Raising Hell: Issue 44: Cashing Out
"We were wrong, terribly wrong, and we owe it to future generations to explain why." - Robert McNamara, architect of the Vietnam war, 1995.
The name Harold Clough might be meaningless to most people but namedropping the man in political circles was once enough to get the attention of a room.
For most of his life, Clough would be introduced to the public as a prominent Western Australian businessman. Following his death on 5 January at age 95, his status would be upgraded to “business titan” and like many influential figures through history, the man who helped change Australia would have most of what made his death worth reporting airbrushed from the obituaries.
His death would first be marked by a full page advertisement taken out in the pages of the Australian Financial Review by his six surviving children to tell the story of how he made his fortune in the supply chain of the oil and gas sector. The spread would be accompanied by a photo showing Clough at a birthday party posing with both WA Labor Premier Mark McGowan and former Liberal Premier Colin Barnett:
Two weeks later the Fin sent a reporter along to his funeral to record the moment for posterity especially as those in attendance included a good cross section of the Australia elite:
Attendees included former WA premiers Richard Court and Colin Barnett, Wesfarmers chairman Michael Chaney, WA governor Kim Beazley, businessman John Poynton and lawyer and former AFL powerbroker Rob Mckenzie. Also paying their respects were WA Liberal Party leader David Honey and former leader Mike Nahan.
Even if you know nothing about Clough, these sorts of details are enough to signal at the arc of his life as a Liberal party donor and a financier of right wing causes. Having taken over his father’s construction and banked a billion, Clough was typical in the sense that he had ideas for how the world should run and he was willing to pay to see them borne out.
Clough’s active political period developed in the early nights. Over the last thirty years, Clough took his position on the board of the Institute of Public Affairs and used his company, Clough Engineering, to funnel money to the Liberal Party. In one instance he served as Tony Abbott’s wallet during the future Prime Minister’s campaign to prosecute Pauline Hanson for voter fraud — an act Clough said he later regretted when she went to jail and became a martyr.
But it was climate change where Clough really helped change the course of Australian history. As a founding member of the Lavoisier Group, a clique of rich white men who made their fortunes in or around the oil and gas industry, Clough served as treasurer. They were led by Ray Evans, a right-wing activist who pioneered the use of think tanks and political advisory groups to bust unions, attack Indigenous lands rights and choke off any action on climate change.
Thanks to their connections in business and politics, the group acted like a high level steering committee, coordinating talking points and messaging wherever they engaged with the halls of power. Clough himself was jointly responsible for tying the Australian economy to coal experts when he sat on the advisory panel that wrote the 1997 Foreign Affairs and Trade Policy White Paper. Over time the group would regularly intervene in politics, openly bragging about their influence over John Howard as the conservative PM wavered on climate change. Later, they would again brag about having had a hand in deposing Malcolm Turnbull from the Liberal Party leadership the first time around for his advocacy of an Emissions Trading Scheme.
To the members of the Lavoisier Group, climate change was a “scam” and the science “a form of political correctness”. Though he spent his time in the background, Clough was involved enough to pen at least one essay published on the group’s website where he suggests doing anything about climate change would mean Australia would be forced to sit through “total blackouts for two days per week” and “ban all cars, wagons and motorcycles”.
If these sorts of crude talking points sound familiar, it’s because they’ve dominated the discussion about climate change for the better part of the last two decades. Since the Black Summer Bushfires permanently altered the conversation around climate change, Clough’s role in helping steer Australia away from action on climate change may be too on the noise for polite society and these details have been airbrushed from history but his work in this area is something he pursued with determination. He was proud of a success and the way their talking points trickled down into the community. His friends and family might mourn his loss, so too will his political allies that once depended upon him but his legacy includes the profound influence he has had on Australian society.
For the Fortnight: January 19 to February 1
Reporting In
Where I recap what I’ve been doing this last fortnight so you know I’m not just using your money to stimulate the local economy …
Climate Future And The Arts, Panel, (Kinetic Collective, 17 January 2022).
‘First aid shipments leave for Tonga, amid fears aid workers could bring “tsunami of Covid”’ (The Guardian, 19 January 2022).
‘Growth in rooftop solar slows due to lockdowns and supply chain issues’ (The Guardian, 19 January 2022).
‘“Terrorising us”: bluebottles wash up on Australian beaches in “gobsmacking numbers”’ (The Guardian, 20 January 2022).
‘“Just a new fossil fuel industry”: Australia to send first shipment of liquefied hydrogen to Japan’ (The Guardian, 21 January 2022).
‘“Helps peddle myths”: Australia’s Tour Down Under facing pressure to dump Santos as sponsor’ (The Guardian, 25 January 2022).
‘Tennis Australia ends partnership with Santos after one year’ (The Guardian, 23 January 2022).
‘Gina Rinehart’s company announced as sponsor of Australian Olympic Team’ (The Guardian, 28 January 2022).
‘The kindest cut: the Australians fighting to save humpback whales tangled in fishing nets’ (The Guardian, 30 January 2022).
‘Secondhand cars: why are they so expensive and when will prices drop?’ (The Guardian, 30 January 2022).
Coming Up
Adelaide Writers Week is back for 2022 and I’ll be moderating two sessions.
Thursday, 10 March 2022, 9.30am: I’ll be speaking to Alec McGillis about his book Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America covering the dystopian influence of Amazon and those who make their lives in or around its warehouses.
Thursday, 10 March 2022, 12pm: I’ll also be moderating a discussion with Fiona McCleod and professional bomb-thrower Michael West on the subject of “Grift, Lies and Influence”.
Projects
Cracking COVIDSafe - An examination of the machine that made the COVIDSafe app, a piece of software made by people who wanted to hack the pandemic (complete).
Laramba’s Water - Laramba is a remote Indigenous Community in the Northern Territory which has been drinking uranium-contaminated water since 2008. We tried to find out what why (on-going).
‘High levels of uranium in drinking water of NT community’ (NITV, 31 July 2020).
‘Company remains shtum on plans to filter Laramba's contaminated water supply’ (NITV, 21 October 2020).
‘‘It makes us sick’: remote NT community wants answers about uranium in its water supply’ (The Guardian, 18 October 2021).
You Hate To See It
A dyspeptic, snark-ridden and highly ironic round-up of the news from our shared hellscape…
Crash, Or Crash Through, I Guess
He did it. The beautiful bastard did it. Elon Musk, aka Hank Scorpio, the man who may or may not use his Twitter account to influence the sharemarket and who wants to installs a microchip in your brain, will strike a blow for capitalism when a derelict rocket crashes into the moon in March — within the constraint of limited liability, of course. The rocket has been spinning out of control for seven years but will finally make impact near the moon’s equator on March 4. Musk will perhaps be the first person from the private sector to make the fuck up milestone, with the Soviet’s having already exploded bombs on the surface of the moon and both the Israeli and Japanese governments littering the cosmos with their own screw ups.
Location Is Everything
From the lofty dream of exploring the cosmos to the snowy landscapes of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius where we take a moment to contemplate a curious property listing for a steel barn that boasts soundproofed rooms, no windows and good air conditioning. Buyer beware, however, as the price for the former CIA “black site” — once used to
tortureinterview alleged “terror suspects” as part of the US government’s extraordinary rendition — program will go up for sale, ready-made torture chambers included, though it is expected the price will still be cheaper than a two bedroom apartment in Sydney.
Going To The Apes
It’s tough being rich. Adam Smith knew this from the beginning when he wrote rich people are doomed to live in fear the poor will eventually come take their stuff. Now one group of millionaires and billionaires are tackling the problem by demanding they be taxed more now. They have no choice, they argue, as the options are either “taxes or pitchforks”. They may not be wrong in that regard, but it’s hard to know exactly how this group also feel about the subject of collective bargaining which would do much to flatten inequality between the classes. But then others like Lance Armstrong have taken a slightly cheaper tack when it comes to people not liking him. Having bought into NFTs — an internet grift with no real function other than to facilitate money laundering — the former professional cyclist and cheat declared himself “one of the cool kids” after investing in a shitty lion image. There only conceivable benefit for the rest of us, as has been noted elsewhere, is the extent to which the aesthetic quality of these images could be used as an accurate measure of celebrity wealth.
Cocaine And Toupées
Pity the staff of Sydney-based online media outfit Mumbrella, whose managing director, David Longman, published a self-pitying screed outing his employers for illicit drug use during the company’s Christmas Party. During his report on the incident, Longman recounted how at an after-party at the company’s office on 9 December 2021 “illicit drugs were purchased, distributed and consumed by a number of the staff there” among staff at all levels. The real question though is: why publish this statement at all? Besides opening up your staff to the risk of a criminal investigation, the only real crime committed — beside the consumption of a controlled substance — is social given how willing these people are to live out a dull media-society cliché.
It’s Not All Bad
On the same day Ash Barty won at the Australian open it was reported far right leader Pauline Hanson was attacked by a swarm of wasps. As has been pointed out elsewhere, it might just be the best Australians will get for quite some time.
It’s Not Conservative Until It’s Dickensian
Faced with many weeks of supply chain shocks as the let ‘er rip strategy for managing Omicron ended pretty much as predicted, Australia’s business community approached the Australian Prime Minister with a suggestion: child labour. Naturally, Scott Morrison then floated the idea of letting teenagers drive forklifts in the nation’s warehouses in the press in order to gauge the public mood. The idea was ruthlessly mocked before being shot down at national cabinet, mostly because allow people whose brains are developing to pilot such vehicles before they are given a car licence can end in, well, disaster.
Failing Upward
Where we recognise and celebrate the true stupidity of the rich, powerful and influential…
What to do if you’re the marketing director of a major Australian arts festival which has recently been shaken by a boycott campaign over a decision to, for example, take money from the Israeli government? Well, hire an army of Twitter bots to consistently post positive tweets on your social media account to create the perception that the critics are really just a bunch of angry naysayers. We here at Raising Hell commend the Sydney Festival for making bold decision making in handling a crisis. The festival really does know what he’s doing.
Good Reads, Good Times
To share the love, here are some of the best or more interesting reads from the last fortnight…
For all the hype before the pandemic that this was an opening to build a better society there were those who pointed out things could easily go the other way. This by Liam Flenady in Jacobin on how austerity is prolonging the pandemic makes a very convincing argument for the latter.
Not a good read, just pretty:
Before You Go (Go)…
Are you a public sector bureaucrat whose tyrannical boss is behaving badly? Have you recently come into possession of documents showing some rich guy is trying to move their ill-gotten-gains to Curacao? Did you take a low-paying job with an evil corporation registered in Delaware that is burying toxic waste under playgrounds? If your conscience is keeping you up at night, or you’d just plain like to see some wrong-doers cast into the sea, we here at Raising Hell can suggest a course of action: leak! You can securely make contact through Signal or through encrypted message Wickr Me on my account: rorok1990. Alternatively you can send us your hard copies to: PO Box 134, Welland SA 5007
And if you’ve come this far, consider supporting me further by picking up one of my books, leaving a review or by just telling a friend about Raising Hell!