh? To date regulation by persuasion has been a catastrophic failure. Why would it succeed in the future?
Australia needs a few Clive Hamiltons – warts and all! Only they have devised a Plan B and it’s already one minute to midnight!
I’d add to that remark that we really need to return to a rich conception of citizenship, autonomy and self-determination, rather than having to retrospectively or prospectively justify choices we make (including choices made collectively) to the state (or its prosthetic servants in the whole apparatus of the surveillance society). That conception, of course, needs to be embedded within an understanding that such choices are social ones, and that liberty is inseparable from equality.
My view on Hamilton is that he’s something of a conservative – there are a lot of them out there these days masquerading as various shades of left – eg. John Gray.
Having said that, I haven’t read his philosophical stuff. Though I have a sneaking suspicion that Schopenhauer’s thought isn’t the key to all mysteries. I do understand that it’s another quest for a universal ethic. I’m not a fan of quests for universal ethics!
Also David McKnight, Mark, who’s had an interesting take on conservationist conservatism lately.
I heard Christian Kerr commenting that Hamilton was was too much of a wowser specifically for Higgins. He was linking it to the part of Higgins which is all about Chapel St, nightclubs and gay culture. But most of the electorate is solidly miidle-class and wowserish enough to consistently vote against any licensed premises in their area. I’m thinking abouts parts of Camberwell, which was up until recently was totally dry. Couldn’t get a drink anywhere. Costello was hardly a party-hard boy (unless there’s some secret Baptist party drugs I don’t know about) and he did well enough.
I would have loved to have seen Tim Costello stand for Higgins. He’s a solid middle-class burgher, Baptist minister, but with a wide enough view of morality that he managed to be a very popular St. Kilda mayor. But I imagine he has better things to do. It’d be entertaining though.
Fine, I’ve got a vague recollection of the Rev Tim admitting in an interview that his missus had threatened to leave if he continued a political career. (Could be mistaken, as I’m close to being a member of the CRAFT club.)
Could be right. I know he said he’d never be a politician as long as Peter was one – just too difficult for family relationships.
(It took me a moment to work out what CRAFT meant. Could mean I’m close to joining it myself).
I always think of Higgins as a sort of stunt electorate, so Hamilton seems appropriate
Max Suich on “doctors’ wives”, The Age, September 2004:
So it’s got a complex history, and in the first years of this century was a derogatory term from the Right meaning ‘bloody women adopting positions further to the left than you’d expect, damn them’. Like ‘political correctness’, it’s been used both ironically and non-ironically by people on both sides.
Mark: I think that there is considerable room to manouevre as a left conservative. Social conservatism is well within the heritage of the Australian radical left. I have in mind, for example, the social conservatism of many unionists as they sought to defend or advance living conditions for their families as well as seeking a modicom of dignity and respect for the same. Andrew Metcalf details this in an old text ‘For Freedom and Dignity’ (I think) in which he showed the centrality Protestant church morality to the social solidarity necessary for the miner’s strikes from the 1920 onwards in the Hunter Valley coal fields of NSW.
It appears to me that you may be confusing libertarianism with left politics. The two are not the same. As for Hamilton’s criticism of the way other people live – well, if by that is meant his criticism of the idea that anyone these days is entitled to live like a pharaoh then he has my support I must say. It also appears that conservatism might be a useful attitude to take in relation to conservation and the precautionary principle in ecology.
And even worse, if someone proposes dying like a pharoah …
Emily@71
More Fred Niles and Hetty Johnsons? Nah-ah … we have an elegant sufficiency thanks all the same.
@73, Liam – yep.
@79 -
Oh sure, anthony. But my point is twofold:
(a) in my view the left needs to reclaim the heritage of celebrating the freedom to be an autonomous citizen, outside all the many statist desires to shape us this way or that way. That differs from a libertarian position because it’s coming from a more complex and nuanced view of the inter-relationship between liberty and equality and additionally a more subtle critique of the disciplinary apparatuses which seek to mould us. As I argued above, it’s also a recognition that the project of self actualisation is or must be a communal one;
(b) I don’t think it’s a particularly left position to cede individual responsibility and the formation of a collective conscience and manners to various technocratic elites who determine what is good for the plebs on an “evidence base”, etc.
Now, all this is somewhat separable from Hamilton’s thing about “suspension”. That’s a very slippery slope, because it’s the same logic of the exception that dominates the field of sovereign politics at the moment – it’s an argument identical in form to “our values are existentially threatened and security endangered by x”, therefore…
More prosaically, it doesn’t seem to me that it’s remotely consistent with any form of left politics, which almost by definition and necessity is a democratic politics, to tell rather than persuade.
Hamilton, I suspect, sees himself as something akin to a philosopher king, and we all know what Plato thought of democracy and the demos.
He’s a very poor choice for The Greens, and I think reinforces the point I’ve been arguing around here for some years now, which is that one can’t be complacent about seeing The Greens as a left party.
OK then Mark. No real problems with a) although I’m probably more of a communitarian than you and perhaps this is informed by personal experience. Some people require quite stern moulding. Others just need to be pointed in a socially desirable direction and thereafter left to their own devices.
On a tangent to this is the idea that those who seek their freedom will do so but those who are content to live as slaves (to their own desires, entrapments and so on) are equally free to follow that path.
As to b) – do you mean ’suspension’ as in ‘the suspension of democracy’? I imagined that he was referring to such suspension as an act from the right rather than by environmentalists in office. Heaven forbid.
Finally. Agreed about the Greens as n ot necessarily of the left. Too much Gaia goin’ down for my taste. So, thanks, I’ll take a closer look.
Cheers
anthony, Hamilton’s remarks about suspension of democracy are a tad ambiguous, depending on whether you regard them as a sociological observation (ie “it may happen”) or as a statement of preference in case of necessity. I suspect it’s the latter – it’s not an unknown sentiment among some who are frustrated with the response of liberal democratic processes to the climate change crisis. I also don’t think he’s denied that interpretation of the comments, but I’m open to correction on that.
Hmmm. There is a strong histroical tendency within environmentalism to authoritarian responses reaching at least back to the association between German National socialism on the one hand and various scientifically informed ecological utopias on the other. This requires watching.
Fran Barlow #81:
“More Fred Niles and Hetty Johnsons? Nah-ah … we have an elegant sufficiency thanks all the same.”
We in the West understand that Fred Niles is a bible-bashing pollie from NSW. Hetty Johnston is neither a politician nor a bible-basher. What traits do these two have in common with Clive Hamilton?
And it seems that self-flagellation remains the order of the day. Joe Citizen is happy to have governments impose restrictions on him by putting him off the road for burning around in a bomb with a smoking exhaust as long as the revered industrial polluters can dump their hazardous and carcinogenic stack and ground emissions in Joe’s backyard.
In Joe’s deluded state he finds it acceptable for the mining and hazardous waste industries to poison his rivers, oceans and groundwater. Joe Citizen appears indifferent (in fact hostile) to those who object to a “democracy” which permits these industries to willfully slaughter Australia’s native animals, strip and poison the native vegetation on which they depend and contaminate Australia’s marine life, many species now on the verge of collapse.
Joe citizen et al, who want only to pursue their personal ends more effectively, have resorted to politicizing climate change but the issue of climate change is not left, not right but according to Joe Citizen et al, environmentalists are storm-trooping fascists and so the duck-shoving and ambidextrous double dealing continues. Very odd indeed!
anthony nolan @85 – that’s pretty close to a Godwin violation. I’m sure you’ll appreciate that the kind of specious generalisation you’ve just made can equally be made with many any other political tropes, potentially including ones you might associate yourself with.
e.g:
“there is a strong historical tendency within Socialism to authoritarian responses reaching back to…”
or
“there is a strong historical tendency within Conservatism to authoritarian responses reaching back to…”
etc.
I hope this illustrates why that sort of generalisation isn’t helpful.
G. Rundle is right.
For once I think he’s right.
Also, for people concerned about the tactics of putting up such a big, inviting target as the Green standard bearer for the next month or so; just how close did Peter Singer get to winning a senate quota in 1996?
At least Hamilton-on-the-defensive only has Greenish platform issues to defend, not entire schools of thought that not even the activists aren’t into.
“just how close did Peter Singer get to winning a senate quota in 1996?”
Not close at all, and it was in 1998.
It’s an interesting compsrisonj actually. Anyone who knew even a moderate amount about Singer would have known that this superb philosopher would have been a hopeless Senator.
Actually Sam, I reckon Singer’s a pretty mediocre philospher. But I agree he wouldn’t have been much chop as a Senator.
You can’t fault his sewing machines tho’.
True Joe2 – particularly the pedal powered ones . ;P
Fran, Fran, Fran. You’re supposed to attack CH on economics, from the Right in order to prove your Left credentials.
On a serious note; is there anyone not making ad hominem arguments who actually doubts that Affluenza, for all its flaws, isn’t a good fit with the grander narrative of the Green movement?
To be perfectly blunt, a polemic agin materialism is more likely to reach this particular group of faithful, and win converts, than any number of articles calling for the revival of twentieth century socialism and industrial working class objectives (or even pieces arguing for said objectives to be recast into a New New Left movement that honours the Old New Left.)
Though I suppose this raises the spectre of Australia’s third party wanting to break with the radicalism of the past. Always a difficult subject.
Still, Tim I’d sooner listen to Singer than Hamilton however … Singer is a sharp guy
Actually, Nick, I would say that there are at least two and possibly several narratives attached to the Green movement, by no means all of them identifiably left. I’m not sure that any of them is all that grand or can lay claim to be the green movement’s sine qua non.
That said, they overlap enough that the adherents can all cohabit, at least while the Greens aren’t anywhere near being in power. I rather suspect this has been the problem with the Nationals on the right. They got too close to power for their internal conflicts to be papered over.
So those who condemn and wouldn’t vote for Hamilton on the internet filter issue would have decided first not to vote for Labour. Who’re you going to vote for now, the Liberals? HHHHAAAA!
Those who claim to worry about his ’suspend democracy’ statement must believe we actually have a democracy which if suspended for an emergency, would actually be a great loss. HHHHAAAA!
Those who worry about some of his other radical ideas must believe that politicians in Australia stay true to their radical past once elected. HHHHAAAA!
Emily@86 said
They are all wowsers who play to the peanut gallery, trade in moral panic? AAnd Hetty Johnston not a politician? She lacks the title but in practice, that’s what she is. I believe she once traded preferences with the holy rollers of family first.
I’m not sure what the rest of your post was trying to do … I simply believe the Greens should have chosen a less explicitly reactionary candidate
Mark@84: if he described it as a state of emergency would the pundits be happier? It’s not as though suspension of democracy has been an issue for Australian governments in the recent past on anything from the Olympics to the Victorian desalination plant, although they have been careful to avoid calling it that. The “anti-terrorism laws” that kept that terrifyingly awful Dr Haneef away from our shores at a small cost to everyone’s civil liberties spring to mind. Democracy is more than just casting a donkey vote every three years.
Hamilton actually seems to have in mind something closer to the restoration of democracy, or perhaps the suspension of corruption anyway. Sure, “the best democracy money can buy” is still technically democracy but I get the impression that Hamilton would happily implement Greens policy on donations and influence-peddling in preference to creating a Great Green Commissar to implement the Ten Year Plan for Greenhouse Gas Abatement.
Hear, hear Tim.
Singer is a mediocre philosopher but a very sharp self-publicist. I say this as one who has read some Socrates. The unexamined philosopher is not worth electing.
Now getting back to Miss Higgins. 35% ALP vote, where will it end up??
If Tim Costello had run, how large the Donkey Vote??
@98
moz – I wholeheartedly agree.
But I’m still not sure that Hamilton has a good sense of what it does mean. Cleansing the Augean stables isn’t the be all and end all.
Should play well in Higgins, then. Especially if combined with a drop of hypocrisy.
Re getting the wrong lawyer: oops. On the other hand, they’re both batty.
#97 Fran Barlow:
“They are all wowsers who play to the peanut gallery, trade in moral panic?”
Who are the members of the “peanut gallery” to which you refer, Fran Barlow and who have they panicked?
The ones I recall panicking were those who became hysterical over Hamilton’s objection to children’s access to Internet material which shows men ejaculating on women’s faces, double penetration, male-female anal sex, bondage or simulated rape scenes.
#97 Fran Barlow: “I’m not sure what the rest of your post was trying to do.”
Well since this thread is on Clive Hamilton’s pre-selection for the seat of Higgins and his objectives for entering parliament, which are to lobby parliament to mitigate the impacts of climate change, I chose to stay on topic.
Furthermore, I suspect that the discerning constituents in the seat of Higgins may find electing yet another lawyer (Kelly O’Dwyer) to their halls of parliament somewhat passé – particularly when the Liberal Party has been and is stuffed to the hilt with lawyers – Howard, Costello, Bishop, Turnbull, Andrews, Ruddock, Hockey, Hunt etc – all have jumped aboard the gravy train.
The Liberal Party’s penchant for giving lawyers the Environment portfolio makes a mockery of the environment (and mock they do) and should discourage many voters since lawyers barely know a VOC from a sock but at least Hamilton does.
Emily @ 102, I hesitate to point this out, but Labor has also handed the environment over to a couple of lawyers. The problem is that both sides of politics are infested with the buggers.
However, speaking as an active Green, if Hamilton were standing in my electorate I’d have trouble voting for him. He really is a wowser.
I think by “the peanut gallery” Fran means the vast majority of electors.
General elections and byelections give this grouping in our society, who generally find themselves the object of disdain and condescension, a brief moment in the sun; suddenly stars not of some artificial “reality series”, but the central focus of a small segment of political reality. For a few weeks it’s real. Reporters descend. Opinions are surveyed; solemnity ensues; leaders pronounce; Parties visit; photos are made; quotes are relayed hither and yon.
For a few weeks, the Peanut Gallery is central stage. All kinds of Monkeys perform for them. Why shouldn’t they enjoy their peanut-munching weeks?
And then the acres of “analysis” afterwards: the icing on the cake!
Democracy? Superb entertainment. “Peanut Gallery”? You’re standing in it.
Getting all bread & butter for a moment…..unlike Poss, who maybe was a bit wishing and a-hoping, the local Greens probably always knew that Higgins was well beyond their reach even with a nice local green “insert acceptable occupation & qualifications” and instead went for the conviction, loss leader candidate with a national profile to champion climate change (as has been asserted in different blogs). Clive Hamilton has a lot more carry-on luggage than just climate change, so it sort of defeats the purpose if that was the overall strategy, but then again, he may turn out to be an excellent grass roots campaigner and of course he has already received national and Melb. metropolitan media attention due entirely to his high profile….total roundabouts and swings.
But ignoring Clive Hamilton as the Green candidate for a moment…
There was a 1.7% swing towards Labor in 2007 overall, with different swings all over the electorate, some middling ones in Liberal booths..strangely in the big Labor booths only Oakleigh swung big 10%, way bigger than any other Labor booths. The other big Labor held booths like Prahran didn’t swing hardly at all, so maybe they were heading towards their upper limit. And of course, the majority of the big booths in the electorate are pretty solidly blue and last elelction there was a huge 18% prepoll and postal; both solidly Liberal >60%.
Of course, there are always votes to be picked up all over the electorate… but you’d think that those big blue booths & postals etc are very much roots down, little-to-no churn, fewer younger voters, more rusted-on’s, yea, generationally rusted on’s and so forth, although a few junior Dame Pattie Ladies Auxiliary members would have fallen off the perch in the interim, to even things up a wee bit.
The 2007 election also had years of policy & personality disagreements for individual voters to vent on the then incumbent Govt…..a plethora. Conversely, you may have anti-stimulus/anti-debt voters going in the other direction this time… Higgins, like Wentworth has many, many, more voters compared to the avg. electorate, with fingers in all sorts of financial and investment pies and a few of those may have dumped Howard but are planning to come home. There was much discussion amongst Wentworth small-liberals in 2007…about how much they really wanted to dump Howard finally with a ‘decent’ alternative in Rudd, but also wanted to vote for Malcolm. (How they will vote in 2010, now they know both Malcolm & Kevvie a little better..hhm…)…but you’d assume there was the same type of small-L angst in Higgins in 07, which would favour O’Dwyer. And 2004 swung Costello.
The big ticket item heading home is climate change and all national polling would suggest a swing towards both a rampant Rudd Govt and for action on climate change….. albeit via an exclusive Green vote in this by-election. So whether this assumed general swing is going to be affected by the candidature of Clive Hairshirt Hamilton in Higgins is the big question. But were Liberal voters in Higgins going to vote Green after lately voting for Peter, including supporting Workchoices in 07 and the Pacific solution and Iraq War etc in 04 and so on….But now they are going to ditch the Liberals on climate change? Ok, maybe the middle-middle class w/ young families in brick houses in some part of Higgins may swing Green and some other particular demographics including some weird confluence between old school delayed gratification WASP conservatives who get Clive’s new age temperance tonings… and not discounting all the peeps who are genuninely across AGW/Climate change issues & who are way concerned…. but in big enough numbers?
OTOH, away from climate change….you have the private schools lobby and the Greens…exactly what percentage of kiddies in Higgins attend private schools again? hhm, that many!…..Meaning plenty of Labor voters also send the kids to private & catholic schools in Higgins compared to national avg. Is private school funding a vote changer….. or rather a vote changer in the other direction? What is being discussed at canteens and P&C’s this month, besides the latest Building fund? Health via the Medicare Levy/private insurance rebate debate is another non-starter for the Greens in Higgins.
And interestingly, in the 07 NSW State election, in blue ribbon Vaucluse (Peter Debnam and his cossies’ seat) the Greens outpolled Labor, and although a much smaller sample there was a 36% no second preference from Labor voters plus some Lib seconds – all up totalling 43% away or rather 36% not towards the Greens…..so possibly one should not be pencilling in the typical (including Higgins) 80/20 split Green to Labor going 1st Green in this by-election. The Higgins 07 Labor vote was 31%, The Greens 10.75% plus most indie prefs – so they not only need to get 100% of Labor 07 First’s..and all those Indie-Dem prefs, but find another nearly 7%… shit meet hill.
And then there are always local issues that non-residents have no idea about, as others have pointed out, nor any idea about of the depth of feelings about… but Kelly O’Dwyer, the local gal, is likely to be all over every single one. She’s a PLC Burwood/Melb Uni/Higgins resident, and her grandparents owned grocery shops in Windsor and South Yarra…broad and deep roots across the electorate, OTOH she looks like a younger Bronwyn Bishop, is a rookie on her training wheels and is a banker & ex-Costello staffer for the minus side.
Lastly, add in some random Vic State issues & shake vigorously until election day.
Having posted all of the above just maybe….. climate change is finally going to be a vote changer of some significance and Melbourne as we know, has endured the worst drought of all the mainland capitals and seen residents die horribly as a result. The Temple of Doom candidate could be totally suited to the time if not the place, even if he doesn’t quite get the numbers at the end of Saturday 7th.
A by-election with the lot…pineapple ring and beetroot.
In the spirit of Jack Strocchi….. I predict a swing.
Is there any polling published and what are the bookies paying?
Soylent@104 said:
Not so. I mean that relatively modest tranche of the electorate who read the Daily Telegraph with their lips moving and who think Headline = issue, because the font size is really large.
Your metaphor is confused. The peanut gallery is composed of peanut eaters. They are the monkeys and apes, who can be coaxed to screech by uttering words like “corporate pedophilia” and “cyberdanger”.
Playing to the peanut gallery is actually an iteration of the notion of playing only to casual and superfical observers — the people in the cheap seats rather than those engaged substantively.
For a Simpsons moment that encapsulates playing to the peanut gallery, see Homer’s town hall debate when running for Sanitation Commisioner.
As of today, in the letters section of The Age, he has.
That’s a bit disingenuous, I think, Martin. I’m not sure the words he actually wrote can bear that interpretation.
Disclaimer: I currently work in Sen. Christine Milne’s office. The following comment is my personal view and not a Greens official comment or similar etc.
I have to say I’m enjoying this thread – will be interesting to see if anyone’s views on the Hamilton pick for Higgins are vindicated. Alas I fear that Hamilton will poll quite well but neither startlingly badly or goodly enough for any clear implications to be drawn. Naturally as a green I’d love to see the electorate respond clearly and starkly to his call for national action on climate change, but wishes and horses and all that.
I also wanted to say that one thing I find interesting is just how much scrutiny is put on Green candidates – apparently we’re all so innured to the majors putting up some candidate fresh from the tired I mean tried and true mould (no matter what they’re profile) that they’re not worth scrutinising in terms of their suitability for parliament or local represenation. I personally take it as a tip o’ the hat to the greens that occasional high profile candidate pics attract so many words on blogs.
Apart from that I just wanted to comment briefly on the democracy quote – reproducing it here:
Very few people, even among environmentalists, have truly faced up to what the science is telling us.
This is because the implications of 3C, let alone 4C or 5C, are so horrible that we look to any possible scenario to head it off, including the canvassing of “emergency” responses such as the suspension of democratic processes.
Now I have to say that I don’t think it’s really clear at all what Hamilton was trying to say in this, but what I personally interpreted it as meaning was that people who do grasp how bad things are going to get in a 3+ degree world realise it may be so catastrophic as to require things they wouldn’t normally even contemplate, such as suspending democracy, then recoil in horror from the whole thought process.
I certainly didn’t see it as Hamilton calling in any way for a suspension of democracy, but think the quote above is so opaque vis meaning to be open to all sorts of interpretations.
I think Hamilton’s letter in the Age could have benefited from an extra paragraph with a bit more explanation, but at least he’s now on record as an unequivocal ‘no’ to the idea of ditching democracy. I take it his original quote above is about how others think, but in that article he didn’t get around to saying what he thought of it.
crikey, too much thunkin’
I realise this’ll probably get me branded as a crypto-fascist (or worse), but I’m not convinced that democracy is actually nimble enough to allow anything substantial to be done about climate change. I hope I’m wrong.
Of me or him?
Surely that is exactly what he is saying – if he has “never argued for the suspension of democracy to tackle climate change” therefore his earlier statement in the CM was not a “statement of preference in case of necessity”.
I’m not having a go – I just saw the letter saw that it was relevant and thought I’d point it out. For all I know he never has clarified himself before.
I hope you are, David. But I’d also observe that authoritarian states acting in “the best interest” don’t have a spiffy record. Any non-democratic solution to climate change would still be a human one, and thus a matter of politics. It’s a sentiment I can understand, but it’s wrong.
I didn’t believe Hamilton really was calling for a suspension of democracy, though as others have noted, his phrasing recommends that interpretation. I suspect he was simply doing an analog with other states of emergency …
Yet it was utterly naive and thus blundering for him to hand this own goal to his critics on the filth merchant right, for that is precisely what some of the more hysterical liars are claiming.
For those of us strongly sympathetic to the broader Green agenda, Hamilton seems a most unwise choice.
I think perhaps it’s more about high profile candidates than Greens candidates, myriad74. Peter Garrett also had to go through a lot of scrutiny regarding his previous public positions.
For that matter for all I know he’s lying through his teeth
I assure you I’m not carrying a torch on this one.
Indeed, Mark. That’s why I hope I’m wrong. I’m not particularly keen on either benevolent despots or philosopher-kings.
True, Mark @ 115, but IIRC a lot of that was about his choice not to run for the Greens.
VOC is a type of liqeur, isn’t it?
But seriously, as Hamilton’s economist by training, not a physical scientist, I don’t see why you’d expect that he knows much more about VOCs than your average lawyer.
Fran
the Peanut Gallery in Higgins is much more likely to read the “Herald Sun” than the “Daily Telegraph”. Higgins is in Melbourne.
Monkeys are on the stage as well as in the audience, Fran. Many of the current stage performers began their lives in the Peanut Gallery and have taken characteristics of that Gallery onto the stage. They’ve not changed their character. They are (famously) attuned to the electorate.
“cheap seats” ?? I hope that’s not a class-based sneer, Fran.
@112 – Martin, it’s Hamilton I think is being disingenuous. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. I really do find it hard to square his disavowal with the words he wrote.
Comparing Hamilton to Hetty Johnston is quite frankly, insulting.
Hamilton writes considered articles questioning the desirability of corporate sexualisation of young children. Is that really so wrong? I take it that (some) people on this blog think so. Why is the Left NOT concerned about this issue?
And when has Hamilton played to the Tele/Herald Sun readership???
Regardless, it might play well politically among the soccer parents and doctor’s spouses.
I think a much more interesting question is whether/how Hamilton will submit to the authority of the party. Certainly he’d have to accept the official position on internet filtering, among other things.
Tim Macknay @ 87: I’ll point you towards the text ‘Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience’ by Biehl and Baudenmaier as support for the highly specific critique of elements of extreme right wing thought within certain elements of environmentalism. After that you might like to take a trawl through the topics of ecology, ecologism, utopianism or my old honours thesis for further evidence of same.
Cheers
anthony@122
Thanks for that – I’ll try to pick up the Biehl & Baudenmaier text. Not sure where I’d find your honours thesis tho’.
BTW, I wasn’t denying that there are authoritarian tropes in environmentalism (the work of Paul Erhlich in the ’70s is an unfortunate example), and I was aware of the “green” aspects of Nazism. I just don’t think it’s necessarily fair to tar the broader environmental movement, in Australia in particular, with that brush. But I assume that’s not what you were trying to do.
Mark @121. Well, that’s alright then. Carry on.
Soylent@120
No, it’s a metaphoric sneer. Language is a funny thing. The words villain, and boor are used so frequently as to no longer be metaphoric, but their etymology is in disdain for peasants and cow herders.
For the record, being a leftist does not entail identification with or glorification of the irrational mores/whims of socially marginalised or disadvantaged people. Oppression really does oppress. If it were innocuous why would anyone care? The primary reason for favouring equity is to allow those whose lives and sense of possibility have been blighted by oppression a fair chance of becoming wholly empowered rather than remaining the catspaws of elites.
#119 Tim Macknay:
“But seriously, as Hamilton’s economist by training, not a physical scientist, I don’t see why you’d expect that he knows much more about VOCs than your average lawyer.”
I see very clearly Tim that Hamilton has had many years experience in economic research and policy evaluation in the area of natural resource management and the environment.
As an academic economist at the ANU and founding head of the Research Branch of the Resource Assessment Commission, he developed and supervised an innovative and controversial program of studies of environmental impacts of resource uses, including work on economic and environmental valuation techniques. Climate change is not only about CO2 – it’s also about environmental toxicology and the potentially hazardous impacts on our fragile ecosystems and biodiversity.
Hamilton’s vast research on environmental issues for many years, would see him, as a politician, desist from having to swallow the stupefying swill from senior bureaucrats in Departments of Environment – the rent boys hired by the corporate eco-vandals.
Very odd Fran Barlow that you speak of the “peanut gallery” in the third person?
Very odd that posters continue to moralise over Hamilton’s moralising when in fact Hamilton happens to be a professor of morals and a public ethicist. That’s his job – to stimulate public debate on ethical and moral issues.
And very odd that Singer (a bioethicist) receives the bouquet when in fact he’s been described, not only as a visionary but the “most dangerous man on the planet,” and a “Nazi sympathiser.” Perhaps his devotees agree with his reasoning that it’s OK to shag a pig providing it does the pig no harm. But what if it’s under-age and how does Porkabelle consent to man’s bestial overtures? “Oink oink?”
OK, Fran.
So, Fran, wouldn’t you agree ‘Affluenza’ is more compatible with big ‘g’ Green values than the labourist & socialist ideologies of yore? I wrote somewhere else that the Greens aren’t your daddy’s Left (“not your daddy’s such-and-such” being a popular Americanism, denoting what’s old hat).
…Okay, perhaps you’ve already addressed the issue of Clive Hamilton. By refusing to actually address the issue of Clive Hamilton.
Good luck with trying to shoehorn your off-topic militancy into future discussions about the Green movement, Fran. I’m sure the kids will just love being lectured about their obligations to the revolutionary spirit of the twenties, or seventies, or whatever.
Fran @106: “who read the Daily Telegraph with their lips moving and who think Headline = issue, because the font size is really large.”
Do I detect a little whiff of intellectual snobbery there? Was that really necessary for you?
Update: Since this post has largely focused on Hamilton rather than electoral strategy and the likely outcomes in Higgins, I’ve put up a new one on that topic, linking to a recent analysis from Antony Green.
Emily @126
OK Emily, you’ve shown Clive Hamilton has an extensive career in environmental policy. But you still haven’t shown he knows all that much about VOC’s. That would require a specific reference.
Huh? Perhaps what you were trying to say is that environmental protection isn’t all about climate change. I agree. But it’s hardly relevant to this discussion, because Clive Hamilton is running in a by-election and he’ll be compaigning on climate change.
This is a little on the harsh side, don’t you think? I mean, there’s plenty to criticise about the failings of government environment protection, but you’ve just pointed out that Clive Hamilton himself was a senior bureaucrat at one point (although not in an environmental department, if you want to be pedantic), so senior bureaucrats can’t be all bad, by your own reckoning.
The reason so many people on this thread are critical of Hamilton’s moralising is because he comes across as a wowser, which isn’t popular with most people. Now that’s fine if you’re a bureaucrat, a public commentator or an ethics professor, as you point out. The thing is, Clive is now a political candidate. When you’re a candidate, unpopularity becomes a problem. How much of a problem it will be for our Clive, only time will tell. It’s a pity for Clive that you’re in WA, because if you were in Higgins he’d clearly have your vote!
NickWs@129
No I wouldn’t. A large tranche of the support for the Greens is the hankering for ‘traditional labor’. I think that Bob Brown has uttered this more than once, and given that there is no substantial left-wing party in Australis, I’d be surprised if this wasn’t where such people wound up.
There’s a clear tension in the two positions, but at the moment, they can live with each other.
I’d sooner speak of equity with today’s kids than past militancy. They get that. They also don’t feel the least bit sympathetic to wowsers trying to protect them from the Internet.
Elise@130
Intellectual discernment is what I’d call it. You choose ’snobbery’ which is simply wallowing in ignorant populism.
132 Tim Macknay:
“Huh? Perhaps what you were trying to say is that environmental protection isn’t all about climate change. I agree.”
No Tim – that is not what I was trying to say.
1. Environmental protection is predominantly about climate change.
“All things are bound together, all things connect.”
2. Example: VOCs include a wide range of individual substances, such as hydrocarbons (for example the Class 1 carcinogen, benzene and toluene), halocarbons and oxygenates. Hydrocarbon VOCs are usually grouped into methane and other non-methane VOCs. Methane is an important component of VOCs, its environmental impact principally related to its contribution to global warming and to the production of tropospheric ozone. Departments of Environment in Australia are ignoring the international guidelines for the recommended maximum allowable levels of VOCs.
3. Clive Hamilton’s research involved the environmental impacts of natural resource uses, including work on economic and environmental valuation techniques. This research cannot be performed without a substantial understanding of the chemical reactions of atmospheric and ambient pollutants and their consequences on the environment. And VOCs do not require a “specific reference” since they are one suite of several air pollutants. Please refer me to a lawyer/politician who is similarly trained.
4. “Natural” resources also include minerals and fossils.
5. Australia’s metal ore mining is up the top of the page for air pollution. Metal ore mining is the largest emitter of Particulate Matter (PMs or aerosols) in Australia. Similar to VOCs, PMs contribute to climate change.
I reiterate: Climate change is not all about CO2:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols_prt.htm
6. I was not generalising about senior bureaucrats. I referred specifically to those in Departments of Environment – the rent boys of corporate eco-vandals. Were that untrue, we would not be having debates about Australia’s fragile environment or the climate change impacts as a consequence. The only beneficiaries of this department have been pollutant industries out of control. That opinion is supported by Hansard and the relevant documented parliamentary enquiries conducted after the turn of this century.
Indeed it is a pity that I reside in the West for I am far more interested in the environment (wowser or not) than the law (policies not people for me) – particularly since I was once married to a lawyer turned pollie who could not differentiate between a VOC and a sock either. As for the bi-election in the Higgins electorate, all will be revealed on December 5. Be careful what you wish for Tim – Yay!
“Book of Snobs” – Thackeray: long history; Thackeray neither ignorant nor populist. Suggest re-think.
I’d also suggest being a little more civil! It doesn’t particularly further any sort of debate by claiming that your interlocutor is “wallowing in ingnorant populism”. As well as being a breach of our comments policy.
Being accused of ‘intellectual snobbery’ manifestly opens the door to the register I adopted. IMO, neither this, nor accusing an interlocutor of wallowing in ignorant populism is uncivil. I didn’t accuse her of being an ignoramus and don’t regard her as such. It is however, a plausible claim to say that the assertion of ‘intellectual snobbery’ attaches virtue to the intellectual acumen of the ill-educated.
Nevertheless, you are amongst the interpreters of the comments policy here, so I will be guided by your implication that such a line of argument is unacceptable on this site.
LOL Emily. Here’s a tip – when commenting on these threads, it helps if you have a sense of humour.
Fran @ 138, not to put a too fine a point on it, Mark is the first among equals in the LP Collective!
You’re a collective, Brian? The horror! No wonder you get accused of being commies from time to time.
#139 Tim Macknay
“LOL Emily. Here’s a tip – when commenting on these threads, it helps if you have a sense of humour.”
Tsk tsk – how drearie of me Tim Macknay. My humble apologies and Porkabelle sends her love too:
http://www.adpunch.org/images/freschello-pig_25.jpg
LOL!
Brian@140
Fair enough
primus inter pares it is then …
Emily @142
LOL Indeed! Is the wine any good?
That sow looks mighty fine, good enough to eat!
Despite his credentials, Hamilton isn’t the only green candidate in Higgins. Australia’s first real green party, the Australian Democrats, are running in Higgins also. They’ve a comprehensive history on the environment and were using the word sustainability 25 years ago.
Their candidate David Collyer is not only strong on the environment, he’s politically savvy, moderate and he is a local-qualities we can’t attribute to the Greens.
He lives near by and works near by. He’s running on local infrastructure and environment- lowering noise pollution and getting overhead services underground. Amongst his national issues are the broadband network and line by line scrutiny of legislation.