How mining and media distort Australia's carbon tax debate

Given that Australia's leader of the opposition can call human-induced climate change "crap" and still enjoy a thumping lead in the opinion polls, it's perhaps not surprising that Cate Blanchett has had to endure a flurry of non-theatrical criticism this week for fronting a pro-carbon price advertising campaign.
The pillorying of Blanchett highlights the increasingly shrill tone of an Australian media that has recently come under the iron ore-tinged influence of the country's richest person – mining magnate Gina Rinehart.
For many Australians, the first cab off the rank to attack Blanchett for supporting the Labor government's carbon price was The Bolt Report, a Sunday-morning TV show hosted by News Ltd columnist Andrew Bolt.
Bolt spent the opening portion of his weekly televisual soapbox decrying the "deceitful" Blanchett ad, labelling it "crass propaganda."
He went on to call Tim Flannery, author of a new Climate Change Commission report that warns of a one-metre rise in sea levels by the end of the century, a "long-time global warming scaremonger" before insisting that the world has not warmed for a decade.
Climate change has long been a favoured topic for Bolt in print, where he is widely read in News Ltd's Melbourne and Sydney populist tabloids. His climate change denial figurehead status was confirmed when he was made the the target of a satirical 'rap' by climate scientists.
But it's only since April that Bolt has been given the platform of a TV show, on the youth-orientated Ten Network, to espouse his climate change scepticism.
Australian media commentators have pointed to the arrival of Rinehart to Ten's board as being instrumental to Bolt's sudden rise.
Rinehart was last week crowned Australia's richest person by BRW magazine, with an estimated wealth of $10.3 billion – putting Blanchett's $53 million somewhat into the shade – and she has loosened the purse strings to become a budding, if belated, media mogul.
Rinehart splashed out $120 million to buy a 10% stake in Ten in November, taking her place alongside Lachlan Murdoch on the broadcaster's board a month later.
She swiftly followed this by doubling her stake in Fairfax, the country's second largest newspaper group, to 4% in January, tantalisingly close to the 5% share that would require her to declare her interest and expose her to questions as to her sudden interest in Australia's media.
As it is, Rinehart's public comments have been sparse, but the little she has said has been pored over by environmental groups concerned over her tightening grip on two of Australia's main media outlets.
After the Ten deal, she said in a statement: "Our company group is interested in making an investment towards the media business given its importance to the nation's future and has selected Ten Network for this investment."
Given the fevered debate over the proposed introduction of a carbon price, which has been furiously attacked by the opposition Coalition and the resources sector, there appears to be little ambiguity in the phrase "the nation's future", nor Rinehart's position in the debate.
Many Australians' enduring image of Rinehart came during the ructions caused by last year's proposed tax on the resources sector, when she clambered upon the back of a pick up truck, resplendent in pearls, to bellow "Axe the tax" during a rally.
In an opinion piece published in a mining industry magazine this month, Rinehart was more explicit over her aims, saying:

"Some mainstream media like to attack me because I speak out against a carbon tax.
"It's a pity more business executives don't speak out, because this proposal should have been dropped long ago.
"Remember when the mainstream media was running frightening commentary about carbon-induced global warming?
"We read and heard about how oceans would rise, flooding our homes, and how, over years, we'd be scorched due to the increasing heat.
"Have you noticed that we don't hear much any more about global warming?
"There will always be changes that affect our climate, even if we close down all thermal-fired power stations, steel mills and other manufacturing operations, putting employees out of work and drastically changing our way of life.
"I am yet to hear scientific evidence to satisfy me that if the very, very small amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (approximately 0.83 per cent) was increased, it could lead to significant global warming."

Rinehart chairs Hancock Prospecting, a resources company founded by her father Lang Hancock in 1952. It has significant iron ore interests in the Pilbara region of Western Australia and has embarked upon large-scale thermal coal projects in Queensland.
She has also formed Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision, a lobby group that includes prominent geologist and climate sceptic Ian Plimer.
Aside from opposing the resources and carbon taxes, Rinehart has grumbled at how Australia "drowns" in environmental regulations and has called for an influx of cheap foreign labour to the country's sparsely populated northwest.
She even helped fund the bizarre speaking tour of climate sceptic Lord Monckton, who travelled from his Highlands estate to traverse Australia in January.
Monckton's tour saw him receive a $20,000 stipend as well as the organisational help of Rinehart's office when he arrived in Perth.
He used the tour to claim in an opinion piece for The Australian that "thoughtful" politicians were "privately, quietly" questioning conventional thinking on climate change. He is set for another trip Down Under in July.
Rinehart is not fighting a lone battle against carbon pricing. Sydney's Sunday Telegraph, which ran the now-infamous 'Carbon Cate' headline in the wake of Blanchett's ad, is representative of News Ltd titles' opposition to the tax, which critics claim will drive up energy prices and decimate Australian industry.
The increasing vitriol aimed at the Greens, which has pushed for the carbon price in return for its support of the minority Labor government, recently led to the party's leader Bob Brown labelling the Murdoch press the "hate media."
Throw into the mix a group of grumpy, but extremely popular, radio 'shock jocks' who are vehemently opposed to the carbon price and it's unsurprising that the latest polling shows only 38% of the Australian public back the plan.
Perhaps more worryingly for green groups, the proportion of people that agree that climate change is caused by human activity recently slipped below 50% for the first time. A further decline in this number will present a decent return on investment for Rinehart.
Oliver Milman @'The Guardian'