OLIVER SOFTY
A lump of coal appeared at a Liberal fund-raising event last week, causing one of the party’s emerging catastrophist wing to suffer some sort of carbon dioxide-based panic attack.
A lump of coal appeared at a Liberal fund-raising event last week, causing one of the party’s emerging catastrophist wing to suffer some sort of carbon dioxide-based panic attack.
Oliver Yates claims he was horrified by the naturally-occurring inert substance:
The former head of the Clean Energy Finance Corp, Oliver Yates, says he was ejected from a Liberal Party fund-raising event in Melbourne after loudly objecting to the presentation of a lump of brown coal to the federal Treasurer Scott Morrison …
Yates said Senator Jane Hume – whom he had been sitting next to – went to the stage and offered the lump of brown coal as a gesture of appreciation from the Victorian Liberal Party to Morrison, and to applaud the fact that he had brandished his own lump of coal in parliament.
Yates told RenewEconomy he was horrified by the gesture and loudly objected, at which point he was asked to leave the event.
“It’s pathetic. What are they thinking?” Yates said.
“We do not need to tolerate this and we should not have to tolerate this. How completely out of touch are they to believe that as Liberal Party members that we do not care for the environment or our future.
“They are knowingly stoking the fires of the destruction (of our planet) … they are on the wrong side of history,” he said, before adding that his father, the former Liberal MP William Yates would “turn in his grave.”
The senior Yates was an unusual fellow.