Bright sparks on energy leave Abbott in the dark

After losing the prime ministership, Tony Abbott bunkered himself in the prime minister's office for three days and three nights without emerging.

Illustration: John Shakespeare 

To Malcolm Turnbull and his team, increasingly frustrated as they tried to move into the prime ministerial suite and establish an executive government, it was evidence of a mad king who couldn't accept the reality of his downfall.

To Abbott, feeling himself the victim of base treachery, it was a deserved moment to console distraught staff, write references for them, and organise a dignified departure.

But how did he sustain himself? Loyalists supplied him with takeaway meals and spirits of solace.

Read the comment by Peter Hartcher in today’s Melbourne Age - “Bright sparks on energy leave Abbott in the dark.”

'Australia’s entire economy at risk' - Jonathan Porritt

Jonathan Porritt - 'Australia's
entire economy at risk'.

Even for a sympathetic observer from the UK, the politics of climate change in Australia is, to say the least, vexatious. But it’s now entering a more critical phase than ever before. The mismatch between the conclusions of the Paris agreement in December last year and the failure of Australia’s political establishment to understand what’s going on “out there in the rest of the world” is putting Australia’s entire economy at risk.

When the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, wrested the prime ministership from Tony Abbott in September last year, the international climate community breathed a deep sigh of relief. With the former Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, Abbott was seen as the most egregiously pig-headed climate-change denier in western world had ever thrown up. By contrast, Turnbull had done OK on climate change as a previous leader of the Liberal party, so it was assumed he would do a lot better second time round.

Read Jonathan Porritt’s story onThe Guardian - “Malcolm Turnbull risks Australia's economy within action on climate change.”