“The bullying of small countries by big ones, the trampling of justice and decency in the pursuit of national aggrandisement, and reckless indifference to human life should have no place in our world.”
The Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott made the above rhetorically noble statement on Friday 18 July 2014, in response to news of the down-ing (presumably by missile) of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over a region of eastern Ukraine in the midst of civil war. Apparently admonishing Russia, whose government is alleged to be backing the pro-Russian seperatist rebels, this self-righteously antagonistic and undiplomatic comment was made at a time when little evidence of what occurred was available and when cooperation between all sides concerned needed emphasis above point scoring in domestic politics: which is what this was really about, opportunistic drumming of drama and rhetoric to deflect attention away from the parliament’s passing of the abolition of carbon pricing the day before, 17 July 2014. Check out the policies obituary here.
The leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Christine Milne, and Senator Lisa Singh of the Australian Labor Party both provided inspiring speeches against the repeal, which was subsequently passed:
A vote for the abolition of the clean energy package is a vote for failure because it is a recognition that this parliament does not want to face up to the four to six degrees of warming, which is the trajectory we are on as a planet. They do not want to face up to what is intergenerational theft, because a planet facing the warming that we are now being subjected to, and will be subjected to, is a planet experiencing the sixth extinction crisis. It will be a planet suffering rising sea levels. It will be a planet suffering food security crises and it will be a nation, Australia, failing to play our role in global negotiations. We will be a global pariah as the rest of the world moves to try to secure a treaty in 2015 to give people on this planet a chance of survival in the face of a climate emergency. Australia will be relegated to a pariah and a backwater.
– Senator Christine Milne, 17 July 2014
This is a fundamental moment in Australia’s history. We are about to devastate the future of this country. We are about to take this country backwards in droves through the mindless ideological bent of the coalition. Australia today will be a laughing stock to the rest of the world. We are sending this country backwards—and all for what? For playing politics: playing politics with Australia’s future, playing politics with our environment and playing politics with our children.
– Senator Lisa Singh, 17 July 2014
The irony of Abbott’s admonishment of Russia (which was antagonistic, counterproductive but apparently politically expedient, with a rise in popularity attributed to the bellicose posturing) is that Australia with it’s recent change in carbon emission reduction policy has recently been singled out with less rhetoric but much the same sentiment by Fijian president Frank Bainimarama at the Pacific Islands Development Forum for being selfishly indifferent to the fate of its’ Pacific island neighbours, whose communities’ futures are threatened by climate change associated rises in sea levels.
I’ve written this post to record these side-lined aspects of the past few weeks, and to state that I am looking forward to a future Australian government, comprising inspiring politicians such as Milne, Singh and Penny Wong, which will more actively engage with our Pacific neighbours and show greater leadership in the global community; an Australia which is less of a bully and more of a champion on issues of human rights and climate change.