We are currently experiencing a massive natural catastrophe such as Australia has never before experienced. The Northern reaches of the Great Barrier Reef are dying. Much of the coral cover over thousands of square kilometres of the reef has turned as white as bone china. Even the fringing reefs are dying.
Professor Terry Hughes of James Cook University recently flew over 660klm of the northern reaches of the reef and estimated that 60% of the reef was entirely bleached. Many of the most famous dive sites on the northern reef have been reduced to barren ghostly white wastelands. Soon algae will discolour these lifeless coral skeletons and they will begin to crumble. As will the local tourism, diving, and fishing industries.
If you hop on any number of the dive or charter boats available in Port Douglas and motor out over the reef for several hours you will come to the famous Agincourt Reef system. Or at least you will be in the vicinity of where it used to be. In today’s Guardian you can see pictures of this natural wonder of the world bleached as white as coral sand. The same thing has happened to most every reef between Cairns and Papua New Guinea.
Meanwhile on another planet entirely, in Canberra, our government has been summarily recalled to debate vitally important business. In an action which has no modern precedent our PM has recalled parliament so as to sit for a few days to reconsider matters that are of such dire consequence that normal conservative practice and tradition must be set aside.
As I write I am listening to the leader of the opposition moving for the business of the house to be suspended so that they might all discuss the banking ‘crisis’. This motion will fail. The Turnbull government will then use this extraordinary meeting of parliament to prorogue parliament and call a Double Dissolution election.
The government has not been able to get its extraordinarily repugnant economic agenda through the senate. Many of the 2014 budget cuts are still delayed. And despite the fact that even the government has turned away from many of the more obnoxious of these proposals, this is now a ‘crisis’. Moreover: if we don’t suddenly reinstate a home-grown FBI built just for unions involved in the building industry then the whole of the Australian economy is under threat (apparently).
Under normal circumstances the artificiality of our politicians and their views is somewhat masked by the gravity of the issues they consider. However in this instance, for this week, there are only artificial crises being considered.
Nobody in our country really believes that the passage of the BCCC Act is a first order problem. If it had wanted to negotiate an outcome on the BCCC Act then the government could have done so. Many cross bench senators may have been willing to negotiate a reasonable outcome, if only the government had not already rammed through alterations to the senate voting procedures that will wipe them all out at the next election, and then recalled parliament using a long dormant constitutional manoeuvre so as to manufacture a double dissolution election.
Six months ago it may have possible to still keep a straight face while calling DD and arguing that it was because there was a policy agenda that was being thwarted by senate intransigence, however after six months of political inertia it is no longer tenable. For the last six months the government has done nothing but rule things out. When Turnbull was raised to the throne all of Australia chanted ‘yes’ ‘yes’ ‘yes’ in unison. The ‘Party of No’ was at last going to pursue a middle of the road conservative agenda. Then ever since Turnbull has done nothing but say ‘no’ ‘no’ ‘no’.
So while six months ago Turnbull might have been able to call a DD and be pretty sure to get elected on the basis of all his wonderful aspirations for our country, now it’s not a sure thing. The longest election campaign in Australian history is in prospect. And while very few Aussies know what the BCCC is, most every one of them is fairly attached to the Great Barrier Reef.
Unfortunately for the Turnbull incumbency he is leading the wrong political party. All of Australia was backing him on the hope that he would be able to lead us out of a wilderness of political rhetoric and bowing and scraping to vested interests. Aussies largely agree with his stated sentiments regarding climate change, keeping manufacturing in our country, addressing long term unemployment, providing decent education and health services, and knowing that there will be a secure pension available at the end of a working life.
However every time Turnbull has voiced anything that might possibly be construed as being in line with any of these stated aspirations he has been immediately beaten up by right wingers before backing down. It is becoming more and more apparent that Turnbull is entirely captive of his own Praetorian Guard. He is up on the battlements playing a sweet fiddle, but nonetheless Rome continues to burn.
So while six months ago Turnbull would likely have won an election comfortably, now it seems the worm has turned. It is going to be a long cold winter for Turnbull and the LNP. The bookies are still offering reasonable odds against a Labor victory. Maybe it’s time for a flutter?
Also by James Moylan:
The ongoing News Limited ‘reality show’
Likely arguments in Day v Regina
Why we need to be intolerant of climate science fools
‘The modern and wonderfully diverse 21st century Australian democracy®’
Yes, we do need to talk about the spurious nonsense being taught to children in our schools
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