Of Saints and Sinners

If you go to Google and type in "convinced righteousness cause" you will get about 6,500,000 hits. Few, if any, of the selected hits will describe a desirable outcome from this pursuit. Indeed, one of the hits near the top of the list carries the following quotation:

Those who are convinced of the righteouness of their cause or convinced of their own personal righteousness are the most dangerous of all peoples.

Prophetic words indeed, considering the following outburst from our Dear Leader of the Carbon Revolution today:

We will bring this [CPRS] bill back before the end of the year because it is the right thing to do. We will bring this bill back before the end of the year because it is the responsible thing to do. We will bring this bill back before the end of the year because we on this side understand we have to start the economic transformation we need.

No - you are not listening to a fundamentalist revivalist meeting. This is from the floor of the Australian Senate - although it can be hard to tell the difference sometimes. It seems that our Dear Leader now firmly believes that, like Joan of Arc, she is is doing God's holy work. And woe betide any snivelling mortal who dares to get in her way. This will be good for you and you will like it.

But wait a minute - is it as simple as all that? Read on to the next part of our Dear Leader's outburst:

And we will bring this bill back before the end of the year because if we don't this nation goes to Copenhagen with no means to deliver our targets. And if we don't the message to Copenhagen would be that Australia is once again going backwards on climate change.

Ahhh ... and for a moment, I thought this all had to do with saving the planet. After all, didn't Yvo de Boer say just two weeks ago that:

"It won't matter if Australia doesn't have its emissions trading scheme finalised by December's Copenhagen climate change talks"

It seems that what this whole tawdry exercise has been all about is feeding Kevin Rudd's ever-growing vanity.

Who can forget his nauseating performance in Bali a couple of years ago - strutting the stage with his aura of self righteousness well and truly on display. As reported by ABC News at the time:

Australia received huge applause at a UN conference on climate change in Bali after it was announced Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had begun to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

"I think that [the applause] was an emotional and spontaneous reaction to a very significant political decision on the part of the Australian Government to ratify the Kyoto protocol," UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer said.

So, far from this stunt in the Senate today being about "doing the right thing", it is all about providing Kevin Rudd with a vehicle to preen before the assembled mutlitude in Copenhagen this December to further his ambitions to be the next Secretary General of the United Nations.

Excuse me, Saint Penny, but you halo is slipping a bit.