Federal fossil farce - is it relevant to our Hills Shire elections?

 

What a pathetic farce!  It would be funny if it wasn’t so damned serious!

The antics of the federal Liberal and National Party caucuses over the bleeding obvious is no less than a disgraceful sham that surely renders them unfit to govern.  Net zero emissions is an absolute no-brainer (perhaps that’s where the problem lies) but 2050 is much, much too late and a recipe for further delay and obfuscation - exactly the intent - but they cannot even agree on that.

OK this page is about our local government and we do not wish to dwell on matters outside that remit.  But there are several reasons that this utterly stupid futility is relevant to our up-coming Hills Shire elections:

  • The Hills Shire Council is presently dominated, some may say owned (*), by the Liberal Party.  They hold a majority of 11-2.  This is typically not the case in neighbouring councils, even in conservative areas, that are taking significant action on climate.  For more on this refer to our earlier blog: Are all councils elected the same way?

  • We have good reason to question who, in turn, owns the Liberal Party - both ideologically and financially.  For more on this, we recommend watching Big Deal, presently showing on ABC TV and on iView.  Also refer here: Dirty money – political donations from the fossil fuel industry.

  • The present federal fossil farce is not an exclusive product of the National Party.  It is the product of decades of denial and obfuscation from both of the coalition partners.  And just to ram home the point - of the three gentlemen pictured above, two are from Queensland and members of Queenslands Liberal National Party (LNP).  They choose to sit in the federal National caucus, but make no mistake they are LNP members and representatives.

Nominations for The Hills Shire elections are just getting underway and it is proper to wait to see who the candidates will be and their positions on climate action in the Hills.  But in the meantime a few preliminary observations are unavoidable.

Neighbouring councils, even in conservative demographics like Willoughby and  Ku-ring-gai, are not dominated by the Liberal Party - their makeup is much more diverse, including minor parties and independents.  But they have credible, even commendable climate strategies for their shires.

The Hills Shire Council, which is presently owned by the Liberal Party, has been notably #HillsMissingInClimateAction.

Draw your own conclusions.

(*) It has recently been reported in the Hills Shire Times (link below) that the Liberal Party has taken over the selection of candidates for the Hills Shire elections - removing that prerogative from local Liberal branches.  Many of the existing Liberal councillors will be dumped, including the mayor, Michelle Byrne.  We will have more to say about this before the election on December 4.

More information:

This blog and our Facebook page and our administrators are not affiliated with any party or candidate standing in The Hills Shire Council elections in 2021.  Nor do we receive funding from any individual, party, institution or corporation.  Our very constrained expenditures are financed by the page administrators themselves acting in a personal capacity.  Our only interest is in a safe climate for current and  future residents of the Hills Shire.

Email: climate.matters.hills.2021@gmail.com

Message: m.me/ClimateMattersHills2021

Facebook: facebook.com/ClimateMattersHills2021.

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