Rudd's mates steer the ship

Rudd's mates steer the ship | Herald Sun

Hear it especially from Sam Mostyn, a former Labor aparatchik and now insurance PR, who instructed her session on global warming: "We do represent the entire community."

No you don't, sister. Not one Australian voted for you. Indeed, you barely represent even yourself.

I say that because every sign is that the summiteers were pulled together to give Rudd exactly the mandate voters never got around to giving him - a mandate for what Labor wanted to really do, but was too afraid to ask.

First step in this con was to select a crowd that would agree to any scheme involving Big Government, global warming alarmism and the rest.

And so of the 1000 delegates, an astonishing 118 came from a single Left-wing activist group, GetUp, whose former spokesman is now Rudd's press secretary. Dozens of serving and former Labor politicians were also dragged in, from Bob Carr and Barry Jones to John "No Water" Thwaites and even Joan Kirner.

Naturally, heads of the biggest green groups were drafted, such as WWF's Greg Bourne and the Australian Conservation Foundation's Ian Lowe, as were a whole glacier of professional global warming alarmists, from Tanya Ha to Tim Flannery. They were joined by a dozen past or present ABC staff, including David Marr, Geraldine Doogue and Jeff McMullin, and a generation of "stolen generations" propagandists such as Robert Manne, Lowitja O'Donoghue and Pat Dodson.

It worked. Of 100 summiteers asked to discuss climate change, for instance, not one was an identifiable sceptic.