The Greens change leaders amid catastrophic system failure

Shoebridge over troubled Waters?

A huge earthquake in environmental politics happened in Australia today.

And no, I don't mean the change in Greens leadership.

Important as this event is - and I wish Larissa Waters all the very best with her health and David Shoebridge and Steph Hodgins-May all the very best for their new jobs - it happened against the backdrop of something with potentially far bigger ramifications. Something the Greens need to pay immediate attention to.

Today, the NSW Independent Planning Commission gave its approval to the Hunter Valley Operations Continuation Project - the single largest coal project ever proposed in NSW, expected to lead to some 800 million tonnes of C02 equivalent carbon pollution over its lifetime.

As my friend, Georgina Woods, the National Coordinator of Lock The Gate, wrote in sharing this news:

This was the first big mine expansion determined by the IPC since the creation of NSW’s Climate Change Act three years ago and since the International Court of Justice advisory opinion about the obligation of states regarding climate change.

In the course of its deliberations the IPC heard from hundreds of people, many of them already directly harmed by climate change, and compelling evidence from experts on climate change, water, biodiversity and local air pollution. Over 4,000 objecting submissions were made. The approval comes despite overwhelming evidence that the project was not in the public interest and it was made under the best decision-making process of its kind in the country in a statutory framework that requires consideration of the public interest, intergenerational equity, downstream greenhouse gas emissions and the local impacts of climate change.

In our view, this decision is a turning point with much wider implications beyond the Hunter region and NSW. If this process, at this point in history, could not prevent the harm from this project, then our systems of government stand condemned. They have shown themselves to be incapable of dealing with the threat of climate change.

George declared this a "catastrophic failure" of the system.

And it's hard to argue with that.

Lock The Gate ran an incredible campaign. They did everything right. Rising Tide swung in behind them, and I was part of the push:

This is a devastating decision. It's a decision that will quite literally kill people - we will be able to attribute a measurable proportion of the increased deaths and disasters and destruction of property from accelerating climate chaos to this decision.

But I think the real earthquake here is that a major Australian climate and environment organisation has today very publicly called this a catastrophic failure of our institutions. And they set out systematically exactly why that is. The process was clear. The context was clear. Everything was set up for the decision to be made to protect life. But the decision was made to protect profits instead, and screw life.

In my view, it's been obvious for quite some time that Australia's governing institutions - our executive governments, our parliaments, our media, our "independent" planning bodies, our police - have absolutely no capacity to actually face up to the reality of the climate crisis. Coercive, extractive power closes ranks to protect and prolong itself. As that photo at the top demonstrates again, governments will use the police to protect profits against people and the planet.

Many of us have recognised this for a long time. Many have talked about it, mostly quietly, behind closed doors.

Today, Lock The Gate pressed that big red button. The curtain dropped. The Wizard of Oz is exposed. The Emperor's nakedness is spoken aloud. Whatever metaphor you prefer.

Nobody is coming to save us. It's up to us. We will have to cultivate new governing systems that are capable of making decisions that prioritise life. And we will have to put our bodies between the coal corporations and the planet as we do so.

This is the context in which David Shoebridge takes the leadership of the Greens.

He's stepping up to lead a party that is embedded within a system in catastrophic failure.

I think it's important that he began with a clear statement that the Greens aren't here to improve Labor, but to replace them. I think he could - and should - go further.

I wrote months ago here that it was time to start publicly calling out the whole mind-numbing pantomime of wedge politics, the inanity of weaponised meaninglessness. That's the start of it.

It's not just Labor, and the Coalition and One Nation, and their corporate owners, that are the problem. The whole institutional framework, and the culture and ethics that undergird it, needs to be overhauled.

I genuinely truly believe that people are ready to hear this. And ready to do the work that that involves.

The Greens are in an incredibly unenviable position, stuck in "the weird longevity of obsolete bodies politics", as Hannah Arendt puts it, trying to communicate political messages in a world where "thought and reality have parted company".

The only pathway that can make sense of this world is one which shines a bright light on the failure of the system, and begins to bring people together in the community as we cultivate new systems that can emerge from the ashes.

PS: By the way, Lock The Gate are seeking signatories to a public statement calling out this system failure, if you'd like to add your name here.

PPS: In other big environmental changing-of-the-guard news, today Berish Bilander announced he is stepping down as CEO of Green Music Australia. He's stewarded the organisation I established 14 years ago with passion, care and great skill for seven years, and I will always be deeply grateful to him. This sad news leads to the exciting bit - there's an incredible job going for the right person! Check it out here.