Let me be the first one to admit that I got it wrong – seriously wrong.
In last week’s post I said that I was willing to bet my house on this prediction, “… over the next six months the State and Federal governments are going to be working hand-in-glove to eradicate as much environmental legislation as possible in order to remove the last remaining controls on the coal industry.” Six months! Turns out it was going to take exactly one week to begin a concerted assault on the body of environmental protections that have built up over the last 40 years – just one week. And, yes it was led by the Liberal/National State governments and the federal Opposition.

And lest anyone doubt the orchestrated nature of the attack a quick glance at the media coverage this week makes things pretty clear. This campaign has been well planned, is well funded and deadly serious about its target.

It began, of course, with The Australian warning of a war on green tape –  anyone who has ever actually been in a war must find these kinds of headlines pretty offensive – followed by a series of businessmen from the resource sector opining and whining about the onerous nature of these cumbersome processes – yes those ones that make major developers take into account the stakeholders as opposed to just the shareholders.  Then those well-known communitarian organisations, the BCA, AiG and ACCI released their discussion paper with a detailed wish list/demand of the federal government that, you guessed it, called for “the removal of unnecessary carbon reduction and energy efficiency initiatives”.

We then saw Can-Do Newman lecturing his colleagues on what COAG should and should not do and saying, with a straight face, the Liberal National Party (LNP) cares about the environment in Queensland. “The idea that we are not going to look after the Great Barrier Reef, which is just a wonderful tourism resource that it can be just for one example – we are not going to look after it, we won’t have tight environment regulation, is frankly just not true,” he said. Yes that’s the same man who has Clive Palmer – the man that intends to build the biggest coal port in the world in the Great Barrier Reef – as his biggest donor and advisor.

His deputy premier, Jeff Seeney, finished the week by announcing that he would consider changing the boundaries of the Great Barrier Reef by excising the areas needed for the huge port developments his government was going to roll out – starting with Gladstone Harbour. No need to worry about those pesky guys from UNESCO telling him how to look after his Reef – Joh Bjelke-Peterson would have been blushing.

And finally, NSW Energy Minister, Chris Hartcher joined the chorus by calling for an end to the Renewable Energy Target (RET).

So according to peak business and fossil fuel lobby groups, the NSW and Queensland governments and the Opposition, environmental legislation and renewable energy targets will be the death of the Australian economy

But here’s the problem, they are all wrong.

For instance, as Chris Hartcher rides in to defend his pals in the fossil fuel lobby from the economy destroying RET; he puts the slipper into the $20 billion of capital investment that would otherwise being employing folk across regional NSW. That’s the value that would flow from the 35 wind projects (9000 MW) in the approval pipeline, projects that are in regional NSW and would create wealth and jobs for regional communities – makes me wonder how Nationals’ Katrina Hodgkinson can look her Burrinjuck electorate in the eye given a lot of this investment and employment was destined for the people of this electorate. If the RET is scrapped none of this investment will go to the regions.

And while the head of the BCA, Tony Shepherd argues the RET is a $1.8 billion subsidy to the renewable industry, he has said very little about the over $8 billion paid to the fossil fuel industry in subsidies. And neither Tony-I-swear-in-blood-I-will-revoke-the-price-on-carbon-if-I-win-the-next-election Abbott, Tony Shepherd, Campbell Newman, Chris Hartcher or their friends from the fossil fuel lobbies have mentioned that last year alone, $260 billion was invested in clean energy – that’s growth of over 400% in less than a decade. Or that China has announced plans to spend another $460 billion in the next five years.

Neither the Australian people, the economy nor the environment can afford the kind of greedy self-interest and ideological zealotory embodied in this kind of assault. It is absolutely time for smart business and the broader community to step up and demand a place around the table as these changes are considered.

Macken Sense is a weekly metabolic breakdown of media and green events by our astute commentator, Julie Macken. Follow Julie Macken on Twitter @juliemacken.