John Quiggin

Well it is Tuesday now! But John Howards awakening from his environmental coma requires some comment. Howard’s sudden realisation that Australia must have greenhouse gas reduction targets, which flies in the face of assertions he made less than a week earlier, leaves a number of questions. One, which rich commercial lobby group has he been speaking to recently, and two, why is he making environment announcements.
Firstly Howard has said in his Queensland speech that he, not Australia, will commit to long term environmental targets on advice from his task group, then he goes on to out line what the the result of that task group will be. Do you feel another “Switkowski” coming on????
Secondly, the fact that Howard is making these announcements, this following every significant government statement for the last ten years, smacks of “Smithism”. Dick Smith made a feature of pasting his image on every can, box, and package that came out of his later enterprise. This is called branding. Clearly Howard has been branding Australia as his country. No longer do we live in Australia, we live in Howardia and we are all to become Howardians. The wards of Howardia.
If anyone is opening a book on what the outcome of the “Task Group” will be then I am in. My feeling is that 106% emissions of our 1990 levels sounds about right.

Just testing

If I hear my radio correctly, we are in a situation where we are now going to drain the MDB wetlands. When this has been done, where will the next lot of water come from?