When former US vice-president Al Gore used the term ‘inconvenient’ to describe the truth around climate change he used the term euphemistically. The truth about climate change is more accurately termed ‘horrendous’. Now, in a typical inversion of the truth the New South Wales premier has suggested that you should be sent to prison if you inconvenience people as you try to save the planet.
It is inconvenient to experience many events. It is inconvenient to have your house flooded, to have your house burnt down, to suffer asthma attacks caused by emissions from coal, gas and diesel fumes. It is extremely inconvenient to have your entire future threatened by climate change. It is very inconvenient to think that the selfishness and wilful ignorance of those who wield political power today will ensure that you cannot enjoy the planet as they have done.
It is also inconvenient to have your parents die because they live in a vulnerable situation such as a nursing home, especially when government has become tired of treating Covid as an epidemic which demands drastic action. This is especially so when government has adopted this policy for economic reasons and because they do not like to inconvenience people by asking them to wear masks, cover their cough and isolate effectively when positive.
The premier has used this term in other contexts such as disruption caused by strike action by teachers, nurses and transport workers. But ‘inconvenient’ hardly covers the effect of having your wages fall behind the cost of living. And another inconvenience visited on workers involves iCare, an innovation which maximises the financial return to senior officers and minimises compensation paid to the injured. It makes it difficult for employees to feel safe and comfortable in the workplace. It is a scheme with the integrity of Robodebt. To use the term ‘care’ is simply Orwellian.
Many residents of Sydney would find it inconvenient to have their interests ignored for the sake of new motorways. It would be most inconvenient for the state government to acquire your property, so forcing you to relocate. It would be very inconvenient too if your business had to close while building was underway, or to find that a tunnel beneath your house brought unbearable noise and vibrations. Clearly, inconvenience is fine if it is inflicted by the coalition government.
The premier’s peculiar notion of inconvenience led him to apologise to John Barilaro for the way he was treated over a post to which he hoped to be appointed. Of course Barilaro’s National Party has its own extreme attitude to protests. Finding current laws of trespass inadequate, the Nationals demanded the government raise penalties for people who invade rural properties campaigning conscientiously in the name of animal welfare.
The premier says he wants people to be able to protest but not inconvenience people. He deliberately misses the point of course – if no-one is inconvenienced then no-one will take any notice. Besides, his attitude is patronising to the people of New South Wales. They can and do make up their own minds about whether the inconvenience they suffer is tolerable and proportionate. Mostly they understand the frustrations of nurses, teachers and transport workers and admire young conscientious demonstrators.
This premier wants people to protest on his terms. He may as well set up a special precinct where no-one ever goes and where no-one will even realise a protest is on. He seems not to understand that people protest because their consciences demand they do so, even if sometimes, having a conscience can be inconvenient.
There is one unfortunate truth about politics in New South Wales. Thanks to the panic run by the media troika of Daily Telegraph, radio shock jocks and Channel 9, being tough on crime is almost a prerequisite for winning an election. Most politicians wilfully ignore the irony – they themselves make the laws which limit behaviour and determine what shall be regarded as a crime. Clearly, some crimes, especially those against the person and some serious property crimes are intolerable. To make it a crime to inconvenience people however, is wrong.
We have an inconvenient premier. He really should not have commented on the sentence imposed on climate protestor Violet Coco. By commenting he has shown that he supports the law and order panic raised by tabloid media. This is typical of his lack of understanding. Come March he and his party colleagues are likely to be greatly inconvenienced by the electors of New South Wales.