Culture

Junk Explained: How Are We Supposed To Feel About Clive Palmer Today?

Australia does not know what do to with its face when Clerv is around.

by Alex McKinnon  26 June 2014

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Yesterday a coal-mining billionaire stood next to a US Presidential also-ran turned climate change campaigner and told everyone he was saving the environment. They were introduced by a guy who used to play rugby league for Australia, was popularly known back in the day as “the brick with eyes”, and is now a Queensland Senator-elect. They did not take questions.

People do not know how to feel about this. People have a lot of questions. “Isn’t Clive Palmer absolutely awful for the environment? Why isn’t Al Gore choking him out with a rope weaved of organic baby spinach? Is that Batman’s shadow in the background? Is Clive Palmer Batman? Is Al Gore Batman? Is Batman?”

 

People have had Confused Feelings about Clerv for a while now, because he’s so damn unpredictable — one day he’s saying we should let asylum seekers fly in and process them quickly, another his giant nickel refinery in Queensland is vomiting poisonous sludge onto the Great Barrier Reef. He’s been responsible for a lot of people not quite knowing what to do with their faces when someone says his name. It’s stressful.

So here we go — here’s what happened yesterday, and what it means for you and your feelings.

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Is The Carbon Tax Going To Be Repealed?

Yes. At the press conference yesterday, Clive Palmer announced that the Palmer United Party would support the government’s push to scrap the carbon tax, meaning the Coalition will have the numbers in the Senate to do so come July 1, when the new Senate sits.

Shit. So Climate Change Policy In Australia Is Dead, Then?

Nope! Wrong-o, friend. In an amazing switcheroo, Clerv said that he’ll only support the carbon tax repeal if it’s replaced by an emissions trading scheme that will kick in when our five largest trading partners — China, the United States, The European Union, Japan and Korea — have one in place as well. That’s not nearly as good as what we’ve got now, but it’s a whole lot more than the sweet nothing the government’s Direct Action policy would have done — which, by the way, is effectively dead now after Clive said he won’t support it.

Even better, Palmer ALSO said that he won’t support the government’s attempts to abolish the 5% 2020 Renewable Energy Target, the Climate Change Authority, which provides advice to the government and the public on Australia’s carbon reduction efforts, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which funds renewable energy initiatives and recently started turning a profit.

If he keeps his word, and Labor sticks to its guns and continues to support their existence, Tony Abbott will have literally no way of getting rid of them. They’ll be bulletproof.

Holy Crap, That’s Amazing! Clive For Prime Minister!

Hold on there, stranger. You’ve forgotten that this is Clive Palmer, mining oligarch and current reigning YOLO Champion of the World. What Clive Palmer says or does tomorrow might be the polar opposite of what he said yesterday. Remember in March, when GetUp! frothed all over Clive’s shoes when he said he supported the Renewable Energy Target, only to get caught out when he changed his mind the very next day?

clivepalmergetup

There’s literally nothing stopping him from doing the exact same thing this time around. Clive Palmer has four seats in federal Parliament, an ocean liner’s worth of money and not a single fuck to give in all the world. We don’t know his motives, or his endgame. It is genuinely possible that he flew a former Vice-President of the United States out here and flipped Australia’s renewable energy future on its head purely as a tactical move before meeting Tony Abbott for their first face-to-face since the election earlier today — or even just to piss him off. Clive Palmer’s not the only one people mistake for being on their side just because they’ve done something less shitty than normal for once. He’s like a goose on meth — don’t trust it, don’t look at it, and definitely don’t try to pat it.

So…Is This Good Or Bad? I Still Don’t Know How To Feel! My Face! What Do I Do With My Face?! 

It’s just too early to tell — it sounds like good news, but we’ll just have to wait and see how it all pans out. You should feel sceptical but hopeful; cautiously optimistic with a hint of faintly bewildered. Oh, and a bit angry that a rich dude is straight-up toying with all our futures like a cat with a laser pointer.

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Why Was Al Gore Even There, Then?

This is something I don’t think even Al Gore knows the answer to. Maybe he thought Clive Palmer was ManBearPig. Or thought he was a whale in trouble.

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Feature image via the Sydney Morning Herald.