Simon Copland

Originally published in Limited News, 19 February, 2014

Winter Olympics – FUCK NO

– Ed Butler.

Do you remember that kid at school? The one who, lacking the talent, smarts, good looks or social graces of more popular children, they decide, in their determination to fit in, to do everything the cool kids do, only MOAR. And it never quite works.

In the Olympic movement, the Winter Games are that kid.

The forced coolness. The forced ‘extremeness’. The forced number of events – it’s all there, if only the school counsellor could see it. In Sochi, there are also only 15 categories (or as some of us know them, ‘sports’), compared to the 41 possessed of the warm weather stuff we saw in Beijing.

• Alpine skiing
• Biathlon
• Bobsleigh
• Cross Country Skiing
• Curling
• Figure Skating
• Freestyle skating
• Ice Hockey
• Luge
• Nordic Combined skiing
• Short track speed skating
• Skeleton
• Ski jumping
• Snowboard
• Speed skating

Perhaps we should break this down: If we are to consolidate the skiing, skating and sliding on a sleigh sports, there are seven. Seven. They are so desperate for sports, they actually separate ‘speed skating’ and ‘short track speed skating’ into separate categories. To be clear, this doesn’t mean separate ‘events’ like the 400m and 800m sprints, but they treat these two forms of identical recreation as being as dissimilar as swimming and pole vaulting.

In order to get attention, the Winter Olympics have basically had to trade off the safety of competitors. Can you remember the last time a Winter Olympics came around that wasn’t accompanied by a chorus of ‘this is the most intense/dangerous/downhill/luge track/whatever I’ve ever seen!’

We watch the Winter Olympics with the same morbid fascination we watch Formula One. We find it interminably boring most of the time, but the chance to watch someone face-plant onto a snowy hill after launching from a ludicrous ramp, or seeing someone come undone on two skis at 130kph, is too much to resist. Tell me you haven’t had an event on in the background during dinner or something, only to have it become unequivocally the foreground the minute the commentators utter the telltale ‘ooooh’. Go on, tell me that’s never happened. From that point, you’re transfixed for a couple more minutes before going back to your sweet potato once you realise another anonymous, masked person hurls themselves downhill.

Likewise, the embrace of the California games model of attracting attention does little to commend it to anyone. Radical as the half pipe may be, one imagines ‘altius’ doesn’t refer to the kind of ‘higher’ commonly associated with such contests. And if it is, the X games already does it better.

Because that’s what the Winter Olympics have become; the X Games on ice. The Disneylympics. They even have the ice princesses.

It’s entirely possible that the Winter Olympics are even MORE condescending towards its female athletes than the summer equivalent. One imagines the ‘winter’ branch of the IOC furrow their brows and beat their hands against the icy walls of their Norwegian lair, bemoaning the thick and multitudinous layers of protective garb their ladies wear. Thank God magazines like Sports Illustrated are there to strip those layers away and show us the ‘human story’ beneath.

And wait, no one gives a shit about the X Games anyway.  When did you last watch the street luge?

Winter Olympics – FUCK YES

– Simon Copland

It’s simple. The Winter Olympics are fucking awesome. They are so awesome they are clearly better than the Summer Olympics. And anyone who disagrees obviously doesn’t understand the meaning of the word awesome.

Here’s why.

First, Winter Olympic sports are far more interesting than Summer Olympic Sports. Just look at the racing. The speed, danger and exhilaration of skiers going over 130km an hour in the downhill skiing. The excitement of watching speed skaters nudging each other out as they take on the short course. The sheer stupidity, yet at the same time the brilliance, of the skeleton. In each and every way these competitions are far more interesting that the relative snore that is the swimming and athletics that dominates the summer scene.

But, wait there’s more! Because then you add on the aerial ski jumping. A feast of aerobatics that is as every bit as dangerous as it is enjoyable. And the long ski jumping. I mean when did someone first think it was a good idea to try and jump over 130 metres on skis? I don’t know when, but I’m glad they did! Even the figure skating, whilst with fewer categories, clearly competes with its summer counterpart in the gymnastics. The skill, speed and danger of that sport is amazing.

I guess the only critique available is the lack of team sports. But the Winter Olympics makes up for it by making their one team sport the best sport you could really ask for: ice hockey! In what other sport do players smash so hard into the walls that they obliterate the glass barriers! You fine me another sport like that and I will definitely watch it.

And that’s the other thing – the Winter Olympics are brutal. Nearly every sport involves a huge level of risk – whether it’s the risk of crashing on the mountain, or quickly losing your footing on your skates. Players are putting their bodies on the line and that makes for a feast not only of daring competition, but of one that is bloody exciting to watch.

It’s not just about the joy of watching the crashes – in these sports you have to get it right. One slip up and you are gone. These sports are brutal, not just in their danger level, but in the consequences of what happens when you make a mistake. These competitors have to be at their best or they are out. Who could ask for a better sort of competition?

Watch the Summer Olympics and you can see the pressure on the competitors – people braking down when they ‘only’ manage to finish second. Whilst the Winter Olympics are of course competitive, I have never seen competitions where opponents are so excited to see others do well. Where people are literally jumping up and down for joy because they got a bronze, or simply because they made the final. Or where the first reaction of the person who just lost the gold medal is to run over to their competitor, congratulate them and give them a big hug.

The Winter Olympics embodies more of what sport should be about. Competition, but with an understanding that enjoying the sport is more important. That challenging yourself is more important. And that those who beat you deserve a thorough congratulations. The Winter Olympics embodies everything that should be good about sport.

And if all of that didn’t convince you, I have one more word to say: curling.

And if curling doesn’t convince you, you don’t deserve to be convinced. You can have your Summer Olympics and we’ll keep the Winter Games for all the cool kids.

Originally published in Mammamia, 7 February, 2014

Should Australia have boycotted the Sochi Olympics?

As we head into the Sochi Olympics this week, a cloud continues to hang over the games. Russia’s anti-gay and lesbian crackdown has made international headlines, bringing into question the right of the country to host the Olympics.

Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin, signed legislation that banned “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors”.

The law is extensive, fundamentally threatening the rights of anyone to publicly express any gay-rights sentiment. The bill is shaped off similar legislation that was adopted in St Petersburg two and a half years ago. It also follows multiple bans on gay pride marches in Moscow, fines given to gay rights groups who have been accused of acting as ‘foreign agents’ and the denial registration to other non-governmental organisations. Alongside all of this, violence, intimidation and harassment has risen.

In other words it is very bad. An awful attack on some pretty basic democratic rights.

The question therefore must be asked, should we have boycotted the Olympics? Should we have made Russia pay the ultimate price for their crackdown? And are we sending the wrong message – that you can attack rights and not suffer because of it – by attending, and watching, the games?

You can read the full article at Mamamia.com.au 

The debate over the Coalition’s decision to not provide assistance to SPC Ardmona in northern Victorian seems unlikely to end any time soon. The Liberal MP for Murray, Sharman Stone, in particular has done all she can to make sure the decision is revisited, publicly moving directly against her own party line, to the extent where she has even called Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey liars over their claims about SPC’s working conditions.

It has been an interesting and significant debate both within the Coalition Government, and the broader community. It has been a debate that, through an active and public engagement by Coalition MPs in particular, has furthered our understanding of the issue significantly. A debate, that whilst including some serious accusations (those of lying), has been important for our policy-making process. Yet, that is not how many would have read it. Reading between the lines on most stories what you would have read is ‘split in the Coalition’, ‘in-fighting’ and a Prime Minister losing support. It is something that often happens when we see debates within political parties – a continuing contradiction within many parts of the modern media apparatus, and the public in general, which demands democracy within political parties, yet then quickly slaps parties down when this democracy is shown in public.

We love to discuss the democratic apparatus within modern political parties, and are quick to criticise political parties when democratic deficits are perceived. This has been one of the biggest criticisms of the ALP in recent years; many opinion writers and journalists have been quick to investigate and point out the fatal lack of democracy within some parts of the party. It is this push that led Kevin Rudd to implement a range of party reforms last year, including a member vote for the leadership last year.

Other parties also expect this investigation. The opening of the Greens national conferences and councils has been a constant speculation for the media. Many have been quick to claim hypocrisy from the party that demands open and accountable Government. Many journalists have also been quick to criticise Tony Abbott as being authoritarian in Government, with significant power centered at the top, and in particular within the office of his chief of staff.

These criticisms are fair. Democracy and accountability are essential in political parties, particularly if we expect these parties to safeguard our national democracy. And all our major parties have some way to improve in their democratic practices.

Yet, when we see the way the media reacts to genuine events of democracy in political parties, you can see why parties shy away from it.

Just look at the recent debate about SPC. For me that is the sign of a strong democracy within a political party – the Cabinet made a decision and MPs who disagreed with it have had the right to speak out about it. And yes, the debate is a story – in particular the accusations of lying. That is a relatively big deal. But in making those accusation – in calling out what she believes to be wrong – Sharman Stone has actively extended the debate, clearly both within the broader public and within the Liberals. That is an important thing.

But, despite the desire for democracy in our political parties, much of the commentary around Stone’s comments have had the tone of a ‘split’ within the Government. It even got to the point where yesterday on Twitter people were starting the fun old game of talking about a potential spill for the Liberal leadership. Many are also speculating that Stone will soon leave the party. One public disagreement and everything blows up.

It’s a common theme. For four years, any level of disquiet, questioning or debate within the ALP led to a barrage of stories about splits in the party and questioning about their leadership. Stories such as the ALP Cabinet moving against Julia Gillard’s position on Israel opened up many questions about the stability of her leadership. Even just people having meetings can create stories. A couple of years ago, The Daily Telegraph ran a story reporting on a ‘secret meeting’ of the young Greens, with minutes ‘catching the party out’ in trying to use the issue of asylum seekers to recruit new members. Apparently an open and frank discussion about policies, member outreach and party procedures within a party meeting was considered a major scandal for the paper.

We want democracy within our parties, but if it happens, we turn it into a scandal – a lack of unity, a leadership spill, a disquiet in the ranks.

When we look at it this way, it is very easy to see why so many are so concerned within political parties about showing any form of internal disagreement publicly. As the former Convenor of the ACT Greens for example I remember stressing heavily about how my words would reflect on the party. The one time I did contradict party policy it led to an attack piece in the Australian. This sort of reality plays out a lot – everyone acknowledges the need for democracy, but any time it is shown, at least publicly, many in the media are quick to turn it into a scandal.

Democracy, transparency and accountability within political parties is essential. We need to have democratic and open parties in order for our own democracy to survive. Unfortunately it seems as though many in our media are simply not capable of dealing with the debates and difficulties of democracy within our political parties. Over-excited claims of splits, fights and divisions are too common within our media. If journalists and opinion writers genuinely want to see the nitty gritty of political democracy, it is about time they learnt to deal with the realities of how it works.

Originally published in Limited News, 4 February, 2014

It has been a tragic start to the week. On Sunday actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in his apartment in New York.  Seymour Hoffman was absolutely one of my favourite actors – a sentiment I believe was probably felt around the world. He was widely considered one of the greatest of his generation. His death is a tragic end to a career that could have lasted for decades more.

Seymour Hoffman’s death once again opens up an uncomfortable conversation, but one we must continue to have – that of drug abuse. It seems almost certain that Seymour Hoffman died of a drug overdose. He was found dead alone in his bathroom, a syringe still sticking out of his arm. Two plastic bags were found near him containing what is believed to be heroin.

Seymour Hoffman has often been open about his drug addiction. In an interview he stated that he was heavily addicted to drugs in his early twenties, but got clean after the age of 22. Last year he checked himself into a rehabilitation centre after a reliance on prescription pills resulted in him turning once again to heroin. It is almost certain now that he succumbed to that addiction.

His story is one of perseverance, a man who was able to overcome his addiction and pursue what was an extremely successful career. It is also however the story of a shocking relapse – something that is often found in heroin users – highlighting the reality that for many drug addiction rarely goes away forever, and that it can come, often with shocking consequences.

This is the sort of story we often hear when we connect drug addiction to those we love – the celebrities, artists, musicians and performers we revere in our society. We tell the story of the artist who almost hit rock bottom in their quest for more drugs – the story of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Yoko Ono, Elton John, Neil Young or so many others who almost succumbed to drugs, but managed to get themselves out. We celebrate the lives of those we lost too soon – Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse and now Philip Seymour Hoffman. We sometimes even celebrate and laugh the drug use of the artists we love – just think about how many times the story of what the song ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ means, a story told with a laugh and a smile on one’s face. We cherish the idea of ‘drugs, sex and rock n’ roll’ as if it is almost a lifestyle we should all live up to.

These are the stories of the celebrities and their drug addictions. The stories told in books, newspapers and folklore of those who have struggled and have survived, and those who struggled and that we unfortunately lost too soon. The stories of those who didn’t struggle, but instead made great art – the story of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll.

I cannot help but notice that it is a story that only a few are privy too.

In the midst of the sadness and outpouring of grief over Seymour Hoffman’s death, one noted newspaper went another direction. In a story about his death Australia’s Daily Telegraphdecided to go with the headline ‘Kids grieve for junkie actor dad’. The headline, of course, has been met with a decent amount of outrage, not just in Australia, but around the world. It is a truly insensitive way to treat his death, an insensitive way to treat his children, and a ridiculous framing of the issue of drug addiction. The headline screams person who couldn’t control himself, a person who was reckless, a person who was the scum of the Earth – simply because of his addiction. It is what we read when we see the word ‘junkie’, and it is certainly what we mean when we say it.

It is for that reason that the Daily Telegraph deserved to be slammed for their headline. From all accounts Seymour Hoffman was not like this – he was a man struggling through an addiction, a struggle he unfortunately lost. As I read the outrage though I could not help but think that it amounted to quite a bit of hypocrisy. It’s not as if the Daily Telegraph is the first paper, or the first person, to use the word ‘junkie’. It is a pretty common term, and one that rarely gets condemned in the way it has this week. It is a term I hear within friendship groups, it is a term I see regularly on the Internet, it is a term that is rarely challenged, nor questioned.

I cannot help but think what the reaction would have been to the Daily Telegraph’s headline if it was just about a ‘regular guy’ – a man on the street who had lost his life and left his kids behind. I suspect, unfortunately, that such a headline would have been met with a collective ‘meh’. Even worse, it probably would have been, by many at least, shared and retold as a true story of the scourge of junkies in our society. The mistake the Daily Telegraph made was not in using the word ‘junkie’ but in simply applying it to the wrong person. They told the wrong story at the wrong time.

I cannot tell you how we should talk about drug abuse and drug addiction. As someone who has never gone through it myself I cannot develop that story. In fact, even just through reading about it I am certain that the story is different for so many different people, so much so that we cannot develop one narrative to suit everyone.

One thing I am sure of is that we tell different stories about drug abuse depending on one’s position in society. If you are rich, famous, or revered for what you do, the story of drug addiction is one of a struggle – a disease you have either overcome or unfortunately succumbed too. If you are anyone else, the story is quite different – it is one of you being a junkie, a lowlife, someone who can’t control themselves and is the scum of the Earth.

Seymour Hoffman’s death is tragic, and it should be treated as such. He was a talent lost too soon, a man whose career was cut off when there was so much potential left. A man who was lost to the scourge of drug addiction. In his death though we can see a contradiction. This story, that of struggle and pain, is generally only one provided to men of Hoffman’s stature. It is the story that fits so many, but the story we are most willing to ignore. The story we must be willing to tell much more.

Originally published in New Matilda, 4 February, 2014

Originally published in SBS News, 20 January, 2014

Last week was one of contrasts in the politics of information around asylum seekers. It began when Immigration Minister Scott Morrison confirmed that he would cease his weekly media briefings about ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ and would instead hold press conferences ‘as the need arose’. Morrison’s policy of silence however was quickly undone as he left no time to deny claims the Navy directed warning shots to an asylum seeker boatnear Christmas Island. Clearly this issue was not one of ‘operational matters’.

The week highlights the depths of the quandary Morrison has gotten himself into. In cutting off all information sources Morrison has left a massive vacuum – a vacuum that the media is destined to fill.

Yet, whilst the critique of Morrison’s information blackout continues, one question remains to be asked. When it comes to asylum seekers, or any other policy matter, what information does the Government actually owe us?

For most the answer to that question is quite simple. Governments should be ‘open and accountable’. They should provide as much information as possible to allow for as much scrutiny as possible.

But of course, it’s more complex than that. How open and accountable for example? What are the limits? And how, when and why should Governments be releasing this sort of information? The asylum case provides a perfect example of what this complexity looks like.

Much of the current controversy arose after the Coalition decided to stop sending media releases every time a boat arrived. It was the first sign of an increasing level of secrecy – and a hypocritical one at that! And whilst yes it was hypocritical that doesn’t mean it was bad policy. The regular media releases provided little to no benefit to the Australian community. In fact, they harmed the debate by making it a major story every time a boat arrived – stirring furore every time. Cutting this furore off at its source therefore had the potential to calm down the debate, with real positives to come with that. It was a case where open and accountable – at least not in a proactive manner – wasn’t necessarily best.

But here is where it becomes more complex again. Because after the initial media release announcement the Government has gone much further. Using that well quoted phrase ‘operational matters’, restrictions on information have become more ridiculous every day. The Government is now not only refusing to push information out proactively, but are also failing a basic duty to respond to questions when asked. It may seem like a fine line, but it is an important one.

Part of the reason this is problematic comes down to trust. The Governments’ hiding of the facts, even when questioned directly, has clearly, and rightfully, created suspicion. Whilst this doesn’t mean the Government is hiding anything damaging, it opens the doors for those questions to be asked. But more than that this is an issue of transparency – a failure in being open and accountable at even a basic level. Whilst the Government does not necessarily need to be pushing out this information, it certainly shouldn’t be holding it back in the way it has done.

The last few days have shown what a quandary Scott Morrison has got himself into. But in dealing with it we shouldn’t just assume that he owes us everything, all the time. His basic denial of any form of information is a shocking treatment of our democratic system, but we also need to be a bit more nuanced in the way we engage with the Government about the information they provide. Open and accountable, whilst a great ideal, is a complex one too.

This article was originally published on SBS News. Click here to view the original. © All rights reserved. 

Originally published in SBS News, 15 January, 2014

If it weren’t clear already, it has to be by now. Last week, polling conducted by the Sydney Morning Herald showed that:

A strong majority of Australians, 60 per cent, (also) want the Abbott government to “increase the severity of the treatment of asylum seekers.”

It has confirmed everything many have thought for a long time. Australians are clearly just a bunch of racists who want to punish asylum seekers for the sake of punishing them. No matter how harsh we are, whether it is denying asylum to anyone who comes by boat, or locking people up in cruel conditions in detentions centres, all we want to do is hurt people more and more. We clearly hate asylum seekers.

Clearly the question we need to answer is ‘why’? It is the question I, amongst many others, have been asking for ages. Why are we so disposed to hate people whose only crime is to come to Australia by boat? Why are we so determined to treat people so cruelly? Why is this such a defining issue for Australian politics?

Looking into it however, I cannot help but think that we’re asking the wrong question. Because when I ask the question, ‘why do we hate asylum seekers’, the only response I can come up with is ‘we don’t’.

Let’s just have a look at some evidence. Because if you look around you can see that whilst of course racism exists in Australia, it is hard to find it to be the only or even the overwhelming cause of our policies directed towards asylum seekers. Richard Cooke explains it like this (a long quote I know, but Cooke explains it better than I could):

Take Europe as a control group – it’s often favourably featured in those infographics – and the contrast is telling. Political parties far to the right of a One Nation wet dream hold serious political sway in Austria, the Netherlands, France, Finland, Italy, Greece, Belgium, Denmark, Hungary and the Baltic states. In many of these places they have the power to make or break governments, or even challenge for presidencies. Cynics might say Australia’s political system dealt with the lunar right by incorporating its ideas, but there is little in the Liberal or Labor platforms that would placate supporters of the Front National.

There’s a simple reason that other Western countries have more anti-immigration political parties than Australia – their populations are significantly more racially intolerant. In Italy 94% of people say immigration is a ‘big problem’. Three-quarters of the French say Islam is incompatible with their values. In 2003, at the height of ‘we will decide’ fever, Australia was the country polled second most favourably disposed to immigration, behind only Canada. More than 60% of us said we wanted immigration to increase or stay the same. In Germany that figure was 22%. These are not cherry-picked figures, but representations of a long-standing and broad trend. For a bunch of racists, we are unusually tolerant.

This ‘toleration’ can be seen in anecdotal evidence around the country. For example, a petition to stop the deportation of Pakistani man Ali Choudhry last week amassed over 140,000 signatures within a matter of days, whilst organisations such as the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre have amassed so much non-Government funding that they can hire 45 staff members. Clearly there is some compassion out there. The recent concern for ‘deaths at sea’ is the mainstream expression of this compassion. Whilst many (including myself) have seen it as simply a cover-up of real reasons for new policies, it has clearly captured the emotions of many – emotions I simply cannot argue are fake.

This is not to say that racism doesn’t occur in Australia, nor is it to deny the experiences of racism that immigrants often face. Racism and just general hatred are clearly part of the picture. But I just don’t think it paints a full picture at all.

So what is the answer then? If we are so tolerant, why do continue to treat asylum seekers with such cruelty, and then demand even more. Well, to quote Bill Clinton, “it’s the economy stupid.” Tad Tietze explains it like this:

Those reasons (for the continued asylum debate) are defined primarily by the political needs of elites to create scapegoats and distractions for their failure to provide security to ordinary people already living here – not of borders, but of a social kind. That is, they seek to displace social insecurity into a defence of national integrity, here in the form of ‘border security’, in the process shifting blame for social ills onto an external ‘other’ that is threatening to invade and disrupt our livelihoods and cohesion. While previously the natural territory of the Right, the mainstream Left has been drawn into playing this game the more it has abandoned its traditional support base in favour of pro-corporate neoliberal policies.”

In a neoliberal world, in which economic insecurity in particular is on the rise, our politicians have used asylum seekers as scapegoats to deal with their economic failures. They’ve used them as scapegoats to avoid any backlash for the problems their neoliberal policies are causing.

We can see good examples of this from around the world. In Greece for example, there has been a strong correlation between the recent economic crisis and opposition to immigration. The right in Greece, in particular the far-right as represented by Golden Dawn, have targeted immigrants as the reason for the country’s economic problems. This has represented a potential failure of others to clearly articulate the real issues going on (noting of course that the far left SYRIZA have grown in Greece as well) – the failures of neoliberalism and the EU economic policies that have become part of that.

If you want to find some of the best evidence for this in Australia, you should go back and look at the poll I quoted at the start of the article. As well as finding that 60% of people want the Government to treat asylum seekers more harshly, it also found that 59% of people thought that those coming by boat were not genuine refugees.

The statistic is telling as it reflect a concerted campaign by Governments, both ALP and Coalition. We know the stories. Asylum seekers are simply economic refugees. They spend ‘thousands of dollars’ to come here, which clearly shows that they are rich and are just doing this for economic gain. They are here to ‘steal our jobs’. It has always played part in the asylum narrative – a narrative that recently expanded out targeting people on 457 visas. The asylum, and immigration narrative in general, has become one about economics.

And this is on purpose. It is a concerted campaign. Asylum seekers, and now immigrants in general, have become scapegoats for our economic insecurity. Shielding ourselves from the economic concerns we face today, we have placed the blame on immigrants – whether it is asylum seekers or those on 457 visas.

So what is the solution?

Whilst the work and campaigns done by advocates should continue – work that taps into our values of compassion and concern for others – a new angle also needs to be taken. We cannot just think of asylum and immigration politics as just being about race and compassion anymore. It is also about economics. And that means that the left needs to do a better job at attacking our economic realities. We need to target the real causes of the problems we face – the neoliberal economic agenda and the Government policies that have supported that.

The right has done an excellent job of targeting asylum seekers using economic means and what we need to do now is turn that around – showing that it is in fact our leaders who are causing these problems, not people arriving here by boat.

This article was originally published on SBS News. Click here to view the original. © All rights reserved. 

 

Originally published in SBS, 14 January, 2014

The Abbott government has vowed to slash 8,000 “redundant” laws as part of its pledge to “slash red and green tape.” Let’s not cut and run on environmental safety, writes Simon Copland.

On Monday, The Australian revealed, that the Abbott Government is planning a special ‘repeal day’ scheduled for the last Parliamentary sitting day in March. The aim, apparently, is to repeal 8,000 pieces of ‘redundant’ federal laws, with Cabinet Ministers being given six weeks to prepare submissions on what legislation should be repealed.

Repeal day is part of the Abbott Governments long publicised plans to ‘slash red and green tape’.

The aim, as the Coalition explains it, is to ‘streamline processes’, make our Government more ‘efficient’, reduce costs for businesses, and boost productivity and economic growth. Josh Frydenberg, the man placed in charge of the agenda, wrote in the Australian on Monday:

“Every industry and every stakeholder has their own horror story about the costly and detrimental impact of burdensome regulation.”

It is probably true that Abbott’s war will lead to these goals. It will make life a lot easier for businesses. But this week we have been given a picture of picture of what that actually means; a picture of the the impacts of cutting regulations, particularly the so called evil ‘green tape’.

In West Virginia in the United States, a massive chemical spill in the Elk River has cut water supplies to 300,000 people. Water has been cut to residents in the capital of the state Charleston, with residents “urged not to use tap water for drinking, cooking, washing or bathing.” Water cannot even be boiled safely, with the federal Government being forced to declare a state of emergency, and bottled water being shipped into the city to sustain the population. Many businesses, Government offices and schools have been forced to shut, whilst emergency rooms in the city’s hospitals have treated 169 patients due to chemical related illnesses.

It could be easy to argue that the spill is a one-off event – an accident that has nothing to do with environmental regulations. But when you look closer, it is hard to make that case. With a large coal industry West Virginia has long been known as an anti-environmentalist state, which has actively spurned environmental regulation (the 2010 election campaign featured an advertisement where the the Democratic Senator, Joe Manchin, shot a copy of the cap and trade legislation). As critics have pointed out, this is the result of this approach.

Research into exactly how and why this chemical spill happened is still underway, but lax regulations are already copping some of the blame. For example, when constructed, the storage facility that leaked was placed almost directly next to the Elk River, meaning that any spill – whether small or large – was destined to pollute the city’s water. The facility had also not been inspected since 1991, leaving very little oversight of its operations. West Virginia does not require inspections of chemical storage facilities, meaning that faults and problems can easily be missed or ignored by operators.

This is not the first time West Virginia has faced water problems. A New York Times special investigation in 2009 showed that the state’s lax approach to water safety regulations was having a real impact on people. The article starts describing the situation many in West Virginia face:

“Jennifer Hall-Massey knows not to drink the tap water in her home near Charleston, W.Va.

In fact, her entire family tries to avoid any contact with the water. Her youngest son has scabs on his arms, legs and chest where the bathwater — polluted with lead, nickel and other heavy metals — caused painful rashes. Many of his brother’s teeth were capped to replace enamel that was eaten away.”

This is the reality.

While Tony Abbott will tell you that all environmental regulations do is hamper businesses from creating jobs and building the economy, these events in West Virginia are showing what they’re really about – and what can happen when we let them slip. Environment regulations are there to protect our rivers from mass chemical spills that could leave us without drinking for days on end. They’re there to keep our air clean, our drinking water safe, and our land protected. And whilst it may be hard to see Australia heading down the path where we can’t even drink our water, this is what could happen if we continue to let big businesses have their way through cutting essential regulations at every point.

Vital protections that keep our drinking water safe, our air clean, and our communities protected are much more than just tape.

This article was originally published on SBS News. Click here to view the original. © All rights reserved.

Originally published on SBS News, 8 January, 2014.