Not only Australians, but many progressive people around the world saw new hope with the election of Kevin Rudd and the Labor party to the Federal Government, today has come the first big test, Australia's "New" approach to Climate Change, away from the Neo-Con ways of John Howard's Conservative Rule, which aligned with the US the whole way, so how is it going?
This is a breaking story, but it doesn't look good, from ABC News:
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has flown into Bali, where Australia's delegation at the UN climate change conference has been accused of being obstructive.
The hope was the Australia PM could bridge the divide between east and west, developing and developed economies. With Mr Rudd's experience as a diplomat to China and his dazzling ability to speak Mandarin. However even before he landed in Bali for UN chat fest, rumours were quickly circulating that Australia was playing hardball with Climate Change, and not in favour of stronger targets.
Ben Pearson from Greenpeace says the Australian delegation has been obstructive.
"What we could be doing is joining with countries like the EU, like the developing countries and China and breaking the logjam," he said.
"We have no difficulty with a reference to the IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) work but Australia is not going to set an interim target at this stage," he said.
The Government insists it wants to wait until research it has commissioned is finalised.
It's all well and good for Australia to get its models right before setting actual numbers, but around the conference halls in Bali it seems the trump card everyone was hoping for, a strong and binding position by the Australian government, one of the biggest suppliers of fossil fuels in the Asia Pacific region is not on the agenda, despite the hot air from Canberra before Mr Rudd arrived in Indonesia, Australia had no intention of going out on any limb.
While the Dems in the House and Senate were expected to get the ball rolling on exit from Iraq, it seems the expectations of Rudd doing the same for climate change, were also overstated. Is it possible for any liberal government to stand up? No instead Australia is following the lead of Japan, Candada and of course the USA.
Don Henry from the Australian Conservation Foundation says he has reliable information that Australia has been taking a conservative position alongside countries like Canada, Japan and the US.
"We're worried about what the Australian delegation may be doing, but we're glad the ministers are here and I think the ministers can grab the opportunity we've got as a nation to say 'this agreement at the end of the day needs to based on science-based targets that are going to ensure the world avoids dangerous climate change'," he said.
"We need a bit of minister input and a bit of science input to get this on track."