In Conversation: The Carbon Club with Marian Wilkinson

Bob Carr:                 Marian Wilkinson is one of Australia’s most experienced journalists. She’s got a background in the ABC, a reporter on Four Corners and with The Sydney Morning Herald. As an investigative reporter she really got into this key challenge of why Australia has failed at climate change policy. Her book, The Carbon Club, spells out the links between the United States and Australian conservatives in blocking any action on climate. Yet Marian there was a magic moment in 2009 when it looked like both sides in the national parliament would come together and Australia would put a price on carbon.

Marian Wilkinson:    Yes Bob. This was a fascinating time. Malcolm Turnbull was opposition leader. Kevin Rudd, of course, was in power as the Labor prime minister. There was this moment in September 2009 I think when the big breach really happened. That was – I tell the story in my book – a time when Malcolm Turnbull, wanting to get bipartisan support from the Liberal party for Kevin Rudd’s policy, had gone to London and he’d gone to see the conservative opposition leader there, David Cameron who, like Turnbull, believed that conservatives could do climate policy. This old idea of vote blue, go green.

So Turnbull was very encouraged by this and thought that this would help him get support for the policy through the Liberal party here. At the same time – I think unbeknownst to him – his nemesis in the party on climate policy, senator Cory Bernardi, went to Washington. He went to see the most conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill about blocking climate policy and linked up with some of the key climate sceptics in Washington. What Bernardi saw in Washington was how a campaign against climate policy, particularly against putting a price on carbon emissions, could really, really be used effectively in this kind of wedging politics.

So he came back from Washington absolutely encouraged by that strategy and ultimately I would argue, that’s where the failure of bipartisan climate policy really started.

Bob Carr:                 I think it was interesting in your book how this figure, who most Australians wouldn’t have paid much attention to, Cory Bernardi, walks out of stage right to centre stage and, having been coached in Washington, implements policies of denying climate action. It made me think about this challenge, that climate change denial is very much an American heresy and it was transplanted from the United States to Australia very much with the help of Cory Bernardi.

Marian Wilkinson:    Well Cory Bernardi certainly played a key role. I think that what he did was he brought to the debate a successful way of using this in internal party politics. Prior to that the climate sceptics had essentially been making their arguments to business, to the public, through the think tanks and attempting to really make headway in the Liberal party. I think what people like Cory Bernardi helped them do was make headway inside the Liberal party and really sharpen the divisions. Of course Bernardi himself – he would kind of admit this almost in the interviews I did with him – was really a tool. He understood there were more powerful figures in the party using him.

In fact I think one of the reasons he ended up talking to me was that he ended up feeling discarded by the end of the process because he didn’t get the ministerial position he thought he would get for giving so much help ultimately to Tony Abbott in that fight against carbon policy which helped put Abbott in the prime minister’s seat.

Bob Carr:                 He even did, according to the book, a training course with conservative Americans in how to mobilise opinion to kill off action on climate change. So he’s learning about building a database of motivated conservatives. He’s learning about directing attention at crucial parts of the political decision making apparatus. He comes back to Australia with these techniques and in effect presses a button in 2009 and sees enormous pressure created within the Liberal party to do in Malcolm Turnbull who is working with Rudd on this package, and to elevate Tony Abbott who pledges to end it.

Marian Wilkinson:    Yeah. It was interesting because one of the people who was really taken with what Bernardi was trying to do which was very much under the surface at the time – the press gallery was following the big fights with Abbott, Nick Minchin who of course was a key sceptic on the opposition benches, a key position in the senate. They were fighting Malcolm Turnbull. So all the press gallery attention was on that. But beneath the surface Bernardi and his supporters were very much operating within the grass roots of the right of the Liberal party. That’s who they were mobilising to, as you say, get these email campaigns going, the phone calls to the offices of the Liberal party backbenchers, really putting pressure on that way.

It was very curious that – well probably not so much curious as fascinating – that when this was ultimately successful Hugh Morgan, who was a key figure behind the scenes as well pushing this approach, he wrote this report for the Lavoisier Group, one of the big sceptic think tanks, praising these kind of actions and saying that he saw it as essentially the grass roots of the Liberal party rising up to, as he put it, defeat green despotism. For me that kind of language, those kind of tactics, really elevated these politics I think to a level of toxicity almost that we hadn’t seen in Australia before.

Bob Carr:                 It was certainly a political drama, these events of 2009. You had Rudd putting his leadership on the line as it turned out because down the track he was undone when he had to concede the government was now operating without a plan for reintroducing a package like this. You had Turnbull in that concentrated fury of 2009 being brought down as Liberal leader and Abbott being given the leadership because of the party tumult over climate policy. Of course you even had the Green party – the Green party voted to defer Rudd’s legislation in the senate and wears the odium of that to this day. Rudd’s legislation had a window of opportunity before Turnbull was cut down. But the Greens voted with the coalition to defer it.

Marian Wilkinson:    This has been I think a narrative that has really taken hold in the Labor party and I think deepened the enmity in many ways of the ministers who were around at the time towards the Greens on this. I think in the book I try and unpick this a lot more because what I think happened in those crucial days when the Rudd legislation was coming before the senate, was the backdrop came to the fore which was Rudd and his minister Penny Wong had really wanted bipartisan support on this with the Liberal party, with the coalition. They felt that if you were going to bring the country with you, you needed that broad bipartisan approach.

So when Turnbull was dumped and the policy was dumped Rudd then wanted to kind of turn on a sixpence and bring the Greens on board or believed the Greens should come on board. But the truth of the matter was he’d never picked up the phone to Bob Brown. He’d made it clear he didn’t want to deal with the Greens if he didn’t have to on this. So in essence Labor was also asking Bob Brown to dump his own credibility which had challenged the scheme, challenged Rudd’s policies in a number of key areas. I don’t think Brown could have done that without damaging his own credibility and opening up splits within his own party. So everyone ended up being jammed on this.

What was interesting of course was that later as we know, Julia Gillard did do a deal with Bob Brown, did bring in a policy. But because it was a Labor Greens policy it became an absolute lightning rod for Tony Abbott and the coalition. If anything the politics got even more toxic on climate change and the issue became kind of I suppose explosive for all the political leaders.

Bob Carr:                 You mentioned Hugh Morgan. I said when I reviewed your book for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald you’d need a university Marxist or a – some comparable analyst – a Noam Chomsky – to pick this one apart. He is on the board of the McCormack Foundation which controls millions. It allocates to the Liberal party or to conservative think tanks. He’s on the board of the IPA which is a conservative think tank, made a strong commitment to disputing the science of climate and to funding activities that challenged it. He’s out of the resources sector. So it’s money for the conservative political parties. It’s ideas out of the IPA to clothe them with policies and it’s the instincts of someone who was in there with a mining giant.

He opted to run a furious and obsessive campaign to dispute climate science and, it would seem, succeeded quite brilliantly.

Marian Wilkinson:    It was a success. I think there’s no doubt it was a success. A lot of people, especially in Sydney, don’t know much about Hugh Morgan. He’s much more prominent in Melbourne. He had, as you say, been CEO of Western Mining Corporation, a very big figure, an influential figure, in the Business Council of Australia and in the Minerals Council. He was often, if you like, by the Labor party I think, seen as one of these mad uncles who banged on about climate change. I think there was not enough realisation in the Labor party that he was a hugely significant figure in the Liberal party. Hugh wouldn’t talk to me for the book which was a bit of a shame. He says he’s going to do his own book on this.

But his close – some of his close colleagues did. They believed that he was probably after Rupert Murdoch, in the 1990s anyway, one of the most influential businessmen in Liberal circles. He certainly had the ear of the prime minister at the time, John Howard and of the treasurer, Peter Costello. He dipped in and out of the IPA board but I think that there was no doubt he was an intellectual influence there certainly. He was absolutely taken with this idea that environmentalism was a kind of left wing religion that people who wanted to act on climate change, specifically the European countries, had this socialist agenda to re-regulate Australia.

So I think him and his right-hand man, Ray Evans who was also of that conservative ilk, helped forge those connections with the US sceptic movement. Even though I’d covered this issue for quite some time I didn’t quite appreciate how important challenging the science was to those people. I mean taking it from the proposition that they didn’t believe the science but as one of the leading Washington sceptics said to me, we had to challenge the science because if we didn’t challenge the science the people who wanted to do something about climate change had the moral imperative on their side and we looked like we were just being selfish and protecting vested interests.

We had to challenge the science for that reason, otherwise the moral imperative would stay with those who wanted to act on climate change.

Bob Carr:                 They ended up doing it even when the evidence was to many of us incontrovertible, like the deterioration of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Now you’ve got three chapters on that. You follow the debates of scientists committed to protecting a healthy reef with the people undercutting them. You see that clearly as a totemic Australian battle, a reflection, a subset of this national debate about climate policy.

Marian Wilkinson:    Absolutely. I think it is and I think it was seen by all sides as that, the environmental side and the coal industry specifically and later the gas industry. But it also is fascinating because I think, you know, when you look at the reef it is such an incredible demonstration I think of what is happening with climate change. Will Steffen, quite a prominent climate scientist, quoted in the book says, likes to say that the bleachings we’re seeing on the reef is like a smoking gun on climate change. It’s very hard to refute when you look at what’s happening there. But I think again that is the very reason why the climate scientists who deal with the reef, the reef scientists, have been such an object of attack by the sceptic movement in Australia.

In a way I think that’s very tragic because what is happening on the reef and the research that Australian reef scientists contribute to the science of climate change is enormously important. You can see that, Bob, when we’ve had in the last five years, three really significant bleaching episodes on the reef. You look at the water temperatures and they rise at the same time. It is very clear what’s happening and I think the marine park authority – the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority chief scientist, David Wachenfeld, keeps on saying that the 1.5 degree target to try and keep the temperature rise somewhere around that is absolutely crucial in his view for preserving the Great Barrier Reef.

Bob Carr:                 I see the issue is taken on from time to time by The Australian continuing to prosecute the case about the reef and arguing that the claims about bleaching are alarmist, even rigged. I notice too, last Sunday night, in the documentary on Rupert Murdoch broadcast on the ABC in the last of the three episodes being interviewed by The Australian’s Paul Kelly in 2012. Rupert Murdoch states the case against the science of climate change and speaks with obvious sincerity. They’re not cautious comments. They’re somewhat incautious. But it’s what the man is thinking.

Marian Wilkinson:    I think it was so interesting. I think it was back in 2011 when James Murdoch was on the rise in the succession stakes of the Murdoch Empire. Both he, but even Rupert Murdoch, moved for News Corp to take action on climate change, to talk about News Corp cutting its own emissions and so on and so forth. I think as James fell in the succession stakes over the phone hacking scandal as we know and Lachlan came back into the picture, you really saw that being about that flutter of concern about climate change from Rupert Murdoch himself seem to go silent. It’s a curious thing, I think, with the Murdoch media that there’s so much good journalism gets done there on this issue.

I know that all those editors, the former – Chris Mitchell who was the former editor there – will argue absolutely until he’s blue in the face there was no bias there. But I think we do have to look at James Murdoch’s recent comments when he made his separation from News Corp earlier this year. He himself said one of the reasons he did so was because of the corporation – News Corp’s – attitude to climate change. I think that probably tells you that it’s understood, absolutely at the heart of the company and the heart of the family, what the problem is on covering of climate change from whether it’s Fox News or the publications in Australia.

Bob Carr:                 Yeah, a win by Biden is going to change these dynamics. I’ve read his climate policy. Very explicit goal to getting carbon out of the electricity grid by 2035. No talk of gas as a transition fuel whatsoever. No talk of gas. That clear commitment that Australia nationally still hasn’t made to net zero emissions by 2050. A big fiscal stimulus based on electrifying America, an electric car fleet, charging stations across the US. A Biden win backed by a Democrat majority in the senate will see Australia somewhat isolated on all of these fronts, talking up gas, not making that 2050 commitment.

Marian Wilkinson:    Well I think all eyes frankly in the area of climate change, the people who are really interested in what is going to happen policy-wise whether here or in the UN talks are all focused on this next US presidential election and I think without doubt is going to be one of the most important elections as far as climate change goes. If Biden wins he is under a lot of pressure within the party to push forward strongly on climate change legislation and funding. I think that will, as you say, put Australia under pressure because as you know Biden has openly in his program talked about carbon tariffs on manufacturing, on products [inaudible] Europeans.

This I think will be a big issue for Australia and it comes at a time when as we’ve seen with the prime minister, Scott Morrison and the energy minister, Angus Taylor talking about this gas-led recovery. But they really see it as playing a key role in Australia’s manufacturing industry as does the Australian Workers Union, a very important union within the Labor party. Now if the US starts seriously talking about carbon tariffs and if the Europeans do, the question is where will that leave an Australian manufacturing industry that is reliant on fossil fuel even if it’s gas which is slightly better than coal in the climate stakes. I think for the long term if not the medium term, that is going to be problematic for Australia, very problematic.

Bob Carr:                 Meanwhile Australia has ended up being with Saudi Arabia or Brazil unlike the Europeans or the Biden forces in the US, unlike Canada. I’m even looking at the rush to renewables in India and the announcement by Xi Jinping that offers some hope that the massive investment in coal fired power that was part of the Chinese response to the COVID economic downturn might not go ahead. Australia could very much be a carbon outlier. I think it would be an uncomfortable place for the Australian public to be but I for one have got no reservations about highlighting that that’s where we will end up if those dynamics fall into place.

Marian Wilkinson:    Yeah. I think that somehow within the federal government and I think among federal politicians on both sides of the divide here, there is little understanding that within the global climate talks, within that framework of getting to net zero by 2050, there is an understanding by most countries that there is a limited budget for the amount of emissions that can go into the atmosphere.

When I look at the plans on the table in Australia, especially for a gas-led recovery, especially to look at the number of gas developments that’s on the government’s wish list, there seems to be an understanding or a belief I should say in Australia, in Canberra, that Australia doesn’t have to be part of that global budget on emissions and that somehow we will as a rich first world country we will be able to go to the climate talks and say, East Timor don’t develop your gas interests even though you’re impoverished. Papua New Guinea don’t you develop yours. President Erdoğan, don’t you develop your gas resources under the Black Sea because we in Australia need that big share of that budget so we can develop ours.

I think, how will that go down in Glasgow in 2021? But there doesn’t – I don’t know what you think Bob – but I don’t think there’s a real understanding in the federal political parties that this is a limited opportunity here. Australia is not going to be given a free pass.

Bob Carr:                 But if Canberra – yeah understand – but if Canberra doesn’t understand it the boardrooms of investment houses do. They’d be worried about putting money, for example into some of these gas projects – gas fired power station or the development of gas fields as Liveris has recommended if pressure on a future Australian government is going to see them close down. They won’t have the 30 or 40 year life that they need as investors to get their investment back. So I think the decision is going to be made for us – I hope it is – by boardroom decisions, by decisions by banks and investment banks.

But it does leave you thinking – let’s wrap up at this point – about why a clever country like Australia got it so wrong, failed to come up, to settle on some smart way of pricing carbon to make a gradual non-threatening transition. With a few sentences, what would you say? That the sheer power of the carbon sector here or smart political organisation on the conservative side, Bernardi and Hugh Morgan? The influence of News Corporation? What’s been decisive?

Marian Wilkinson:    Fundamentally of course I think you can’t go past the fact that we as a first world country were incredibly advantaged by the fossil fuel industry. So much of the country’s export wealth and certainly a lot of the wealth in the regions in WA, Queensland, the Hunter Valley, came from that. When this big decision had to be made about the other side of that leger, how much it would cost us in the long term because of climate change, there was a natural reluctance to look at what we had to do. I think into that came the power of the political organisations that really wanted to exploit this for political advantage both with their enemies across the aisle but sadly with their internal party enemies as well.

I think we’ve now got to the stage where this terrible toxicity of politics in climate change has become as much a political weapon as it is protecting the fossil fuel industry. I think we’ve got to really separate that out if we’re going to move beyond this because as long as people in the main political parties use this as a weapon to thump their enemies the politics of climate change is not going to move on. But the more we do this the more the reality of climate change essentially will come in on the public, on the Australian public, who increasingly I think do want sensible, rational policy on this from the Canberra leadership.

Bob Carr:                 Marian Wilkinson, thank you very much. Marian, author of the new book The Carbon Club, one I can recommend. It reads like a thriller and says a lot about this country of ours, Australia and that even as the dynamics are changing so dramatically, attitudes in Europe and the prospect of a change of administration in the United States and real policies on climate out of Washington. I hope you enjoyed our talk. Again, thank you to Marian Wilkinson.

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