Former PM Kevin Rudd sent us a letter too long to include in our regular comments section. Here’s what he had to say:
I write to you about the article “How are politicians trying to spin the climate crisis?“.
If Chris Woods doesn’t think I’ve been taking the fight to the Coalition on climate change, he’d do well to review the bevy of speeches, interviews and articles I’ve produced on the topic over recent weeks, months and years. He can start with my speech to the Asia Society and syndicated opinion article only last month.
We on the centre-left who are committed to climate action have never let up on this fight. But what Woods seems to suggest is that, while we are fighting the conservatives for an actual policy outcome, we should lie down and accept the Greens making that task harder by flinging mud at us like cowards. How preposterous.
We on the pragmatic left were drawn to criticise the Green party this month by their own leader, Richard Di Natale, who sanctimoniously proclaimed: “Every politician, lobbyist, pundit and journalist who has fought to block serious action on climate change bears responsibility for the increasing risk from a heating planet that is producing these deadly bushfires.”
Di Natale’s party failed that test in 2009 and they continue to fail it now by not owning up to their mistake.
Woods is also dead wrong that the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme was ever “shelved”. After the Green party twice ganged up with Tony Abbott to block our legislation in parliament, we decided to delay implementation for two years, to coincide with the commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol.
We would certainly have pushed ahead with the scheme then, had the plotters not staged their leadership coup in June 2010. Then, having implemented the scheme, our target also would have ramped in line with our commitment at Paris.
As for the “extremely effective, Labor-Greens carbon price”, as Woods puts it, it was in fact a much weaker regime for reducing carbon emissions than the CPRS. Julia Gillard explicitly excluded transport fuels, presumably after having been lobbied by the Transport Workers’ Union, a core part of the NSW right faction which had supported her rise to power. Whereas the CPRS covered a total of 1000 major emitters across the country, the carbon tax included only 400 companies.
By 2013, this had been reduced to 260 “entities” of which, by the first year of its full operation, only 180 were liable for paying for carbon units. The Gillard-era carbon price also lacked effectiveness in one very important area — legitimacy.
It passed with no Coalition support and Gillard had herself branded the carbon price as “effectively a tax”, effectively sealing her political fate. Had the Green party backed the CPRS, it would have passed with support from them, Labor and — crucially — moderate Liberals, who had gone to the 2007 election promising an emissions trading scheme. That cross-party support would have made the CPRS almost impossible to unwind without fracturing the Coalition, and Abbott knew it.
The next time Woods wants to wade into this debate, he should think more deeply than to simply parrot the Green party’s internally inconsistent talking points.
Yours Sincerely,
Kevin Rudd
You can read the original letter in PDF here.
Dear Kevin,
You may be still angry at the Greens, but the facts are that you didn’t try to negotiate with the Greens in any way, shape or form. They reached out to you and the party; the ALP brushed them off. Negotiation starts with two groups agreeing to meet. If one group doesn’t even bother turning up, the other has no obligation to even try reaching out.
You had the option of a dissolution, but you decided not to. If you really believed in your bill, you would have tried the double dissolution, even against the opposition of your party room.
Please don’t give me any farrago or nonsense about “not having the numbers in parliament” to meet any of the Greens terms. Again, double-dissolution would have been an option, and (given how popular you were in the day) would have succeeded – and Australia would have been in a far happier place than this Foul Year of The Lord, 2019. Of course, the opposition of your party room would have been even worse, but then that’s part of the reason why the ALP is such a dire state these days: too many micro-factional idiots.
Best regards,
Peter Murphy
Forest Lake, Qld.
For all the bleating about the Greens’ role in the failure of Rudd’s CPRS scheme, it’s also worth noting that his government failed to convince the broader environment movement that the scheme would actually result in abatement. https://www.sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/sustainability/article/environment-groups-unite-to-oppose-emissions-trading-legislation-693815677 https://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2009/s2595055.htm
Rudd’s government miscalculated by thinking that the Greens would be irrelevant because enough of the Liberals would support the CPRS in the Senate. It was only when it was clear that that was not going to happen that anyone thought to respond to Greens concerns – and the response was neither well informed about likely obstacles or presented in a constructive way.
The appearance was that Labor was more interested in using the legislation as a wedge on the Liberal party, a conclusion reinforced by the refusal to negotiate with the Greens or to take the matter to the electorate.
Cynics among us would also note the role of Resources and Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, who went on to approve significant fossil fuel projects and later to become a mouthpiece for the coal lobby.
So rather than own this series of policy and tactical errors, Rudd would have us believe that the problem was that the Greens MPs were unable to see through the fog of disinformation to identify benefits that appear in his post-hoc analysis and remain impossible to verify. And further that these Greens MPs should have ignored the advice of their members and political base (easy to understand from a Labor perspective) to deliver a political win and a deeply compromised outcome.
Someone feels a constant need for self-justification.
Oh really? What about the double backflip on refugee policy? No attempt to even try to justify that from your mob or even concede it was a proven failure
On this one however, he’s right.
“Centre-left”, lol.
Also, Kev, mate, the ALP needs to lay off the Greens – and alliance with them is the only way you’re ever going to be in government again.
The various Greens double crosses are aimed at achieving that but it only puts sensible people off and let’s the LNP in.
Absolutely right on JR! Surely some of these stupid Greens voters will wake up to themselves eventually. Meanwhile…the country is going to hell in a hand-basket, courtesy of said Greens!!
Dear Mr Rudd,
I congratulate and thank you for the clarity and resolve of your letter, and especially your refusal to condescend with the usual ‘mainstream’ lofty detachment those elements of our public debate that take place in the more obscure corners of of our shared Town Square, such as here in the comments section of Crikey. The Canberra political bubblers and the glorified Gallery gophers who these days dutifully service its PR needs would, of course, sooner eat their own poo than deign to publicly acknowledge that they, too, routinely sneak a peek this way. (I think they hold the touchingly anachronistic view that if they refrain from piping up on this new-fangled interwebz thing, we grubby digi-natives will think they’re not here at all!)
Your letter reveals a keen historical precision and a refreshing refusal to step back from a landmark policy, political and moral conviction that both defined your Prime Ministership and, Australian Federal politics being as it is, also doomed it. Anyone in democratic politics who refuses to accept the dictum ‘The perfect should never become the enemy of the good’ is no democratic politician at all. We don’t pay our elected reps to indulge in tortuously narcissistic, dramatically theatrical, deeply tedious ‘moral crises of conviction’ in public. That is more properly the job of reality TV show contestants, lesser grade Australian artists and progressive Baby Boomers who have trousered a fortune from two decades of growing generational inequality.
The Greens had an opportunity to advance their own green agenda, on behalf of all Australians, to a place of unprecedented fertility. They blew it then, and we are all reaping what they helped sow now. No amount of anguished tears at the despatch box at the time will ever change that unhappy truth. You are right to call it out, because that admirably-aspiring party needs to recognise their past failure and own it, the better to earn the right to rejoin a good faith, authentically consensual Parliamentary effort to get our Climate Change house in order at last. This is no time for ego buffing or political legacy tending. Thank you for reminding us that CC is a collective moral issue vastly outsizing all individual personal ones.
Which brings us to your next contribution, potentially your greatest. Your letter is appreciated by us here in the comments box slums, but the most useful thing you could now do – if you mean what say about your unwavering commitment to CC action – is pick up the phone to Julia Gillard, Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott.
Call a joint press conference, and invite Prime Minister Morrison. Together put you own egos and political histories publicly aside. Acknowledge your CC mistakes, shared and individual. Praise each others’ CC advances (all of you achieved some). Recognise jointly that the CC crisis has reached a point where it transcends the triviality of individual point-scoring. Then tell us what needs to be done.
The only one of your Prime Ministerial number who has anything to prove is the current incumbent. Give him no choice – good-naturedly, warmly – but to do so.
I dare you to have a crack, Kev. The power of personal leadership is what will challenge all Australians to move beyond our own fragile egos and entrenched positions and interests, and together banish the paralysing, divisive bullshit of the last miserable decade.
It would also, in the finest Australian traditions – be totes hilarious, but in the warmest and most inclusive Australian way, too – to watch the five of you have to sheepishly agree that together you’ve somehow managed to bugger it all up a bit so far, despite your very best individual intentions, and grumpily agree to jointly try to make belated amends.
Kev: you know how the Meeja works, what they’ll jump at. You could make this happen in a heartbeat. My question is: do you really still believe that Climate Change is the greatest moral challenge of our times?
Or are you just here, chewing up our modest but precious Crikey comments box public space, to parade only your own moral superiority?
Over to you, mate. Warmest good wishes and best of good luck. Thanks for dropping by. I do hope you’ve paid your subs, though. We’re not too keen on freeloaders hereabouts. Just sayin’.
Cheers,
Jack Robertson
5/18A Ballast Point Road
Birchgrove NSW 2041
0429690261
If there was a medal for Crikey comment of the year you’d win it hands down Jack even allowing we’ve still got December.
But back to you Kev. First up I’m big on the dictum about the perfect being the enemy of the good but the CPRS was a dog of a scheme. A start maybe but I reckon you’d have kept making excuses not to ramp it up. The Greens to this day are continually blamed for envrironmental action shortcomings despite never being a part of government.
To me the most important attribute of a head of government anywhere is the ability to cut deals which brings me to Julia. Now she could do deals. Remember that hung parliament with two nominal conservative independents ? Any Lib leader worth their salt should have pissed it in. If ever there was a portent of Tony’s hopelessness that was it and I bet the bubble never let him forget it.
So she rolled you and you spent three odd years white anting her and undermining your own party’s government and your own legitimacy. So I’m surprised to read you raising the word legitimacy. So you rolled her and the electorate said what they thought and we ended up with by far our worst ever PM. He was so bad even his lot couldn’t put up with him. And then, no doubt inspired at least in part by you, he white anted Turnbull until we got Mr Shouty narrowly avoiding Mr Potato Head.
As the saying goes, it’s the total of the tape that counts and your final score isn’t good. So instead of pissing and moaning how about you take Jack’s challenge and atone and do some actual good when we need it more than ever.
Cheers, Markster, but may I make the following observation.
As you and I chat smugly online on this roiling Sydney evening, perhaps sipping on a crispy, smokey Grigio and rolling us a nice big fat inner city number, there’s a fair chance that former PM Tony Abbot will be out in some torched landscape somewhere, clobbered up in volunteer firefighting gear and absolutely buggered. It’s at least safe to say that of all our fine quintet of would-be CC presser PM’s, he might be the hardest for Kev to nail down, on account of having more pressing CC concerns at hand just now.
‘The enemy of the good’, man. A whole lot of Australians voted for Mr Abbott in his time, and monsters they ain’t. They remain part of our collective civic family still, too. maybe here’s a moral challenge for you: name five really good and decent things Mr Abbott did as PM. if you struggle it will, I fink, not necessarily reflect poorly on him…
No ‘bad guys’ in our CC story now, MES. Can’t afford there to be. Cheers, man.
Cut a deal with the Greens? the CPRS was a start and would have helped keep the current mob out but for Greens obstinacy.
Your mob has only now conceded onshore processing of asylum seekers was a pull factor and a deadly failure. The Greens again blew the chance to move forward and help detainees when they blocked the Malaysia option
Doing deals with a mob with that sort of mentality is a recipe for disaster
Dear Jack,
I’m glad people think your post is “Crikey comment of the year”, because sadly, I disagree with a lot of what’s inside it.
Firstly, let’s deal with how folk are dealing with the CPRS, ten years after its demise. There are a lot of Labor folk that (judging by here, Twitter, Facebook and the Pollbludger comments section) think the Greens non-support of the scheme is the greatest betrayal since Judas. Oh, I exaggerate, but not by much. For some reason, there are folk who are angry and furious about the whole thing.
Which makes an interesting difference from the Greens. None of them give a damn about it, and not in a evil-laughter-from-Jack-Chick-comics “Haw haw haw’ way either. As far as I’ve gathered, few are interested in it, if they’ve even heard of the policy. It’s ancient history. Please remember that the youngest Greens senator is 25. He was a teenager when the CPRS took a dive.
So why is that, Jack? Let’s get to your statement. ‘The perfect should never become the enemy of the good’. I agree with it in principle… but your problem here is that you assume that the CPRS was good. But what if it wasn’t? This is what Greenpeace had to say at the time:
https://www.greenpeace.org.au/blog/cprs-continue-polluting-regardless-scheme/
“Greenpeace’s view of the CPRS is that it is so fundamentally flawed that it should go back to the drawing board. We should replace it with Plan B – a suite of policies we could implement today that would get us on the path to a low emissions future. While we think a price on carbon can be a very useful thing, it is only one of a wide range of policies needed to actually cut emissions and drive the necessary transformation to a low carbon economy. In any case, the CPRS won’t put an effective price on carbon because it will exempt most of the big polluters from having to pay the price, thereby undoing its very purpose for existance.”
Yes, the last word “existance” is incorrect, but otherwise, they were on the money: “it will exempt most of the big polluters from having to pay the price.” Ergo, there are no incentives for them not to pollute, so they will go on polluting. What we have here is not a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good, but the good being the enemy of the shithouse.
That explains why the Greens voted the CPRS with a clear conscience, and ten years later, they still stand by their actions. Moreover, they don’t need to go into mental contortions to show they did the right thing. To quote:
https://greens.org.au/cprs
“[W]e voted against the CPRS because it was bad policy that would have locked in failure to take action on climate change. According to Treasury modelling, under the CPRS there would have been no reduction in emissions for 25 years.”
What does that bring us up to… 2034? Sorry, but even one degree of warming is leading to the absolutely horrendous bushfires we are having now. By then, we could have two or three degrees of warming, which is catastrophe squared.
As for your other comment: “The Greens had an opportunity to advance their own green agenda, on behalf of all Australians, to a place of unprecedented fertility. They blew it then, and we are all reaping what they helped sow now.” Except the Greens scored their all time highest vote of 11.76% in the 2010 election, which helped them negotiating an ETS with Gillard soon afterwards. Being good negotiators – better than Rudd – they knew what they wanted, and were patient enough to wait for a deal they were happy enough with.
Of course, the ETS had a short lifetime, but who trashed it? The LNP, with the help of Palmer. And why did the LNP get in? The ALP’s own leadershit, something that you can’t blame Brown, Milne or di Natale for. Of course, you could blame the 2010-2011 Greens for not seeing the inevitability of the ALP’s self-destruction in 2013. But that would be stupid. None of us can predict the future accurately.
I’ll add that first is that Rudd (and Albanese and Wong) rebuffed _any_ attempt at the Greens to even meet with them regarding the CPRS, let alone negotiate a better solution. It’s all written up here in the Monthly.
https://www.themonthly.com.au/today/paddy-manning/2019/15/2019/1573787713/2009-forever?fbclid=IwAR2abRQxHZTBNREXc9pj5IjJbVlsnwqqj550uSjIfI8x4eqs968o9mfCbN0
“Suddenly – literally in the middle of a debate in the Senate – Labor needed the Greens. They had no plan B. Having barred the Greens for months, did Labor now ask for the Greens’ support? Sit down to talk? No. It was a take-it-or-leave it proposition. ”
Seriously, it’s like a sketch out of The Thick of It. Except it’s not particularly funny, and the main protagonist isn’t Malcolm Tucker, but someone that Tucker despises (and for good reason).
Paddy Manning (the author) thinks the Greens were wrong to vote down the CPRS, “despite valid policy reservations, on the grounds that something was better than nothing”. But I believe he’s wrong. There are some things are not better than nothing, and one that locks in pollution until 2034 is a lot worse than nothing.
Best regards,
Peter Murphy
So enjoy your handwringing then.
Dear Mr Rudd.
First, You were shafted by your own mob because you never showed any leadership except when telling the pilot were to next in your world quest for recognition and praise. Second. Your Deputy was given the chance to undermine you and jumped at the opportunity when the rest of your bunch backed her for some unknown reason. (She turned out to be worse then yourself in leadership and honesty. Third. You mob exhibited their incompetence in putting you back into leadership and I must admit you did it well. You took the whole ball show down the gurgler faster then a Royal Flush.
Now that you have scampered of to New York so your able to sit in the Gallery of the United Nations Rock Show, it would be best for all concerned that you stay out of the debates which are currently not doing much for this once Great Nation. What Australia needs right now is a Government of devoted citizens to her own survival. Not a fanatical crowed of delusional egotists pushing around a broken wheel barrow. You had your chance and blew it. Live with it and move on into obscurity as your mate is trying to do.