Building a business and building a government are similar

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any successful in business attribute the flourishing of their company to the fact that they have assembled around them the smartest minds in their particular field.

Australia’s Abbott Government is, despite its many protestations, populated by people who deny human-induced climate change.

Setting the tone for the government is the Prime Minister himself, Tony Abbott, who has declared climate change as “crap”.

Running a government is not unlike orchestrating a company and whatever ideology you align yourself with, it is imperative that all the decision makers within your company reflect and promote your beliefs and values.

Subsequently when Abbott and his cohort strolled into Canberra’s halls of power, they immediately got rid of the Climate Commission, an independent body abreast of developments in the climate change conversation and advised what action the government should take.

The now defunct Climate Commission, announced by the Gillard Labor Government in February 2011, was headed by Professor Tim Flannery, and other commissioners included Professor Veena Sahajwalla, Professor Lesley Hughes, Professor Will Steffen, Roger Beale, and Gerry Hueston, who are now all members of the community funded Climate Council.

Although the Commission was projected to cost $5.4 million over four years, the Abbott Government thought it had no need of such advice and in what in the overall scheme of things is a tiny amount, save some money, a decision on which it has changed tack and has now spent $4 million employing the scientifically discredited Dr Borj Lomborg.

However, as the Abbott Government is eager to advance its ideologically-driven position on climate change, it has dispensed with a commission staffed by qualified, thoughtful and diplomatic Australians to give the role to a Dane whose beliefs are at odds with nearly all of the world’s leading climatologists.

This appointment, defying all the protocols, has not gone unnoticed and has caused serious disquiet among academics and now the Labor Opposition has joined the choir of complaints, pointed out in the ABC story, “Labor criticises $4m Government grant for Dr Bjorn Lomborg think tank”.