<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/its-about-survival-pacific-islands-slam-coalition-threat-to-drop-bid-to-co-host-cop31/>
"Peter Dutton’s suggestion that a future Coalition government would abandon a
bid to co-host COP31 with the Pacific if elected has raised questions about
“the nature of our friendship” for some of Australia’s neighbours, Tuvalu’s
climate minister says.
On Sunday, the opposition leader suggested a future Coalition government would
abandon any effort to host the international climate conference, appearing to
suggest that it was a needless expense during a cost-of-living crisis.
“This morning I saw Albanese catching up with an elderly lady and I hope he
told her, she is struggling with the cost-of-living prices under Labor, but the
government is planning to spend tens of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars on
hosting a COP process that will not bring down power prices and will sign a
Labor government up to giving tens or hundreds of millions of dollars out to
third party countries,” he said.
These comments appeared to threaten a disconnect on the Australian government’s
recent efforts to re-engage with the Pacific.
The Australian to co-host the COP31 climate conference in partnership with the
Pacific has been a feature of the Labor government’s engagement with the
Pacific following a more dismissive diplomatic approach under the Coalition
government, particularly on the existential threat posed by human-caused
climate change.
Early on in its term, for instance, the Morrison government pulled Australia
out of a global climate change fund for developing countries.
In another incident from 2015, Peter Dutton, then serving as immigration
minister, was caught on a hot mic joking to then prime minister Tony Abbott and
future prime minister Scott Morrison about how a meeting running late was on
“Cape York time”, adding that “time doesn’t mean anything when you’re, you
know, about to have water lapping at your door.”
Dutton later apologised for the remark."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
