The Rudd Labor government’s failed attempt to ram carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) legislation through parliament has brought to the surface deep-going conflicts within the Australian ruling elite, expressed in the extraordinary political crisis within the Liberal party. It has also served to focus the attention of ordinary people on the far reaching economic, social and political implications of the ETS.
This is precisely what Labor and its corporate backers were hoping to avoid. The Rudd government equates tackling climate change with implementing an ETS. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a scheme designed to enable finance capital and many large Australian corporations to cash in on the multi-billion dollar world trade in a new commodity—carbon pollution credits—while at the same time subsiding the big corporate polluters. The huge profits at stake will be paid for by ordinary working people, in the form of major hikes in their fuel, energy and other costs.
The Socialist Equality Party public meetings will cut through the confusion generated by the political and media establishment and clarify what the government’s proposed ETS actually is and what it means for the working class. It will expose the politics of the Greens, who, like the government and big business, advocate an emissions trading scheme. It will demonstrate that an ETS, along with all other schemes based on the capitalist market, will only further exacerbate the environmental crisis created by the profit system itself. The SEP speakers will explain that the vital task of lowering global carbon emissions requires nothing less than the rationally coordinated reorganisation of economic and social life on a global scale, under the democratic control of the working class.
All readers of the World Socialist Web Site are encouraged to attend and bring family, friends and workmates to participate in this important discussion.
Tickets: $5 & $3 concession