OPEN LETTER TO SCOTT MORRISON

Peter Radan (16 January 2020)

Dear Prime Minister,

Having watched and listened carefully to your recent extended interview with David Speers that was broadcast on the ABC,[1] I am compelled to write to you to express my concern about how you, and your government, have acted in response to the unprecedented and catastrophic fires across Australia this summer.

In short, you are no longer fit to serve this country as Prime Minister.

I have been, from the outset, dismayed at how you have acted in this time of crisis, but held off voicing my views in the hope that, notwithstanding your initial failings, you would come to demonstrate leadership on the issue of climate change of a type that John Howard showed in relation to guns in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre in 1996.

A number of matters discussed in the interview with Speers demonstrated to me that I hoped in vain. The following are just some of them.

Federal Government Assistance

In the interview you made much of the various forms of assistance that your government has, and will, provide to victims of the fires and towards addressing the threat of fires in the future. Unprecedented though this may be, it is no more than what was required to be done for what is an unprecedented catastrophe. It is the least that Australians expected from their Prime Minister.

In providing this assistance, you were not, as you may think, showing leadership - you were merely doing your job.

The reality of climate change

George Christensen

In the interview with Speers you asserted that your government accepted the reality of climate change and that climate change was a factor connected to this summer's catastrophic fires. However, when pressed by Speers as to whether you agreed with the statement by the government Coalition backbencher George Christensen that "the cause of these fires is not man-made climate change, but arson", your incredulous response was simply to say that the Coalition is constituted by members who express "a broad array of views". If you truly believed that climate change was a factor related to the fires, you would have demonstrated leadership by, not only disagreeing with Christensen's statement, but condemning it as inconsistent with government policy.

Furthermore, your statements on reducing emissions do not convince me that you, or any Coalition government, will undertake meaningful action towards reducing emissions. You stated to Speers that Australia produces only 1.3% of the world's emissions so there is no point in taking meaningful action to significantly reduce emissions over and above what Australia has already agreed to do. What you - perhaps conveniently - forgot to mention was that Australia - with 0.33% of the world's population - emits more than its fair share of emissions. If ever the "only 1.3% of world emissions" argument was a justification for dragging the chain on taking appropriate steps towards dramatically reducing emissions, it can no longer be, given the unprecedented and catastrophic extent of the fires this summer. Like Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned, your failure to contemplate meaningful action on significantly reducing emissions is simply fiddling while Australia burns.

What Australia is currently experiencing has demonstrated to the world what awaits them if meaningful action is not taken to dramatically reduce emissions and at least temper the impact of climate change. Given the devastating effects of this summer's fires, you could speak with authority and influence upon the world stage to press for urgent international action to dramatically reduce emissions. Taking a leadership role on emissions reduction on the world stage presents Australia, and to you as its Prime Minister, a golden opportunity to demonstrate leadership on, pardon the pun, the burning issue of climate change.

Politicians are always, and rightly so, concerned with their legacy. You have the opportunity to be a leader and to be remembered as a statesman. However, you regrettably appear to be on the road to being remembered as little more than a prime minister held captive by the climate denier cult within the Coalition[2] that is housed in the Canberra bubble that is Parliament House.

The Hawaii vacation

In the grand scheme of things, your misguided decision to take a vacation in Hawaii without any announcement as to where you were going, is perhaps a small point. But it is such small points that are often the most telling. When Speers asked if you thought that taking that holiday during the escalating fire crisis was a mistake, you responded by saying that you went to Hawaii because you had promised your children a holiday.

If I had promised my children a holiday but my house was burning on the day that we were to go on holiday, I know that my children would have understood that in such circumstances the holiday could not go ahead. However, while Australia - your house as its Prime Minister - was burning, you left it to burn and went on a holiday.

Instead of frankly and publicly admitting that you had made a mistake or error in judgment, you maintained that you left for Hawaii because you had promised your children a holiday.

Unlike you, leaders admit their mistakes.

A final word

When John Howard pushed for gun control legislation in 1996 it was because he firmly believed in the necessity of reducing the number of guns in the community. This was a long-held conviction of his and a matter of public record. This conviction empowered him to push for gun-control legislation, notwithstanding significant opposition from within the Coalition government that he led. In doing so, he showed commendable leadership. Irrespective of what side of the political divide they occupied, Australians recognised and acknowledged the leadership that he showed on that occasion.

However, as your infamous "chunk-of-coal-in-the-hand" speech in Parliament in February 2017 symbolises, and your decision in 2017, as treasurer, to defund the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, demonstrates, you do not hold a conviction about the realities that we all face as a result of climate change.

The catastrophic summer we continue to experience has not led to you having a "road to Damascus experience".

You are no longer fit to serve this country as its Prime Minister.

Footnotes

[1] Available to be viewed at: <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-12/scott-morrison-fires-historic-change-not-one-his-critics-wanted/11861016>.

[2] In a recent interview broadcast on Israeli television, former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, referred to those who believed in climate change as members of a cult. The reality is that that label aptly describes Abbott and his fellow climate change deniers.