Truth in the Time of Trump | Between the Lines
The Wrap with Amy Remeikis
Well, that was quite the week, wasn’t it?
We wouldn’t blame you if you’re feeling a little bit flat. While many people may have thought they were prepared for a Trump victory, thinking it and seeing it happen are two very different things. Moo Deng may have tried to warn us Trump was heading for a conclusive victory, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t still hopes America would choose differently.
And while there are concerns over how Trump will handle domestic concerns, particularly for immigrants, women and minorities, the result of this election doesn’t just change the United States – it has ramifications for the world.
The world order as we know it looks set to be turned on its head.
Trump hasn’t been shy in expressing his love of the fossil fuel industry, something which clearly resonated with Australia’s Gina Rinehart who was spotted at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago as one of the soon-to-be 47th president’s “special people”, which will make meeting the world’s climate goals even more difficult.
Rinehart believed she was on the winner’s ticket from the beginning – she met with the Trump campaign the first time round in 2016, after which she urged the Australian government to adopt his economic policies.
Fast forward eight years and Australia’s richest woman hasn’t changed her tune, telling the Australian newspaper early last week “the world would be better off with more leaders like Trump”.
It makes Australia’s mission even more clear – now is the time for bold, evidence-based climate policy which makes the change we all know needs to happen – and we don’t need the United States to do that.
There is so much opportunity for Australia to lead, to find its voice in this new world order, unshackled from the leadership of the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter. With the U.S. committing to pulling out of the Paris Agreement, multi-lateral climate negotiations will be undermined. But the planet will continue to get warmer no matter if Trump privatises the United States weather service or not, and if his administration chooses to undo the projects already underway as part of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, then other countries will step in to claim that space. Transition and action is inevitable – the climate isn’t waiting for the United States to sort itself out. There is no need for Australia to wait either.
There is an opportunity for Australia to find its own voice and leadership in this new arena – a long overdue shift that would see Australia mature as a nation, and a climate leader.
As Australia Institute International & Security Affairs Advisor Allan Behm said in the most recent episode of the Follow the Money podcast, “the challenge for Australia is “to recognise that we do have a lot of power, that power is deeply relevant to the long term interests of the United States and that power gives us agency to impact, modestly, but effectively on how the United States thinks about itself”.
To ensure that happens, we need to make sure our own house is in order. You would have heard Ebony Bennett and others at the Institute speak about the importance of strengthening our own institutions to prevent the politicisation of public pillars in Australia. It is why getting the National Anti-Corruption Commission right is so important. You can sign our petition to Fix the NACC here.
Change the government, change the country isn’t just an old truism – it’s right.
Governments appoint the board members, directors and leaders of our statutory bodies. They choose the judges who will preside over the laws. Trump’s election now means Trump appointees will sit on the US Supreme Court until at least 2050, but the influence Australian governments have over this second tier of governance is never truly examined. It’s just another reason why whistleblower protections are crucial to ensure trust in the institutions that are the foundation of our democracy.
There are always going to be vested interests trying to de-rail what is not only right, but crucial – for our democracy, life as we know it and the planet.
Only last week, former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce lept to the defence of Rupert Murdoch and News Corp after the Greens leader Adam Bandt raised the media baron and his companies’ influence during a parliamentary debate; “he’s [Bandt] making the inference that both the government and the opposition are somehow unduly affected by the actions of NewsCorp and that it decides the process of government,” Joyce decried.
It’s often in the denials you’ll find those unspoken truths.
Change is not easy. And at times it can all seem pointless. But you have so much more power than you know, and that’s why they fight back so hard.
So take some time – and then join us in outlining a new way forward for Australia. And if you need a little bit of a distraction, you can always follow British art critic John Ruston’s 1860 advice for when he needed a break from the “disgust and fury at the way the mob is going on” and go and look at some penguins.
“One feels everything in the world so sympathetically ridiculous, one can’t be angry when one looks at a penguin”.
Take care of yourself.
— Amy Remeikis, Communications Specialist at the Australia Institute
The Big Stories
Australian democracy: a model for the world
The US election is a timely reminder that, for all its faults, Australian democracy is a model for the world: with independently administered elections, where voters can list their true preferences without throwing away their vote, and compulsory voting that ensures that the voices of the disadvantaged and disaffected are heard.
Researchers from the Australia Institute appeared before a parliamentary committee to recommend improvements to Tasmania’s electoral system.
Bill Browne and Eloise Carr recommended 3 key reforms around political donation disclosure laws, truth in political advertising and the Tasmanian Integrity Commission.
“The diversity of voices elected to the Tasmanian Parliament gives hope that these, and other reforms we recommended in the Democracy Agenda for the 51st Tasmanian Parliament, will be taken up.”
New report: You’re already paying the price for gas & coal
Climate change is making insurance unaffordable for many Australians.
Our new research found that extreme weather events drive an enormous increase in the cost of insurance with premiums massively outpacing price rises for nearly all other goods and services.
Since 2022, home insurance premiums have risen by at least 14% on average, the biggest rise in a decade.
We are calling for a levy on big polluters, to help pay for the costs of climate change through a National Climate Disaster Fund.
Taxing carbon and ending fossil fuel subsidies
Welcome news this week that independent MPs David Pocock and Kate Chaney are looking to reform the expensive fuel tax credit scheme, and former Treasury secretary Ken Henry condemned the government’s failure to tax fossil fuels.
“I wonder how many Australians understand how our celebration of mercantilist plunder has contributed to an erosion of the nation’s manufacturing capability, undermined labour productivity growth, and depressed the living standards of workers.” – Ken Henry
Bernie Fraser, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, called for political courage on the carbon tax at our Climate Integrity Summit 2024.
Watch this space in the leadup to the Federal election next year…
The Win
Middle Arm gas hub business case rejected
The Middle Arm gas hub in Darwin would produce over one billion tonnes of emissions, cost $1.5 billion in Federal Government subsidies, and raise cancer and heart disease risks for Darwin residents.
We are thankful to hear it has failed its business case, with ABC reporting it could delay the project by up to two years.
It’s long past time to dump the Middle Arm gas hub altogether.
The Bin
The Western Australian Labor government appears all but certain to give one of Australia’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters the green light to operate until 2070 after it announced it would abolish state emissions-reduction requirements.
The Quote
Trump’s victory represents a grave threat to the institutions of American democracy, and the safety and security of many Americans.
Dr Emma Shortis, Director of the Australia Institute’s International & Security Affairs Program.
How Australia responds to a Trump presidency matters.
This is about so much more than AUKUS. It goes to the core of our interests and our values.
Last chance to preorder and save on our new book
To mark The Australia Institute’s 30 years of big ideas, we have asked some of our good friends and leading thinkers from Australia and around the world to share a big idea for a better Australia.
This week is your last chance to preorder your copy and save $5 off the sticker price!
Podcasts
The AUKward truth about the US relationship | Follow the Money
Allan Behm joins Ebony Bennett to discuss the “unachievable” AUKUS nuclear submarine deal, Australia’s ‘fear of abandonment’, and how the outcome of the presidential election might change US foreign policy.
Listen now:
Four more years | After America
Dr Emma Shortis and Alice Grundy discuss what the Trump victory means for American society and democratic institutions, the soul-searching facing the Democrats after a comprehensive defeat, and the implications of the election for Australia.
Listen now:
Less for more: Australia’s dud private health insurance system | Dollars & Sense
Private health insurance is getting more expensive and covering less – it’s time for a major rethink, says Greg Jericho.
Listen now:
What’s On
A Brave New World of Work | 12.30pm AEDT, Wednesday 13 November
What does the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence mean for workers? Fiona Macdonald, Policy Director (Industrial and Social) at the Centre for Future Work, will speak with union leaders about how to ensure innovation is worker-centred.
Politics in the Pub: How Corporations are Destroying Free Speech | 6.30pm AEDT, Wednesday 20 November
Join Josh Bornstein, lawyer and author of Working for the Brand: how corporations are destroying free speech, in conversation with Bill Browne about corporations’ repressive control over the lives of their employees.
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