Is the Prime Minister’s Office serious about addressing climate change? Is it even serious about getting an emissions trading scheme through the Senate?
Its handling of the release of the Green Paper suggests its focus is on politics, first and last.
This morning from 9.30 there’ll be two separate lock-up style briefings on the Green Paper, held at the swish new Hotel Realm near Parliament House, and just across the road from the Press Club.
One is for select media (mainstream only — Crikey and other non-mainstream media weren’t informed about it), the other for industry stakeholders and environment groups.
The Coalition, the Greens and the independent senators were not invited to either.
It’s usual in Budget lock-ups for other parties to get access. Apart from anything else, it’s a simple courtesy to one’s political opponents to allow them to respond in real time to a massive document.
Not with the Green Paper. The Greens didn’t even know there was a lock-up until told by journalists. They, and the Opposition, immediately demanded a briefing on the Paper. Nelson’s office sent two letters to the PMO, and essentially was told to get stuffed. After considerable toing and froing, the Government eventually agreed to a half-hour briefing at 11.30am today.
I said back in February when Ross Garnaut released his interim report that if Kevin Rudd was serious about a bipartisan approach to climate change and maximising his chances of achieving a workable emissions trading scheme, he should engage Brendan Nelson as much as possible.
This probably wouldn’t have stopped the Coalition running a scare campaign on an ETS, but at least Rudd would’ve made the effort, and adopted the high moral ground.
Judging by the management of the Green Paper’s release, bipartisanship is the last thing on the Government’s mind. It has carefully released key details of the scheme overnight, guaranteeing it headlines about offsetting petrol price increases.
Other parties have had to scramble to respond. Given Wong’s release at lunchtime, without a briefing for the Opposition and Greens, the Government would’ve had clear media space for most of the day.
And the stakeholder lock-up briefing runs until 12.15pm, ensuring environment and industry groups can’t get out and offer comment before Wong starts her Press Club address.
It’s cynical stuff, and suggests the PMO regards climate change as just another issue to play politics with. According to Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt, there’s been no attempt by the Government behind the scenes to engage the Opposition on the ETS issue.
But as the Greens note, even if the Prime Minister’s staff don’t especially care about climate change as a serious, rather than political, issue, you’d think they’d care about getting it through the Senate. The Government needs either the Coalition or the Greens and the independents to pass the ETS.
Simple political nous might suggest the Government would be making an effort to engage the Greens and the independent senators even if they want to play hardball with the Coalition.
Instead it’s media spin and politicking. This issue deserves far better.
How can anyone engage Brendan and his cohorts when at the first opportunity they shafted Rudd with their silly petrol scare. The liberals NEVER talk about the effects of the do nothing option. The reason for this is the Liberal power brokers are all denialists. People who understand the science and the potential effects of global warming are much more frightened of this than higher petrol costs. The denialists and skeptics say they “won’t be around if/when it happens”, but their kids will. I wonder whether they will thank them for their poor judgement?
“On one side, there were gays that started producing homosexual movies that villified the outback heterosexuals, while championing Keating as their icon of alternative masculinities. On the other side, the outback responded to the villification by supporting the One Nation party.
Keating’s decision to get divorced after losing office, and his lifestyle since divorce, offers food for thought on why he was driven away from the traditional forms of Australian masculinity, and why he set the wheels in motion for alternative lifestyles”
From: http://www.convictcreations.com/history/primemine.htm
I don’t think he lives with his son Dave and it’s not much of a secret.
For what it’s worth I thought he was a brilliant leader. I am still a ‘fan’
…and I thought I was cynical! On the apparent reluctance of the government to engage the opposition, Greens and independents in bipartisanship over the Rudd/Wong Green Paper and a future ETS: perhaps the issue will provide a useful trigger for a double dissolution if passage of the resulting bill fails in the senate. The ALP can then claim that the Greens and opposition are obstructionist and cannot be trusted with bargaining power over crucial policy, and that Labor is the only party that can handle the big environmental issues. Furthermore, the government could campaign for another election on the issue of climate change but without having introduced any tough laws or an ETS, which right now appears to be a pretty big liability leading up to a poll, particularly when there is no bipartisan agreement or compact.
Now sure, it’s a given that the Liberals are compelled by populism but the Greens? It’s hard to see why Labor would be intent on freezing out prospective senate partners and antagonising them by entertaining ‘select media’ and industry stakeholders while keeping non-Labor MPs in the dark.
Guys – if you want to say something persuasive about climate effects, why bog yourselves down in this hissy-fit cat fight? And Marilyn, this 1980s feminist spleen is, well, passe. Above all, measures to deal with climate change require a national approach; our PM needs to insist on leading a national movement – an approach that lies well above the daily spin cycle of the PM’s office machine.
Hugh Mackay, more reliably informed about Australians’ attitudes and beliefs on big issues than any politician I’ve observed, gave the PM the green light some days ago to take a statesman-like lead on strategic and painful climate measures – saying Australians are ready to takes the hits to deal with climate.
The issue is wheteher the PM has the personal imagination and bottle to grab this chance. Or are we faced with a pale shadow of the rather more imaginative Whitlam government, brought down in this case by lack of vison reaching even to the head?
Kevin Rudd & Co is going to meet with most of the top 1000 polluters in this country to work out a deal.
Well lets make sure that there are transparent declaration of donations to the Labour party from each of the top 10000 polluters.
What a joke is this policy but it guarantees unlimited funds to the labour party
Swaggie