Exclusive: My fight with Big Dirt, by Kevin Rudd. As told to the Herald's Peter Hartcher

(Note to subs -- first draft only. Please update when Dorling sends WikiLeaks cables. P.H.)

Peter Hartcher in The Sydney Morning Herald on May 29:

ONE of the most mistaken ideas to take hold in politics in recent weeks is that Kevin Rudd has somehow been shocked that the big miners are reacting ferociously to his proposed new mining tax.

To believe this, you'd have to think Rudd some sort of moron.

Rudd wanted a fight. That's the whole point.

Rudd is like Michael Palin in the Monty Python scene where he enters an office and says to a receptionist: "I'd like to have an argument, please."

The receptionist replies: "Do you want to have the full argument or were you thinking of taking a course?"

Luckily for Rudd, the big miners were too dumb. He got his fight.

The large mining firms -- Big Dirt, as distinct from Big Oil -- have responded with angry public bluster, threats and exaggeration.

These companies are playing exactly to type. They show a well-honed lack of self-awareness.

So when the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, counters with very aggressive and inflammatory rhetoric, accusing the miners of being "ignorant or liars," he can get away with it. But why would Rudd go looking for an argument?

First, it is designed to make him look strong. Second, it is set up to position him as the champion of the values of Australian fairness against the miners' self-interest. Third, it makes Rudd a fighter on behalf of "working families". He wants to be the little Aussie David fighting the greedy foreign Goliaths on behalf of his people. And that's why all the speculation this week of an imminent Rudd U-turn is misguided.

Why did God give us Climategate emails when we've got back copies of The Independent? March 20, 2000:

BRITAIN'S winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives. Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters -- which scientists are attributing to global climate change -- produce not only fewer white Christmases but fewer white Januaries and Februaries. According to David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit of the University of East Anglia, within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event". "Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, December 20:

WHY did the Met Office forecast a "mild winter"?

Nathan Reo in Britain's Daily Express, October 28:

THE Met Office, using data generated by a pound stg. 33 million supercomputer, claims Britain can stop worrying about a big freeze this year because we could be in for a milder winter than in past years. The new figures, which show a 60 per cent to 80 per cent chance of warmer than average temperatures this winter, were ridiculed last night by independent forecasters. Positive Weather Solutions senior forecaster Jonathan Powell said: "It baffles me how the Met Office can predict a milder than average winter when all the indicators show this winter will have parallels to the last one. They are standing alone here, as ourselves and other independent forecasters are all predicting a colder than average winter."

Ross Clark in the Daily Express, December 3:

ONE reason we have been so unprepared for the past three winters has been the obsession of our government and other authorities with global warming.

Dominic Lawson in The Sunday Times, January 10:

A PERIOD of humility and even silence would be particularly welcome from the Met Office, our leading institutional advocate of the perils of man-made global warming, which had promised a "barbecue summer" in 2009 and one of the "warmest winters on record".

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