Federal Labour's Environment spokesman Peter Garrett has slammed at the POTUS (President Of The United States) George W Bush saying that he is no supporter of the U.S' Enviroment Policy.
The POTUS will arrive for APEC in Sydney this week and Australian PM John Howard has told the nation time and time again that climate change will be at the top of the "agenda" after golf and climing the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
-Opinion-
John Howard has told us in every press conference in the last week that talk on climate change will take up the majority of time at APEC. But is this going to be another Kyoto? Hardly if Australia and the U.S is getting serious about climate change then sign the Kyoto agreement. I see this as a ploy against Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd's popular Climate Change policy.
-Opinion-
Former Midnight Oil front man Peter Garrett went on ABC television this morning to say that Bush "has not shown global leadership on climate change"
He went on to say "I'm not a great fan of President Bush and his policies," Mr Garrett said.
"Particularly in terms of climate change, I think that it's held the world back, frankly, and the great tragedy is that Australia's been a part of it."
PM Howard has hit back at Peter Garrett's comments saying that "the criticism shows Labor's divisions on the Australia-US alliance."
"President Bush is the democratically elected President of the United States, he's the democratically elected President of our most important ally," Thee PM stated.
"I thought Mr Garrett's comments indicated the deep tensions within the Labor party regarding the American alliance."
Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has tried to dumb down the remarks saying that "the American alliance would remain strong under a Labor government, despite some key differences of opinion."
"I think what Mr Garrett was talking about was his concerns about policies on climate change and policies on Iraq," Mr Rudd said.
"When it comes to the overall relationship with the United States, I am a life-long supporter of our alliance with the United States.
That doesn't budge one bit, never has budged one bit."
With APEC starting very soon its only going to get more interesting.
Tim Cooke
Editor at Large
(Photo from Getty Images: Patrick Riviere)
