Issue 97: And So We Wait

Everything happened, and yet nothing happened. This is not to say there was no news. There was plenty. This was just how the last fortnight broke down: every day, events continued to erupt and news broke. My docket was full, work was happening, but nothing seemed to result.

Case in point: on Tuesday last week a federal court judge ruled against the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR) in its landmark greenwashing case against Australian oil company Santos. To add insult to injury, the decision required ACCR to pay costs. The outcome, on the face of it, would appear a massive win for the fossil fuel producer, which spent the week chalking up "W's". Around the time the decision came down, the company inked a deal with the South Australian state government the same week to redirect the gas it exports overseas to the state's manufacturers and insisted in its latest company reports that people will be buying its fossil fuels long, long into the future.

"Over the longer term, while global demand may shift in response to decarbonisation trends, we expect regional demand for gas to remain strong, underpinned by its role in energy security and the transition to lower carbon energy," it said.

Sure. Right. Definitely. Ah-huh. Gotcha.

Now, I would have loved to talk about the federal court decision here, as I'm sure it contains all kinds of important implications and nuances, but I can't. Or couldn't. In deference to Santos and the company's concerns the case might expose sensitive commercial information—a frequent concern aired in submissions throughout the process and which were ultimately accepted—the court gave the parties, particularly Santos, a week to review the written decision and argue about redactions before it would be published.

Unfortunately, this sequence of events left others in the Australian press corps in a bind. With no decision, the dailies were left to report an event without context or detail, creating a vacuum that risked leaving the decision being easily reframed or spun. The good news is that Drilled, who I have been working with, is not a daily-news organisation. The organisation has the luxury of being able to wait, and so that is what we decided to do—even though there is a risk no one will be interested when any story does eventually run.

The good news is that the judgment was published yesterday bright and early, around 10am, on Monday morning. Of course, I only learned this at 5pm—the night before this newsletter was due to go out. Yes, I could have pulled up my sleeves and dug deep, but I did not. When it comes to pulling all-nighters, know this, sweet Raising Hell subscriber: I love you, but not that much. I didn't even do that sort of thing in law school, which was probably why I was such a middling student.

For now you'll just have to wait. In the meantime, I have still been able to get a few other things out the door, including a longread based on documents obtained from the National Archives of Australia. I briefly wrote about the trip to Canberra to get them a few weeks ago, and the importance these sorts of projects have towards providing some measure of accountability. The story is linked below—had I more time, I would have put together a nice little summary, but I don't. For a free sample, here's a little something I prepared earlier:

Good Reads

Because we here at Raising Hell know how much you love homework…

• Virginia Heffernan wrote in The Nerve about about the ideology of Jeffrey Epstein and friends, as revealed in his emails. It's worth a read particularly for how she shows a group of men who considered themselves the smartest people alive converged on a worldview that was racist, eugenicist and supremacist.
• In an absurd metaphor that would otherwise be too on-the-nose, Nick Feik, former editor of The Monthly, has chronicled the "tragicomedy" that is the Tasmanian state government's fumbling of the Spirit of Tasmania deal.
• Tim Dunlop offers his analysis on where the Coalition is headed--and it ain't pretty.
• Guardian Australia's Lisa Cox had a knock-out report on the circumstances surrounding the decision to let aluminium giant Alcoa continue to bulldoze precious Jarrah forest for 15 years without intervention.
• As a sucker for archaeology news, I was very taken Marcus Haraldsson's longread in The Guardian about the so-called apocalypse of the Maya.

"Many books about climate change are worthy but dull. Slick, however, is as readable as it is shocking." - Richard Denniss, The Australia Institute, writing in The Conversation.

Reporting In

Where I recap what I’ve been doing this last fortnight so you know I’m not just using your money to stimulate the local economy …

• ‘"Simply Cannot Be Ignored": How Australia's fossil fuel industry shaped the climate future by capturing economic models" (Drilled, 23 February)

“Simply Cannot Be Ignored”: How Australia’s fossil fuel industry shaped the climate future by capturing economic models

Heatwaves and bushfires burned across southern Australia this January thanks in part to climate change. An Australian government agency once insisted it might not happen.

Drilled

• EPBC reforms a ‘net positive’ for oil and gas, according to Department' (The Point, 18 February).

EPBC reforms a ‘net positive’ for oil and gas, according to Department

Environmental reforms rushed through parliament at the end of last year in a deal between Labor and the Greens were welcomed as a “net positive for the oil and gas sector,” according to a senior government bureaucrat.

logoRoyce Kurmelovs

• 'Pawnbroking, bankruptcy, debt, usury and God!' (ABC RN, panel, 6 February).

Pawnbroking, bankruptcy, debt, usury & God! - ABC listen

Credit and debt — borrowing and lending — have long been a part of life. Mortgage holders are all too familiar with the challenge of meeting their repayments and juggling the household budget — a challenge made even more difficult by the recent Reserve Bank decision to increase interest rates. But are financial commitments purely economic obligations, or do they come with a significant moral burden? Guests: Dr Lucie O’Brien, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University of Melbourne’s Centre for Commercial Law Dr Ilsup Ahn, Professor of Philosophy at North Park University Royce Kurmelovs - journalist

ABC listenBrought to you byABC Radio NationalPresented byJames Carleton

Before You Go (Go)…

• Want to get in touch? Message me on Signal at username RoyceK.11. Alternatively you can send hard copies to: PO Box 134, Welland SA 5007
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