Key events
Simon Birmingham, one of the remaining moderates in the Liberal party room, was asked by Patricia Karvelas about his colleague Bridget Archer confirming she will cross the floor to support the government’s climate bill.
Will Birmingham, the man who the day after the Liberals huge loss said it was time for the party to get real on climate, act on the bill?
Well no. But not because he doesn’t care, but because he doesn’t have to.
“We’ve got I have nothing but respect for Bridget and I can understand how she has come to that conclusion. From my perspective if the 43% target required legislation, then I would have wanted to vote for it in a heartbeat. However, it doesn’t require legislation. You’ve had Chris Bowen, explain that to your listeners many times over now. And indeed, Anthony Albanese himself has said the government could have lived with the legislation or live without the legislation.”
There were some *special* speeches as part of the climate debate last night.
Bridget Archer confirmed she would cross the floor.
And Barnaby Joyce confirmed he is still fighting battles from a time when some thought he was “Australia’s best retail politician”.
He told the house last night the climate bill would do nothing. But that it would also destroy the economy. (This when people are receiving power bills that have them considering whether they can afford to eat every day while they pay it off.)
Joyce:
I’ve always wondered why perfectly sane, well-educated individuals fall for this form of absolutism. I believe that the attraction is primarily aesthetic and that the experience is fun, because the world of a sort of quasi-conspiracy theory is very like the world of a game.
The rage and fear and conviction that conspiracy theorists display are aestheticised versions of the real things. This perennial focus on the weather is a peculiar tension between philosophical monism and an alternative view.
Tonight we’ve even heard of that quasi-religion—and it is a quasi-religion. They extol the virtue of believers. They talk about deniers. They have an absolute belief, without any version of thermodynamics or atmospheric science. It is a form and extension of a paranoia.
We’ve heard tonight about disease, temperature, floods, fires – a great catastrophe, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – which are somehow to be avoided by the passage of a piece of legislation through this house.
It is a fact that there is nothing of this legislation that will affect the climate – nothing at all. It is a form of virtue signalling. It is a form of – at its best – being a part of a global movement, but a global movement that the vast majority of the globe is not part of.
Good morning
We have made it to the last day of the first sitting.
What a month.
It’s still all about climate, but now it’s about climate with a sense of optimism. The independents elected on climate action platforms will put through their amendments and the bill will pass the house, with the knowledge it will also pass the senate.
For the first time in a decade, Australia will have a climate policy. The Coalition dealt itself out at the first opportunity (standard when it comes to the Coalition and climate action) and the Greens stepped into the role of a constructive opposition.
Adam Bandt managed to have his party room all facing the same way. Now the Greens and the cross bench are focussed on pushing Labor to do more. But it says something about the 47th parliament that this legislation, as ‘symbolic’ as it is, will be passed, because it’s what needs to happen.
Murph puts all that much more eloquently (as she always does):
But there is still much to do.
Mike Bowers is up and about already because of course he is – the man is a machine. I’m borrowing from his life force to get this blog out today.
Katharine Murphy is also already at her desk, despite burning the midnight oils again last night. I am also borrowing from her lifeforce (you can hear her on ABC radio RN just before 8am).
Paul Karp, Sarah Martin, Josh Butler and Tory Shepherd round out your Canberra team.
We’ll cover the day, along with the rest of the Guardian brains trust filling the blanks.
It’s an apple and my second black coffee today – turns out biscuits for breakfast does not make for a healthy day. Who knew?!
Ready?
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