{"id":55758,"date":"2021-09-26T16:49:28","date_gmt":"2021-09-26T06:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nofibs.com.au\/?p=55758"},"modified":"2021-10-19T14:21:20","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T03:21:20","slug":"igniting-an-independent-backburn-margo-kingston-finds-hope-in-the-grassroots-for-ausvotes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/igniting-an-independent-backburn-margo-kingston-finds-hope-in-the-grassroots-for-ausvotes\/","title":{"rendered":"Igniting an independent backburn: Margo Kingston finds hope in the grassroots for #AusVotes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

AS I CONSIDER how to contribute at the next federal election, I thought I\u2019d republish, with permission, a chapter I wrote for the Fremantle Press anthology Women of a Certain Rage<\/em><\/a>, in January 2020 after the failed 2019 ‘Climate Election’, amid the worst bushfires Australia had ever seen, before COVID changed everything. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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BUY NOW<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

#AustraliaBurns: Rage, A Climate for Change\u2006<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Participation is the antidote to cynicism, as is action to rage.\u2019\u2006\u2212\u2006Lesley Howard joined Twitter to track Sophie Mirabella\u2019s re-election prospects in Indi in 2013 and became an indispensable No Fibs writer and a trusted Voices for Indi boundary rider.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the middle of January 2020 and I\u2019m with Mum in the lounge at her home on the Gold Coast, watching Australia at war with fire, crying and sending and receiving texts from friends in the war zones and exploding with rage at Scott Morrison on Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mother is dying of leukaemia, and she takes a bird\u2019s-eye view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Don\u2019t waste your time by demeaning yourself on him. He\u2019s diminished, he doesn\u2019t matter any more. More important things to do now.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had excuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was one of so many active citizens of all political colours\u2006\u2013\u2006red, green, blue, yellow\u2006\u2013\u2006who\u2019d switched off Australian politics in despair after a May 2019 election that full-stopped our efforts for a climate change breakthrough. It was too painful not to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I had to look again when Australia\u2019s apocalypse, long predicted, long urged to prepare for, began in Queensland in early spring\u2006\u2013\u2006spring! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, yeah, despair had well and truly become rage that a snake-oil salesman had evaded our bullshit detectors and was showing us exactly what that meant amid an actual and existential national crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s guilt behind the rage\u2006\u2013\u2006personal and collective guilt that we have failed, all of us who tried hard to get serious Australian action on climate change and aggression on the world stage to speed up action before it was too late for us. We failed humanity because we couldn\u2019t find a way to overcome the forces against us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australian economist Ross Garnaut, the man who more than a decade ago warned in a major climate change report of catastrophic fires due to climate change by 2020, said it out loud<\/a> after the fires. Asked how he felt now, he said, \u2018Sadness\u2006\u2026\u2006that I was ineffective in persuading Australians that it was in our national interest to play a positive role in a global effort to mitigate the effects of climate change.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bottom line: Morrison is nothing now, except empty talking points and old dog whistles on climate change as he avoids discussing the Coalition\u2019s failure to prepare national adaptation plans as a frontline climate change nation. Because you can\u2019t discuss it if you won\u2019t admit that climate change is a very big deal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for his #ScottyFromMarketing behaviour amid raw, real life at its most vulnerable and inspiring, the man is unfit to lead. I mean, we can now see him playing politics to save his job title as Australia burns. A hollow man leading a hollow government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here we are, unled, as Australia flashes her red lights to the world. We dragged the chain on national action. We subverted international action. Now we burn so hot and hard we\u2019re harming the world\u2019s climate and destroying our beautiful country and wrecking our economy. And as Australians pull together, love each other, die fighting to save life and land, and as people around the world donate time and money to help us survive the war, our politics remains stuck. Even as we burn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mum, my rage at Morrison is a projection of personal guilt and despair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And anyway, he\u2019s just a front. He\u2019s the \u2018leader\u2019 left holding the rotten fruit of a party with a decades-long chronic climate change denial disease. For the 1990 election, moderate liberal Andrew Peacock and his environment spokesman Chris Puplick published Australia\u2019s first big party policy to combat climate change<\/a>, with a target (and a photo of a koala ) and John Hewson took the same commitment to the 1993 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But when John Howard became prime minister three years later (true liberals debilitated, hard right triumphant) he abolished modest Labor initiatives and cremated climate change as an issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Liberal Party sacked Malcolm Turnbull twice as leader because he tried to find a bipartisan climate change energy policy to set us up for a carbon-neutral future. And under Tony Abbott, it repealed historic carbon pricing legislation negotiated between Labor, the Greens and two regional independents who\u2019d left the National Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, the fires have shaken the snow dome. Politics can never be the same, can it? We\u2019re in a chaos phase where anything can happen, aren\u2019t we?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shocking dissonance, daily, hourly, can\u2019t go on, can it? Apocalyptic scenes interspersed with acts of sacrifice and love and community spirit are rammed against the smirking \u2018leader\u2019 holidaying in Hawaii, washing his hands of doing anything\u2006\u2013\u2006at least until public disgust saw him pivot with a social media ad: \u2018Hi, I\u2019m Scott, and here\u2019s my ad showing how great I am. Look at me, taking charge!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We\u2019re putting more Defence Force boots on the ground, more planes in the sky, more ships to sea, and more trucks to roll in to support the bushfire fighting effort and recovery as part of our co-ordinated response to these terrible #bushfires<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/UiOeYB2jnv<\/a><\/p>— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) January 4, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote>