Cartoons of the Week

David Rowe

David Rowe

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison creates his own personal 'Canberra Bubble'

It is looking more and more as though Scott Morrison is intent on surrounding himself with those that can be relied upon to think exactly as he does on any topic.

Encouraging a bubble of 'yes men' à la Trump, thereby discouraging alternative perspectives and eliminating dissent.

The Australian, 7 December 2019:

The Prime Minister has assembled a team to drain the swamp his way. Scott Morrison is building a new power bloc around his leadership, dismantling the old “Canberra club” with a network of friends, confidants, bureaucrats and trusted allies tasked with reshaping Australia’s political, cultural and policy direction….

While not publicly visible or involved in the day-to-day running of the Prime Minister’s office, Morrison’s two close friends outside of politics, David Gazard and Scott Briggs, are perhaps as influential as anyone.

Central to Morrison’s strategy has been the purge of the public service…..

Leading the reform agenda across the whole of government is the new Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet head Phil Gaetjens, Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo, Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy, Infrastructure and Transport tsar Simon Atkinson, Social Services chief Kathryn Campbell, and David Fredericks, tapped to head the new Department of Industry, Energy, Science and Resources. The links to Morrison are as stark as some of the links these new mandarins have to each other.

Gaetjens was installed as Treasury secretary from his role as then-treasurer Morrison’s chief of staff, the same job he held in Peter Costello’s office. The two would speak regularly and became close. Gaetjens represented the first move in the changing of the guard when he was installed as DPMC head after Martin Parkinson was told his term would not be extended. As part of this week’s APS clean-out, Parkinson’s wife Heather was one of the five secretaries told their services were no longer required…..

The Australian, 6 December 2019:

Mr Morrison retains a tight-knit group of friends and advisers, led by businessman Scott Briggs and former Liberal staffer David Gazard. Yellow Brick Road chairman Mark Bouris, Macquarie Group managing director Shemara-Wikramanayake, former prime minister John Howard, political strategist Lynton Crosby, former business colleague Adrian Harrington, former NSW police commissioner Andrew Scipione, former Liberal MP Warwick Smith and developer Harry Triguboff are considered key sounding boards for Mr Morrison. His former flatmates Stuart Robert and Steve Irons, both MPs promoted by Mr Morrison, are also close to the Prime Minister….

A senior government source said “there is no Big Bang” but the “principles and direction have been set for people to get on board or get out”.

“Some agencies will resist, citing the need for special treatment, but they’ll more often than not find themselves in the same position as the goat which is tethered in the Tyrannosaurus Rex enclosure,” the source said.

Key department chiefs who have been promoted have direct links to Mr Morrison and with each other.

They include Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Phil Gaetjens, Home Affairs boss Mike Pezzullo, Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy, Infrastructure and Transport tsar Simon Aktinson, Social Services head Kathryn Campbell, and David Fredericks, tapped to head the new Department of Industry, Energy, Science and Resources…..

The Weekend Australian can reveal that many of the new senior mandarins have close links with Mr Morrison and personal connections through previous roles in Treasury, Defence and politics.

Mr Pezzullo, Mr Atkinson, Mr Kennedy, Mr Fredericks and Productivity Commission chairman Michael Brennan have previous experience working together. Mr Morrison worked closely with Mr Pezzullo and Chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell in setting up and operating Operation Sovereign Borders.

Ms Campbell — a senior Army Reserves officer who worked across multiple departments — also had contact with Mr Morrison in delivering the Coalition’s major welfare reforms.

The Power List also reveals the inner workings of Mr Morrison’s office, with Dr Kunkel and Mr Finkelstein leading a team of close advisers including Mr Shearer, head of communications Andrew Carswell, Liberal Party federal director Andrew Hirst, national security adviser Michelle Chan and executive officer Nico Louw.

Insiders said Dr Kunkel, who ran Mr Howard’s cabinet policy unit before shifting to the private sector, acted as the “gatekeeper” and “decision maker”, while Mr Finkelstein took charge of “networking, speaking to stakeholders and keeping in touch with backbenchers and ministers’ offices”.

Financial Review, 6 December 2019:

Shortly after the federal election, I had a conversation with a figure at the very centre of the government. As we raked over where the election had left the political conversation, I noted the Prime Minister’s repeated emphasis on getting on with delivering services to Australians in his public statements.

Did this suggest that a politician so driven by marketing memes had detected a weariness with the ideological wars of politics among disconnected voters, and recognised political self-interest in shaping both the government’s message, and its agenda, around the basics of government service delivery? Did this mean the government might abandon some of its ideological warfare against institutions?

“Don’t be ridiculous,” this person snorted. “If anything, this government is more ideologically driven than Abbott. They want to win the culture wars they see in education, in the public service, in all of our institutions, and they’ll come for the ABC too, of course. There will be a big cleanout at the top of the public service, but Morrison will wait for a while to do that. They believe the left has been winning the war for the last twenty years and are determined to turn the tables. Morrison will just be craftier about the way he goes about it.”

Is Morrison building such a large political fortress so that he can refuse to acknowledge climate change for his entire prime ministership, whilst at the same time merging church and state where ever and whenever possible?

Is he intent on becoming an autocratic president in practice rather than a democratic prime minister?

Does he intend to forcefully shape Australia into his own personal image of what New Jerusalem looks like?

Because the Morrison Government is dominated by closet climate change deniers Australia will soon have no friends in the South Pacific

First Prime Minister Scott Morrison's intransigent climate change denying cost Australia the goodwill of the smaller South Pacific islands.

Now his refusal to turn, face the facts of climate change and take meaningful action is highly likely to increase the severity of climate change impacts on our near neighbour and oldest regional ally, New Zealand.

The Times, 7 December 2019:

New Zealand’s retreating southern glaciers are facing a new threat: clouds of orange soot from bushfires in Australia. Scientists said that the ash which fell on the pristine snow this week from 1,200 miles away across the Tasman Sea could absorb more heat and melt snow faster this summer, as one climate disaster accelerates another.

Andrew Mackintosh, an expert on glaciers and climate at Monash University in Melbourne, said: “If it stays on the surface then it will certainly enhance melt. If fire frequency, ash and dust transport increase, there is a chance that this will hasten the demise of New Zealand glaciers.”

New Zealand has 3,173 glaciers, ranging in age from est. 18,000 years to est. 1.2 million years.

Around 8 February 2019 bushfire smoke from Tasmanian bushfires mixed with dust storm particles from the Australian mainland reached the south island of New Zealand, turning the surface area of affected glaciers pink.

By 10 November smoke was covering the entire south island and potentially dropping brown ash on up to 3,155 glaciers, with those affected glaciers now pinkish red.

On 11 November 2019 smoke from Australian bushfires potentially reached 18 glaciers in New Zealand's north island.

As the 2019 Australian east coast fire season is not expected to end before March if we are fortunate and June if we are not, in all probability New Zealand will experience more ash falls from across the Tasman Sea. 

Its citizens will be perfectly within their rights to shun Australia for its government's gross negligence.

l'état, c'est moi: Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison is acting more like an autocrat every day

"Until this week, I’ve felt that comparisons between Morrison and Donald Trump have been way overblown. Now, I’m not so sure."  [Journalist Katherine Murphy writing in The Guardian, 28 November 2019]

In which it is revealed that Scott Morrison made a 'perfect' phone call à la Trump......

Crikey Worm: For the early birds, 28 November 2019:

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is coming under increasing fire over his phone call to the NSW police commissioner, with a former top judge calling it an inappropriate use of his position.

Former ICAC commissioner David Ipp said the call appeared to have been made in the interests of political decision-making, rather than in the interest of the state, telling The Guardian “an ordinary citizen would not be able to get that information from the police … so what is it about the prime minister that entitles him to that information?” Ipp joins former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and Labor leader Anthony Albanese in condemning the call. The prime minister has refused to release notes from the call with the police chief, despite differing accounts of what was discussed, The New Daily reports.

THEY REALLY SAID THAT? 

“	Being blunt about it, it is a call I would not have made. — Malcolm Turnbull

The former prime minister offers his two cents on his successor’s decision to ring the NSW police chief.

NSW Northern Rivers bushfire victim: "If only I'd prayed more. Sorry ScoMo"

More than 600 homes have been destroyed by bushfires in NSW this fire season - with 503 of these burnt down in the last two weeks.

Since October six lives have been lost in the fires - two of these in the Clarence Valley.
A Northern Rivers family which lived in one of about 80 houses lost to bushfire in the Nymboida area left highly visible messages in the ashes of their home for that closet climate change denier, Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott 'thoughts & prayers' Morrison.

These images should come as no surprise nor their message:

"No climate catastrophe? F. U. ScoMo"

"Quiet Aussies lead to homes on fire"

"If only I'd prayed more Sorry ScoMo"

"Thoughts & Prayers vs Action!! ScoMo = SloMo"

"Noisy Australian PROUD OF IT!"

One of the characteristics of Northern Rivers communities has always been their willingness to take the fight straight to the those in political power who they believe threaten their families, their way of life and the land on which they live.

The Mackay family demonstrated this after the blaze ripped through Nymboida leaving two of its members with only the clothes on their backs.

*Images found at 7 News.

How the world sees Australia's response to climate change

It seems it isn't just our Pacific island neighbours or other members of the United Nations which view Australia as a nation governed by backward environmental vandals intent on destroying their own country.....

https://youtu.be/m6DO3zbD83U


Channel 4 News is made for Channel 4 by Independent Television Network Ltd. Channel 4 is a publicly-owned and commercially-funded UK public service broadcaster.

It is reported that Channel 4 has a monthly audience reach of est. 79% of all UK television viewers.

This is the gist of a 13 minute news segment aired in Britain on 12 November 2019 and, which had over 17 million views on YouTube:

Despite briefly boasting more than 50% renewable power generation on its national grid this year, Australia is struggling to move on from an energy, labour and political market built on a 1950s coal-based model. (Subscribe: https://bit.ly/C4_News_Subscribe) Even as eastern Australia is consumed by flames after years of drought, the New South Wales parliament is today trying to push through a law to stop proposed coal mines from having to examine the carbon impact of the coal they’re exporting. And they’re exporting a lot. Australia's coal export market is the most lucrative on the planet, valued at £36 billion. Three people have been killed, over 150 homes destroyed, Sydney faces ‘catastrophic’ conditions, and at least 45 of the 65 fires burning through the region are out of control. Yet when Australian Green MPs suggest the industry is on the wrong side of history, they get called 'raving loonies’ by the Deputy Prime Minister. Australia is now among the very worst G20 keepers of promises made in the Paris Climate Accord. It plans seven giant new opencast pits for Queensland, even as the bush to the east is incinerated by drought caused by climate change, caused by carbon emission caused - in part - by coal.

UPDATE

The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 November 2019:

Sweden's central bank has sold off bonds from parts of Australia and the oil-rich Canadian province of Alberta because it felt that greenhouse gas emissions in both countries were too high.

Riksbank Deputy Governor Martin Floden said on Wednesday the bank would no longer invest in assets from issuers with a large climate footprint, even if the yields were high.

One of Scott Morrison's election campaign team bragging about how they came to 'own' voters during 2019

Banning, blocking, sanitising, hiding negative comments, using deliberately misleading labels or memes were tools used by Morrison's digital campaign team to convince fool Facebook, Twitter and Instagram users into believing that Scott Morrison was the man to support at the 2019 Australian federal election.

ABC News, 8 November 2019:

Appearing before a Sunday afternoon session at the Australian Libertarian Society's annual Friedman Conference, Guerin spent 18 minutes humblebragging about the tradecraft TG used to ambush its opponents and influence the voting public....

It shows Guerin giving a blow-by-blow account of how TG won what he called "the battle of the thumbs".

He also boasted about weaponising "boomer memes", deploying a strategy called "water dripping on a stone", and unlocking "arousal emotions" to maximise the impact of the Liberals' social media posts.

And he talks about how social media feeds for another political client were sanitised to downplay criticism and negativity in order to give the impression of broad, enthusiastic support.

The video is more than just a recap of a successful political marketing campaign, it's a guided tour of the dark arts of contemporary information warfare.

Topham and Guerin came up through the ranks of the Young Nationals, the youth wing of New Zealand's conservative National Party, and worked on the fringes of political campaigns both in New Zealand and Britain before launching their own firm in 2016.....

Through their connections — including with Crosby Textor, the Liberal Party's go-to political advisory firm — TG ended up doing some work for state Liberals in elections in South Australia in 2018 and New South Wales earlier this year.

The big break came when the Liberals hired TG to take a leading role in the digital campaign ahead of the May poll, working in the election engine room alongside the party's federal director, Andrew Hirst, and his team.

A Liberal Party spokesperson declined to say if the party was still using TG's services but noted Topham Guerin "did an outstanding job for the party during the recent election campaign".

But six months on from the election, the Liberals are still paying for Facebook ads to sell Scott Morrison, posting attacks on Labor, and two of the page's administrators are identified as being New Zealand-based....

The Liberal team, he [Guerin] said, had out-gunned their opponents in both volume and engagement, concentrating their efforts in marginal seats.

"That's how you win an election that no-one thinks you're going to win," he told the mainly centre-right-leaning audience.

And achieving mastery of Facebook — which has become the key platform in digital campaign strategy — is at the core of the TG playbook.

When the average Facebook user spends just 1.7 seconds on each post, the challenge is to get them to "stop long enough on our content, to process it, to react with it, to interact with it and then share it with their friends".

"This is the single most important point: the best social media strategy is water dripping on a stone. You've got to be pushing the same consistent message day-in, day-out," he said.

In Australia, the main anti-Labor "dripping water" message was, according to Guerin, that "Bill Shorten is the bill Australia can't afford".

That was expressed in ads and posts designed to stir up concerns about property taxes (changes to negative gearing), retirement tax (scrapping franking credits), car taxes (electric vehicle subsidies) and resurrecting the death tax bogey.

On the flip side the "I'm standing with Scott" mantra was hammered home....

Tweet of the week

“It's just such high velocity bollocks”@murpharoo says the Prime Minister @ScottMorrisonMP “is trying to pretend… that carbon risk isn't an actual thing,” when he vowed to outlaw "secondary boycotts" against Australian companies in the coal industry. #Insiders #auspol pic.twitter.com/H6JFXxFqX4

— Insiders ABC (@InsidersABC) November 2, 2019

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison brings shame on all of us who arrived in the country from 1778 onwards

And Jenna Price* expresses that shame for us all......

The Canberra Times, 25 October 2019:

It's the only night legendary Australian band the Go-Betweens are playing in Sydney and the audience is keyed up. A woman gives a very moving Acknowledgment of Country - you know, the ones which are more than just the nod to elders past, present and emerging. The ones which talk about rivers and sky, kin and skin. It's Wiradjuri woman Yvonne Weldon, chair of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, whose ability to hold an audience is epic.

Midway, a bloke in the audience starts heckling. Get a move on, he says, and worse.

"I paused. And then I said, 'This is exactly for you, we are the oldest living cultures of the world'," Weldon remembers.

There was a moment of silence before people started telling him to shush - but in stronger language. Weldon continued. Her aim, she says, was to address a big-mouthed, small-minded person.

Now the Prime Minister is doing his own interrupting, colonising these acknowledgments with his own version. Last Saturday, at a Liberal function at Parliament House, he acknowledged the Ngunnawal people. And then he said: "Can I also acknowledge, as is my habit, anyone who is serving in our defence forces and certainly those who are veterans, and simply say on behalf of a very grateful nation, thank you for your service."

It's his own thing. Six words about the traditional owners and entire sentences about everyone else. He didn't just do it at the Liberal Council. He also did it at the Migration and Settlement Awards and at the Prime Minister's Literary Awards. Morrison has decided to add non-Indigenous people to the acknowledgments without reflecting on what that means and how it diminishes Aboriginal people.

Wurundjeri elder Aunty Joy Murphy-Wandin performs
a Welcome to Country and Acknowledgment of Country
beforea State of Origin game in Melbourne. Picture:
Getty Images

Why does this matter? We know we are on Aboriginal land. We know Australia wasn't blank earth when colonised 200 years ago. Since the arrival of Cook and company, Aboriginal people have been raped and murdered, stolen from their families, had their cultural practices and beliefs erased. They earn less, learn less, die early. There is a lot we can do to redress that, but the very least we could do is to acknowledge that we are on Aboriginal land. It's a couple of minutes out of our respective days and might even encourage a tiny bit of reflection on the part of those of us who are listening. It's not a big ask to be part of a ceremony that has its traditions going back thousands of years (yes, yes, they didn't have exactly this before white people arrived, but Aboriginal people had their own ways of welcoming to country). 

In the aeons before, the Welcome to Country was a sign of peace. And it's this which irks D'harawal scholar Gawaian Bodkin-Andrews, a professor at the University of Technology Sydney (I work there too), the most. Bodkin-Andrews, who has researched Welcome to Country controversies, says the Prime Minister has appropriated an act of peace and embedded war. 
Bodkin-Andrews reminds us that Welcome to Countries (delivered by traditional custodians) are about Aboriginal people sharing their histories and their connections to Country. Acknowledgments (given by Aboriginal people who are not custodians of the land or by non-Aboriginal people) should respect this. 

"It's asking for understanding and demonstrating that our arms are open to you. Military personnel can be agents of war and Morrison's comments are warmongering in a symbol of peace. That is ultimately disrespectful." 

It's also puzzling. Why acknowledge that particular category of Australian?

"It's reflective of his mentality and the party he stands for."

NOTES

* Jenna Price, BA (Communications) (NSWIT), MA (UTS), PhD (Sydney), Senior Lecturer, Journalism Program, University of Technology Sydney.

Cartoon of the Week

The Cathy Wilcox

Quotes of the Week

"Even inside the Liberal party, there is some discontent with what MPs say is an increasingly dictatorial style of Mr Morrison. One described the Prime Minister as ‘‘Caesar’’.  
[Political Editor Phillip Coorey, writing in the Financial Review on 23 October 2019]

“Last year, a Royal Commission found that a Pentecostal leader covered up the abuse of a seven-year-old. Yesterday, Scott Morrison wilfully shared a stage with him. His apathy toward victims is painfully clear”  [Dr. Jennifer Wilson writing in The Big Smoke (Australia), 11 July 2019]

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison caught misrepresenting climate change facts to the United Nations

The Australian, 24 October 2019:

At the United Nations during his US trip, Scott Morrison said that when it came to per capita investment in clean energy, Australia spent more than “anywhere in the world”. Not a lot of ambiguity there. He repeated the claim last week in parliament, but instead of referring to clean energy the PM narrowed the description down to renewables.

Both claims are false, the latter more so than the first.

The Australia Institute decided to look into the claim, which was based on a Bloomberg study which revealed yes, Australia has the highest per capita investment in clean energy of 14 countries it looked at. The Prime Minister’s office confirmed to me that was the source for his UN claim.

Where to start …

I suspect most readers, along with the PM, realise that there are more than 14 countries in the world. Quite a few more actually. You don’t have to be Einstein to know that. Which means relying on a 14 country study to make the wild claim that we spend more per capita on clean energy (we’ll forget when the PM misspoke in the parliament about “renewables”) than “anywhere in the world” is pretty silly. Yet that’s what Morrison did, on the world stage. It’s rather Donald Trump like.

It turns out beyond the 14 countries in that study there are other nations that invest more per capita than we do — in clean energy broadly and in renewables more specifically……

But if the PM wants to crow about something his government has criticised in the domestic political setting that’s his choice.

However it was plain wrong to claim we are first. And unnecessary, given we do so well despite not being first.

When I first flagged this inaccuracy by the PM last Friday in a news package for Network Ten his office were quick to accuse me of being misleading and complained that when calling out the inaccuracy I didn’t specifically refer to the report which showed we were number one.

Never mind that the PM didn’t refer to the 14 country study either in his 15 minute speech. Apparently I should have done so in my one minute ten seconds package. Weird to expect me to cite a source the PM didn’t cite when making a claim the source didn’t make…….

The next tactic in the PMO complaints was to attack the credibility of the Australia Institute — which yes we can categorise as a left leaning think tank. Reminiscent of John Howard’s “who do you trust” campaign in 2004, I was asked (though it wasn’t really a question) which organisation do I trust more: the highly credible Bloomberg which did the 14 country study, or the ideologically compromised Australia Institute.

But the Australia Institute report didn’t contradict the Bloomberg study. It accepted it, simply pointing out it only examined 14 countries. The criticism for inaccuracy was levelled at the PM, who misused that study to claim first place over every single country across the globe, not Bloomberg. So which organisation anyone thinks is more or less credible just isn’t relevant. It is a red herring.

This is just one example of the way political spin doctors try and challenge entirely fair and reasonable reporting and commentary. Or the way some do, anyway. The funny thing is they become like the boy who cried wolf when they do so this way. Of course journalists and commentators make mistakes and misjudgements. Meaning that there is always a place for the media guardians of a PM or any politician to (politely) complain or correct.

But when they do so on flimsy ground, or no grounds like in this example, they make journalists and commentators instantly cynical of the next time they whinge, just like the boy who cries wolf.

Climate Council calls Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison a colossal bullshitter

Climate Council, media release, 26 September 2019:

Morrison's Colossal Bullshit

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has taken to the global stage delivering a speech to the United Nations in New York which was long on spin and short on fact. 

“Scott Morrison’s speech and his claim that Australia was doing enough on climate change was colossal bullshit,” said the CEO of the Climate Council, Amanda McKenzie. 

“Over the winter we saw bushfires burning across Australia while the Amazon rainforest and the Arctic were on fire. A major new report shows that suburbs in Sydney, Perth and Melbourne could experience serious sea level disasters every year on our current trajectory. Meanwhile, on this government’s watch, Australia’s pollution is rising year on year. To suggest we are doing enough is ludicrous and dangerous,” she said. 

“Mr Morrison is out of touch with what is happening all around us. He is also out of touch with Australians who are really worried,” said Ms McKenzie. 

“Mr Morrison told the United Nations that our children have a right to optimism. Perhaps they would feel more optimistic if he started to take the problem of climate change seriously,” she said. 

FACT-CHECKING MORRISON’S SPEECH: 

Morrison statement: “Now, Australia is also taking real action on climate change and we are getting results. We are successfully balancing our global responsibilities with sensible and practical policies to secure our environmental and our economic future.” 

Fact-check: Australia’s Paris target is to reduce our emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2030. This is one of the weakest targets amongst developed countries. If other countries adopted Australia’s target the world would be heading for catastrophic climate damage. Rising emissions and worsening climate impacts are placing Australian lives, our economy and the natural environment at risk. 

Morrison statement: “Australia is responsible for just 1.3 per cent of global emissions. Australia is doing our bit on climate change and we reject any suggestion to the contrary.” 

Fact-check: Australia is the 17th largest polluter in the world, bigger than 175 countries. We are the third largest exporter of fossil fuels in the world. 

Morrison statement: “By 2020 Australia will have overachieved on our Kyoto commitments, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 367 million tonnes more than required to meet our 2020 Kyoto target. Now there are few member countries, whether at this forum or the OECD who can make this claim.” 

Fact-check: The reason for this is that Australia’s Kyoto targets were the second weakest in the world for the first commitment period (a target to increase emissions by 8% above 1990 levels) and the weakest in the world for the second commitment period (a target to reduce emissions by just 5% below 2000 levels by 2020). It isn’t hard to overachieve on dismal targets. The reality is today our emissions are going up and up – according to the government’s own data. 

Morrison statement: “Our latest estimates show both emissions per person and the emissions intensity of the economy are at their lowest levels in 29 years.” 

Fact-check: Australia has the highest emissions per capita in the developed world. It is true that Australia’s emissions per capita have fallen more than most countries, but this is from an extraordinarily high baseline, and has largely been driven by rapid population growth. Even with this drop, we still have the highest per capita emissions in the developed world. Our emissions per capita are higher than Saudi Arabia, a country not known for its action on climate change. Ultimately, our international targets are not based on per capita emissions. 

Morrison statement: “Australia’s electricity sector is producing less emissions. In the year to March 2019, emissions from Australia’s electricity sector were 15.7% lower than the peak recorded in the year to June 2009.” 

Fact-check: This is cherry picking. There are 47 sectors in the Australian economy, almost all of them are going up. This figure of 15.7% is only correct for the electricity sector in the east coast of Australia, not all of Australia. While emissions from electricity are down, and this is good news, this is despite the best efforts of the Federal Government to undermine the renewable energy sector. Also, emissions from electricity production account for only 33% of our total emissions. Overall, there has been a rise in emissions from other sectors such as transport. Australia’s emissions are increasing and have been for five years in a row. 

Morrison statement: “…it is important to note that Australia only accounts for around 5.5 per cent of the world’s coal production.” 

Fact-check: This is spin, as it makes Australia’s contribution to climate change seem much smaller than it is. In reality, if you include Australia’s fossil fuel exports, we are the fifth largest emitter on the planet, after the US, China, EU and India. Australia is the world’s second largest coal exporter. 

Morrison statement: “We are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.” 

Fact-check: This is woefully inadequate and not aligned to what the science says is necessary to tackle climate change. Australia’s emissions have risen every year for the past five years, across almost every sector of the economy. The Government’s commitment on paper might be 26-28%, but cheating with Kyoto credits effectively reduces our emissions reduction target to just 15%. 

Morrison statement: “And our Great Barrier Reef remains one of the world’s most pristine areas of natural beauty. Feel free to visit it. Our reef is vibrant and resilient and protected under the world’s most comprehensive reef management plan.” 

Fact-check: In 2016 and 2017, the Great Barrier Reef was severely damaged through back-to-back bleaching events which killed half of all corals on the planet’s largest living structure. Australia’s current goal, if followed by other countries, would sign the death warrant of the Great Barrier Reef.

END

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants parents to muzzle their children in 2019

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has cautioned against imposing 'needless' climate anxiety on children. pic.twitter.com/JX79Q1Eg3H

— SBS News (@SBSNews) September 25, 2019

Yes, that's right. Don't let your children think about the things they are living through during their childhood - increasingly intense floods, hurricanes, drought, bushfires, storm surges, coastline erosion and native animal extinctions. 

Don't let them become politically active by marching and demanding change. Teach them to be good little "Quiet Australians".