One of the flashpoint issues that cost Labor so dearly at the last Australian election was coal mining. The ferocious voter backlash against anti-coal activism also put the wind up the Queensland state Labor government. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk couldn’t backflip fast enough on her government’s forced delays on approvals for the mine.
Not that Queenslanders would be fooled, anyway. In a spectacular display of comic timing, King Climate Clown himself, Al Gore, flew into Queensland for a state-government sponsored climate junket just weeks after Australian voters roundly rejected climate fearmongering (again).
Now, it’s emerged that Big Al wasn’t just collecting his usual gargantuan appearance fee: he was pulling Queensland Labor’s strings.
A veteran anti-coal activist, controversially appointed as a top public servant in Queensland’s Environment Department, sent drafts of a proposed online panel discussion critical of Scott Morrison for vetting by Al Gore’s US-based climate change organisation. Emails obtained under state Right to Information laws show Tim Seelig, a former Wilderness Society official, drafted an exchange between Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch and the former US vice-president ahead of his taxpayer-funded visit to Queensland in June.
Behind this orchestrated climate clown show lurks “Pluckachook”’s deep-watermelon deputy, Jackie Trad, who was apparently busily arranging jobs for her greenie mates.
Dr Seelig, who has a doctorate in urban sociology and is a long-time ally of Deputy Premier Jackie Trad, was appointed as principal adviser (strategic policy) to department director-general Jamie Merrick in July last year despite missing the cut-off date for applications for the newly created job.
His appointment has since been probed by the Public Service Commission.
Still, at least he’s doing what Trad tells him to – and making sure everyone else says what they’re told to, as well.
The emails between Dr Seelig and Ms Enoch’s media adviser, Pamela Frost, show his direct contact with Mr Gore’s organisation and the suggested questions and answers between the American anti-climate change crusader and the state minister…
“Below is the proposed question which I have confirmed is fine with the Climate Reality (Al Gore org) Australian Branch, along with an indicative suggested answer,’’ he wrote…
Attached to the emails is a transcript of the proposed exchange, with Mr Gore pointedly saying to Ms Enoch, “your prime minister would not agree with you on many points”, which leads her to attack Mr Morrison.
“That’s right. We don’t need a prime minister who thinks bringing a lump of coal into parliament is a way forward,’’ Ms Enoch is proposed to say in the draft exchange.
Trad’s greenie puppet master all but had his hands up their arses for this climate muppet show.
A spokesperson for Ms Enoch last night failed to answer why a public servant was representing Ms Enoch to Mr Gore’s organisation and not her ministerial office.
In a statement, Ms Enoch’s spokesperson claims the…“Statements were not vetted”.
theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/anticoal-bureaucrat-got-al-gore-to-vet-climate-qa
Well, that’s true enough. They were scripted.