skynews– The motion read like the words of a great global statesman – say Kofi Annan or Barack Obama or perhaps Dennis Quaid in The Day After Tomorrow.
“Note the United Nations has issued a Code Red for Humanity advising that only with immediate, deep and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, including methane gas, is it possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius and avoid the consequences of greater global warming including intense and frequent hot extremes, heatwaves, and heavy precipitation and, in some regions, agricultural and ecological droughts.”
With such an expansive international and geographical remit and high moral purpose, any reader would be reassured that the future of the world was in the safest of hands.
The only slight giveaway was some of the other motions on the agenda that day.
These included: “That Council installs an extra barbeque with seating facilities and Canopy to be installed at the Orpington Street section of Ashfield Park.”
And: “That Council conducts an urgent audit of the cleaning and maintenance of all our public toilet facilities.”
And of course: “That Council notes Council’s commitment to library services and the important role it plays on the wellbeing of the Inner West Community.”
Yes, the great geo-political call to arms you read at the beginning wasn’t issued by the UN Security Council but by Sydney’s Inner West Council.
Oh how world leaders and captains of industry must be quaking in their boots.
This bizarre foray into international relations was one of the first items of business after the Greens seized control of the council from the far more sensible Labor mayor Darcy Byrne.
Another motion at Tuesday night’s meeting was: “That Council writes to the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the Minister for Defence Peter Dutton expressing Inner West Council’s opposition to the presence of nuclear submarines in Sydney Harbour, noting the risks to human, animal and plant life posed by nuclear submarines and requesting that the Australian government ratify the UN Treaty against Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.”
Once more the council seems to think it’s from New York instead of Newtown. And its geopolitical concerns don’t end there.
“If nuclear submarines enter Sydney Harbour, they will create a significant risk to human life if there is an accident, or they are attacked by an enemy, or if they simply sink,” the Meeting Agenda notes state.
One can only hope they include such vital strategic defence advice in their letter to the PM and Defence Minister – and also CC Downing Street and the Joint Chiefs for good measure.
But perhaps this is unkind to the Inner West Greens – in fact they do have extensive experience in foreign policy.
After all, the last time Greens took control of the council they launched a boycott against Israel. Unfortunately this fell just short of achieving peace in the Middle East but it certainly put Marrickville on the map as a key stakeholder in the Holy Land.
Meanwhile, the Inner West LGA has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Greater Sydney – which should perhaps be of somewhat more concern to the local council than UN resolutions or US submarine purchases.
If you ever want to know what politics looks like with the Greens in charge then look no further than this little pre-school parliament. Or just ask Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
Indeed, there’s little more that Greens specialise in more than destroying Labor leaders and then acting like idiots. The Liberal Party should almost be paying them but the saddest thing is they don’t even have to.
