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KILLJOY KEVIN
Australia’s environment minister may be the only politician on earth charged with such responsibility who is banned (by his own party!) from talking about climate change:
Peter Garrett has campaigned heavily on climate change in the past, but Opposition MPs won’t get a chance to question him when parliament resumes next year.
In a move that has baffled some, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is ensuring his new Environment Minister keeps his mouth shut on such sensitive topics.
Having already been stripped of the Climate Change portfolio, Peter Garrett will also lose his climate change voice; with Kevin Rudd making Treasurer Wayne Swan responsible for climate change discussion in the House of Representatives.
Rudd’s move won’t baffle anyone familiar with Garrett’s inability to cope with questions. Still, it’s brutally unfair, and not just to Peter. Mean Kevin Rudd has denied us Garrett fans the narcotics-quality climate comedy we’d been anticipating:
Imagine the hilarity certain to be generated by Minister for the Environment and the Arts Peter Garrett. A fantastic liability in opposition, he’ll be 10,000-carat comedy gold in Government. You don’t want to see this?
Question Time will be Chuckle Time whenever the nation’s foremost seizure dancer has the floor ....
Not any more. On this vicious silencing of Garrett, let left and right come together and call for the environment minister to be allowed to speak about the environment.
UPDATE. The Age’s Jewel Topsfield:
Australia’s new Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett, has been told he will not even get to answer questions on climate change in Parliament ...
Mr Garrett went to ground yesterday after Mr Swan’s new responsibilities in the climate change portfolio were revealed on a Government website. After promising The Age an interview earlier in the day, neither Mr Garrett nor his office returned repeated calls.
The SMH’s Stephanie Peatling:
The federal Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, has in effect been gagged from talking about climate change in Parliament.
The Age’s Michelle Grattan:
The message is clear. Garrett is felt to be too much of a risk to drive the policy or articulate it. The man with the big voice is being kept away from the songbook and the microphone.
Garrett had more freedom under Howard.
UPDATE II. A happy blogger - posting only a few hours ago, and unaware of Garrett’s silencing - is destined to be heartbroken:
One of my idealogical heroes and mentors since I was old enough to finally understand Midnight Oil’s phenomenal lyrics on my own without my brother telling me what the songs were about, it now fills my democratic socialist heart to know that Peter Garrett HIMSELF is entrusted with such an important government portfolio.
He evidently isn’t. Opposition leader Brendan Nelson shares our pain:
"It was always very interesting to see Mr Garrett attempt to answer questions."
And Garrett wasn’t even a dissenting voice to be crushed!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 12 04 at 10:22 AM • permalinkWhat does Treasury have to do with Climate Change? Oh, I see. They’re getting ready to shovel out billions of Australian dollars to China, India, and Indonesia. I guess that makes sense.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 12 04 at 10:28 AM • permalinkHe’s Minister of the Environment and the Arts?!?
So what you’re saying is they don’t take either one seriously. (That’s not specifically a knock on Peter Garret as a scientist or as an artist, just an observation that they are pretty different areas and probably wouldn’t be thrown together by anyone who cares about either one.)
Posted by tim maguire on 2007 12 04 at 11:26 AM • permalinkThe legacy of the illegitimate Howard government hovers like an evil spectre over the Rudd regime. Where are the voices of Margot and Traceee?
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2007 12 04 at 12:01 PM • permalinkI see two possibilities. One is that Garrett himself is perceived as a liability and having him address the topic will discredit the government’s stance.
The other is that the government’s policy itself is seen as a liability and the less said in public on it, the better.
I suppose both are possible - you don’t want a loose cannon like Garrett discrediting something that begins pre-discredited already. It’s hard to hide crap by piling more crap on top of it.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2007 12 04 at 01:07 PM • permalinkHmmmmm.
Sooooooo.
When are you Aussies going to take Peter Garret’s advice and “give it back”?
Since it’s not anything to do with Global Warming, could someone ask the man if he’s willing to “give it back”? Which means that, literally taken, Peter Garret has to live off the coast of Australia in a boat because any time he sets foot on Australian soil he’s oppressing the natives.
...
IMO all of these kinds of idiot sentiments offend me. I can never figure out why primitive life appeals to some people.
Posted by memomachine on 2007 12 04 at 01:58 PM • permalink‘Garrett had more freedom under Howard’. Very prophetic Tim. Delete Garrett and insert any other subject and I fear this could be the catch-cry of the next few years.
Posted by AlphaMikeFoxtrot on 2007 12 04 at 02:24 PM • permalinkIf I were Garrett, I’d be mightily pissed off.
Looks like he spoke truer than he realised when he made his comment about everything changing when they get in.
Well, his Party got in and for one of his first tricks, Dear Leader gagged him.
I’m waiting for the gimp suit and the chain to the wall next.
I was never a Rudd-hater, but I find his behaviour more reminiscent of tinpot dictatorships than a so-called mature and civilised democratic society.
Let’s see, Kyoto (okay, it was a part of his election platform but I’m not happy with that), not swearing allegiance to his Head of State, and now gagging his own minister.
And his term’s not even a fortnight old.
Give me until Christmas and I guess we’ll be seeing the biggest outbreak of RDS we’ve ever seen.
Where’s my white jacket with teh overlong sleeves?
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 12 04 at 03:48 PM • permalinkThe blogger quoted in Update II sounds like something straight out of the ALP circa 1972. Did somebody pick up a stowaway on the TARDIS?
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2007 12 04 at 03:51 PM • permalinkWhen I opened the paper this morning, I expected to find the vented outpourings of David Marr’s spleen splattered across every page.
I don’t like Garret being crushed, but the blessed sounds of silence from the pen of David Marr are music to my ears.
Like bagpipes at dawn after an overnight route march. Bliss.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 12 04 at 03:52 PM • permalinkImagine the hilarity certain to be generated by Minister for the Environment and the Arts Peter Garrett. A fantastic liability in opposition, he’ll be 10,000-carat comedy gold in Government. You don’t want to see this?
Question Time will be Chuckle Time whenever the nation’s foremost seizure dancer has the floor ....
Looks like Krudd reads your column, Tim. Does he also read this blog?
Having already been stripped of the Climate Change portfolio, Peter Garrett will also lose his climate change voice; with Kevin Rudd making Treasurer Wayne Swan responsible for climate change discussion in the House of Representatives.
That’s as may be, but Krudd can’t stop questions being directed at Garrett. We only have to wait for the barrage of questions directed to the Minister for Environment. I’d say question time is still going to be quite laughable next year.
Meanwhile, “Mr Rudd and a record four frontbenchers will attend the UN conference, which will attract delegates from around 190 nations and is designed to establish a road map for international climate change action.
Ms Wong said the large Australian delegation highlighted the nation’s moment in the sun on global climate politics following the Government’s historic decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.”
Sure! Enjoy your moment in the sun, Penny Wong, on the beach at Bali and just perhaps remember that it is that sun that is the driver of climatic conditions on this planet, not some minuscule levels of an essential greenhouse gas. Anyway, have a nice holiday at taxpayers expense!
Wand, RDS = Rudd Derangement Syndrome.
Not that I see anything deranged about being gobsmacked by his actions so far.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 12 04 at 04:42 PM • permalink#31 I wonder how long the gag will last? The only way of stopping it developing into high farce would be to make sure Garret never attends question time.
Allow the gag to develop into ridicule too much and the super-marionette would have no choice but to jump ship to the greens, where facts are not such a high priority.
The new Government has also committed to introducing a green car fleet.
And lower the price of petrol at the same time!
Posted by arrowhead ripper on 2007 12 04 at 05:03 PM • permalinkCelebrity candidates might gain the adoration of the leftoid media but in the real world they are a liability. Rudd is preempting the sort of embarrassment Mary Delahunty caused the Bracks Government until Bracks was able to convince the cow to retire. Iemma must be wondering how the hell he thought tireless self-promoter Phil Koperberg would make a good MP and minister. Expect that Rudd recruit Maxine McKew has been found a quiet corner of the parliament house library to read her report on child care - she did boast it was a thick report, so she should be out of sight until the next election. The back half of it is probably the Sydney phone book but Rudd will counting on his little super star not having the attention span to get that far into it.
Fran Kelly & Michelle Grattan (along with many others at our national propaganda unit) are busily explaining away any such wrinkles. How quickly they have adapted to the new default position of finessing the government while bagging the opposition. Oh, wait ... that’s what they always did. Only the titles have changed.
Actually my uderstanding is that Garrett isn’t the total raving lefty that we sometimes assume. Sure he’s very committed on the environment but I remember him quitting the Nuclear Disarmament Party when it got taken over by the Socialist Workers, stating publicly that he couldn’t stay in the party as he had know truck with the SW aims.
I think (although I could be wrong) most of Midnight Oil’s lyrics were the work of other members of the band such as Rob Hirst who are undoubtedly mega-moonbats.
Hate to admit it but, Australia now having ratified the Kyoto Protocol and signed away a good portion of its right to further development, assigning the climate change question to Treasury and removing it from the environment portfolio is not such a bad move.
It demonstrates that the Rudd Government has at least a modicum of economic sense.
Slightly O/T, check this comment just published on the Oz website:
“One would hope that the new PM and his government will also ease Australia out of the US alliance, which continues to cost it such credibility in Asia and beyond; and which (far more seriously) puts us in the crosshairs of every crazed terrorist between here and Khartoum.
No-one is bombing Venezuela or France."My submitted response:
“Shirking your international responsibilities and hiding doesn’t save you from “bombing”. It’s best do some homework before making silly assertions:
The French oil tanker Limburg that was attacked by Al-Qaeda off the coast of Yemen in October 2002 was subsequently described by Bin Laden as a “Christian” tanker and therefore a legitimate target.
On July 25, 1995, a gas canister rigged with nails exploded inside a train in the St. Michel rail station in Paris, killing seven and wounding more than 150. It was the bloodiest in a series of bomb attacks that terrorized the city that year. The attacks continued and the toll rose to eight killed and about 200 injured. The attacks were carried out by the Armed Islamic Group known as the GIA.
On Christmas Eve in 1994, four GIA members hijacked an Air France aircraft in Algiers, killed three hostages and flew to France. They rigged the plane with dynamite and planned to crash into the Eiffel Tower in Paris. French commandos stormed the plane as it stopped to refuel in Marseilles, killed the four hijackers and rescued the 170 passengers, ending their two-day ordeal.
While you may not describe them as “bombings”, the Muslim youth riots that began in Paris in November 2005 have seen hundreds of police injured and many thousands of cars burnt. Even buses have been attacked and set on fire.
As for Venezuela, in October 2003 two fuel tankers exploded at Caracas airport, 36 hours after the presidential guard barracks and the national telecommunications offices were bombed.
In the main however, Chavez doesn’t need any help from terrorists to wreck Venezuela; he and his cronies are pretty capable of doing it themselves.
What about the innocent Argentinians? Try looking up the truck bomb that destroyed a community centre Buenos Aires in 1994. The perpetrators were not thought to be Presbyterians, I can assure you.”
sorry for double post, but re the topic, a brilliant strategy would be:
“My question is directed to the honourable minister for the environment. Minister, as you are aware the solar rebate strategy is part of the battle against climate change, and this rebate is not working, with a very slow uptake. What is the minister doing about improving the rebate as part of his battle against climate change”
“My question is directed to the honourable minister for the environment. Minister, as you are aware the water tank rebate strategy is part of the battle against climate change, and this rebate is not working, with a very slow uptake. What is the minister doing about improving the rebate in his battle against climate change”
“My question is directed to the honourable minister for the environment. Minister, as you are aware the renewable energy strategy is part of the battle against climate change, and this strategy is not working, with a very slow uptake. What is the minister doing about improving the strategy in his battle against climate change”
rinse and repeat ....
funny if swan and garrett both stand up to answer the question!!
The downside of parachuting celebs into a seat is you have to figure out what to do with them after you get off the DZ.
Its unsurprising that Petes big job is digging latrines while the rest of his force fights, its about all he is good for.
Posted by Harry Buttle on 2007 12 04 at 06:04 PM • permalinkThey should give Garrett the “ministry of silence” and give <a jref="http://stgeorge.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news-features/ratify-to-gratify-doig/1098178.html">this bloke the CC portfolio</a> before Kernell, Mascot and Sylvania Waters go under. I like the kind of magical thinking the left engage in, that signing bits of paper or walking around The Domain will fix things.
54darrin; Excuse me sir, I believe you dropped your link.
Posted by dean martin on 2007 12 04 at 07:12 PM • permalinkI’m going to write a letter of protest to Kev immediately.
How dare he silence the elected representative of the voters of the Kingsford-Smith electorate? How is he supposed to properly represent them now?
Not to mention they’ve lost the opportunity to see their esteemed MP in Parliament!
It’s a disgrace Kev. A downright disgrace!
#40 Ubique....whilst I fully agree with the thrust of your argument, I see no value in pointing out atrocities perpetrated as long ago as 2002....to the new inhabitants of the Age of Unreason, one might as well be talking about Newton’s Principia, or William Shakespeare....... whatever. 2002 is an aeon ago, 1994, last century.
Last week, just maybe....better “yesterday”, or “earlier today.”LET HIM SPEAK!!! HE WROTE SONGS ABOUT REDNECKS AND AMERICAN!
Posted by Old school on 2007 12 04 at 07:44 PM • permalink#56, most definitely not. Saleam is a criminal lunatic.
Maybe kevni won’t let garrett speak because he has seen this clip.
Posted by surfmaster on 2007 12 04 at 07:53 PM • permalinkShurley Pete’s dream world is not just about to end?!
Posted by anonymous guest on 2007 12 04 at 08:04 PM • permalinkAmazing...our first Clayton’s minister.
Posted by Quentin George on 2007 12 04 at 08:20 PM • permalinkIf we must have non-speaking figure heads clogging up parliament, couldn’t it have been Scarlett Johansonn?
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 12 04 at 08:37 PM • permalinkOT, but I can’t believe how suddenly and completely the liberal media have changed their story on Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, all because of the NIE report which claims Iran stopped their nuke program in 2003. So now the liberal media, such as our own ABC, have gone literally overnight from claiming that Iran never had a nuke programme - or at least always pouring scorn on any suggestion that they did - to blithely agreeing that Iran did have a nuke programme up until 2003. It’s like something out of 1984.
Screw Garret...The dismemberment of the DCITA spells trouble for critical infrastructure cyber security initiatives.
(which may be important to only a few engineers today, but will become VERY important to everyone when the grid goes down, you can’t drink the water and Longford-ESSO blows up...)
Posted by MentalFloss on 2007 12 05 at 12:06 AM • permalinkI was a huge Midnight Oil fan in college and saw them twice when they came to Houston. I never would have imagined that their lead singer who dances like he has epilepsy would be charged with policy decisions for a large country.
Hey Pete! In one of your songs you bemoaned America because you didn’t “see any buffalo there” as you flew across the country at 35,000 feet to your next gig. Even when I was in college I thought that was a stupid bit of lyrics.
Midnight Oil = great band. Pete? Lousy singer.
Posted by Lou Minatti on 2007 12 05 at 12:54 AM • permalink#41, #51, Green Gagged Garrett Greedily Grabs Grossly Generous Gigabuck Grant; Gladly Goes Gracefully…
Posted by The_Wizard_of_WOZ on 2007 12 05 at 02:01 AM • permalinkHow’s the two handed hand shake the Garrett gives Kevni? My Dad always said the only person who does that sincerely is the local Priest. And bless his soul, he was a bit off the mark there.
I need a clean after contemplating that. Maybe a total immersion in Roundup.
And Swan gets to do the Garrett’s dirty work. I may have mentioned this here previously but it is worth another run now that the rat Swan is in power. I played a game of cricket against him in the 80s and he was dismissed; given out by the powers to be and DIDN’T WALK!!!!!! A communal PISS OFF from the fielding side finally dislodged him from the crease.
... garrulously ... genderless ... gilled ... gormless ... guttered ... gynackered?
Cheers
Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2007 12 05 at 04:27 AM • permalinkGaunt grotesque goofball gelded gazumped GOODBYE!
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2007 12 05 at 05:22 AM • permalinkWhat about this blast from the past?
Great Green Gobs Of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts!Garrett a leftie? No he is a millionaire businessman who found that promoting left wing issues would make him very rich. (See Phillip Adams for a precedent)
Garrett has fallen for his own publicity hype, which reveals a deep flaw in his personality. he thinks his every utterance is a pearl. But in the real world of politics, he is a ex-pop star. Plenty of precedents there in the arts world.
Rudd, suffers similar delusions about himself, although his field is politics. He is dazzled by his own cleverness as revealed by his comment that he was “playing with John Howard’s mind”. It means he won’t see the train coming, a train driven by his own party.
#62: well I couldn’t agree more with your description of Saleam, although I don’t know if you came to that conclusion logically or if it’s the result of a massive falling out with him (correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to remember you flying the anti-Zionist flag under the login darrinh on this site in the past). Either way, with your purported white supremacist and isolationist agenda, you won’t find a lot of idealogical chums around here.
#62: I must say, however, that having a massive (in the volumetric sense) enemy such as Irfan Yusuf is a badge of honour, and puts you in some pretty good company.
#88, Kae, if he is, he must be from Kerry. The Irish have heard all the jokes, but when they tell them its about folk from Kerry.
Garrett are a world renowned manufacturer of Turbos for many high power - low fuel efficiency applications. Follow the link and listen to the intro, it’ll put a smile on any rev heads dial.
Posted by The_Wizard_of_WOZ on 2007 12 05 at 10:06 PM • permalink#98
Not necessarily, but you may be required to participate in certain corrective activities, for your own good.Cheers
Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2007 12 06 at 08:07 PM • permalink
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He was burning the Midnight Oil over this decision.