Thread by @DrJeremyWalker

Good question! 🧵1/16 . Price and Mundine are uncritically platformed to campaign against Voice, Treaty & Truth. Evidence suggests they speak not with the authority of any First Nations community but for fossil fuel/mining corporates. #auspol #voteyes❤️💛🖤👇

https://twitter.com/QuentinDempster/status/1662667599728222208

2/16 The anti-Voice campaign is being run by the Australian branch of the global Atlas Network of 500+ neoliberal ‘research institutes’, esp. the Centre for Independent Studies, which fosters the careers of Mundine and Price.👇

cis.org.au/person/nyungga…
cis.org.au/person/jacinta…

3/16 I research the global organisation of climate policy obstruction since the 1980s via Big Oil funded Atlas ‘think tanks’. These are usually run by the elite members of the invite-only Mont Pelerin Society: John Howard is one.

web.archive.org/web/2020062005…

desmog.com/wp-content/upl…

4/16. CIS was founded in 1976 with $$ from Murdoch, Santos Shell BHP WMC and Rio Tinto as an arms-length front to run propaganda against the Whitlam ALP agenda of resource nationalism, environmental law, land rights, free education and healthcare.
(P. Kelly 1992 End of Certainty)

5/16. Key Australian Atlas organiser, central to climate science denial and policy defeat, was mining lobbyist Hugh Morgan, who began meetings “acknowledging the traditional owners of this country: King George III, his heirs and assigns.” @dominickelly_

desmog.com/lavoisier-grou…

6/16. Whitlam promised FN mob a veto on unwanted mining. Anti-Voice PR tactics echo RioTinto's from 1980:
“Giving mineral rights..to Aboriginals and not to other landholders is divisive..Aboriginal title to land should be held on the same basis as that of any other Australian.”

7/16. Anti-voice fundraising is run by agitprop unit Advance Australia, set up by Maurice Newman (MPS), a climate denier and adviser to Adani’s insurance broker, who helped set up the CIS back in the 1970s.

afr.com/politics/feder…

web.archive.org/web/2019031210…

8/16. The Atlas affiliated IPA, est. 1943 by Keith Murdoch, RioTinto and BHP, funded by Rupert and coal baron Gina, has had many oil, gas and mining execs on its board, also runs anti-climate & anti-Voice campaigns.

ipa.org.au/ipa-tv/austral…

9/16. Few articles mention the Atlas and its links it to big oil, but here's one. Canadian Atlas units defeated laws to recognise First Nations rights under UNDRIP, to protect oilsands corporate profits. Very similar tactics at play now in #auspol.

theguardian.com/environment/20…

10/16. Atlas was also key to the election of far-right, neofascist anti-Indigenous govts in South America -e.g of Balsonaro.

theintercept.com/2017/08/09/atl…

11/16. In the UK, climate protestors now face major jail sentences, which was unheard of only a year or two back. Apparently activists are forbidden from even saying in court why they protest, eg. no mention of climate emergency allowed as in defence.

euronews.com/green/2023/04/…

12/16. The authoritarian turn in policing by the UK Tory government was prompted by an Exxon funded Atlas-linked unit called Policy Exchange.

opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-…

See also amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

13/16. Now look who is the registered owner of Policy Exchange: Howard’s foreign minister Alexander Downer. Also David Frum, George W. Bush speechwriter.

opencorporates.com/companies/gb/0…

opencorporates.com/officers/29015…

14/16. Another UK Atlas-linked org is the science denial and anti-climate policy unit the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Look who is the new board director: ex Australian PM Tony Abbott.

…te.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/069627…

15/16. For a history of the Australian MPS/Atlas Network and their role in the Dismissal and climate policy obstruction, see my chapter “Freedom to Burn: Mining Propaganda, Fossil Capital, and the Australian Neoliberals” in this book:

Draft version here: researchgate.net/publication/35…

16/16. Thanks for reading. If any serious journalists want to learn more about this, report on it, and interview me please hit my DMs.

#auspol #voteyes #ClimateEmergency

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