Well, the leaders of the world’s largest economies have thoroughly Queenslanded themselves. Amongst photo ops with koalas, a legion of hot cops on wheels and protest movement with more demands than a Hollywood pre-nup, statements were made, negotiations negotiated and the survival of life on earth even addressed in the odd casual chat. Now everyone’s packing up their toys and going home, what did we learn at the Brisbane G20?
1. Tony Abbott: all mouth and no trousers
Australia’s clown in chief promised much but delivered all too little when it came to his notorious promise to “shirtfront” the Russian president Vladimir Putin over concerns Russia had mishandled the MH17 atrocity.
Putin and Abbott had in fact met a few days previously in China at APEC but rather than a full-contact, AFL-style bollocking, the meeting between the two was reported as “measured and respectful in tone”. By Putin’s arrival at the G20, Abbott had replaced threats of shirtfronting with joint photo opportunities for the Russian leader, cuddling koalas.
That a fleet of Russian warships with nuclear strike capability had travelled to international waters north of the Australian continent in advance of the G20 was amusing, but, we’re assured, just standard procedure.
2.This is how the Big Boys do it, Tony
Probably because a fleet of nuclear warships were not lurking around Canadian waters, Abbott’s conservative hero, “Canadia’s” Stephen Harper, offered a far less marsupial greeting to the Russian president. At the G20, Putin’s hand extended to greet the Canadian leader, who shook it while being quoted as saying:
Well I guess I’ll shake your hand, but I only have one thing to say to you: you need to get out of Ukraine.
Putin kept his hand on the Canadian while replying “unfortunately it is impossible – because we are not there,” according to a Kremlin press source.
Abbott, alternatively, contributed to a “strongly worded statement” composed with president Obama and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, condemning Russia over its actions in Ukraine, although Ukraine wasn’t directly mentioned during the official sessions of the G20.
3. George Brandis: climate denier
Australian attorney-general and bigots-defender, George Brandis, had his very own head become a symbol of both the impact of climate change and the potential of solar power whilst waiting for US president Barack Obama in the 40 degree heat at RAAF Base Amberley. Perhaps symptomatically of his party’s refusal to take climate change seriously, George’s omission of sunblock in his G20 preparations delivered to the twitterverse an image of his sunburned red scalp devoured by wits worldwide. “Medium-rare, that’s how I like my bigots” quipped @TracyShosh, amongst many.
4. Dorothy, we’re not in Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s Kansas Anymore (at least, not this week)
Special G20 security legislation with draconian detention provisions was of concern to protestors prior to the event, but the police peace effort around the G20 was unrecognisable to anyone with living memory of Brisbane in the 1970s and 1980s. The image of Queensland “jacks” booting the bejesus out of music fans became something of a national icon in the reign of Joh Bjelke-Petersen but was nowhere to be found amongst a deployment of police that, while enormous and involving interstate and even international reinforcements, involved only 14 arrests for minor offences, bottles of iced water provided to protestors and even police lifts home.
One blue haired young person unwisely equipped with a gas-mask and knife learned that these accessories were a statement of something, but fashion it wasn’t.
5. Angela Merkel: selfie champ
The quirky German chancellor added to her impressive reputation for behaviour Australians may be surprised to expect from a conservative world leader on her Brisbane visit. In a year that’s seen a country under her leadership restructure its energy economy to meet renewable energy targets and the complete scrapping of tuition fees for undergraduate degrees, 60 year old Merkel also got down with the patrons of Brisbane bar Brewski, posing for selfies with patrons who recognised her when she was out for a nighttime stroll.
David Cameron played out a more predictable persona by avoiding the proles at the Stokehouse restaurant down the road. One so hopes he enjoyed his cheese.
6. Back at the oppression of the working class...
Amongst the fun and games, the more serious agenda of the G20 was to commit the economies of the participants to meeting an economic growth target of 2% over the next five years. Also converging on Brisbane was the “Labour 20” (l20) of Labour union leaders – including Australian Sharan Burrow, now general secretary of the International Confederation of Trade Unions – who decry this 2% figure.
The L20 identify unrealistic economic modelling informs this target, which presumes full employment without any plans for higher wages or job creation. Australian treasurer Joe Hockey, however, declared that the G20 will exceed the target, although he did not specify how. This is the same Hockey whose own budget last week was found to contain a $51bn black hole, so take your pick on who you trust.
7. The times they are a-climate changing
Abbott’s claim “coal is good for humanity” may not merely fly in the face of scientific fact, but also, it seems, attempts to make oneself popular in company. The Australian prime minister’s infamous resistance to a substantive address of emissions at the summit turned out to be something of a fart in an elevator when the world’s biggest polluters, the US and China, agreed in advance of the G20 to meet emissions targets.
Abbott’s recalcitrance to recognise the need for action provoked direct rebuke from the American president in Brisbane. He said:
No nation is immune and every nation has a responsibility to do its part... The US and Australia (have) a lot in common. Well, one of the things we have in common is we produce a lot of carbon … which means we’ve got to step up.
If coal is good for humanity, it seems it’s not a humanity that included Americans or the Chinese and, at least in economic terms, that’s a helluva lot of people for Abbott to exclude.
8. ... but Alan Jones is not changing anything (except his feelings for the prime minister)
Abbott may have been intimidated by Putin, outclassed by Merkel and embarrassed by both the Americans and Chinese, but at least he found sympathetic support for his work at the G20 from Australia’s ancientest conservative cheerleader, Alan Jones. Except, he didn’t. Abbott’s one achievement of the G20, securing a free trade deal with China, inflamed the talkback host into a protectionist eruption, who declared a deal which would allow Chinese businesses to buy dairy farms, wineries and other “agricultural assets” failed “the pub test”.
Jones did also declare “You know that wind turbines are a fake... Global warming is a hoax, we’ve had nothing for 18 years,” so the world, as yet, remains on its regular axis.
9. Meanwhile, in poor countries...
Global warming sure does not feel like a hoax to the subsistence farmers of Africa. Oxfam’s director Winnie Byanyima declared at a session for the People’s Summit that those on the land in her home country of Uganda “can no longer rely on the seasons” when it comes to their agricultural calendar. That action on climate change is interrelated to social justice and the need for economic fairness was a theme at Byanyima’s several appearances across forums in Brisbane, whose chilling descriptions of a childhood where she believed she was rich because she was not married off at 14 brought home the real implications of economic decisionmaking here.
On the subject of tax avoidance, Byanyima welcomed G20 moves to crack down on offshoring and tax havens but made the point that poor countries continued to be “bled dry”. In Sierra Leone, she reminded the assembled, “Ebola is raging and tax incentives for six multinational companies are eight times the health budget”.
10. For social change, just add wings
Amidst a colourful procession of protestors that channeled a demand for marijuana legalisation, the cause of decolonisation and restitution for Black Australia, pleas for the release of refugees and a parade of yellow-shirted Falun Gong throwing a baton-shaped gauntlet at majorettes for march discipline, this writer lent her body - avec prosthetic wings – to the cause of climate action amongst a group of Climate Angels.
It was fortuitous that we chose to blockade the entrance to the G20 party on Saturday night, as no less than Bill Shorten stumbled into our feathery sit in. “I support what you’re doing – I am on your side here” quoteth the leader of the opposition as the prime minister resisted angelic demands for a meeting and was led by police from the building.
We’ll hold you to it, Bill – though, if there is one lesson this particular activist learnt at the G20, it’s that if you’re going to be spending your day in white, you might want to avoid the fluroescent floral bra.
