Zen's Arcade

What A Real Climate Policy Would Look Like

Realised I’ve posted close to nothing here recently so I thought I’d let y’all in on an article I wrote for the Sydney University Climate Action Collective, of which I am a member. It’s shorter than most of the stuff I write on here, and an even *shorter* version appears in our Zine. Enjoy!

In Australia, the majority of carbon emissions are produced by the burning of fossil fuels, mainly coal and gas, to generate electricity. When adding in the emissions from transport fossil fuel usage amounts to 70% of Australia’s national greenhouse gas emissions. A rapid transition away from fossil fuels must be the most crucial aspect to any plan to fight climate change.

Renewable energy technology is quickly reaching the stage where it can replace fossil fuels. A 2010 report by the non-profit group Beyond Zero Emissions in conjunction with the University of Melbourne estimates that Australia could generate all its electricity needs by 2020 with renewable energy technology that is already available. Under the plan, 40% of Australia’s electricity would be generated by wind farms placed strategically around the country to ensure baseload power. The remaining generation would be provided by concentrated solar thermal power plants. The plants consist of thousands of mirrors that concentrate heat energy from the sun on a single molten salt tower. The salt can in turn be used to generate steam for use in turbines, as well as being stored for 17 hours, allowing for the generation of electricity well into the night or during cloudy days.

Such plants are already in existence around the world. The best example is the Gemasolar plant in Spain. Opened just last year, the plant has already generated electricity continuously for 24 hours, and is able to run consistently during the peak demand period between noon and 10pm.

The Beyond Zero Emissions plan is estimated to cost $370 billion over ten years, averaging about 3% of GDP a year. Whilst this would clearly be a very large expenditure it would still be within the amount that was spent to put Nations on a war-footing during World War 2, or what has been spent to bailout banks during the global financial crisis. Importantly it requires government intervention. Renewable energy technology is prohibitively expensive to the private sector, with little short term profit to be made. Yet the only way to reduce the cost is with a massive rollout of renewable energy infrastructure, which would bring with it experience and mass production. Only the Government and the Public Sector would be able to provide such investment.

Not only is renewable energy required to fight climate change, but a series of infrastructure is required to reduce emissions. A new grid would have to be planned and constructed to connect the new power plants to places of production and residence. Houses would need to be retrofitted with insulation and solar water heating. A massive upgrade of electrified public transport is needed to reduce reliance on automobiles, trucking and even aeroplanes. City planning would need to be used to increasingly integrate rural and urban centres to reduce unnecessary transport. All these elements necessitate central coordination and funding which could only come through the Government.

Instead of implementing such a program, the Gillard Government is relying on market mechanisms to drive the climate agenda. The $23/tonne carbon price is generally accepted as being too low to make renewable competitive. Even if the price was higher it would not deal with the structural disadvantageous that renewables face, such as the lack of an adequate grid. Government investment in renewable energy is based on the existence on private sector funding, further tethering public funds to the will of the market. In contrast, the Government is content in providing $12 billion per year in subsidies for fossil fuel use. 

Rarely is the hypocrisy as clear as in the recent decision by the Federal Government to withdraw funding to the Moree Solar Farm on the basis that it failed to attract outside finance, whilst extending a $100 million grant to the HRL coal plant in Victoria. On top of this is the Liberal State Governments in both NSW and Victoria, which have recently passed legislation to severely restricting the construction of wind farms.

Despite the urgency with which climate change presents itself, both sides of politics refuse to deal with the crisis. Whilst the Coalition continues to wink at denialists, the ALP maintains its support for market based false solutions. What is needed now is Government investment and intervention to ensure the closure of the fossil fuel industry, with a massive ramp up of renewable energy technology in a democratic and equitable way.

The Tent Embassy Protest - A Lesson in Over Reaction and Social Context

The Australia Day Tent Embassy Protest - was it one of the Nation’s gravest political security threats? A bit of an over reaction? A media beat up perhaps? Or was there something deeper going on….

The protests were sparked by comments made by the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott that those at the Tent Embassy “move on” after celebrating its 40th anniversary. Some 200 activists from the Embassy traveled to a nearby ceremony honouring emergency service workers, which was attended by both Abbott and Prime Minister Gillard. After several minutes of chants and window banging, the Prime Minister’s security team decide to bundle both Gillard and Abbott out of the ceremony, where Gillard tripped and lost a shoe in the drama. Both leaders were put into cars, allowing for their departure.

It didn’t take long for the moral panic to begin. The protests were “violent” and a “shame” on the Nation, lead by an “angry mob”. Countless column inches were taken up with estimates of how far the protests had sent back the cause of reconciliation. Was it 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? Some went even further. David Penberthy called for the closure of the Tent Embassy, as did Menzies House, apparently seeing no conflict between that and their defence of the free speech rights of Andrew Bolt last year. Speaking of Bolt, he saw fit to use the protests as an excuse to call an end to reconciliation altogether. As Amber Jamieson noted in Crikey almost every major paper led with the image of a clearly frightened Gillard in the arms of personal security accompanied by headlines like “Prime Threat” or the offensive appropriation “Sorry Day” (I’ll come back to that). Laurie Oakes seized on a handful of vile comments to label all those involved in the Tent Embassy as “morons”. Bob Carr had my favourite piece, seemingly having a brain haemorrhage and going on a bizarre red-baiting rant:

Anyway here we have again the bankruptcy of the old Leftist approach: throw a demo. Every time some respectable body does this – the ACTU or Unions NSW or a pro-refugee group – the same thing happens: on the street the extremists take over. The Trots love a blue, “the worse things are the better they are” and by radicalizing everyone and breaking heads it all hastens the World October, onto revolution, comrades.

Must have been pretty bad right? The black hordes attacking our first female Prime Minister like a scene out of The Birth Of A Nation, right?

Well eyewitness accounts come across quite different to those of the commentariat. Melbourne based writer Wil Wallace was able to interview Embassy activist Sam Castro, who gave a very different account of the days events:

The morning started with speeches being made at the Tent Embassy on a range of subjects until one person stood up and explained to the crowd that Tony Abbott had remarked to the media that he believed the Tent Embassy was no longer relevant and should be packed up and moved on; information had just come through that Tony Abbott was at The Lobby, a restaurant near the Old Parliament House, and the suggestion was made that the group should go there and ask Abbott to talk to the crowd and explain himself.

A contingent of about 100 protesters made their way up the road to The Lobby and surrounded it. Though they were loud and noisy they were non-violent. Security blocked the protesters from getting close to the restaurant for a while but it didn’t take long for a few protesters to break the line and soon the rest had gotten close up against the restaurant’s walls. As the walls of The Lobby are made of glass the protesters could look in and see Mr Abbott and the others pretending not to hear them and, after about ten or fifteen minutes Julia Gillard’s white jacket was recognised and the protesters realised that she was in there along with Mr Abbott.

The conduct of the police and security team is also notably different in Castro’s account:

As more protesters made their way to the restaurant, the riot police charged out the doors, practically dragging Ms Gillard along, while the onlookers began to shout “where are you going?” and “why won’t you talk to us?” As the cars drove off, some people threw plastic water bottles and water at the cars.

At this point things began to get fairly nasty; one protester was knocked into the rose bushes and one gigantic cop started brandishing a can of tear gas or capsicum spray (reports differ on this point) in people’s faces and shoved Sam, another girl and a female photo-journalist in the head. When Sam told him to calm down he reportedly bared his teeth and grinned so widely his eyes nearly popped out of his head; to many on site it was fairly clear that the officer was barely under control.

This account is supported by-and-large by another Embassy attendee, Amy McQuire, who detailed her experience in Crikey, as well as organiser Mark McMurtie. Writing in The New Matilda, Ben Eltham noted that 3AW’s reporter on the scene, Michael Pachi, reported that the “violence” was in fact mostly loud chanting, whilst participants again reiterated that they only wanted Abbott to make a speech to the crowd. While these claims are obviously subjective, the authors at least have the benefit of actually having been there, something not shared by Penberthy, Bolt, Oakes or Carr.

On top of these accounts is the video of the event. Judging by footage provide by NineMSN, it’s pretty obvious that no protestor ever came close to either leader, and that the only civilians that did were those involved in the media. 

Whilst protestors were banging on the restaurant windows, this video shows that it was still far short of anything violent.

Indeed, the only video evidence of physical violence is that committed by the Police, as was claimed by the eyewitnesses mentioned above. Footage shows police inciting and threatening demonstrators and the media, punching protestors and repeatedly ignoring complaints of abuse.

Considering all of this, it’s difficult to see how the protestors formed a credible threat to either Gillard or Abbott. After all, not a single person was arrested at the protest, and as of yet, no one has been charged with any crime. That says a lot about the nature of the demonstration, especially when you consider 20 people were arrested during the crackdown on Occupy Melbourne, which was no where near any National leader.

The reaction to the Tent Embassy protest, by Gillard, Abbott, the Police and the Media provides a uniquely raw glimpse at how the powerful view and treat Aboriginal Australians. Firstly, serious questions have to be asked about why neither Gillard nor Abbott made any attempt to address the crowd. After all, that’s what Anthony Albanese did when a 500-strong crowd (i.e. well over twice the size of the Tent Embassy protest) confronted him outside his Marrackville office in September 2011 over his comments about the Convoy of No Confidence. 

Then there is the question of whether the actions of police and security were even necessary. It is difficult to claim the protestors represented any clear physical threat to either Gillard or Abbott. The threat was at least no greater then the aforementioned Albanese protest, or another recent action against Immigration Minister Chris Bowen by Refugee adovcates. Neither protest attracted any where near the amount of Police attention as did the Tent Embassy action. 

But then again, it’s not like the Police have the best relationship with the Aboriginal people. Earlier this month saw the death of Terrance Daniel Briscoe, a 28 year old Aboriginal man, within Police custody in an Alice Spring gaol. The official reason given by the Police, that Briscoe had sustained a head injury prior to being locked up, amounts to little more than gross negligence on the part of the Police. Sadly, Briscoe is just one of almost 300 Aboriginal persons who have died in custody since the deaths in custody Royal Commission in 1991. As Igna Ting has reported in Crikey, deaths in custody have risen by 50% since 1991 despite some $400 million dollars being allocated to implementing (some) recommendations of the Royal Commission. Between 2000 and 2009, Indigenous incarceration rates increased by 50%, whilst non-Indigenous rates increased by 5%. The proportion of Indigenous people in prison system has nearly doubled since 1991, going from 14% to 26%, whilst remaining just 3% of the population. Indeed, based on the raw statistics, Australia imprisons Aboriginal men at 5 times the rate Apartheid South Africa gaoled Black men.

And this brings me to my main point. In almost all the coverage of the Tent Embassy protest, there has been a deafening silence about the social context it undeniably exists in. The fact is that the Aboriginal people have faced historical and systematic racism that continues to have consequences and is still well and truly alive. Is it really a surprise that this occurred on Australia Day? Despite the best efforts of nationalistic apologists, it still marks the day of the initial invasion of the Aboriginal people, sparking well over a century of attempted genocide and assimilation, all for the cause of starting a massive penal state. That might just be a little offensive.

Similarly, little was said about the present day attacks on the Aboriginal people, the clearest example being the bipartisan Northern Territory Intervention. Started in 2007, the Intervention consists of a serious of policies implemented in 73 remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. There is little evidence to suggest the policies have helped these communities at all, but are more likely to have driven the people further into poverty and stigma.

Efforts to build housing have been notoriously slow, with up to half the funds eaten up by administration. Even with the program beginning to get on track, it is unlikely the Government will meet is occupancy rate (9.3 people per dwelling) without massive waste.

Social funding is being concentrated into “growth hubs”, effectively forcing people off their land despite the known health and social benefits of living on one’s homeland. School attendance has decreased in prescribed areas due to poor facilities, job cuts and the abolition of bilingual education, and despite the use of punitive welfare measures.

On top of these failures comes income quarantine. Those receiving welfare payments automatically have 50% of their income withheld and placed onto a “BasicsCard”, which can be used to purchase necessities at selected stores. The evidence suggests that the BasicsCard has had no effect on consumption patterns of food, soft drink or cigarettes. The cards can only be used in major supermarkets, hence many locally owned small shops have gone bust, whilst forcing people to travel long distances at great costs to shop in the larger towns. There is also evidence to suggest that people are pressured and humiliated into accepting the BasicsCard when they no longer have to. A study of Aboriginal women using the BasicsCard found people were generally confused about why they had been put under income quarantine, that they felt a loss of “respect and dignity”, that they believed Centrelink staff often had paternalist views of Aboriginal People and that many women had stopped reporting abuse out of fear of further quarantining. Income quarantine also uses massive amounts of funds that could be used for social services, with estimates that its administration costs almost 9 times the amount spent on aiding the unemployed find a job.

The NT Intervention has sparked serious and significant declines in the living standards of the prescribed Aboriginal communities. Under the intervention suicide and self harm, incarceration and child removal have all increased. Is it any wonder that the Intervention is opposed by Elders across the Northern Territory as well as the United Nations. Yet despite all of the failures associated with the Intervention and the stigma it breeds, the Government is committed to see it last for at least another decade under the “Stronger Futures” name. Indeed, income quarantining is planned to be rolled out around the country.

I mention these things because they must be acknowledged to understand what happened on Australia Day. The Aboriginal community continues to suffer the consequences from historical dispossession. Dispossession from the land, their culture, their wages and their families. Hence we have “the gap”, the massive disparity that exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous persons in terms of wealth, education and health. 

But the social context goes further than that. What the Northern Territory Intervention shows is that attempts to assimilate the Aboriginal people continues until this day. As a consequence, the racist and paternalist attitudes that justify policy responses like the Intervention are legitimised, strengthened and reproduced. This is especially the case when elements of the media are so explicitly racist. Take Mark Knight’s cartoon in the Herald Sun the day after the Tent Embassy protest, which uses genocide as a punchline. Or the aforementioned “Sorry Day” headlines; because losing your shoe is apparently on par with remembering the thousands of children stolen from their families. Both things are fine if you think the suffering of people based on their race is so insignificant that it can be laughed at or dismissed entirely.

The harsh truth is that those in power, be they the Police, the Media, or Politicians, have consistently and actively disadvantaged the Aboriginal people ever since “settlement” in 1788. That’s why the Tent Embassy still exists. It’s also why Tony Abbott’s comments were so offensive and able to arouse such fury so easily, because 40 years after the first Tent Embassy, Governments (and their megaphones in the Media) are content with rolling out policies that do so much damage to Aboriginal communities. 

In such a context, is it any wonder that the protestors would be so angry and maybe, sorta, kinda actually didn’t at all harm our Nation’s leading Politicians? The fact that an action where protestors attacked no one and caused no property damage yet can still be labelled as violent displays a distinct authortarian political outlook on the world. While the commentariat cries crocodile tears for the state of the Nation’s political dialogue and the “dignity of the Office”, we should remember that these same centres of power have shown little to no respect for the Aboriginal people. 

With Our Brothers and Our Sisters - Labour Stuggles and Lock Outs

So first there was the lock out of unionised workers by Qantas, followed by the undercutting of strike action by Fair Work Australia. Then Baiada used Police and private security thugs in an attempt to break the workers picket line, but ultimately failed, with workers winning better pay and conditions. Not to forget that the Victorian Government were secretly planning to lock out Nurses in response to any industrial action they may take.

Just last week POAGS, a stevedoring company owned by the notorious Union buster Chris Corrigan, locked out workers engaged in protection industrial action and broke the picket line by flying in scabs using helicopters. Now Schweppes has locked out workers indefinitely in the run up towards Christmas. 

Despite all this, the Right continues to bleat that current industrial legislation is too tough on employers. Take the comments of Liberal Senator Eric Abetz:

[the] announcement that Schweppes in Australia will lock out 150 of its workers after rolling industrial action shows that there is a bigger problem with the Fair Work Act.

For Abetz, the FWA doesn’t grant enough rights for Bosses to break the industrial action of workers. But wait, it gets better:

We were told that Qantas’ actions were ‘extreme’ and showed ‘employer militancy’. Clearly there is a bigger problem where the union bosses are pushing for unrealistic demands and employers are being forced to take drastic action in response - and all the time not a single word about productivity.

Those damn radical Qantas workers and their unrealistic demands, such as moderate wage rises, the protection of safety conditions, reduced outsourcing and good faith bargaining. How was Qantas meant to pay for such demands at a time where it was making a 2010-2011 profit of $552 million? Qantas is seemingly strapped for cash at the moment, especially after it spent $20 million a day when it grounded flights, gave away another $20 million in free flights to customers as an “apology” for the delays, not even mentioning the $500 million Qantas plans to spend in order to expand into the Asian market. Yes, those Union demands are pretty unrealistic.

But clearly the problem is much larger than Qantas. Surely all employers are being held hostage to the ruthless demands of the Unions. After all, the bosses have only enjoyed 25 years of increasing their profit share:

This is what a wages breakout looks like.

Not too mention that Unions don’t even care about productivity increases, which have only outstripped wages growth for a quarter of a century:

This is what stalling productivity looks like.

And so we see what the true context of current labour struggles. For the last three decades, employers and corporations have seen massive gains in their profits, whilst workers have seen far slower, even if still growing wages. The result is that Australia has become a vastly unequal society, with all the signs showing that inequality will continue to rise. During this time, employers and Governments have become increasingly antagonistic towards unions and their members, as Bernard Keane explained in Crikey:

Let’s be clear about the long-term business agenda in Australia regarding industrial relations. It’s an agenda aimed not at improving productivity — as I and others have incessantly showed, the last round of IR reform led to a drop in labour productivity — but a more self-interested one aimed at reducing labour costs and neutering unions.

Business is quite tolerant of trade unions, as long as they do nothing that inconveniences business or increases labour costs. They can even be a useful form of alternative pressure on governments when industries set about rent-seeking. Neutered unions are quite acceptable. Real ones, that aggressively represent the interests of their members, aren’t. And ones that actually take industrial action, in particular, are regarded as outright enemies of business.

This is the ultimate thrust of IR reform — to pathologise industrial action, however legal, however justified. The point is to frame the right to withhold labour as an illegitimate form of economic vandalism, no matter what the circumstances.

Smelling a weak Government, the business community and the political right can sense an opportunity to renew attacks on the ability of workers to organise after the dramatic defeat of WorkChoices. Indeed, the inability of the ALP’s own legislation to protect workers from outrageous lock outs and attacks by bosses displays their own ineptness in combating the bosses.

This reality reinforces the importance of these current high profile labour struggles. The fight to maintain dignified conditions for workers is one that has always existed both inside and outside the Parliament. Whilst the lock outs represent an attack on collective power of workers, it also displays the clear conflict that exist between the owners and managers, and those who work for them. Furthermore, it opens up a space for the wider community to become involved, as was the case at the Baiada picket. The result is the possibility of building a broad base coalition of workers, unionists and community members that not only can defend proper working conditions, but are absolutely necessary in achieving that end.

Climate Change: Calm Down on the Celebrations, it’s Getting Worse.

The release of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Outlook report proves much of what the climate movement has been saying for sometime - emissions are rising, we have little time left to prevent catastrophic climate change, and the World’s leaders seem content to let it happen.

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Ted Baillieu after Police smashed Occupy Melbourne:

They should have moved along, they said they would and they didn’t, and I think Victoria Police handled the situation well……

I would simply urge anybody who wants to protest at any time to do it lawfully and do it with respect for others.

Robert Doyle after Police smashed Occupy Melbourne:

THE Occupy Melbourne protest was allowed to continue for a week. That’s a reasonable time to make a point, but the city must return to normal at some point……

POLICE and City of Melbourne officers and the Metropolitan Ambulance Service officers performed bravely, professionally and efficiently. Yet of course there were the usual “Police brutality” bleatings.

The police carried out the whole operation with restraint and minimal use of force in the face of screaming provocation. Any contrary claim is wrong.

NO ONE gets arrested for protesting: you have to escalate it, break the law, get violent. And there were more than 50 arrests.

Barry O’Farrell after Police smashed Occupy Sydney:

I think police have acted lawfully, they have acted in the interests of the public and have acted responsibly…..they requested that the demostrators leave - those requests were refused  (and) police took appropriate action.

Sophie Mirabella to Anti-Carbon Tax Protestors after Anthony Albanese’s “Convoy of No Consequence” comment:

Please maintain your right to a democratic say. Please do not ever be intimidated, no matter how smarmy, how sarcastic any member of parliament (is), no matter how exalted their position. Never be intimidated.

The Liberal Party - fearlessly defending the Freedom of Speech of those they agree with since forever.

When they kick in your front door - Police and the #Occupy Movement

The recent actions of Police at both the Occupy Melbourne and Sydney protests are as distressing as they are illuminating. The extraordinary and brutal lengths that the police have gone to in order to break the protests is bound to spread disillusionment and anger amongst many people. However, these actions also raise important lessons around the role of the Police and their relationship to social movements. These lessons must be addressed by the Occupy Movement if we wish to survive.

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Those criticising the Occupy Sydney (and the rest of the Australian Occupy events for that matter) on the basis that the Australian economy isn’t as fucked bad as the American economy ought to look at the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data for Wealth Distribution:

• The richest 20% now own 62% of household wealth. 
• The bottom 60% of people own a whopping 18% of household wealth. 
• The bottom 20% own just 1% of total household wealth.
• In the last years, the household worth of the richest 20% has increased at almost 4 times the rate of the bottom 20%.
• 1.2 million households have a total net worth of $50,000.
• 77,000 households (read: families) owe more in debt then there total household worth

So yes, while we’re not quite as bad as the US, we should have the decency to admit that there is serious structural problems with the Australian economy. Considering this accumulation of wealth is happening in relative boom years, where we all supposedly benefit, one has to wonder how the state of inequality in Australian would fair if the country was to slide into recession on the back of a US downturn and continuing sovereign debt crisis in Europe.

So to those Occupying Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and those occupying Cities around the World, I say continue to fight the good fight, no matter what the cynics say. Those in power have taken so much and have no intention of stopping, so it is left for us to say no more.